Welcome to Litsy!

The author does an immensely capable job of describing everything from the faults and talents of an author to the obsession with suicide after a friend dies. For a character driven book, the reader doesn't become intimate with any of the characters so much as become witness to their darkest, weakest moments.

I read this for my book club and we met today to discuss. I wasn‘t a fan of this one but someone else liked it. To me it felt very literary and disjointed. I was hoping for more dog and less focus on writing.
😔 After I finished reading it I spied a copy in this “Sad Girl Summer” display at Bookman‘s Phoenix. I see others that, to me, tackled sadness better: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, The Bell Jar, and A Walk to Remember.
🐕‍🦺🐕‍🦺

I loved this book so much! It feels so personal and autobiographical that I had to double check that it‘s in fact a novel. I recommend to anyone with a heart for dogs and a mind for literature. Beautiful rumination on life and loss.

“Between religion and knowledge, he said, one must choose knowledge.
What a preposterous thing for anyone who knows anything about Jewish history to say, one comment read.”

Hilarious.

Link for the graphic is at the end of The NY Times article after you mark your choices.

Just three TBR piles randomly stacked.

What should I read next?

I still have no idea if I liked this. The narrator is caring for a depressed Great Dane while dealing with her friend's suicide. Basically. It is full of literary references. Many about dogs.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

From the Times: “It was a cloudless morning in mid-August in Middlebury, Vt., & I had gone to meet Nunez, a petite woman of almost suspicious good cheer, to talk about her half-century-long writing career. She had come up from her home in New York City to give a reading from her new, 9th novel, “The Vulnerables,” which appears this week — at the Bread Loaf Writers‘ Conference.” If I‘d known she was an hour away I would have crashed that reading.

It‘s a little hard to describe this book, as what it was shifted several times. Mostly it‘s a woman writing to her deceased best friend, who died of suicide. But it‘s also about how she took in his Great Dane Apollo and fell in love with him. It‘s about grief and about being a writer and about being a loner.

Though it‘s fiction, it very much feels like memoir. I liked it.

How many have you read?

Five Gold Reads

#Virago
https://store.virago.co.uk/collections/five-gold-reads-virago-anniversary-collec...

⭐️⭐️⭐️½ / More Pick than So-So

I understand the mixed reviews. This is largely a meditation on grief, animal companionship, & writing. The narrator is unreliable, the reflections seem a bit disjointed (though, I don't believe they are), and some sections deserve a TW.*

But I like a wandering reflection on life & art. What does it mean to be human? To be a creator? What are your responsibilities to each other, to animals, to truth, & to your art?

Well, @BarbaraBB the mail between our countries is obviously moving freely again😆 Not one, but two, parcels from you! I will keep the second one for opening in February. Thank you so much my lovely friend 😘

This book is endlessly interesting, but I hardly know what to say. Nunez takes a story about suicide and turn it into a larger piece about the arts and our place in the universe.

An author‘s dear friend has committed suicide and his third wife begged her to take his rescue Great Dane. As she processes his death and her new addition, she reflects on works of literature, film, and visual arts that depict dogs and/or loss and suffering.

Molly and I headed down to the river today. She had a great time sniffing, but every time I stopped to read I got THAT look. 🤨 Lovely morning even if I only got 20 pages in. 💜🐶🍁

I loved this more than I thought I would - am always skeptical of award winners. The writing on pets and animals was especially moving. I zoomed through it in only 2 days but this kind of meditative book probably deserves a little slowing down and introspection.

1. Tagged book
2.William Faulkner
3. Fargo
4. Foo Fighters
#manicmonday #letterF

#alphabetgame #LetterF

The Friend is a book that grows on you. I loved it. Fresh Water for Flowers was sent to me as a gift but I have yet to read it. It‘s on my list for this month or September.

July #wrapup

It was a great reading month! Hard to pick highlights as I enjoyed at least one aspect of each book. Some great graphic novels and picture books this month.

2 🌟 writing, academia, sexism, suicide and dogs. This was not for me.

“What we miss-what we lose and what we mourn-isn't it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are.“
The Friend opens with the suicide of a close friend of the narrator. The friend was a professor, with a long history of inappropriate relationships with his students, & an acclaimed writer. Following the memorial service one of his wives informs the narrator that he had expressed that if anything were to happen he wanted his Harlequin Great👇

This passage is after the narrator reads Rilke to Apollo, the Harlequin Great Dane left in her care following her friend's suicide.

I like that this was written like a journal, and that it covered grief and loss. While I appreciate those things, the writing style itself wasn‘t for me. Short, but not one I was eager to keep reading.

This novel is more like reading someone‘s journal, their private thoughts. It is a meditation on loss, grief, and writing. It is also about friendship - both the human and animal kind - and being a writer. Unusual and surprising.

