Welcome to Litsy!

https://youtu.be/2dFM8gunt-4

Introduction
Mystery guest
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
Queen James: A New History About the Life and Loves of Britain‘s First King, James Stuart by Gareth Russell

My belated #weirdwords entry is courtesy of the tagged book, which I haven't read but I intend to. According to Ye Olde Google: Illywhacker is “A small-time confidence-trickster or seller of trinkets.“ The con man description does seem very much of the moment.
Carey has yet to disappoint as as writer. I read Oscar & Lucinda shortly after joining Litsy & I STILL think about that book. Another fave is True History of the Kelly Gang.
@cbee

My new chunkster adventure! With the dreamscape & magical realism elements, the wine is a necessary reading aid. 😅

My current read, and one I‘ve been meaning to get to for years, is this 1910 Australian classic about a country girl who is sent to a Melbourne boarding school.

Have any of my Australian friends on Litsy read it? 😀

Outstanding read. It's one of my few 5-star books so far this year. There is such ease to the writing. This is a very internal novel, and I loved it. I loved this far more than the Booker winner last year.

This is what you expect a booker shortlist book to be. It's well written but I already forgot the plot. Was there a plot? The mice were creepy af.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

This was a lovely, quiet and thoughtful book. Reading it felt like a meditation on grief and human connection. Beautifully written and very atmospheric.
Photo is a bunch of miniature roses from a friend 😍

The mice did freak me out a bit…..otherwise, a quiet novel packing a punch about life.
Don‘t we all wish we could disengage sometimes. And that we knew how to handle grief and dying. And that we‘d always done the right thing at the right time.
But my bookmark is perfect ❤️

This is a book you could read seven times and get something new each time. A woman leaves her life behind to live a quiet life at a priory, although she herself doesn't share the nuns' religious beliefs. The beauty and solitude of her daily life are haunted by her past and her grief. The creeping, claustrophobic feelings presented by an infestation of mice on the property play with these themes and keep the reader as unsettled as the narrator.

"A heavy spring frost this morning. Crossing the grass I made a clean track of footprints, deep green on the white spread of the lawn. It returned me to my childhood, to the sense of secret authority, imprinting one's presence into a place with those clear, sharp prints. I exist. The private, pleasurable sound of the finest layer of ice breaking beneath the weight of each step."