Welcome to Litsy!

My #weeklyreport. Finished a couple of books I had neen reding awhile as well as one I just picked up last week. I am going to reread Ongoingness, though. There is so much there - I don't feel I did it justice at all. I had 2 books arrive from my bookstore order, 2 books from a hold on Monday and then, on Saturday, when I stopped to pick up a hold I saw 3 books I had been wanting to read! A good week's haul! I had to clear my calendar.

This book is going to stay with me for a long time.

A quick little read on a snowy day.

Mini book haul! I have no money for books atm but my dream job just turned me down so I wanted to do something nice for myself 😞 I‘m out in London with a friend and my mums taking me out for dinner so I‘ll be fine but feel a bit rubbish now

This is a relatively easy to read collection of vignettes about a person's diary keeping. I didn't find it to be the mind blowing volume the blurbs kept assuring me it was but it made me think about time, myself, and mortality which I appreciated.

#nonfiction

Beautiful and slim work about memory, growth and this author's quest to keep a diary throughout her life. There was a lot about motherhood, which I enjoyed.

I cannot recommend enough this dense little book of prose poetry memoir about mortality​, time and memory.

I'm trying not to post each line of this book as a quote.

This book is fascinating and dense. Each sentence packs a quotable punch.

Finished ONGOINGNESS today. Here's one of my favorite sentences.

"More than that, I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention."

Next little book for today!

I rarely post on my book blog anymore, but today I did a roundup with brief reviews.

https://lindypratch.blogspot.ca/2017/04/behold-awesome-books-of-march-2017.html?...

And then I think I don't need to write anything down ever again. Nothing's gone, not really. Everything that's ever happened has left its little wound.

During the first few years of my marriage I was highly susceptible to the previous day. I was convinced the marriage would soon be over, but it wasn't over. The problem was my inability to experience it as ongoing.

[Detail from 'The Chicken's Wedding' at the tile museum in Lisbon.]

Will Schwalbe: Someone once told me that if you want to know what a book is really about, just read the last word.
I would describe Manguso's thoughtful, gorgeous essay as a chronicle of her journey through anxiety to mindfulness, while learning to trust in the future. Last word of her main text: now- [with no further punctuation]. Last word of the afterword: faith. Wow! I wonder if that trick will work as well with other books? Try it!

Before I had the baby I remember feeling tired all the time. But after he joined me I could spend four days in two rooms, pyjama-clad, so tired I was almost blind.

When I was fourteen, it was cloudy on the night I looked through a telescope at the comet. 'I'll see it when I'm eighty-seven,' I thought on the way home, not caring.

And I'm forgetting everything. My goal now is to forget it all so that I'm clean for death. Just the vaguest memory of love, of participation in the great unity.

I often prefer writers' diaries to their work written intentionally for publication. It's as if I want the information without the obstacles of style or form. But of course all writing possesses style and form, and in good writing they aren't obstacles.

Living in a dream of the future is considered a character flaw. Living in the past, bathed in nostalgia, is also considered a character flaw. Living in the present moment is hailed as spiritually admirable, but truly ignoring the lessons of history or failing to plan for tomorrow are considered character flaws.

I wanted to know how to inhabit time in a way that wasn't a character flaw.

"I tried to record each moment, but time isn't made of moments; it contains moments. There is more to it than moments."

Started this today. I can already tell that all other books in progress will have to wait.

If you've ever kept a diary or journal, this would be of interest. Manguso discusses memory and the reasons for recording our day-to-day activities. A quick read with thoughtful, smart passages. 🙌📚

I actually won Goodreads Giveaway! I received Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso. It's a slim work that looks like it's part essay, part diary. The same day, I also got my Book Riot order. I've been eyeing that tote for a while and their deals got me. Not that I need more totes. #Goodreads #BookRiot #OutOfPrint

Absolutely LOVELY. Every page felt like a lightning bolt hitting my brain--in a good way. It's a fragmented essay about keeping a diary, a reflection on the act of reflecting, but also so much more than that. Manguso seeks to understand her own ongoingness, what it means and why she continues to do it--why ANY of us continue to do it. Get. This. Book.

🍁ONGOINGNESS by Sarah Manguso comes out in paperback in exactly a month on 12/6/16! 🍁

"Time kept reminding me that I merely inhabit it, but it began reminding me more gently." Gem of a book before bed.

A thoughtful, tender meditation on time, memory, and mortality.