Welcome to Litsy!

I loved this one. A lovely, witty book about books and ghosts and redemption lures you in, then shakes you up when the narrative gets knocked sideways by Covid and the murder of George Floyd. In the hands of another writer it would have felt unfocused, but Erdrich felt handles the disorienting feelings we all experienced in 2020 and brings those initial themes of books, ghosts, and redemption to a larger field.

In the hands of a less accomplished writer, I might have thought that the author tried to do too much but every bit of this worked for me. I too will haunt bookshops when I die but I will be nice about it. ☺️ Those who prefer not to confront present day realities in their reading may want to steer clear as Covid and George Floyd‘s murder figure prominently. I will be referring to the book lists frequently. 👍🏼

20/22 This book… I only finished it last night so I am still processing but what I can say is that it took me over. I‘m usually a bit of a book floozy and have a book, audio and kindle on the go at the same time. But not with this one. It took my complete attention. I read it very slowly, much slower then average but for me that‘s what the story warranted. I needed time to be fully in it. Sometimes (when it got to the 2020 section) that was ⬇️

I'm always on the hunt for short novels worth the time. This is Tookie's list of short perfect novels, from The Sentence. I managed to find 7 on here that are new to me and I'm excited to read. I'm finding the tagging system in #Storygraph to be so helpful in remembering why I'm adding books to my list. These are tagged “short-reads-Erdrich“ so I can remember where they came from.

I liked the writing, and the characters are so realistic you would expect to see them on the streets of Minneapolis. The story was strong for the first half, and then the pandemic hit, and then George Floyd. I appreciate that she tried to incorporate such timely and dramatic events, but it wasn't successful for me. It felt forced and the original tension and development got lost. Each event was well done, just not cohesive to the original story.

A haunted bookstore. Need I say more!

A very persistent wannabe… 🤨

Loved this one. Need to seek out more Louise Erdrich (and adding her book shop to the bucket list).

Buried under reading buddies 😁🥰

My son got me Mother‘s Day presents (okay technically grandma did but it was the thought, he got one I splurged the rest). I got The Sentence #becauseoflitsy and have already started reading it!

Am loving this book. And this cake.

WOW. This was my first Erdrich but it certainly won‘t be my last. I loved the complex relationships and characters and that touch of magical realism. This is also the first fiction I‘ve read that touches on the pandemic and civil unrest of 2020 - I particularly appreciated getting a point of view from the Indigenous perspective. What should my next Erdrich be, Littens?

😴

Holiday! Struggling to choose which book to start with #bookpeopleproblems

Ghost story, lockdown novel, indigenous characters, bookstore setting, George Floyd, multireferential title, identity, forgiveness, author self-insert side-character, list of book recs.

#WomensPrizeShortList

This book better knock my reading socks off! Please, oh please.

My favorite read for the first quarter of 2022 is Erdrich‘s The Sentence! This process is inspiring some angst, however 😅 so many good books, and it‘s so hard to choose between books of different genres and styles!
Thanks to @chasjjlee for the idea and template!

A bookshop‘s most annoying customer won‘t leave, even after she is dead. Set in 2019-2020, this explores the legacy of inherited trauma. Sounds grim, but it really wasn‘t.

Library loan.

April has been a super slow reading month. With the school holidays and illnesses and family visits and pets dying and …life. But the book I have slowly been making my way through by torch light in bed is the Sentence and I‘m enjoying it so much I don‘t mind that it‘s taking me a while or that it‘s one of only three books I‘ll hopefully finish this month. I would happily stay with these characters for the whole of may too 😊

Joining this fun from @chasjjlee

My eldest child makes my bookmarks. Origami bookmarks that hook over the corner of the page, intricately drawn and coloured in bookmarks with trailing ribbons, and for those hardcover tomes: embroidered felt bookmarks.

#Deweys #readathon #bookmark

This book is excellent. My book club picked this for May. I love how the author inserted herself as a character. To name just one thing. First (but not last) encounter with this author.

#BookSpinBingo (I think this is my last free space. 😔) @TheAromaofBooks

Book 49

I listened to The Sentence, a polysemous title, about a Native American woman sentenced to prison and finds refuge in the power of books both during and after her time is served. The writing is rich and the Covid-time setting is salient and relevant. The novel would benefit from a narrowed focus, but I'll read more by the author. 3.5⭐s

After mentioning Tantalus to describe a difficult customer (which I now know is a myth where a man is punished by standing in water that recedes when he tries to drink and under fruit just out of reach, basis of the word tantalize).

“Severed from its roots, unable to taste the starlight.”
Talking about an uprooted tree.

Interesting connection to the main story about a ghost trapped in a bookstore.

I‘m giving this a pick because I remain a fan of Louise Erdrich‘s writing. However, I did not like this one as much ‘The Night Watchman‘. It felt like she had a vision for the novel, then Covid and George Floyd happened and the book veered off into perhaps a few too many directions. I can‘t say how she could have handled anything differently. It‘s a tricky time for fiction.

I loved Louise Erdrich‘s most recent book set partly at her bookstore during the pandemic and George Floyd murder. She writes beautifully and observes and contemplates thoroughly. It is a beautiful book with bonus booklists!

I enjoyed this book, which is longlisted for the Women's Price for Fiction. I like how it's set in a book shop and the mentions of books for customers. It has the Covid pandemic in it plus the murder of George Floyd. It has had mixed reviews but I liked it.

