Litsy

Comfort Me With Apples | Catherynne M. Valente

This has been on my TBR forever and it‘s just so right up my alley I‘ve gotta get to it either by the end of the year of beginning of 2026! I mean I just know “Arcadia Gardens” must be creepy and diabolical from the description on page 2 of the HOA only allowing colors like Purity, Innocence, and Mother‘s Milk to be painted lmao.

Non-book related, HEB had the BEST (Envy) apples this year!! Yum😋

#ARichLife #Apples

Eggs, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Eggs Love everything about this 🍁🧡🍎 1d

26 likes1 comment

monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

pick

I understand why Humphreys titled the book The Ghost Orchard. It is absolutely the strongest section (followed by that on Robert Frost, and The Imagined Discovery of the White Winter Pearmain). The way in which she grafts the story of her relationship with both her friend and her father, and their deaths, onto the story of the apple is brilliant. The Parafilm that seamlessly binds the stories is Frost‘s friendship with the poet Edward Thomas.👇🏻

monalyisha 1/2: As she writes, “A hundred years is very old for an apple tree, as it is for a person. An apple tree exists for the same amount of time that we do, and this gives our relationship with the trees a certain poignancy.” It makes sense that the book would be equal parts plant & human-animal. We are capable of having all sorts of relationships (with the land and with each other). 5d

monalyisha 2/2: I almost wish that there was *more* memoir…but it‘s perfectly eloquent (and almost bite-sized — or, “of small to medium size,” as the catalogs would put it) the way that it is. 5d

Chelsea.Poole Great review! 4d

monalyisha Thanks, @Chelsea.Poole! Embarrassingly, I‘d totally confused Helen Humphreys with Helen MacDonald in my head. Now, having read this, I‘m just a Helen fan. Thirty Helens Agree: Helens can write! 4d

rockpools I learnt just yesterday that the Apple orchard I grew up with/in had been scrubbed up - this ‘100 years‘ fact makes me feel much more at ease (the trees weren‘t young when I knew them! Thank you - perfect timing for me. I‘ll try and find the book (which apparently I stacked years ago). And I thought Helen Humphreys and Helen Garner were the same person, so… 4d

61 likes2 stack adds5 comments

monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

“It was all praise and miracle. Edward Thomas was right about a line of apples being the same as a line of poetry in another language.”

41 likes

monalyisha

The Ghost Orchard | Helen Humphreys

It‘s fun to be reading about the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail.

I always stop on the way home from visiting one of my friends in VT. It‘s not a long trail (nor is it The Long Trail) but it‘s one of my favorite little walks!

It‘s nice to remember, especially in November, that it can be a blessing to live in New England. Romanticize your life, right?

AnnCrystal 🤩💝. 5d

dabbe 💚💙💚 5d

Amiable I ❤️ living in New England in all seasons. Even in November. But in February it‘s close. 😬😀 4d

43 likes3 comments

AvidReader25

At the Edge of the Orchard | Tracy Chevalier

pan

This was a miss for me. In 1800s in the Black Swaps of Ohio the Goodenough family struggles to survive with their small apple orchard. The characters are miserable, but at least their spite is interesting. In the second half we follow just one of the children, Robert, to the gold rush in California, as he explores the redwoods there. He feels like an absence of a character. With no depth or distinguishing characteristics besides his emptiness.

Seabreeze_Reader Sadly, this was a miss for me too. Maybe my least favorite of Chevalier's books. 1w

AvidReader25 @Seabreeze_Reader Yes! I‘ve loved some of her other books. 6d

22 likes2 comments

ChelseaM6010

Untitled | Anonymous

#ARichLife
Day 2. Apples
#Apples

Eggs, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Eggs Clever 🍎🍎 1w

12 likes1 comment

vivastory

Comfort Me With Apples | Catherynne M. Valente

Valente has been on my book radar since joining Litsy, I have yet to read one of her works, torn between Comfort Me With #apples and Radiance. Anyone have a favorite Valente?
@alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @eggs

Eggs Sounds good! 2w

monalyisha I have Comfort Me with Apples checked-out from the library right now! I can‘t vouch for it — yet. I *can* tell you that while I didn‘t love Deathless, the Fairyland books are one of my favorite children‘s series. Tagging the first one.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Centique Reggie bought me Comfort Me with Apples as a gift and it is fabulous! Short, so you can read it in one sitting. But I havent read anything else by her yet. 2w

Larkken I don‘t know that it‘s necessarily good, but I loved the tagged book. Good for folks that love Douglas Adams and Eurovision lol

Space Opera

55 likes4 comments