Welcome to Litsy!

I don‘t read a ton of nonfiction, but thanks to Litsy I have found amazing reads I probably wouldn‘t have picked up otherwise. @monalyisha and @xicanti have inspired me to share my three favorites (for today anyways):

1. Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran (tagged)
2. Fly Girl: a memoir by Ann Hood
3. Good Talk: a memoir in conversations by Mira Jacob

#tlt #threelistthursday

Just fantastic! Fascinating exploration of identity, growing up Vietnamese American, navigating tough family times, finding oneself in books/music/subcultures. Wonderfully written and narrated by Tran. I really loved it from start to finish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎧📖 An excellent coming of age memoir. Would recommend to anyone who enjoys the genre.

#TemptingTitles #WithaPun

This tempting title is brought to you by #BlameitonLitsy. Unfortunately, it is still waiting on my TBR.

Sigh, Gone is a Kindle ebook deal (US) today, 3/26.

Highly recommend this memoir. ⭐️🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼⭐️

Thank you so much to those Littens that read this, raved about it and put it on my #readersradar - I loved it!

Phuc is a refugee from Saigon to America and explores his childhood and adolescence, covering racism, punk, skateboarding, literature.

I was inordinately happy to learn afterwards that Phuc went to Bard College after all, has been teaching Latin for 20 years and is also a tattooist.

Thank you for hosting #AuldLangSpine and following it up with the #AuldLangSpineGiveaway! The tagged book sounds so interesting and would be my pick from the list. Love a good memoir!

Here‘s my #AuldLangSpine wrap-up! I‘d already read 4 of the 20 books on @MeganAnn ‘s list, and I managed to read 11 more before the month ended. I‘ll read 3 of the remaining 5 once my holds come in and the last 2 whenever I do a Kindle Unlimited trial.

As you can see, I loved most everything and really liked the rest (barring THE SNOW CHILD, which I couldn‘t finish). Thanks to @MeganAnn for a great list and @monalyisha for a great match!

The subtitle makes this sound liks a light-hearted romp but Phuc Tran's memoir describes a childhood marred by physical abuse at home and racism at school. Born in Vietnam, the son of refugees, Tran seeks a sense of identity and safety through academic excellence and skater punk cameraderie, an interesting combination. He uses his earnings as a library page to buy $150 worth of discarded books at a used book sale--that's a man after my own heart.

Phuc Tran delivers on every level. You want punk rock? Great literature as applied to everyday life? A nuanced look at intergenerational trauma and its personal impact? Intense friendships? Familial ties? Person vs society? Deep dives into how racism manifests and perpetuates? It‘s all here, along with a myriad other considerations, and it‘s magnificent.

I‘ve got my first 5-star read of 2023. #AuldLangSpine

This diamond painting entered my life at exactly the right time, because THIS BOOK IS AMAZING, HOLY CRAP, and I need more excuses to listen to it.

I‘ll finish it tomorrow. #AuldLangSpine #audiocrafting

#newyearnewbooks thanks for the tag @MaleficentBookDragon 🎉

Choosing favorites is hard but Sigh, Gone and The Starless Sea are my top two for the year. I read both of these last January and have thought about them repeatedly all year long.

My most anticipated 2023 new release is A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon. Also, her 10th anniversary rewrite of The Bone Season is coming this summer & I cannot wait to get my hands on that!

⬇️

"Punk rock was an explosive for detonating the present so that I could rebuild my future from the rubble."

There are a few weeks left until I start reading off @Chelsea.Poole 's awesome #AuldLangSpine list. I was searching through everyone's lists and this one jumped out at me from a few of them. So I picked up a copy at the library to help see me through until the New Year begins!

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/NTmB0N5ByD8

Enjoy!

Quite possibly the best book I‘ve read all year!

A memoir by Phuc Tran, Latin teacher & tattoo artist, about growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in small town, USA. Somehow, he manages to be so punk rock *without* sacrificing a real & endearing earnestness. His book is a love letter to literature & libraries, music & art, and a double-middle-finger to narrow-minded thinking (even & especially when it‘s your own).

