Welcome to Litsy!

Vivid in setting, inventive in form, this book was a definite departure from a typical reading experience for me. The cover alone drew me to this, and then I read that a fig tree is a character so I was sold. Lost and found love, family connection, belonging, war, and nature. 🌳

I‘m really hoping one of these is crowned winner later today! Loved them both. #womensprize

#BookandBreakfast
My next read is delightful so far!

While religions clash to have the final say, and nationalisms teach a sense of superiority and exclusiveness, superstitions on either side of the border coexist in rare harmony.

People assume it's a matter of personality, the difference between optimists and pessimists. But I believe it all comes down to an inability to forget. The greater your powers of retention, the slimmer your chances of optimism.

.

I almost filled the board for May. 😁

Maybe I'll get a blackout for June.
#BookSpinBingo #BookSpin #DoubleSpin @TheAromaofBooks

Absolutely remarkable. Everything about this prose is lush and green and delicate and rough.

This book is powerful in its exposure of the conflict between the Greeks and the Turkish in Cyprus. There is ingenuity with a central voice being given to a fig tree whom is able to observe human folly whilst themselves being uprooted and scarred by the machinations of men. The wider ecological disaster that looms for all of humanity casts a onimious shadow over the Cypriot conflict and it fallout on the lives of the central characters.

So, I treated myself with a new book and a book fan! 😅😄📚📚📚

Loved this. It's beautiful. So moving, and I learned a lot about the history of Cyprus.

I think it might just nudge ahead to be my favorite from the #womensprize shortlist.

#BookReport 20/22

From Gabon to Cyprus to Toronto to Sokcho, from noir to YA, from historical to minimal. Is‘t reading rewarding and enlightening?!

I liked this one, it is a beautiful book, but I fell short of loving it. I don't know if it was a case of over-hype? The poetic writing was so beautiful, and there are passages that I will carry with me, but I felt the structure distracted from the story. And in many ways I felt that Kostas and Defne's story was not the most interesting one in the book. I'd read the heck out of Yusuf and Yiorgis' story (cont'd in comments under a spoiler alert)

This is a wonderful read about Cyprus and love. Greek and Turkish people have lived separately for ages at the island, but Kostas and Isabella know how to find each other across visible and invisible borders. The fig tree is their witness and has always been.
Quite special! Thank you for choosing this book for me Meg!

#pop22 #BookTokRecommendation

"How I lamented that I could not turn my branches into arms to embrace him, my twigs into fingers to caress him, my leaves into a thousand tongues to whisper back his words, and my trunk into a heart to take him in."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was perfect. At first I felt some some parts were too dense and skipped over too quickly, not exploring the complex issues sufficiently. But in the end, it just felt right. It taught me a lot about Cyprus and some of its tragedies that happened in not too distant past and the pain that lives on in peoples hearts.

#WomensPrize2022

One of my favorite reads this year!

At first I wasn't sure about a book where a fig tree acted as a character, but the perspective of the tree held some of my favorite sections of this book.

This is a beautiful story of love, family, acceptance, and how decisions from the past play a role in the future. It was a true delight to read. 💚

Tagged book was my favourite of the month and The Crimson Petal and the White my favourite of the year so far! #readingbracket2022

A beautiful book. Slow at times but so poetic and just lovely. I wouldn‘t have thought chapters from the perspective of a fig tree would be for me but it worked, they were some of my favourite chapters. Loved the atmosphere and the characters. A memorable read 💕 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A sweet sad love story set amongst war ravaged Cyprus, which is in part narrated by a fig tree (this is not as weird as it sounds!) I enjoyed it yet for some reason it didn‘t quite capture my heart, not even that beautiful fig 👇

Woo! I've read five of the six, and loved all five!

#WomensPrize #Shortlist2022

My ninth read from the #womensprize longlist and one of my favorites.

Grief, war, identity, home, food, family, inherited trauma, ecology—this novel is about so much. The fig tree sections connect the human story to the natural world in such a wise and beautiful way. Really liked it.

Well, I truly loved much of this, her way of wrapping around narrators and time. I read some large chunks which got me into the feel.
I trailed off around the last third or quarter, I'm unsure if it was the story or the lengths of time. I did find some of the aunt and Ada sections a little basic. Maybe it was supposed to be entirely teenage girl perspective at times.
However, a genuinely interesting read about Cyprus, trees and relationships.

Elif Shafak has a way with words. This book was absolutely wonderful and full of warmth, humour and sadness. Her eloquent writing and the nuances of the story left me in awe. It's the first book of hers I've read. I hope the rest are as wonderful.

Lovely book, managing to be both full of grief and hopeful about the future. I know little or nothing about the civil war and partition of Cyprus, so hope this book will prompt me to do more reading too.

#WomensPrize #Longlist

Absolutely my favorite author! And a beautiful cover for the WIN! #ElifShafak#TheIslandofMissingTrees

Like many others, this particular painted lady had journeyed all the way from North Africa, As she gave me an account of her travels, 1 listened to her with respect, knowing what resilient migrants they are, seen almost everywhere across the globe. They can fly for an impressive 2.500 miles. I have never understood why humans regard butterflies as fragile Optimists they may be, but fragile, never!

