I was pleasantly surprised by this family drama. As someone who lives in a large conservative town too, I could relate them.

It‘s the Great Recession, and the Felher family are in trouble. Dad has died and their oldest daughter tries to pick up the pieces at the family business. One younger sister has gone against the family and is voting for Obama while another deals with teen pregnancy. Mom is distracted by disaster prepping and making ⬇️

#ParnassusBooksHaul

Usually when I go to a bookstore, I get one from my TBR and one that just sounds good. The tagged short story collection has been on my TBR awhile, and Good Eggs (tagged below) just sounded good. Their collection is really well curated, so I think I‘ll love both!

Check their current bookmark too! 🤩

Her writing/the translation is killing me. I mean that top quote just gutted me. Her characters are so sharp! Kawakami is definitely a favorite now.

When your dad has a doctor‘s appointment at Green Hills (Nashville), you have to stop by Parnassus. 🤩 I even got to meet shop dog Barnabas, who I love on their Insta!

I‘ll show picks of what I got later (minus a birthday present for a friend whose birthday is in June 🤫).

I punched my boarding pass for another flight attendant memoir! Before Hood was an author, she was a TWA flight attendant for eight years, a job she wanted since childhood. She dreamt of exotic locales and dates in every city. And while she shared fun memories of that happening, she also survived deregulation and relocation at an airline that was constantly under threat of bankruptcy. Still, she evokes a more glamorous time for travel.

God how I love a memoir told through individual vignettes illustrative of large parts of the writer‘s life! When it‘s done well, as Dave has, it has more emotional impact for me. And Dave is quite the storyteller!! I love how he is a nerd and the ultimate fan of other musicians. I adore his fierce love of his daughters. And I respect how kindly he treated his band mates and friends in this memoir.

@Cinfhen you were right: this was special.

Hello campers! I‘ll be your main camp leader for July, and we‘ll be discussing these books!

July 2: vacation
July 9: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, first half
July 16: YMAFODWYB, second half

July 23: This Time Tomorrow, first half
July 30 This Time Tomorrow, second half

@squirrelbrain @BarbaraBB & I I look forward to seeing you there! Please comment if you‘d like to be added to the tag list. Join us for individual books or them all!

Attention all campers! After tallying the votes, we have winners! Thanks to all who participated in the poll!

We‘ll read and discuss half of a book each week starting in June. At the end of the month campers decide which of the two books we read in that month heads to the end-of-summer finale. Then you‘ll cast a final vote to decide which book will be our #CampLitsy summer champion!

We‘ll get back to you with the schedule soon! ⬇️

Before this graphic memoir, I didn‘t have much of an understanding of Borderline Personality Disorder or the stigma around it. Her writing was a bit informative but mostly reflective on her own experience. I liked her mix of fully graphic chapters with ones that were more text heavy. It was interesting that she speculated that her BPD was caused by childhood medical trauma, as I have medical trauma as well (but not BPD). Overall fascinating!

If you‘re among the #80sFolks on Litsy, this is a can‘t-miss memoir! Grey shares about her childhood, famous father, and her rise to fame herself. She does a fair amount of dishing about everyone from Swayze to Matthew Broderick to Madonna but manages not to vilify anyone. She skips most of her 30s and picks up at motherhood in her 40s and her run on DWTS. There is A LOT about her infamous nose job! Go with the #audiobook!

This is the weekend of not-so-great print books. (Audio are 👍🏻👍🏻) Either her weirdness works for you or doesn‘t, but at least I have my #ConstellationInTitle #pop22 out of the way!

Lucy is more addicted to love (and sex) than Robert Palmer. She‘s immature for 38, too. After a couple of terrible Tinder dates, she meets a mysterious man by the ocean…but he‘s not what he seems…mythology and magical realism abound.

While some of these stories were quite clever, most were just okay. I‘m not sure our senses of humor are very compatible. However this has been on my TBR for years, so I was glad to get to it with my #LPMBC #GroupC. 👍🏻

I‘ll get this to you shortly @Readergrrl Last book!

This is our peony that doesn‘t have support, but it‘s still a beautiful color. (It next to our driveway, and I ruined the metal a couple of years ago. Whoops! 😂) @Cinfhen

Made it through 82 pages of book and 2 pages of footnotes this week - well past my 70 page goal!

Onward and upward to week 3 early in the morning!