#AudioDiamondPainting along to tagged book while Officer Pistachio is on guard duty to ensure I stay put and not attempt any sneaky walk around the neighborhood.

#20in4 @Andrew65

A really enjoyable memoir that touches on finding your place in the world. This is so meaningful through the eyes of Tran who as an immigrant grew up facing violence in the home and racism outside of it. He develops a love of punk and literature and finds a group of true friends as he finds his identity.

I‘ve been bad at posting what I‘ve been reading, but this one is worth a post. I don‘t read a lot of memoirs, but loved this one. Phuc would always have been too cool for me, but I have a little crush on him now. He‘s a great storyteller, using literature and punk to understand his own identity. Also loved the audio and listening to his pronunciations. 5⭐️ (also embarrassed it took forever to get the title 🤦🏻‍♀️)

A solid, honest memoir that helped me to understand a perspective so different from my own while highlighting our similarities. This peek into the life of a immigrant and child of the 80s struggling to find his place really resonated with me. I connected to him as a skater punk but found his frank descriptions of abusive parents trying to find their own way in America painful to listen to. Great on #audio ! #Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

#currentlisten #20in4 @Andrew65

I would definitely have hung out with Phuc and his friends. I was also a skateboarder and into punk rock, heavy metal, and alternative music. And I of course also loved reading.

I appreciate his arguments with his parents and society about racism and misogyny. It was tough reading about his dad‘s abusiveness though.

I definitely recommend this on audio, read by the author.

I chose this one for #readingtheusa #pennsylvania.

🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
Tran‘s memoir was moving...at times a delight and at others a gut punch... Highly recommend for fans of literature, punk rock, and the realm between the two.

A 4 star read for me. Author fled Saigon as a toddler with his family and settled in small town PA. He talks about the culture clash, violence in his family, finding himself, facing racism, forming strong high school friendships and his love of Classic literature. Each chapter is themed around a classic. He went on to be a classics teacher but now is a tattoo artist. Renaissance man!

Stopped and read tagged on a great beach walk today. Catching a few days on San Juan Island, WA. Sweetie hanging with family and I get to steal away for quality dog walking and reading. I grew up on the coast and I have never seen this much driftwood! And enjoying this memoi about a Vietnamese kid growing up and trying to fit in late 80s Pennsylvania.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ When Saigon fell, young Phuc‘s family immigrated to Pennsylvania. Casual, and overt, racism occurred daily. Home life was tumultuous and abusive. This is a story of finding one‘s self and one‘s circle. After many iterations, Phuc finds solace, and bad-assery, in literature. He draws parallels between famous works and his own life. At the heart is a deep appreciation for teachers and libraries, and quite possibly, even little brothers.

“Carlisle High School was another cultural cup-de-sac built with the craftsman blueprint of John Hughes, the Frank Lloyd Wright of teen malaise.” Only a few pages in but I think I‘m going to love this memoir—described as a coming of age story of an immigrant highschooler told through the lens of the Western Canon of “great literature and how it influenced him. Oh yeah, and punk rock!!

🎧🧩❄️ It‘s snowing, school‘s canceled for the rest of the week, and I‘m #audiopuzzling. Loving this memoir. Thanks for the rec @Cinfhen !

“Phuc It”~This book was awesome!
Memoirist Phuc Tran humorously & delicately shares his growing up as the only Vietnamese boy in his small Pennsylvania town. It covers everything I love; literature, music, family drama, belonging, isolation, teenage rebellion and the 80‘s!!!!!!! Audio read by author was wonderful 🎧♥️ #NonFictionChallenge21 #AboutReading #FoodAndLit #Vietnam #pop21 #AdvancedPrompt

😭😭😭I‘ll never understand certain parents!!! Such an EXCELLENT memoir/ #AllTheFeels

I can tell, this is TOTALLY my jam!!! Have you listened to this @Megabooks @britt_brooke ?!?!! Music, literature, immigrant story, NF, potty mouth pages and some PA bad-assness 🙌🏻🎧 #FoodAndLit #Vietnam #NonFiction21 #AboutReading #Pop21 #AdvancedPrompt