... experts believed it was just 'paper agitation', the tension and violence that seized our land; they said it was a storm in a teacup and it would be over soon....how could there be civil war on such a pretty, picturesque island of blooming flowers and rolling hills?...These politicians and pundits seemed to assume that civilized humans could not slaughter each other, not against an idyllic backdrop of verdant hills and golden beaches

“Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or tried to tow it with hemp ropes all the way back to their own countries.”

#FirstLineFridays

Oooh, what a cover and title... I've read three of her books and they've each had such fascinating tales in them.
I waited for the paperback edition after debating whether to get on the kindle or not.
Book club for the end of the month.

To finish this week: #Borderlessbook club tomorrow and the shortlist for the Women's Prize is coming up on the 27th!

I can‘t remember the last time a book I‘ve enjoyed this much took me so long to read (5 weeks). Defne is a Turkish Cypriot in love with Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, in the 1970s. Much sadness ensues. Some chapters are narrated by a fig tree - which I found twee at first. It all made sense by the end.

Beautiful, tender, and unique…will forever see figs in a different light and will definitely be reading Elif Shafak‘s backlist now.
#cyprus #womensprize2022

Towards midnight, I picked up an odd sound. Alarmed, I tensed. But it turned out it was my old friend the hawthorn tree, a native species, a gentle hermaphrodite, sending signals through roots and fungi, asking how I was doing. It touched me, his/her kindness, the sheer simplicity of it. For kindness always is - direct, naive, effortless. Under and above the ground, we trees communicate all the time.

When the night kissed your skin, as it always did, you could smell the jasmine on its breath. The moon, here closer to earth hung bright and gentle over the rooftops, casting a vivid glow the narrow alleys and cobblestoned streets. And yet shadows found a way to creep through the light. Whispers of distrust and conspiracy rippled in the dark. For the island was riven into two pieces-the north and the south.

#WomensPrize #Longlist

The Island of Missing Trees hits a lot of my fave things to read about in novels; history, inherited trauma, complex relationships, and secrets. It‘s not surprising then that I really enjoyed this. Shafak explores the complex historical context of the 1974 coup/civil war in Cyprus with real humanity. The conceit of the magically realist fig tree narrator was interesting but perhaps a splash overdone.

I predict this book will win the women‘s prize. It‘s not a perfect book - at times the writing was clunky and I was not always persuaded by Ada. But this book is so timely. Its themes of love in a time of war and it‘s tender portrayal of the trauma of war and the terrible cost paid by ordinary people could not be more powerfully relevant

Love is the bold affirmation of hope. You don‘t embrace hope when death and destruction are in command. You don‘t put on your best dress and tuck a flower in your hair when you are surrounded by ruins and shards. You don‘t lose your heart at a time when hearts are supposed to remain sealed, especially for those who are not of your religion, not of your language, not of your blood.

#UnpopularOpinion While this book started out very strong, by the midway point it became a bit too romance-y. And as much as I loved the POV from the fig tree, it became a bit too MUCH when we heard from the 🦜, 🐝, 🐭 and 🐜. I‘m glad I read this book but it didn‘t live up to my expectations. #CoverCrush ♥️🥰

Wonderful wonderful book 📖 stunning 🤩 all beautifully blended together the stories within a story . Loved 🥰 it , will be one of my favourite books of the year If not THE favour !

#favouritebooksof2022sofar I‘m still devouring the island of missing trees 🌲 it is a stunning book 📖 a 5star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟read for me , just don‘t want it to end ; isn‘t it funny when you love a book 📖 so much you slow down not wanting it to end . The story of what happened to Yusuf and Yiorgos is heart breaking ; do love a story within a story 🥰

Now this is a fabulous book 📖 🤩candle , book 📖 hot deep bath 🛀 hot chocolate these little things in life are not so little in a time of war & heartbreak 💔 #theislandofmissingtrees #longlistedwomensprizeforfiction #timetoread #luckytoliveinpeace&freedom

“To immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless,
And to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories.” Love this dedication 💙💛 💙What a timely message 🌻🌻

4 out of 5. Predictable story but oh such beautiful writing! 😍

In the present Ada is living in London with her dead. They are both grieving the loss of a mother/ wife. In the past we get their love story starting in Cyprus in 1974 in the midst of the civil war. Kostas‘ and Defne‘s families are on different sides. The tavern The Happy Fig becomes a hiding place and we also get the story of the owners Yusuf and Yiorgos.

A book about love, family, and what happens with friendship and neighbors during a war.

Starting this morning heard great things about this especially from savage reads book tube on YouTube and all over Instagram so fingers crossed 🤞 😀

many may try, but no one does optimism better than butterflies.

[maybe that‘s way I love them so much]

#goodreads #book8of40

I enjoyed this wholeheartedly, probably just as much for the Mediterranean climate as anything. This year has proven the year of interesting narrators; first a book, now a fig tree. I loved the relationship that eventually develops between aunt and niece, father and daughter. Just a good one to get lost in.