Welcome to Litsy!

It‘s a compelling story about someone suffering from undiagnosed ptsd, imo anyway. Transsexualism is the hook for the story but it‘s really about identity more broadly. It seems to me that individual and collective identity has become increasingly more important and I don‘t see that it‘s very helpful when that happens. I live in Florida where identity politics has taken the place of competent leadership and it‘s not good. I recommend reading this.

I‘m posting one book per day from my ever-increasing TBR. No description. No explanation. Just books to read. Join the fun if you want.

Day 88.

#fromthetbrstacks

#Booked2020 #Spring #MemoirAboutAParentAndChild

I think I‘ll be in the minority on this one, but I could only give it a so-so rating because I felt there were huge portions of the book that seemed to drag. Faludi receives an email from her father, who lives in Budapest (and with whom she‘s had little communication for 25 years) informing her of his sex-change operation that took place in Thailand. Steven, now Stefánie, invites Susan to visit, ⬇️

This book should have been a five star read as it contains all the elements I generally love in NF: family, history, religion, conflict, secrets and told in a narrative style. However, I just couldn‘t warm up to this one😞I think the author took on too much, she came across as bitter & judgmental & her father (now a she) who was the main focus of the book was such a difficult person, it was HARD to sympathize with her. Challenge prompts below👇🏼

#WeeklyForecast week 13
I‘m nearly finished tagged book and the Elton John memoir. I‘m only a few hours into OTCU but the narrator is fantastic. I really need to work on my #ARCs this week. Happy reading, friends 📚😁❣️

This book was difficult to get through. At times, it was difficult to know where history ended and the author‘s story-telling began. The author is obviously quite intelligent and accomplished, and so is her father (the subject of her book). I‘m glad I read it. It did give me some new perspectives and I expand my thinking on some trans-gender subjects.

Really excellent study of familial compassion and Hungarian Jewry.

I'm such a sucker for pretty editions 💕 I need to read both the tagged book and The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti - both just released in Spain.

What a strange and moving memoir. Fauldi is contacted by her elderly estranged father who tells her that he has had a sex change, which triggers Faludi to re-establish contact with a man who she had known as a distant, demanding and violent man. She finds a man who was a Jewish child in Hungary in WW2, an adventurer in Brazil, a mountaineer, a suburban father a man who reinvented himself multiple times, before her final greatest identity change.

1. Mr. Dressup (My fellow 🇨🇦 Littens will get this)
2. In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
3. Boba (I think it qualifies as a food cuz it‘s got stuff in it 🤢)
4. My daughter‘s 17th bday
5. Thx for the fun @jesshowbooks ! #friyayintro

I have enjoyed Faludi‘s writing in the past and reading the premise of this I knew I had to buy it; her elderly estranged macho and sometimes violent father reentering her life after a sex change.

Came to read and enjoy a cappuccino, but my coffee is too beautiful to drink.

"You write about the disadvantages of being a woman, but I've only found advantages!"

-- Susan Faludi's father, now a transgender woman, to her famous feminist daughter.

This book is insane!

Reading goals for the day: Memoir, Science Non-Fiction, Short Story, and Novel.

My next Book Club book. A memoir by noted feminist Susan Faludi about her father, who was a right wing Hungarian nationalist, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and then, in his 70s, determined that she was a transgender woman. (Pardon my pronouns). NOT what I would have picked if i were running the book club, but it's now on the top of my #tbr ! #augusttbr #uncriticalaugust #augustlibrary17 #booksacrossoceans #anditsaugust #augustmostanticipated

While it was storming I did some #audiostitching to the tagged book. It also happens to fulfill the #riotgram prompt of the day #GetCrafty

Read this book for all the important reasons; what it reveals about transgender identities, the history of Hungarian Jews during WW2, and for its revelations about the father/daughter relationships. But then, marvel at the smaller lessons, too: how to carefully, respectfully observe a life through the lens of learning and reconnecting. Faludi also shows how to ask just the right questions, and how to be open to the honest answers, too.

This book was an absolutely fascinating exploration of the complexities of gender and identity. I'm really looking forward to hearing Faludi speak next week.

Preparing for the Sydney Writer's Festival by visiting the library and a tea shop in that order.

I picked this up based on a librarian recommendation without knowing anything about either the author or the work. There are so many layers to unpack in Faludi's search to understand her father and at the same time make sense of her own history. Despite a lack of connection to any of the story's many elements, I found Faludi's writing compelling and her immensely challenging parent fascinating. It's worth a listen just to hear the Anglo-Hungarian.

So this week I was stoked to discover that Susan Faludi (Backlash) is going to be in my hometown discussing finding out about her estranged, elderly father's sex change. Having been a fan of Faludi's since the 90s I couldn't turn down the opportunity to hear her speak. I'm so excited!