This book has the feeling of, The House of Broken Angels and Sharks in the Time of Saviors. In other words, it‘s partly the kind of weird-ass, dysfunctional family drama that I love, but also a great, spooky as hell, ghost story. At the same time, this description does not do this book justice. This is my first Louise Erdrich, and I need to read all of them! Don‘t miss this book. It will give you all the feels. Plus, book lists! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This novel by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author and indie bookstore owner Louise Erdrich is about, among many other things, a bookseller haunted by her most annoying customer in the momentous year of 2020, so as an indie bookseller it was especially funny, moving, and even haunting to read! I felt like it lost some steam in the middle but the complexity of the plot and the strangeness of the historical moment account for that!

When I creep into our bed, there is the joy and relief of a person entering a secret dimension. Here, I shall be useless. The world can go on without me. Here I shall be held by love.

Late night reading.

Ill AGAIN but hubby is at home for once to distract the kids and I‘m absolutely loving this book so at least I have a reason to stay in my PJs and read it- every cloud ⛅️

The Masters and the book. What a peaceful Sunday night ⛳️ 📚

Omg, I loved this novel! Like a big warm post-pandemic hug that still manages to be unflinching about the social pressures against/around POC, especially indigenous. I kindle highlighted ALL the books listed so I could read them later. Pic from the NYT review.

#thingsincommon #ghosts So I am finally making my first link in this April challenge! Which is that both books include a ghost. 👻

I absolutely LOVE everything about this book. It has entered my short list of all times favs🥰

Scored another “skip the line” copy on Libby, with another book I‘m seeing a lot of buzz about! I like it so far!

I hurried to finish the last few chapters so that I‘d be done before her online event with Cambridge‘s library. Am I a member of that library? No, but it was a wonderful event and an even more wonderful book.

This was my first Erdrich novel and I am pleased to have been prompted to read it by the women‘s prize. It covered important themes of identity indigeneity abuse and neglect in the context of the pandemic and BLM. It was a good read - I loved the book store setting and the haunting and Tookie is unforgettable. But I felt there was just too much being tackled to make it great.

I loved this book. ❤️ The weaving together of all the threads of identity, past, the uncertainty of the future, and how it might be best to just stay in it with each other and not give up on searching for humanity. I wasn‘t sure what it would be like to read a book set in part during the pandemic, but I actually found it strangely therapeutic. Now I‘m even more disappointed that this book didn‘t make it in the tournament.

Mummy‘s library haul. Apparently I‘m ready for books about the pandemic!

This was just ok for me. Thought the characters were moderately interesting and the writing was alright. Not much that propelled me along but I got through it. Will need to pick up the pace if I‘m going to get through the #womens prize longlist

Good morning, dear littens. I have serious Litsy housekeeping to attend to today. First up, I read both my #BookSpin and my #DoubleSpin this month! Even though I was sh*t at readathons, I got that done.

The Sentence: this might be lengthy, so bear with me. I liked it, I loved some of it, and I was unenthusiastic about some of it. It took me half the book to really care. At that point I finally got sucked in. ⬇️

Meg, Care, Margot, Gayla & Alisia chose Matrix as their zombie. Their votes made Groff return in our ToB, where it met The Sentence, the underdog book for which we voted in majority again!
In the real #ToB22 Matrix was a zombie too, but didn‘t make it past No One. So it‘s Lockwood vs Klara in the finals tomorrow. Thoughts?

In our ToB it‘s The Sentence vs The Trees. Please vote TODAY for your preferred winner! https://forms.gle/5EbCE3SaKB5q4JQH9

And again The Sentence is unbeatable! It didn‘t even enter the real tournament while in ours it proceeds to the Zombie round (see my next post!!) with a clear majority of votes.

In the real #ToB22 there was a completely different bracket: No One is Talking About This against Nervous System. Of our group, Nervous System was no one‘s favorite or even zombie, so I think we are all happy with today‘s outcome in the tournament!

The Sentence just keeps on winning in our tournament! It continues to the semi-finals at the expense of Klara, Paulina's favorite. The real #ToB22 had a completely different bracket today: The Echo Wife against Nervous System. The winner here is Nervous System.

With that we enter the next phase in the tournament. Please vote TODAY for your favorites in the semi-finals - since they‘ll start tomorrow‼️

https://forms.gle/yZqzCZtyAWQKLA3o9

I had written off this book but the universe kept throwing it back to me in different ways. Totally makes me question if my “book picker” is broken 😱 Read this for #ToB which I‘m so grateful for because this was just great. Down to earth, knowable, lovable, real characters experiencing the pandemic, George Floyd‘s murder, all the horror of our times. MC, Tookie, on top of it all is being haunted, in the bookstore she works, by a ghost. Cont ⬇️

This is the first bracket that differs from that in the official #ToB22. In our tournament The Echo Wife was up against The Sentence, a book that didn't make it past the play-in in the real ToB. And it gets better, because in ours, The Sentence will continue to the quarter finals!
Speaking of which, it‘s time to submit our votes! Please use the Google form, andvote before Monday. I hope you'll have fun making your choices!
https://bit.ly/36qoApG

So many great #bookstore #SavvySettings to choose from. Appreciated how this author had her MC work in a bookstore where the owner is named Louise, as Louise Erdrich does in fact own a boostore: Birchbark Books and Native Arts in Minneapolis, MN. Pic of this most inviting bookstore/bar in Asheville, NC: the Battery Park Book Exchange @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

I feel raw. This was hard to read so soon after living through these events. I really appreciated the pov of indigenous people experiencing these events. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #Libby #audiobook