5/5 ⭐️ I really enjoyed this memoir of a Vietnamese immigrant growing up in America. While there were many parts that were hard to listen to (ie. the violent relationship with his father), there were also so many moments that made me laugh. I really hope the author writes more because I would definitely read it! #FoodandLit

Phuc shares his memories growing up in small-town America as an Asian-American. He infuses his #memoir with humor and sharp observations of his surroundings and the time in which he came of age, the 80s. Phuc gets into the punk scene and also literature, both things have quite an effect on his formative years. Memoirs are TheBomb.com in my current reading life; I‘m so grateful to be able to experience life through the eyes of others in this way.

This is one of BR‘s deals of the day 🥳 I loved this book so much! https://bookriot.com/book-riots-deals-of-the-day-for-december-5-2020/

Phuc Tran moves from Vietnam to small town PA in 1975 with his parents. Growing up he spends a lot of time trying to be seen, understood and accepted-trying to figure out who he is in the midst of racism and family violence.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ must read please see my full review at thejwordpress.wordpress.com

Just a couple of things happening in my world. This lovely book arrived, with drawing by its author. (Won it in a virtual author event giveaway ...) I‘m looking forward to reading it, especially because I married into an Asian-American family. In other news, a new hummingbird feeder and my hibiscus bush gone wild!

Wow. This is an outstanding memoir of youth, immigration, punk, and literature. Some parts were laugh-out-loud funny and others heart-rending. An absolute recommendation, especially if you like audiobooks (it‘s fabulous in that format).

Methinks I might have to cut my #audiowalk short. Thunder and forty mile an hour winds!

Just started this memoir and it‘s great. Read by the author. A love letter to punk and the great books

As a child of refugees from Cambodia, I try to learn more about refugee experience, and find it difficult to talk to my parents due to language barriers. While both journeys lead to diaspora, the refugee experience, is diff from immigrant experience. I found myself connecting to Tran's experience. In other ways, my experience didn't match. That's okay. Asian people are not a monolith. It does not stop me from enjoying the story, and being engaged.

💓💓💓 This was excellent. Tran is a Vietnamese-American who grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania in the Eastern US. Really, really good and one I hope more people will read. 💕💕💕

I‘m listening to this and so far, it‘s really, really good.

"Do we want words to be powerful or powerless? We can‘t have it both ways. If we want them to be powerful, we have to act and speak accordingly, handling our words with the fastidious faith that they can do immeasurable good or irreparable harm. But if we want to say whatever we want—if we want to loose whatever words fly into our minds—then we render words powerless, ineffectual, and meaningless, like the playground bromide of ‘sticks and ⬇️

Just started this. How did I not know this was coming out? So far so good.

On the deck listening to the tagged book with Leo, who, it turns out, also likes peonies. 🐶🌸

1. I think the goal of a good biography is to teach you something about the subject that you didn‘t know before, so yes, that can change how you feel.
2. The Contender. A biography of Marlon Brando
3. The tagged book about a Vietnamese immigrant‘s move to the US in 1975
#SundayFunday

Phuc‘s memoir covers escaping Vietnam in the 70s as a child through his graduation from high school in 1991. Each chapter has a book as its title and Phuc relates the struggles of that part of his life to the book.

In contrast to many American parents who never spank, Phuc‘s parents seem particularly violent & his alienation from them helps spur his search for his true identity as he evolves from a punk to a lit nerd. I hope he writes a sequel!

🎉IT‘S NEW BOOK DAY!🎉 Despite changes in pub dates, there are still a lot of great books out today. Here are some of today‘s new books! 📚
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There are many more out today that I am excited about but don‘t have physical copies to photograph, including A Thousand Moons, Girl Gone Viral, I'm Your Huckleberry, Home Baked, How to Pronounce Knife, The Silence of Bones, Warhol, Reproduction, and Ronan the Librarian. What are you excited to read? 📚❤️📚