I can't believe how fast Feb went! March #bookspin list is inโฃ๏ธ
@TheAromaofBooks
TheAromaofBooks Yay!!! 1mo
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Moon Tiger | 
I can't believe how fast Feb went! March #bookspin list is inโฃ๏ธ
@TheAromaofBooks
I opened up this book I got at a charity shop last year, and this paper fell out. A newspaper clipping from 1987. I assume someone clipped this to bring to a bookshop to get the book, and then popped it in the back. And there it's been ever since. So cool.
Timing really is everything. I've started this one at least half a dozen times in the past and never made it further than chapter two. But today it just clicked and I pretty much read it straight through, save for a few prosaic stops for things like washing dishes and going to the grocery store. And I'm pretty sure it's brilliant.
December #bookspin
Almost a full year of spinning as I only joined Litsy in 2022 and missed January. This group of book lovers is awesome and these lists are so much fun!!
@TheAromaofBooks
This is how August #bookspin looks when you realize you've already read one. That kind of week!๐คช๐คฃ
@TheAromaofBooks
May #Bookspin
I love making these lists๐
@TheAromaofBooks
pick4.5 ๐ wonderful writing worthy of the Booker prize , my first read by lively and not my last, making a life so engrossing , the chance meetings the time and place . Best parts for me were from Claudias time in ww2 in Egypt with the love of her life , and her time afterwards. The disastrous relationship with her daughter the strange relationship with her brother all brilliant. The sudden ending and the slow beginning don‘t make it a 5star
pickPicked this one after a recent discussion about past Booker prize winners (1987 winner). I loved it. Claudia probably won't appeal to everyone but she was a fantastic character with a great story. โญโญโญโญ
#Bookspin April 2022
April is here!! Can't wait to see what gets picked. March was so so and Feb may be DNF๐
@TheAromaofBooks
Charity shop book haul with a distinctly 80s vibe. ๐
#12Booksof2021
#July
July was not near as good a June, but i did stumble across this audiobook and loved everything about it. I think this book was my favorite for all of 2021.
#gratefulharvest #moon #day5
This book sits on a TBR shelf, forlorn. Love the cover. #toomanybookstoolittletime
Outside my window is a waxing crescent moon.
pickThis was a such wonderful surprise. I had Lively as an author to check out and I needed an audiobook and found this. Claudia constructs everything with words, and she does it so elegantly she seems to almost separate herself from the world with them, brazenly. Of course she must confront what can not be captured with any words. There is a lot time in 1942 war time Cairo, with details pulled from PL‘s own childhood. Yeah, wonderful. ๐๐
Looking for an audiobook last night and being indecisive I stumbled across Penelope Lively‘s name on my random lists of authors to check out. Then the audible sample starts out, roughly, โMy John Aubrey is not your John Aubreyโ. It‘s the 1987 Booker Prize winner, but sold me on that line. Started this morning.
Got a 2 for 1 credit on audible from Mr Oryx. Which two should I get out of these three? Any advice?
pickHaven‘t posted about this yet. Finished this wonderful novel last weekend while the yeast braids were in the oven. Claudia is an amazing protagonist, the narration had a wonderful flow and the story was both extremely specific to a certain place and time and yet universal, humane and relatable to all ages of (wo)man. New favourite!
pick5โญ๏ธ I‘m nursing book hangover now, I don‘t know how to get out of it. I absolutely love this work. The writing is brilliant, it‘s perfect ๐๐ปClaudia Hampton is an extraordinary character that I wish I was. The love story was told suavely it didn‘t leave that bleah aftertaste. Seriously, this should be the standard for writing love stories!
