I rarely read romance but I picked this up on audio because it has rave reviews. And I see why; it‘s an original premise for romance and it‘s quite funny. The narrator is excellent, but I have learned that audio sex scenes make me cringe 😳. #romance #audioromance

I requested that the library purchase this right before the pandemic and then forgot about it. This first of a trilogy is gritty noir set in Sweden in 1932, with a queer protagonist. So yeah, I‘m pretty sure it‘s a one-of-a-kind!😄 #lgbtqia #nelson #dogsoflitsy

Oy! At the 80% mark this book is really starting to feel like a slog. The paperback is over 700 pages and I haven‘t been that enthusiastic about it since I started. I enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora—the first book in the series—much more than this. #isitoveryet

Current location ☀️📖
I was a teenager of the 80s so all the references to that time are a lot of fun for me. 😊

#summerreading

I‘m visiting my dad in California and brought the tagged book for his partner. I got it out of a #LFL and passed it on to her; I‘m currently reading the sequel. Attica Locke has created a complex MC in Darren Mathews. I especially appreciate her depiction of his toxic relationship with his emotionally abusive mother, having some secondhand experience with this myself. #summerreading

After falling into a Gutenberg rabbit hole, I discovered this. I‘m still reading the fourth Poldark novel, Warleggan, but I need a little non-fiction in my life as well at the moment. #patioreads

Patio reading on this breezy morning with #nelson my reading buddy. I am enjoying this series so much. Graham has created such memorable, complex characters in a beautiful setting. I can see why Cornwall became a popular destination for Poldark fans.
#greyhounds #dogsoflitsy

1. Chicago
2. Chicago, but I spent ages 2-college in California.
3. One brother, 9 years younger.
4. Don‘t remember being read to. My dad was a big reader and encouraged me, but I don‘t think he liked to read children‘s books. The first book I remember in general is Richard Scarry‘s Busy Busy World (I think).
#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Thanks for the tag, @wanderinglynn

“He was looking at the spire. As the web of low-lying cloud scurried under the wind it seemed to breathe like a living thing. Sometimes it inhaled the light of day, and then its pallor enriched to the colour of a primrose; a moment later it waned, and pulled the misty air over it like a veil; and whether it brightened or waned it seemed to be flying towards him against the scudding sky so that he felt that ⬇️

This book is thoroughly delightful and the narrator is perfect! Highly recommended!

#audiobooks

“Drawing his hand over his chops Sir Peter assumed an air of patience, and began to expound in easy language the doctrine of the sacraments, of the sacramental virtue which sets the priest apart from the ruck of the world. Pedantic fool! thought the prioress, saying courteously: ‘Of course Undoubtedly. How clearly you put it.‘

‘We shall miss your explanations,‘ added Dame Helen with sturdy malice.”

Mansplaining, 14th century style

I‘m enjoying the heck out of this audiobook!! I already loved Terry Pratchett but I had never read any of his children‘s books. The narrator is hilarious when he reads the dialogue of the Nac Mac Feegles (Wee Free Men). I read somewhere that they speak with something of a Glaswegian accent, though I‘m sure Stephen Briggs is laying it on very thick and funnifying it. #audiobooks #childrensaudiobooks

Miriam Black knows how and when you will die.
This was the first book in the Miriam Black series, and I will definitely be reading the second. I realized after I began that it was just what I needed at the moment: very little description, just action and dialogue and a plot that never stopped moving forward.

But in the midst of the chaos and violence, there is this. 💙💙💙

#georgiarocks #democracyinaction

“Car lights strobe through busted motel
blinds.”

My first Chuck Wendig, and I think it‘s just what I needed right now. Nelson graciously offered his services as bookmodel! 🐶❤️
#dogsoflitsy #greyhounds #nelson

#firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl

We have a new family member!!! This is me with Nelson. He is a four year old retired racer from Florida. We had been on a waiting list for him since July and we got him earlier than we expected to, and we are so excited! He is very sweet and super chill, basically a couch potato. And did I mention that he is the size of a pony?! Eighty pounds, and you can see how long he is in this picture. ❤️ #greyhounds #dogsoflitsy #nelson

A gift from one of the kids I work with. Aren‘t they awesome!! 😃

#kindergarten #paraprofessionals #holidaygifts

Waiting for the ortho doc in the fancy new medical offices, wearing paper shorts (as one does😆) so he can look at my knee.
This book is of a genre I knew nothing about until recently, classic Japanese locked-room mysteries. There are rules to this genre. The author has to include a list of characters, provide all the clues so that a reader could, in theory, solve the puzzle herself, and there are usually maps and/or diagrams.

I just started listening to this. It‘s my first Agatha Raisin and why did no one tell me how delightfully snarky she is??? 🤣

#audiobook

I finally remembered to dig this T-shirt out of the closet today, courtesy of Out Of Print.

Fingers crossed 🤞💙🤞💙🤞💙

#vote

I have dropped my Kobo Clara approximately 384 times, and this is the result. I know it doesn‘t look like much, but it‘s driving me 🍌!! #bookwormproblems

Halfway through this and I‘m hanging in there mainly to find out what the big twist is. I‘m annoyed by the male narrator, who uses his Serious Ominous Voice for the entire book, even when it‘s very inappropriate for the line he‘s reading or the whole scene.
#audiobook

I just recently learned that our Barnes & Noble closed back in May (haven‘t been getting out much lately 😷). The space is going to be converted into doctors‘ offices. ☹️ I didn‘t even shop there much but I liked knowing it was there.

I am really trying to have compassion for the parents in this tragic story, but they are also making me very angry. Am I a horrible person?

