Welcome to Litsy!

“They were married on his embarkation leave. Louise made her daughters wedding dress, sitting up all night to finish it. It was of the palest pink china silk; an audacious choice destined to set off her daughter‘s delicate white skin. Instead of a veil , there was a little pill-box hat. It was the most beautiful wedding dress Louise had ever made. “

Very happy to be reading Anita Brookner again ♥️

Whether it's visual art, music, movies, or literature, I love seeing an artist reference their own favorite influences. In Oyeyemi's latest, she mashes up two Calvino novels - If on a winter's night and Invisible Cities (maybe more? - those are the only two I've read) with a few nods to Borges mixed in. It's perfect fuel for this meditation on the infinity of mental representations of the same city that exist in the minds of its visitors 👇

Another hit for Dan Jones! This sequel to Essex Dogs takes the Dogs from Crecy to Calais. Of course the history shines through but so do the characters and the setting. Highly recommended

A friend brought us a bouquet from her garden yesterday, and I thought it would look nice with these library holds I‘m very excited about!! 💜📚💐

Picked this up at a used book shop on a whim & glad I did. It opens as Mrs Dean (an assumed name?) checks into a hotel. She has a suitcase full of cash & no memory of who she is or how she got there. She spends her days wandering the town, having awkward conversations & avoiding any attempt at deciphering her identity even though people show up claiming to be friends and family. Part of the fun was having no idea what was happening or how it 👇

1. Taking down the winter decorations and putting up Valentines Day stuff in the library. Planning displays is so much fun—it beats the heck out of grading essays! 😂
2. Tagged! Also listening to Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas.
3. Chill and funny (or so I‘m told)!
#MotivationalMonday

Getting ready to start my first book of 2024 while I wait to pick up my son. I‘ve never read this author but I absolutely ❤️ a good locked-room mystery!

#thesearchparty #hannahrichell #lockedroommystery #atmosphericthriller #britlit

A lovely little bittersweet novel from Brookner - which I‘m pairing with a teeny village hall in the Bay of Islands.
If you already know you like Brookner you‘ll like this! If you‘re new to Brookner, its a slow unravelling of the life of Kitty - a quiet, elegant, intellectual, almost “out of time” woman in her late twenties. Kitty is an English literature lecturer; we see her analysis of a 19th c novel as well as her academic life. Quite lovely.

#12Booksof2023
@Andrew65

September: THE THIRD MAN by Graham Greene. I also loved the movie starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. And the music is phenomenal, too! 🤩

If you‘re looking for a gripping thriller, this isn‘t it. It‘s a very slow-burn spy novel, that takes 100 pages before it gets to the actual plot. The overall plot is ok but thin, so there‘s a lot of padding in this 400+ page novel.