The Change was awesome! 10/10 would recommend! I‘d also recommend Out of the Corner (review tmrw) to all my 80s peeps and Hawk‘s Way to nature lovers. Heck I‘d recommend all three to most folks on Litsy.

Dead in the Water was interesting, well done true crime, and Hometown Victory was a cinematic underdog story. Gates‘ writing was thoughtful.

The Puzzle Solver was disappointing and The Pisces (review tmrw) was Just. Plain. Weird! #BookReport

Mixed feelings about this one. I loved learning more about ME/CFS, but this author couldn‘t decide between biography or science, so I wasn‘t satisfied with either.

Whitney, a world traveler, fell ill with ME/CFS in India. After returning to the US, he was locked in a body he couldn‘t move being fed IV. His father, a Stanford researcher, concentrated his efforts to finding a cure. This is Whitney‘s story and some of his dad‘s breakthroughs. ⬇️

Are you interested in lively discussions of cool books? Join @barbaraBB, @squirrelbrain, and @megabooks for #CampLitsy, a Camp ToB-style summer read along! More info in Google Doc ⬇️

Everyone is welcome!

There‘s a longlist of books nominated last weekend. Link: https://bit.ly/3w5SSIN

Once you‘ve chosen your top 6 from the longlist, vote here: https://forms.gle/ZTL8pH1rUWB9EvCG7

We look forward to seeing you there! Voting ends Mon 16 May 🏕📚

I‘m not much a fan of American football, but I am a fan of a good underdog story!

Lowe played football for U of Oregon and was drafted into the NFL. After a short playing career, he was an assistant coach of two pro teams, but he wasn‘t fulfilled. He left this dream job to coach at an underfunded high school with a 23-game losing streak. This is his story of building up young men and showing them they could win on and off the playing field.

So ridiculously excited for this!! 🎉🎉🎉 So glad I read the whole last email from Parnassus because it was tucked in the very end. 😂

Welcome friends to #CampLitsy, a Camp ToB-style summer read along run by @BarbaraBB @squirrelbrain and @Megabooks 📚🏕

Everyone is welcome to join! More info in Google doc.

We‘ve made a longlist from last weekend‘s nominees. Link to list: https://bit.ly/3w5SSIN

Once you‘ve decided on your top 6, we‘ve opened up voting in this Google Doc:
https://forms.gle/ZTL8pH1rUWB9EvCG7

We hope you‘ll join, vote, and share! Poll closes on Monday May 16th!

This is the menopausal superhero book we didn‘t know we needed, and I am here for it!

Nessa was gifted with the sight and can see dead women and girls. Jo, the women‘s gym owner, has hot flashes that can burn her enemies. When Harriett‘s husband left her, she realized she spent her entire life deferring to men and decided to learn horticulture even if people call her a witch. They join forces to find the serial killer in their neighborhood.

This was a fun section written in a kind of mid-00s T-9 text speak before that was a thing. Yrstruly was the narrator.

Favorite words:
Kwai9 for quinine
Lightpoal for light pole
Elemonaded for eliminated
And…glittershit, which I will definitely use in the future!

Gates enjoys being in the center of a group of smart people, and in this book, he taps into these discussions and provides a roadmap to preventing a pandemic disaster like Covid. I find his books are a good exercise into imagination, and I enjoy how his writing spurs my own ideas about what is possible if technology, the private sector, and governments can somehow work together.

Wil Wheaton narrates the #audiobook! 👍🏻👍🏻

I‘ve come to expect great nature writing from Sy, and this is no exception. She gets to the heart of the animals she profiles. In this short #audiobook, she writes about her time learning to handle birds of prey, and how this experience challenged her beliefs about hunting and veganism.

(Don‘t worry…she stays vegan herself!)

A book, a dog, and a stress fractured foot. Two things are great; one is suboptimal. 🤨

At least I got my driver‘s license renewed today! Now if I could just drive…😂

My for sure print TBR for this month! Currently reading The Change.

Damnation Spring arrived today @JamieArc 😀👍🏻

Y‘all know I had to add a short story collection! Here are my picks for #CampToB22 It was so great to see everyone‘s choices yesterday. I think NF would be interesting, but I‘m having a fiction moment. I‘d still join a NF one if it came about.

This true crime is totally in my wheelhouse! Not only was the story captivating, I learned a lot about the crazy knot of maritime shipping and Lloyds of London, too.