I‘m loving Moon Tiger ๐๐ฅฐ Claudia Hampton is such an interesting character, and I picture Rachel Weisz (in Constant Gardener) as the young Claudia๐
June-July TBR
Current reads:
๐ธI don‘t know why it takes me so long to read Eugene Rougon ๐ Not that I‘m not enjoying it, I just like to read it slooooowwly
๐ธMoon Tiger is recommended by a friend. I just started it, and am still trying to figure out what it is all about
so-so3โญ๏ธ I think maybe this book suffered from my lack of focus. Whilst I can appreciate that the prose was very good and the characters complex, there were large sections (mainly descriptions of war) that had me skimming. #bookspin
pickThere are good reasons why this haunting novel won the Booker & then was selected Best of the Decade for the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize. Those reasons include memorable characters & stylish prose about memory & grief. I‘m so glad that @KathyR recommended this for one of my book clubs. It seems, however, that our discussion of the book is cursed: for two months in a row, our meeting has been cancelled on account of weather. โ๏ธ
โThey sit squashed amid a group of 11th Hussar officers [โฆ] the officers throw bread rolls at each other & at one point some of them roar out their old school song.โ
This passage in the tagged book reminded me of the bread tossing mentioned in Levy‘s The Man Who Saw Everything. Hungary isn‘t close to Georgia, but perhaps bread-throwing is a playful activity all around the Black Sea area? Or in the military? Any thoughts on this, Littens? ๐ง ๐
My book club was cancelled tonight because of extremely cold weather. It‘s supposed to be -39 C by 9 pm, not counting the wind chill.
Is nausea always a manifestation of grief? Who am I to know? I have never been thus before. Grief-stricken. Stricken is right; it is as though you had been felled. Knocked to the ground; pitched out of life and into something else.
Laszlo has always allowed his soul to hang out like his shirt-tails and Gordon found this uncongenial. He did not object to people having souls but preferred them tucked away out of sight where they ought to be.
History is disorder, I wanted to scream at themโdeath and muddle and waste. And here you sit cashing in on it and making patterns in the sand.
โDo you want to try this [nail polish]? It‘s rather heavenlyโElizabeth Arden Shocking Pink.โ
Thanks to a picture book biography of Elsa Schiaparelli, I know that her signature colour shocking pink became very popular in the 30s & 40s, which in turn helps to fix the time period of the shifting scenes in the play adaptation of the tagged novel.
so-soThis is the kind of book that is normally totally my reading kryptonite so I should have enjoyed it more. It was okay. I think On Caanan's Side was the best book similar to Moon Tiger I've read.
#booked2019 Spring quarter complete ๐
๐ถ Features a musician - Loving Amy
๐ท Food or beverage on cover - Breakfast at Tiffany‘s
โฐ Indigenous author - The Round House
๐ Night oriented title - Moon Tiger
๐ Cli-Fi - Flight Behaviour
๐ฑ Social media focus - Alone Together
pick"There's nothing like being hitched to one's times in a way one never anticipated to make one think very personally indeed." That's my favourite quote from this book.
Written in just 200 pages, this is a story of relationships, love, loss, grief, yearnings, history (and the importance of telling it right), war and it's consequences. The prose is free flowing and absolutely gorgeous, bet you could read it in one sitting.
Fiction can seem more enduring than reality. Pierre on the field of battle, the Bennet girls at their sewing, Tess on the threshing machine โ all these are nailed down for ever, on the page and in a million heads.
After a terrible week at work, feels so good to be back here! ๐
What‘s better than book mail? Unexpected book mail!
Thank you @Cinfhen for tucking a surprise for me in the package for @Reviewsbylola - it made my day. ๐ I‘m a big fan of Penelope Lively.
#MayMovieMagic #TheMoonSong I‘ve yet to read this one ... but by all accounts it‘s really good. Must get there soon.
Thankyou @Cinfhen @rohit-sawant for a great month ๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐
There's plenty to read right now, but I couldn't resist going to the library. ๐
pickClaudia is full of flaws; therefore ultimately human and relatable. What makes it more brilliant is that she is looking back at her past from her own eyes, but also we get to see glimpses from the perspective of her daughter, lovers & brother. How history & human lives connect & converge is what I got from this novel. โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ #nightorientedtitle #booked2019
pickI wasn‘t aware that this previous Man Booker winner was in the running for the Golden Booker. I understand why. A well crafted story starring Claudia, a most unconventional woman who is looking back on her life from her deathbed. Claudia is both the villain and the fair maiden, with an entire cast of secondary characters equally compelling. Lively writes a full bodied story in a sparse amount of pages although I felt it needed a little bit more.
