Welcome to Litsy!

Another home run from Solnit. These essays show their age in ways, being written during the Trump presidency, but the messages are still valid. Who controls the narrative, what stories we hear, how we interpret them - it‘s all here. Ideas about place names (how frequently do we see cities/streets/statues named for women?) and the hero mentality vs community action…there‘s a lot to unpack in this slim volume. Just read it, ok?

“…electability apparently tied to the gender-specific sparking of joy in the scrotum.”

Makes me laugh and cry all at the same time.

I started this book a couple of weeks ago, but I‘m actually getting into it just now. So often, Solnit just hits the nail right on the head.

#Backlistreadathon #NaturaLitsy

I devoured Orwell's Roses, it was such beautiful writing.
Next up is the tagged and A field guide to getting lost to complete my week of #backlist Rebecca Solnit's books.

@Clwojick @TheAromaofBooks

Today‘s #BookHaul - I read the Snyder but it was a library book so I wanted my own copy; the tagged is one of the few Solnit books I don‘t have already on my TBR shelf; and I really enjoyed Gill‘s Great Goddesses so I thought I‘d try this. I was supposed to get a haircut today but it fell through and trying to reschedule was stressing me out (after a lovely lunch at my favorite restaurant) so I took myself to BN to finish me time instead.

Liked but didn‘t love listening to this #audiobook collection of essays from Rebecca Solnit. I think part of the problem is that 2020 has been such a year, that even though these aren‘t that old, they already feel a bit dated. She‘s still a wonderful writer, though, and the reader did a good job of balancing the emotion of her words without coming off as too performative.

Oh my gosh, I love Rebecca Solnit!!! Everything in this book is on point. I blasted through listening to this in a day. Definitely need to devour her backlist now!

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Morning tea and walk with a new audio book! #DogsOfListy #feminism #lgbtq

Rebecca Solnit is a treasure. She examines our current cultural moment with insight and nuance and hits the nail right on the head. And I like how this one ends on a note of hope. I really need to read her entire catalogue.

She is always amazing!!

In answer to the title question, less frequently white, Protestant men & some of them aren‘t happy about it! Rebecca talks about the way the story is being framed as the “fall of men” rather than a movement of women.

She discusses the importance of representation in, surprisingly, city streets and statues. I hadn‘t given much though to that.

She also includes the diversification of America and climate change in her topics. Solid feminist essays!

#NewYearNewYou #SpinePoetry

Whose Story is This?
An Odyssey
Lights on the Sea
Fates and Furies
Songs from the Deep
The Last True Poets
Of the Sea

I love Rebecca Solnit's writing. In this volume of essays, she tackles hard subjects and questions - Who is the story about? Who matters? Who decides? - and so many issues we face in today's world. (Couple of my favorite quotes pictured)

Yup. Looks like good reading weather to me!

Love Rebecca Solnit!

Ticked off my first square for #jennyis30 with my second book of the year for the politics prompt! Some of these will be very easy for me tick off and some I know will be a struggle that I‘ll be doing this December lol. Doing my best to get ahead now! @jenniferw88

#newyearwhodis @Caterina @monalyisha

My new favourite Solnit ❤️ the final piece, her open letter to young climate protesters, literally made me cry and I had to make my bf hold me til I felt better and could review this. So powerful, in difficult political times writers like this who make you feel proud of what you do with your life are so so important.

Also my #booked2020 book I finished in a day, I just couldn‘t put it down for a minute

From her open letter to youth climate protesters:

“You are standing up for people not yet born, and those ghostly billions are with you too. Today, you are the force of possibility that runs through the present like a river through the desert.”

First time in a while that a book has made me literally sob with emotion

Back at work today, reading Rebecca Solnit and eating my desk pasta 😊 I‘m so broke at the moment I neeeeeed to be better with money this month, this year and this decade tho I keep saying that with limited success! Being an adult is so expensive. I‘m trying to resist the urge to judge myself too hard every time I spend money, but I‘m also trying to resist spending any money, which is a hard tightrope to walk!

These were my five star (with a few high 4s thrown in cause I didn‘t have enough 5 star reads) for the year. It looks to me like I need to read more nonfiction. 😄

I look forward to more great reads in the new year!

#19in2019

This collection covers much of the same ground as the Lindy West book I just read, including the #metoo movement. I liked Solnit‘s book a little bit better because I like her writing style more. Immigration issues, sexism, and racism are all addressed in this collection whose overarching theme is simply who gets to tell America‘s story, especially given the changing demographics of the US.

