Welcome to Litsy!

Blaming my lateness for #wintergames2021 on road trips! Sorry @Clwojick !

My combined total for weeks 4 and 5 ( I missed posting for week 4) is 6217 🎉

Thanks for hosting, @Clwojick and thanks for the fun fellow #mistletoemaniacs! Hope I did you proud.

And that's a wrap on #CloakandDaggerChristmas. I managed 7/9 prompts! It was a fun December project! Turns out my favourite mystery books are not really about the mystery. The tagged book was definitely my favourite of the bunch, although I do very much enjoy Flavia. Thanks to everyone who joined me!

Just started this one, really enjoying it so far.

Starting this audiobook on this cold and snowy day 📖❄️❄️

“We‘d rather be small, and then our petty little sins would be forgivable.” Objectively this is a well written book but it was just so-so for me. I almost DNF at one point. It‘s quirky and odd which I can love but I constantly felt like I was missing some subtext. But I think it‘s a case of me and not the book.

You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves... And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other. #f2fNov/Dec2021 #doublespin #November

And with this, I‘m calling my last book of October and of #scarathlon even if there‘s still some time left in the day! How‘s everyone do? I‘m excited because I finally got a bingo (or three…) this month 🤩
#bookspinbingo #teamslaughter

My favorite mysteries are the weird ones. Why have a detective investigate when it could be an elderly woman who takes care of her neighbor's homes during the brutal winters of a remote Polish town? And one who loves astrology, prefers animals to people, gives others names like Oddball or The Gray Lady, and obsesses over William Blake. That's Janina and she's on the case when her neighbor 'Bigfoot' turns up dead. Lively, dark comic perfection.

I‘ve seen this described as a mystery and “noir.” I think it is neither, but a masterfully written character study, and a commentary on the connectedness of life. Highly recommended!

There are glimmers of greatness in this but overall it felt a bit like a slog to push through with little payoff. It‘s set up like a mystery but the “misdirect” is obvious and murky at best.

“For people of my age," she thinks, "the places that they truly loved and to which they once belonged are no longer there. The places of their childhood and youth have ceased to exist ... And if their outer form has been preserved, it's all the more painful, like a shell with nothing inside it anymore. I have nowhere to return to. It's like a state of imprisonment. The walls of the cell are the horizon of what I can see."

I think if you‘re expecting a mystery you may be a bit disappointed. This book is more the character study of an older woman (Janina) living in the Polish wilderness, at odds with the hunters around her. The philosophy of Blake and the natural world is woven in with Janina‘s horror at the killing of animals.

I love this: it's a character explaining her ambivalence about befriending writers 🙂

“With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication…The Person beset by this becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he‘s drawn to the Second World War…His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes.”
I‘m not there yet!

How to summarize such a book? It's been called a mystery, and there is a mystery, but it's more of a character study. Janina narrates, and we come to know her in all her eccentricities: loving animals, convinced that astrology has the answers, and increasingly frustrated that her voice is not heard by those in authority. As a reader, I found her sympathetic, even in all her oddities, and the denouement was less of a surprise than an inevitability.

No risk at all.

What a strangle little book. I enjoyed the kooky narrator and the polish setting. I think Tokarczuk maybe pushed the unreliable narrator trope a little too far but the book is charming enough you forgive her.

I've spent a nice time in company of this book.
Janina Doucheyko, the narrator, is living in a small isolated village when a series of deaths/murders occurs. Through her, we get to know the different characters, the daily life in that region, how the enquiry progresses, etc.
It's a well-written book that takes its time. Not much surprise at the end for me, if any at all.
3.5/5

Finished my #lmpbc book just in the nick of time!

This was definitely a different read for me. I don‘t know that I‘d call it a mystery, I feel like the “mystery” is imbedded throughout the story. Interesting characters but not my normal choice of setting.

Definitely an interesting read!

This gets me to a third bingo for #bookspinbingo !

Yesterday I found out that there's a movie based on the tagged book, which was one of my favorites of last year. I generated a meme to express my feelings.

Spectacular! Janina is kind of nutty, maybe, or just out for revenge. Love this Polish author-must read more of her work.

I enjoyed the atmosphere - very winter- and that the protagonist is an elderly lady who was also quite interesting; however, I ended up skimming sections and figured out #whodunit before it was revealed. It was between a so-so and a pick for me. Pick won out because I was interested in whodunit enough to figure it out. #LMPBC @Annie1215 this will be headed your way soon! @Pogue @LiteraryinLititz Also, really love the bookmark!! 😂

Uneven at times, and I definitely skimmed some sections, but ultimately I'm glad I read it.

The beginning is so strong, I was immediately engrossed by the eccentric MC. The middle dragged a bit, but still with some moments glittering with dark humour. And the end made me think about this intriguing cast of characters and how strong our bonds can be, even in isolation.

@KatieB this one will be on its way back to you shortly! #LMPBC

#LMPBC double play arrived today! One from Round 10, one for Round 11. Thanks @Read-y_Picker 🎉🎉 My kids helped open the package and went crazy for the candy 😄😂😄😂 I'm so excited for both these reads!

