Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m officially out of room on my tbr shelf. It‘s time for a summertime unhaul. A lot of these were books I expected to love. Some of them I‘ve dnfed and just held onto hoping that they would stick someday. And some of them I haven‘t even started but ultimately lost interest in. I want to make room on my shelf for books that I‘m super excited about.

These are available on my Pangobooks Shop: https://pangobooks.com/bookstore/wildwoodreads

How do you find meaning? If you can create meaning, subjectively imbue an object or a person with it, can the ideas of objective value, genuine article, coincidence, stand up against elaborate, satisfying, even mythic, illusions, the idea of a fated course? Especially when experience would otherwise lend a pessimistic, nigh nihilistic reading of life without actively seeking out the idea of 'something more', a purpose, relationship, stimulant. 1/?

Does furniture have more perceptible personality amongst its fellows?🤔

Books can do the same, seeing the world in brighter colours. 🎂

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join in if you want!

#ABookADay2023

#MarchMagic Day 16: This is definitely #BkBasedOnPainting - one of them chunksters that took awhile for me to finish, but well worth the read.

I know a lot of people loved this book but I just couldn‘t with this book. I made it about halfway before I bailed but it is a #BkBasedOnPainting 🖼️ 😬

#MarchMagic 💚💰🌈🍀

#BookNerd 🤓📚💙

I finished this book last Thursday, however I haven't been able to bring myself to write a review because of extraordinary way it was written -- especially the last few pages. While the run-along sentences bothered me as I was reading, they were outweighed by the way they were written. The book was a stay-up-all-night page turner, and I absolutely enjoyed every word of it.

5⭐!

“When you feel homesick,“ he said, “just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go“

Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it‘s going to kill us.

Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.

Nature (meaning death) always wins but that doesn‘t mean we have to bow and grovel to it.

Fate is cruel but not random.

Beauty alters the grain of reality. Namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful.

Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only — if you care for thing enough, it takes a life of its own, doesn‘t it? And isn‘t the whole point of things — beautiful things — that they connect you to some larger beauty?

At a visit at an art museum in New York, Theodore “Theo” decker and his mother get caught in an explosion, which ends up killing Theo‘s mother. After, Theo meets an old man who is dying from his wounds; the man gives Theo a ring and a painting named The Goldfinch.

Theo goes to live with the Barbours, his classmate Andy‘s family due to the lack of a father.

People die, sure, but it's so heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things. From pure carelessness. Fires, wars. The Parthenon, used as a munitions storehouse. I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.

Dark, broken, depressing… and finding meaning of art and magic in this hopelessness, and perhaps love.

Part I and V are my favorite.

The Goldfinch is an emotional journey for the reader. Tartt sneaks in this vested interest in the characters and ties them to us as readers. The novel culminates in one of the most furiously read and emotionally charged endings that I've come across. At times I wanted to throw it across the room, and others I refused to put it down. A fantastic read, and something different than my norm.

IF you need something dark and long to dive into, this is my latest recommendation. But if the world feels pretty dark (not surprisingly), now isn‘t the time. I loved The Secret History decades ago and shouldn‘t have waited so long to read this one. So many genres and topics all deftly blended together. Tartt is a master of her craft.

Full review https://www.TheBibliophage.com
#thebibliophage2022 #booked2022 #darkacademia

Four books finished, and starting on the tagged beast. #BigJuneReadathon

#dnf #bookmoods @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

“What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good?“

I was awed by this 771 page tome when I read it back in 2013. I haven‘t yet seen the movie. I later went on to read The Secret History which I also enjoyed. I have The Little Friend on my shelf and hope to get to it soon.

#600+Pages #BookMoods
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I HATED this book! It was so long and seemed to drag on. I hated the protagonist and most of the people in his life (which I think is the point). I was not interested in his life and the events that transpired. The protagonist continually made terrible life choices, had no insight into how he contributed to his own demise, and continually made poor decision. The writing style was a bit wordy and the length could have been cut down significantly

"That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open."

This book genuinely saved my life in college and I‘m not even kidding. If you get to part IV of the book and feel like you want to throw it across the room, I‘m pretty sure that‘s the point. Theo‘s life stagnates there, and the book stagnates as well. It‘s meta, and it works, because you really feel what he‘s feeling in those parts of the book. IMO it‘s a top-tier read with a little bit of everything.

I'm about half way through this book and for the life of me I can't figure out how it won a Pulitzer prize.
That story itself is ok but nothing is happening
It's just a bunch of random scenes.
Maybe it will be better once I get to the end but for now ,
IT'S NOT WORTH THE READ.

I didn‘t expect to finish #TheGoldfinch today already, but then my train got delayed for 90 minutes, so I suddenly had a lot more times. I also made waffles 🧇 today ☺️.
The first 100 pages and the last 20 were one of the most beautiful pages ever written. The rest is very long, often still good, but it‘s also very long.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#DonnaTartt

I adore this sentence! I‘m at the part where they arrive in Las Vegas. I heard a lot of criticism about this chapter, so I hope it won‘t be too bad. So far, I really enjoyed the book 📖 🐦.

#TheGoldfinch #DonnaTartt #readingupdate #quote

I haven‘t done a big book haul in a minute and let me tell you I‘ve missed it. So today I‘m doing exactly that.

I was gifted a lot of these awesome books for Christmas. I‘m blessed with the best family and they absolutely spoiled me. Plus, I spoiled me a little too. 😂

But I think it‘s time to go on a book buying ban because I‘ve got a lot of reading to do. 😂😂

https://wildwoodreads.com/2022/01/05/my-first-book-haul-of-the-year/

"Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you."

***

#12booksof2021

In March, I only finished one book (I was ill around this time, sadly).

I had a love/hate relationship with The Goldfinch. On the one hand it was an exquisite work of literature, on the other an absolute slog. Donna Tartt's writing exuded quality & months later, I can still remember it.

The structure though 😐 And the several hundred pages of boring drug use 🥱

I still think it probably deserved more than the 3⭐ I gave it.

Such a beautiful book. Took me a while to read it, but it didn't feel like a long time. I enjoyed every bit of it. That ending really touched me. It will stay with me forever.
I plan to read her other books.

Relaxing this evening with a good book, tea, and a cozy-smelling candle.

Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate!
I got some bookmail today which I was not expecting, but I am thrilled.

Hope you all have a fantastic day ❤

“As beautiful as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because fo the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throw a prison of color across the sky - so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quiet frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime.”

Gorgeous. Ruinous. A masterpiece 💛