My vulgar language also caused problems when I went to Cecilia's. Her father was a stern, distinguished, imposing man... Though he never missed his chance to intimate that he'd been particularly active in the years of armed struggle in the seventies and eighties, enjoying the astonished look on my face when his stories suddenly mentioned guns or kneecappings, he wasn't as indulgent when it came to another kind of violence: foul language.
When we finally discovered books, it wasn't a form of escapism, but rather the reassuring coalescence of boredom. I could almost picture it in my mind, white and miry: reading was like sinking into a pool of milk. I would stay immersed for hours, until even my body grew flaccid, the stagnant liquid seeping into my pores. It felt like everything suddenly acquired meaning, a phenomenon of transubstantiation, my flesh changing into boredom.
pickA funny and surprisingly emotionally resonant novel about a sharp-eyed girl born into a family of eccentrics. Literally, the perfect beach read.
pick#SchoolSpirit Day 9: #Memories - my full review of this lovely book here: https://wp.me/pDlzr-qEM
pick#AboutABook Day 30: #ShortButPowerful. The narrative style reminded me so much of Lucia Berlin‘s Manual For Cleaning Women. If ever I would get to writing my own novel, it would probably use the same stylistic device – just blending fact and fiction, truth and fabrication, the real and the surreal – with a sleight of hand, like a magician in a campfire, pulling words out of a hat. My review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-qEM
#StorySettings Day 24: There‘s a #Theater like quality to the way Raimo presents her story - almost like she is on stage, delivering clever lines to an audience who is raptly engaged and laughing at her deadpan hilarity. About to finish this for in time for our GatheringReaders book club discussion next week in our university.
#StorySettings Day 16: These are the books we are reading as part of my #College book club called GatheringReaders. I just realized I have FIVE summer book clubs: two on Litsy (1) #CampLitsy24 and (2) #EuropaCollective. Then I have three face-to-face ones (3) this #College group with doctoral students and faculty (4) Emirates Lit Foundation book club, and (5) book club of two read-aloud with 22 yo daughter coming home for the summer!
pickWitty, thoughtful, introspective coming of age story set in Italy. Vero is an unreliable narrator, viewing the world around her and the lives of her family, friends, and self with a level of detachment that adds humour and at times heart ache. She freely admits to adjusting reality to fit into a narrative that proves more interesting for herself, and the result is a delightful, quick read where not much happens but it doesn't really matter.
so-soMy experience was on audio, in translation. It‘s autofiction about growing up in Rome with some issues. Fictional Veronica speaks with a false confidence, her anxieties sort of exposed in how she lies constantly, often for no apparent reason. It seems lying and imagined alternative lives are an escape. She tells her unreliable story with a self-deprecating humor. I liked it enough, but in hindsight I‘m glad to be past it. #Booker2024
"All I wanted was to get out of that room. Be done with all the other last chances awaiting me. Miss trains, not seize moments, burn bridges and the candle at both ends, wallow in a sea of the irreversible."
(Every time I sit down with this book, I'm scribbling down new quotes.)
“She'd been a widow for years, since before I was born, but she clung to her mourning with the tenacity of a die-hard soccer fan. She reserved for all other widows the scorn diehards felt for bandwagon fans.“
“It was the first real goodbye in my life. To be perfectly honest, I'd been building up to that moment in my mind since the day we started going out. In fact, I think that was exactly why I'd started dating him in the first place: so we could leave each other. The thought that he'd be leaving the country soon ensured me a misery I could enjoy without the hassle of having to go out and find one myself.“
My current audiobook, care of my library. Another from the International #Booker2024 longlist. The cringing face on the cover makes me cringe.
Opening lines from the tagged novel. How appropriate that I started reading this today, which is Easter Monday. 😊
Gatsby is lounging in the grass while I read.
Lost on Me | 