@KatieB @StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego

@BookishTrish @DinoMom

Thank you so much @Pogue for the card and goodies with my #LMPBC book! I‘m sorry I‘m so late. I just noticed it was here this morning. Hubs didn‘t say anything and I‘ve been so focused on caring for my Mom. What a fantastic happy for today! 🥰

@BookishBelle #LMPBC is on the way.

Been on my feet most of the day. Repotted several indoor plants and rearranged them. Now it‘s time to put my feet up, push my chair back, and relax with a book.
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What‘s going on in your corner of the world?

On the way back from second Covid vaccine shot, we stopped at a local coffee and chocolate shop to celebrate. Feeling so much relief at the moment and enjoying with coffee, chocolate, and a crime fiction.

There were some moments of this book that I really enjoyed - the batty old woman with a thing about making sure her feet were clean in case she had to go to hospital was an amusing theme, but overall this was a disappointment. The story builds well at the beginning but the ending seems abrupt and very flat. Perhaps my enjoyment of crime novels meant I was expecting more from this.

It‘s a #20in4 #Readathon weekend!! My plans are to finish Book 6 in the DI Bliss series by Tony J Forder, read the tagged book for my book club, and at least make a start on the 7th Bliss book, and maybe the prequel of that series too.

@Andrew65

Thank you @monalyisha for the book and the awesome goodies. I was so excited to win & to get the bonuses is the cherry on the top of a sundae!

Getting set up for the week and then ready to jump back in to the tagged book for #lmpbc. I love this minimalist cover design 😍

I recently won a copy of a newly-published hardcover book in a giveaway hosted by @erinreads . To pass on my literary luck, I‘m hosting my own giveaway!

To enter, comment & note which of the pictured titles you‘d prefer. 2 winners will be chosen at random on Sun, 2/7.

Please note: I‘m a monster who dog-ears the pages of my books & the spine will almost definitely be broken. If you like your books in pristine condition, you‘re shit outta luck. 😅

@Avanders You, my friend, are also always so sweet. Thank you so very much. I so look forward to reading this and those chocolates are a favorote of mine. Thank you for your kindness. 😘❤️

Duszejko, Drive Your Plow‘s protagonist, believes that “every tiny particle of the world is made of suffering.” Now, I wouldn‘t go so far as to say that “every tiny particle of this book is made of suffering,” but there are certainly moments when it feels like it! And I *would* go so far as to say (as she does about her passion, Astrology) that “it‘s quite complicated, & it could be boring for anyone who isn‘t an expert.” 👇🏻

“That‘s what our houses are for — to protect us from the sky, otherwise it would pervade the very inside of our bodies, where, like a little ball of glass, our Soul is sitting. If such a thing exists.”

Okay. I‘m 120 pages in & I‘ve gotta say...I‘m having a hard time staying involved in this story. Were I a different person, had I been looking forward to reading this book any less, were it not so critically lauded, I might actually bail. 😱

“That‘s what I dislike most of all in people — cold irony. It‘s a very cowardly attitude to mock or belittle everything, never be committed to anything, not feel tied to anything.”

“Once we have reached a certain age, it‘s hard to be reconciled to the fact that people are always going to be impatient with us.”

“Or there could have been nothing at all — a total void in outer space. But perhaps that would have been the best option for all concerned.”

Welp, if I hate this book I know exactly which quote I‘m using for my review. 😜 I don‘t think that‘s going to happen, though. So far, so good!

I thought it was okay? Some really great glimmers I loved but overall had a hard time tracking and wasn't super into it. For Molly‘s bookclub.

This could prove to be a deadly mistake

Finished this up just in time to welcome my soldier home. My son is officially out of the Army today and I can't wait to pick him up at the airport in a few hours! 💕

This was a lovely story about an animal loving woman, some mysterious murders, and William Blake.

I highlighted many beautiful passages that I plan on sharing soon.

This lovely blue edition fits nicely in a coat pocket so that i was able when walking barney this morning to get a photo outside for a change. This was a curious read, a series of murders in a Polish village sees an eccentric woman janina Duszejko, obsessed with horoscopes, Blake, + animal welfare, and her curious friends, leading her life while bodies drop wherever she seems to pop up. A great character and dark humour made this a unique read.

What a brilliant book! These days I‘m a little suspicious of award winning books - so many of them have been crap! This however was superb - highly recommended 😍😍😍

I am behind in my #lmpbc reading, but I just finished my book for December and will be mailing off soon. @Read-y_Picker @KatieB @TheKidUpstairs

This was not something I would have picked up on my own, however I enjoyed it. It took a little to get into (mainly because I can't focus in December) but once I did, I couldn't put it down.

My family‘s not made up of big readers (part of why I love Litsy swaps). But I did get these two titles off of my Christmas wishlist from my Mother-in-Law! 💀🙌🏻

Day 2 of #12booksof2020

This is one of those books that stay with you for a long time. The scenery, the main characters, the plot, the atmosphere. This will become one of my all time favorites I expect.