Sunday read.

There is so much to unpack in this incredible book. It's such a well-written, honest, personal, and deeply researched investigation into identity that covers so many topics and ideas but the one that really stands out for me is the destructive, damaging wrong-headedness of insistence on the binary in gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, politics—everywhere it seems to cause nothing but pain and exclusion. I wonder if we'll ever move beyond it.

Six hours into this audiobook and it is fascinating. The engrossing mix of personal and political is giving me all the feels. Distressed at the impact of society's insistence on gender binaries and outward appearance. Feels like patriarchy once again controlling the narrative.😡

Started this on today's walk for my #20Best2016 challenge. So good so far!!!

#17booklove #nonfictionlove I don't read much non fiction but after watching an interview with Susan Faludi on BBC last year I knew this was a story I had to read. I still haven't got round to it yet but I'm looking forward to this fascinating story about a daughter in search for her father and the stories and truths that unfold on her journey ❤️📚

#bookmail The Last Town turned out to be signed! Amazon marketplace is great for second hand books in 'like new' condition 📚❤️

Pick up this book for its insights into how identity --national, religious, ethnic, sexual-- can be used to manipulate and scapegoat and oppress. I found the beginning chapters focusing on her father's sex change and her fraught relationship with him the least compelling; the book really picks up when Faludi casts her eye over the history of transsexualism, and of Hungary and its Jews. #LitsyAtoZ #LetterI #audiobook

Now Faludi is discussing Hungary's current (re)turn to virulent anti-semitism, totalitarianism, and fascist ideals, in the name of "Hungarian Hungary." It is terrifying. I highly recommend this book, not as memoir, but as cautionary tale. It is most compelling not when discussing transsexualism, but how issues of identity are preempted by far-right elements to fuel hatred and oppression. #WeHoldTheLine #BeInformed

Running errands while listening to the audiobook. Faludi has moved beyond her father's experience and into broader historical and sociological concerns. The bookis much better for it👍🏼

Currently reading. Not sure what I think yet. If I were reading the printed version, I don't think I would power through at all, but the audiobook does make it hard to double check things... it doesn't help that Faludi's father is an utterly unappealing person... #24in48

I honestly can't believe all the amazing Kindle deals since Christmas. I need them to go back to books that don't interest me! 📚📚📚📚 #happybibliophage

Just starting this. Should be an interesting read!

Woohoo, Books of 2016 review!
"In the Darkroom" is new to me and looks complicated and fascinating: "Faludi attempted to untangle the gordian knot of her father‘s identity, not just as a trans woman, but as a fashion photographer and retoucher, an abusive husband, a Hungarian, and a Jew who returned to the homeland where she had once lived as a hunted minority under the Nazi regime." What a description!

#Bestblurb #seasonsreadings

Wow.. Susan Faludi is a masterful writer and her father is a fascinating and elusive subject. Susan combines a journalist's objectivity and rigorous inquiry with a daughter's frustration and compassion. This is also a timely read since she investigates how xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and the far right took over Hungary in 1941 and are rising again. (Picture of Susan & Stefanie Faludi after Stefi's transition. Father is Stefi's preferred term.)

Susan Faludi at Boston Book Festival. I haven't read her book yet but I'm next in line for my hold at the library. #BBF2016

My reads for August. I'm not quite a voracious reader as many on this site...but I did really enjoy all three books! 🤓

My reads for August. I'm not quite a voracious reader as many on this site...but I did really enjoy all three books! 🤓

Book club book finished with ten minutes to spare!!

You know you're a book nerd when....you have an hour to kill so you go to a bar to read 😂

I usually don't do book clubs, but a dear friend honored me in asking me to be a part of Wines and Spines (a carefully selected group, members must bring a bottle of wine they feel represents the book). This book is amazing so far, and I was in love when it quoted one of my favorite poems.

Which kind do you prefer?

"How could I begin to assess the truth of a story whose very point was to confirm the storyteller as an extremely effective liar?"

This review caught my attention. Has anyone read the book?

In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father. The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness.

I guess the Nook payouts came a few days after the Kindle ones. That's about enough for a free new Hardback! I've been eyeing Susan Faludi's memoir, or maybe an oversized graphic novel .... I'm going to end up spending this $33 multiple times, I'm sure.

One my most anticipated books of summer. Despite my photo, this memoir is really about Faludi's journey to learn about her estranged father & her discovery of family secrets, gender-identity issues, how history affects personal lives, and the power of the past. What is the nature of self-identity?

Great review in The Guardian, addresses identity, obliteration of past history and self, renewal and raising the past again. On my must read list.