Another month, another almost blackout on my bingo card! This time I was only two away. Which is fine, because I think September will be my month. 😂🤞🏻 #bookspinbingo #bookspin #doublebookspin

In other news, I‘m only one prompt away from finishing the summer quarter of #booked2021. 🙌🏻

#ConflictedWorlds Day 23: #PersonVsDestiny - perhaps it was destiny for the main character to inherit her new canine companion after her dear friend committed suicide. Paired with fresh oysters from Seattle. 💕💕💕

#ConflictedWorlds Day 13: #PersonVsNeighbors - in this case the landlord who refuses to allow dogs in the apartment units. There is beauty in the writing but a bit too random-ruminations for me. Still not done, though. Posting several days in advance as well since we will be traveling back to the UAE in two days‘ time and everything will be crazy hectic.

#ConflictedWorlds Day 10: #PersonVsIllness - more like mental illness, I am sensing suicide/depression here. Still in the first few pages and finding it to be (too) leisurely paced, like the author is getting something out of her system rather than telling an actual story. Paired with mexican food here in Seattle!!!

I have so enjoyed this book, a novel with autobiographical aspects admits Nunez. A bit stream of consciousness with musings on death, suicide, writing, love, teaching and yes the relationship of a human to a devoted pet. It is very literary but it is not pretentious at all. Highly recommend! The dog lives all through to the end!

It‘s autumn! Season of soups and socks and cuddling under blankets right? Well, it is for me in NZ and all the #AussieLittens

This is a lovely little book. I hadn‘t expected that it would be as much about writing and ageing, as it is about grieving and growing attached to a beautiful large dog. It‘s written in a free form style, like listening to the musings or internal dialogue of an intelligent friend. Some amazing thoughts in here. ⬇️

#LitsySpringBreak Day 8: The author of these two novels I just bought was born and raised in New York to a German mother and a Chinese Panamanian father - hence, fitting the #SouthAmerica prompt with Panama! 💕 Looking forward to reading these lovelies soonest.

#BookNDinner! Out supporting a local business tonight, and wishing my friends here a Happy Chinese New Year now in case I don‘t see them on Friday 🙂! Accompaniment this frigid and still night: Mongolian grill stir-fry: noodles, broccoli, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, chicken, beef, shrimp, salmon, scallops, egg, cilantro, ginger, garlic, and teriyaki sauce; and some nice hot green tea. MMMmmmm 😋! Happy reads & happy eats! 😎👌🏻

This was a joy to read. It's a writer's story, whether written for the self or for other writers. There are plenty of memorable lines here. I'm not quite sure what the ending was about, but nothing a future re-read won't enlighten me on.

⭐: 4.5

"You want to know what you should write about. You're afraid that whatever you write about will be trivial, or just another version of something that's already been said. But remember, there is at least one book in you that cannot be written by anyone else but you. My advice is to dig deep and find it."

Really loving this book so far. ?

"Because it's all about the rhythm, you said. Good sentences start with a beat."

An unnamed narrator confronts the death of a good friend and how it impacts her life; especially after she ends up adopting his dog. She muses about grief, dogs, writing, teaching, and her relationship with her friend. There is also a lot of fun playing with writing and writing conventions. The plot is driven by her growing attachment to the dog she has adopted and its impact on her as well. Good one to listen to on audio.

"Consider rereading, how risky it is, especially when the book is one that you loved. Always the chance that it won't hold up, that you might, for whatever reason, not love it as much."

Bumping this up to the top of my TBR for 2021. ??

#BookNLunch! A late lunch. I shoveled ours and the neighbors‘ driveways. In an unexpected gesture of appreciation, I get a nice, hot Greek lunch ☺️?! Fish, mashed potatoes, homemade bread, sautéed veggies, olives, and sparkling mineral water. MMMmmm ?! This has been another presentation of: #MrBookKitchen. Happy reads & happy eats! ???

... they finally find it in themselves to admit they'd really rather just stay home.

There's another kind of person who is worried that not being that certain kind of person (despite wishing for a furry friend) makes me A Bad Person...

Am I the only person who didn't get a quarantine puppy?

#quarantinereads

Kann man mehr als fünf Sterne geben? Das Buch strotzt vor weisheiten und Poesie. Ich wollte einige Passagen zeigen, aber dann wurdevnir bewusst dass ich das ganze Buch abfotografieren müsste. Ein Buch zu lesen in einer Nacht....grandios

Here are my final stats for #NutsInMay! Better than I thought, considering I‘ve worked more than I was expecting. Just finished The Friend, and now it‘s time to head to bed.

Thanks for another fun reading event Andrew! Keep em coming! 😉You know I can never resist 🤓

Knocked out by a cold the last few days, where I only read in my Kindle, so I didn't need any lights. Today managing paper books and electricity, so progress!

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The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

FriYAY! 🥳

Oops, this just fell into my hands at Barnes and Noble today. My boss needed to exchange something so of course I went for moral support! Only one day in to the new year and I‘m already failing on buying new books... or winning? 😅

Confession - I am not a huge animal person. I don‘t dislike them just never felt the need to keep one as a pet. I am not sure what made me pick up this book. I am enjoying it, even the parts about the dog.

Grief and the power of having a pup by your side. I‘d avoided reading this for a while because of all the buzz and awards, but it I should have read it sooner. Not as much about the plot, but the conversation.