Welcome to Litsy!

Bingo category - By an author whose last name starts with X, Y or Z. Now that I've read Homegoing, I've got an author's first name (Yaa Gyasi) as well as a last name starting with Y (Alissa York).

Her eyes are chestnut brown, her gaze curious, vaguely concerned. There's nothing masculine about her curved moustaches and silky beard; if anything, she resembles a whiskery grandmother in a grizzled smock.

Any woman might marvel at a feather, but it takes a special turn of mind to appreciate a scale.

1867. Adventurous women in the Amazon. Detailed botanic and fauna descriptions. Life simplified and slowed to the pace of a dugout canoe on water, to the cycle of life and death. Meditative. I felt like I was there, hearing jungle sounds and scratching insect bites.

In dressing for today's ceremony, I realized my feet had become strangers to my shoes. Having shaken a host of cockroaches from the left, I walked a few pinched paces before stashing the offending articles in my trunk.

The vines are mighty, the atrium's hothouse varieties mere house cats to these muscular cousins with their split-leaved paws. The garden's scent, too, is part animal, an earthy bewildering funk.

TBR Tuesday for my two bingo cards.
Gift - Public Library & Other Stories
Sports - Night Work
Manga - Planetes
Essays - Shrill
Author's name starts with Y - The Naturalist

There is a lot of Portuguese in this book. Some of it is translated, but a lot of it is not, which I found sort of frustrating. It broke up the flow of the reading for me, but I can see why some people would enjoy its authenticity.

"The thunderhead hangs low behind them, as though positioned to block their return. Its underside flashes silver -- light like a tree branch, a clap like the world cracking in two." - Alissa York, The Naturalist