I miss my library so much!! 😢 They have not even opened for curbside pickup yet. I‘m an impulsive reader and frequently made unplanned trips when an interesting book or topic landed on my radar. The ebook selection can‘t come close.
#library

Some of the best days are when you discover some new techy tidbit, you try it, it actually works the way it‘s supposed to the FIRST TIME, and then it improves your life in some small but appreciable way.
I figured out that I could add the Hoopla channel to my Roku, and now I can watch my borrowed video content on a big screen!
#smallvictories #techwins #hoopla

It‘s the return of #loanerdog! Kallie has come to hang with us again today and we are so happy!

Yay, my library hold just came in, right when I was looking for my next book. It‘s my first Nicci French, and I have heard great things about her! #libby

I finished it and it was marvelous!! At 1242 pages unabridged, it‘s the longest book I have ever read. It took me around 8 weeks and, for better or worse, will forever be linked in my memory to covid-19 and the Quarantimes. #chunksters #classics

I am sad to leave Paris and these characters who I have truly been living with for so long. But it was a peak reading experience for me and I wish it hadn‘t taken me so long to get around to it.

This book Had. It. All. ⭐️
High adventure, romance, travel, humor, family secrets...and I highly, so highly, recommend the audio version. Christian Coulson, who played Tom Riddle in the HP movies, is the reader, and he is gloriously perfect for this book. #audiobooks

This was a fascinating, mind-bending short story on the podcast #levarburtonreads. The author is Ted Chiang, who wrote the short story that the movie Arrival was based on.
It takes the concept of a portal through time to a twisty new place, and LeVar Burton does it justice. #podcasts #audiobooks #audioshorts

This is Kalli, on loan to us for the day. We have been without animals since we lost our cat Maddie last summer, for the first time in the 25 years of our relationship.
So our friends kindly lent us this beautiful girl, who is just one year old. She‘s a sweetheart!
#loanerdog

“Come, Count,” said Villefort, “come, I pray you, let us say no more about these family troubles. Yes, my fortune will go to enrich the poor: it is they who truly have the wealth today. “

What has he been doing for the past nine years?!?!?!

#areyoukiddingmerightnow #gameofthrones #asongoficeandfire

So the elementary school where I work will be closed indefinitely beginning tomorrow and I think this is the universe trying to give me a kick in the butt. I have like sixteen scribbled pages of a TBR that I‘ve been planning to create a spreadsheet for and procrastinating forever. Spreadsheets are not my natural habitat.
#tbr #spreadsheet

‘Listen to the finale: it‘s splendid, and Coselli sings it exceptionally well.‘
‘Yes, but look how he carries himself!‘
‘No one could act better than La Spech.‘
‘You know, when you‘ve seen La Sontag and La Malibran...‘
‘Don‘t you find Moriani‘s technique excellent?‘
‘I don‘t like brunettes who sing blonde.‘

Boom! 🤣🤣

“Well, so much the better for him,” said the inspector. “When he is altogether mad, he will suffer less.” As you can see, this inspector was a man of the utmost humanity and altogether worthy of the philanthropic office with which he had been entrusted.

Alexandre Dumas throwing some shade!

1. I do. I‘m not exactly proud of it but I always notice things like fonts and artwork. If it doesn‘t work visually it does influence me a bit.
2. Tagged
3. Digital versions of NY Times, CNN, Wash Post
4. Snooze!!
5. @Kaddele if you‘d like!

@4thhouseontheleft @howjessreads
#friyayintro

Halfway through my first Barbara Pym, I lost my mind and had to have the Virago editions of all her books. I ordered them from Abebooks and received a Virago large print for one of the titles! Why don‘t they understand that they all have to be the same?! 🙁
#bookwormproblems #firstworldproblems

A new bookish podcast that may be of interest...Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. It‘s Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and Jake Morrissey, James‘ editor. They only discuss books by deceased authors, which gives them freedom to be, often hilariously, brutal in their opinions.
#podcasts #bookishpodcasts

“After all, you both love the Archdeacon,” Harriet had explained, and Belinda supposed that it was true, though one could hardly admit it to oneself. Possibly, thought Belinda, I love him more than Agatha does, but my feeling may be the stronger for not having married him.”

Ya think?

This was just a random pick from Hoopla while between books. I knew of Barbara Pym and had always intended to read her, and now I wish I gotten around to it sooner. This book is charming and just what I needed right now! #happyaccidents

After about 15 years of being a member, I just discovered that my local YMCA has what amounts to a Little Free Library in the lounge. Volunteers of the public library stock it, or you can leave books at the front desk. How cool is that!! 😃

I‘m giving this a pick, but only for the audio version. Juliet Stevenson reads it and she is marvelous! Her ability to voice various characters to differentiate them and give them life is a wonder.
The book itself could have been shorter and meandered a bit, but listening to it, I didn‘t really mind.
#audiobooks

I‘m about halfway through this. It‘s the first of three novellas that were combined to create The Gameshouse. I loved the premise: a casino on steroids in Venice where, if you are chosen, you compete with others to enter “the higher league.” But the story is told using an odd, omniscient narrator device in a style that gets very grating. And the writer thinks she is just a bit more of a wordsmith than she actually is. #kobo ⬇️

#audiowalking on the Northwestern University campus. Lake Michigan can kind of almost be seen in the distance.

Juliet Stevenson can read all the books, as far as I‘m concerned.

#newyearsday #2020

I just discovered this banana-pants-awesome sounding book on the NPR Book Concierge...how did I not know about it?!? Identical twins obsessed with language who find themselves holding opposing views on what language is and should be.

This is a book I‘d buy for the cover alone! ❤️

#coverlove

My #libraryhaul of this afternoon. The tagged book is by the author of the Ruth Galloway series, which I have heard great things about. But the premise of this series sounds like fun.

I just can‘t.

#downwithmovietieins