Welcome to Litsy!

Well, Amanda, I am blown away by this first selection from #Auldlangspine. I loved this book. I loved how it started, how it progressed and how it ended. Three stories, three timelines, three outcomes. At the beginning, a woman can name her newborn son any of three names. And as she chooses three different names, we see what happens to her family based on the name she chose. Improbable? Of course, but nonetheless, fascinating and brilliant⬇️

#12BooksOf2025 @TheEllieMo

The Names, a trippy debut, for August.

Ready for #AuldLangSpine and #EuropaCollective!

@Sapphire @monalyisha @BarbaraBB

I read a lot of memoirs last year, and this was the final one. I‘d read Running with Scissors years ago—this memoir was very different than that one. It took courage for Augusten to write this one, but his childhood was worse.

The premise of this book sounded great. I was really looking forward to it but I just didn‘t love it. I wasn‘t expecting as much abuse and violence. I found this difficult to read. And then I just wasn‘t taken by the character development and writing. I can see what the author was trying to do but it just didn‘t gel for me. It felt a bit ‘stuck together‘. Not a bad book and some parts were really good others lacked depth and felt convenient.

A clinical explanation for one of the most memorable parts in the book: the severed leg in the bed.

I began violin lessons with a private instructor. Once a week, I was taught how to tuck the instrument under my chin, curling my thumb against the underside of the neck. Over and over, I raked the bow across the strings, trying to achieve a sound and not a screech. I learned the names of its various components: the frog, the bridge, the tailpiece, and the pegs. And while I was proud to be able to name the parts of its anatomy, it was the smell⬇️