Is this awesome or ironic?
#feminism #womanwriter #relax

Yes! Both of Our Shared Shelf's next selections are on my TBR, and I even picked up a copy of the tagged book in September but haven't gotten to it yet. I guess now would be a good time. 😉

Making some progress on my #nonfictionnovember stack this chilly Friday evening. The kittehs are ensuring I both stay warm and don‘t move for a while 😹 #catsoflitsy #fridaynightdoneright 😄

I don't have photographic proof but I met Rebecca Solnit tonight and had a conversation with her during a break in the Sunrise Movement's Hope Amidst Crisis event in San Francisco tonight! Here she is giving the keynote. Last night Naomi Klein and tonight Rebecca Solnit. I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Two heroes who have been so formative for me. So full of fire and hope for climate justice right now. 🥰😍😭🔥❤️🌲🌍

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When it‘s been a long week, sometimes only a cupcake and a new book can soothe the soul. And also photobombing cats 😹 #catsoflitsy #treatyoshelf

(And yes, I‘m still on a #bookbuyingban - but this one was a preorder I‘d forgotten about that just came today... so...)😂 #idonthaveaproblem #reallyidont

HAPPY #PUBDAY🎉
5/5🌟Solnit does it again! This essay collection is brilliant and insightful. She tackles political to personal with such grace. In these essays Solnit writes about our current culture, politics, climate change, social and cultural change and more. I found her outlook and optimism on large group movements over individual heroes quite interesting. All in all she is one smart woman and talented writer.Reccomended Reading!#bookreview

"We live inside ideas. Some are shelters, some are observatories, some are windowless prisons. We are leaving some behind and entering others."
#TBR Excited for this book after reading: https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-progress-is-not-inevitable-it-takes-work/

As excellent and as relevant as you would expect from Solnit. I‘ve read most of her work and this is unquestionably among her strongest books. Highly recommended.

June reading wrap-up! I finished 7 books, but a lot of those were shorter books & I felt very reading slump-y overall. Hoping that July will be better! 🤞🏼

“This country has room for everybody who believes that there‘s room for everybody.”

Review https://bookandstitch.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/whose-story-is-this/
Another Rebecca Solnit essay collection that speaks to the current moment with long-sighted wisdom and hope. She writes with contagious optimism about the power of groups rather than individual “heroes” and the unnamed many who work for slow cultural change, leading to watershed moments (like #MeToo). She inspires hope with her patient wisdom and clear writing. Five stars!

It looks like pleasant weather to sit outside reading, but it's 95°F. I'm not going to make it long out here, but I was just dying to be outside. I'm about to finish the tagged book, it will be 13/12 for my #BookFitnessChallenge #BFC, and I'll put up a review tomorrow. I'm at 10/24 hours for the #24B4Monday, but @DGRachel and I and anyone else who wants to join in are going to shoot for #24B4Tuesday because of the holiday! 😊 @wanderinglynn

"It's kind of like The Hunger Games, whose author could imagine violently overthrowing an old order...but not creating a new one that's different, or doing anything political with a larger group that's not corrupt and hardly worth the bother. Thus, at the drab end of The Hunger Games, Everdeen goes off and has babies with her man in a horribly rugged-individualist Little House on the Prairie nuclear-family-in-the-nuclear-ruins way." #ARC

Good morning Litsy and especially my new followers! 🤗❤️ Reading and loving this #ARC (advanced reader copy) from #Edelweiss on the porch with #Pippin. Soon I'll go for an #audiowalk with him for the #BookFitnessChallenge #BFC. I'm at 5 hours out of 24 for the #24B4Monday #readathon. #dogsoflitsy #bostonterriersoflitsy #Haymarket @wanderinglynn @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @RadicalReader @Clwojick

Kicked off the #24B4Monday #readathon with some reading on the porch after my early morning run/walk! Loving this #ARC from #Edelweiss, it's exactly the nonfiction essay collection I needed in my life right now. #Haymarket @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @Clwojick @RadicalReader

Today is the first day since May 10, the day of my gum graft surgery, that I haven't gone for a walk at all. #BookFitnessChallenge has been working - that's a 9 day streak! - but I needed a rest day. I finished two books and made significant progress on two others today, and I cross stitched, and I bought a cute new pair of shoes. Tomorrow I'll be back to it, but today it was so nice to just sit outside and read for a bit. 💕 #BFC @wanderinglynn

#ARC #Edelweiss #Haymarket "It's easy now to assume that one's perspectives on race, gender, orientation, and the rest are signs of inherent virtue, but a lot of ideas currently in circulation are gifts that arrived recently, through the labors of others. Remembering that people made these ideas, as surely as people made the buildings we live in and the roads we travel on, helps us remember that, first, change is possible, and second...

Y'ALL. I seriously teared up a little when I opened this email. I just signed up for Edelweiss+ on a whim a couple days ago and immediately requested this, not feeling very optimistic about getting it, but in the "why I want it" section declaring my love for Haymarket Books (my fav publisher) and Rebecca Solnit, and I GOT ITTTTT. I know what book I'm gonna start reading today! ??❤️ #edelweiss #arc #haymarket