Welcome to Litsy!

Day 1 #7days7covers #CoverCrush

I‘d say this is one of the best I have read in quite a while. #readit

Up next....

#friyayintro A day late! 🤓 @howjessreads
1. Love living in an apartment. It‘s within walking distance of a bookstore, movie theatre and pub! [and no snow to shovel]
2. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flannigan
3. Audio books during the weekday commute and all weekend!
4. Pizza!!!

1. 😍
2. I don‘t know yet.
3. Probably yellow
4. They‘ve never told me. I only know of one of my dad‘s female name choices (Lysistrata) that my mom gave a hard pass.
5. ❤️❤️❤️

#friyayintro

1. Too hard! Or Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
2. 375
3. It's been a good year so it's a three-way you're between my secondment, moving to a new flat and watching my little sister get married ❤️❤️
4. Watching my current work project come to fruition (I hope!)
5. @dariazeoli @Libby1 @abbsinwonderland of you haven't already played!
Thanks for the tag @Ddzmini

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️There was a moment in this book where I had to close it and take a breather because I just could not take it. The ending left me feeling simultaneously filled up and hollowed out. Anthony Marra is a genius.

Went back to Barnes and Noble with @dgingo and @DoctorMirabilis1267 but talked myself out of buying anything. Then I went across the street to Half Price Books for the 20% off sale and bought four books, notecards, a journal for the #TeamDracula, and Bellatrix.
I feel better.

#backpackEurope travelogue *fictional*
Country 8: I was a bit nervous traveling to Russia (some family members were under Soviet rule) but I enjoyed seeing the Faberge museum, Red Square, and the old palace in St Petersburg.
This book is lovely but sad - the short stories all link together, from the censor who paints out the ballerina whose granddaughter is an actress who...
It's like a lovely piece of music, but the censorship hurt to read about.

Leaving Finland and off to Russia. I have been wanting to read this Marra book for ages (I may also still read the Gerber book for fun). I almost chose Anna Karenina but decided against it after hearing my friend say she has tried 5 years in a row to read it and always gets bored. I apparently decided a hard route - I covered Iceland and all of the upper Nordic European countries. Too bad there are no landmarks to hit in them 😂 #backpackEurope

Beautiful.

If you want a fun, light, and quirky read about life in Russia ranging from Stalin‘s era to present, do not read this book. If you want a epically tragic understanding of mindset of Russians and how it has influenced the survival of families and interconnectedness of humanity through the 1900‘s to present, read this book.

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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena was excellent but this is a masterpiece. The effort of piecing together the interconnected stories, unraveling the relationship simply adds to their power. They are judged to perfection, individually and as a whole. Marra's characters are painfully human and his insight, humour and compassion shine in every word. It's achingly, exquisitely beautiful. The best I've read this year and it could easily remain so.

Oh, Mr Marra, I sincerely hope this isn't really your opinion. If it is this book breaks my heart for yet another reason

🙁 This book is going to break me

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“Then you accept?”
I said nothing, and as is often the case with men who possess more power than wisdom, he took my silence for affirmation. “Congratulations, Ruslan. You‘re head of the Grozny Tourist Bureau.” And so my future was decided, as it often is, entirely without my consent.

#space #QuotsyFeb18

First off, Marra's writing is so damn good. The man can turn a phrase like nobody's business. I really liked the way he linked these stories together, through different characters and places and items, against a backdrop that changed over time but in so many disturbing ways remained the same. I think this is a great option if, like me, you're not usually a big short story fan. 4/5 ⭐️

Her hair was covered in an electric-pink headscarf that obeyed the letter of the law while exorcizing its spirit.

😆

[We] considered the ways a body betrays its soul, and wondered if growing up was its own kind of pathology. We fell in and out of love with fevered frequency. We constantly became people we would later regret having been.

You remain the hero of your own story even when you become the villain of someone else's.

I absolutely loved his debut novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, so am excited to finally pick this up. Especially because it's a collection of interlinked stories, which I usually enjoy much more than ones where the stories are all totally separate. (Also damn you bookstores and your evil not-easily-peeled-off stickers.)
#nowreading

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Current audiobook.....I was looking for short stories, but this seems to be longer, connected stories. I've just started and the narrator's accent is both distracting and enhancing the story (yes, I know, that makes no sense at all).

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I've been working on entering reviews and quotes into my reading journal. I'm running out of space with this book. ❤️

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The Tsar of Love & Techno and Good Morning, Midnight were the best books I read in 2017. Honorable mention to Eileen & Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh. #bestof2017

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I expected to like this book and ended up loving it. The "stories" -which are really just the lives of different connected people which constantly reference each other- are all lovely. I could tell how they were beginning to fall into place and how they might try to tug at my heartstrings and I didn't expect to be taken in by it--until I was. I felt for them all. A slow burn, emotionally, and overall a great book.

Happy new year! About to start my first book of 2018!

These are my top 10 for this year. Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra was outstanding.

This is on sale today for Kindle and iBooks. It‘s been on my TBR list, so I snapped it up! 👍 #BookSale

Song of Achilles
Tsar of Love and Techno
El Deafo
Pachinko
Homegoing
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Nix
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
Ember in the Ashes

I just realized I never officially rated this book. Anthony Marra and Sherman Alexie tap into my heart and pull those strings all over the place. This book continues on the same theme as Constellation of Vital Phenomena: war, courage, surrender, hopelessness. Sounds like a depressing book but somehow Marra provides humor in the midst of it all. Not a light read, but Marra will always be a must read for me.

Happy birthday @kalalalatja and thanks for hosting this #eyecandygiveaway ! 😃🎉🎊

These are two of my most beautiful books. The TKAM one is really just a slipcase, but I thought it was really nice looking. The Tsar of Love and Techno is probably my favorite cover. It grabbed my attention immediately and made me want to read it even more. 💖

Hipsterdom‘s a tightrope strung across the canyon of douche-baggery. He clung by a finger.

I have a feeling my parents felt the same about all three of their children. 😀😙😳

I love Litsy because of the community. Everyone seems really friendly and there are things to make everything more personal like the book swaps which I haven‘t participated in yet, but I‘m looking forward to doing so in the future. Also, #catsoflitsy is awesome. Books and cats. Could it get any better than that? 😂
Thanks for hosting @DebbieGrillo and congrats on the 1000 followers! 😃 #Grateful1KGiveaway

Really liked this short story collection. Marra weaved these stories together so well that it actually felt more novel-like than some of the vignette style novels I've read. The subject matter is super sad and dark, but Marra's writing is just so beautiful. I really enjoyed following some of the characters.