An oil tanker was traveling through the Gulf of Aden when well armed soldiers claiming to be Somali pirates boarded the ship. While the crew was huddled together, a fire started. This led investigators from multiple countries, one of whom was car bombed, to try to unknot the crimes.

The library hasn‘t bought any of Tuesday‘s releases yet, so I‘m actually going to have to read my own books!! 😲 I‘d especially like to get to today‘s Audible deal, Puzzle Solver, about a medical mystery. I am going to shoot for another Highsmith with Strangers on a Train. Looking forward to Hawk‘s Way, too.

The Change is fantastic so far! Really digging these menopausal women. 😁 IJ is still going well but a challenge for sure. #WeeklyForecast

This 2001 release from Egan was a great used book find! The plot lines are so deftly woven it is like reading a symphony. The comparisons to David Lynch are spot on.

Model Charlotte was in a mysterious car accident in Rockford, IL that shattered her face. She has trouble returning to her NYC life after she heals. A private detective contacts her about a party friend Z. Meanwhile in Rockford a brother and sister come of age amid family problems.

If you‘re expecting a hard core multiverse SciFi novel, this isn‘t it. If you want to look deeply at choices and regrets, this may be for you. I liked these families living on a sleepy cul-de-sac in Oregon, and the novel unfolded with quiet beauty.

Ginny and Mark are having trouble in their marriage. As Mark withdraws after seeing an alternate self, Ginny begins an affair. Cass is studying the multiverse but has left school to have a baby. ⬇️

What a week! All fiction! 🤯

The Ozeki and the Egan were long and totally worth it! I still haven‘t reviewed the Egan, but it was totally right book/right time.

Red Island House and Yerba Buena were disappointing, but I enjoyed Carol and my reread of The Smash Up. Cats suffered from a poor narrator, and I just finished If, Then a few hours ago. It‘s more literary than sci fi, which was a bit bait and switch. 🤔 #BookReport

I enjoyed this Ethan Fromme retelling last year, but I couldn‘t remember much. Once again I loved it, and Macleod Andrews‘ narration is fantastic!

Ethan‘s wife Zoe‘s women‘s group has been all about the protesting since Trump was elected. As the Kavanaugh hearings approach, she‘s even more upset. Meanwhile Ethan‘s former business partner is about to have Me Too accusations from several celebs. Ethan doesn‘t know how to navigate this new world.

I read 87 pages of book and 11 pages of footnotes this week. My goal was 70 pages total, so I feel really good!

I finally decided how I wanted to annotate it, so I spent some time doing that this afternoon. 👍🏻👍🏻

So far, it is dense AF, but I‘m enjoying it. It‘s definitely a bucket list book for me, so I‘m glad I‘ve found time this year.

I don‘t think I‘ve read this many fiction books right in a row in a long time! But I‘ve started my first nonfiction this month. The true crime I‘ve tagged.

This #SapphicNovel written in 1952 was groundbreaking. It‘s not a titillating paperback, but instead a literary romance about two women who have much to lose if their relationship is outed. Highsmith plays power imbalances well: a young woman who is just discovering her feelings versus a more mature woman who is risking custody of her child. The ending is brilliantly unsettling. #pop22 #AuthorAMonth

Cassandra Campbell narration is fantastic.

So yeah, I‘m not a fan of romances, but sometimes I can do literary ones, which is what this is. However, I just finished another literary romance (Carol by Highsmith for Author a Month), so I‘m putting this one in the vault…

Maybe I should‘ve gone with the thriller…🤔 #botm

Rainy days are for reading!

I‘m an Ozeki believer! While I‘m not a fan of world building, I‘ve been enjoying magical realism lately. She writes characters you want to invest in that are grounded in our world.

Ruth lives in a remote town on Vancouver Island. She finds a plastic bag washed up on shore that contains Japanese teenager‘s diary plus old papers in Japanese and French. As she reads them, Ruth becomes invested in Nao‘s diary and problems. Both Ruth and Nao narrate.

Storytime!!

Do you ever buy a book and have to jump right in? 😀

Well, I headed to the used bookstore chain 2nd & Charles today for the first time since the pandemic, and I had A LOT of books to sell and most were hardcover. I lugged four oversized tote bags in and loaded all the books into bins, took them to the desk. They asked for my ID, handed it over… ⬇️

Bahni Turpin did an excellent job of narrating, but I found it hard to follow many of what should be labeled interconnected short stories on audio. Too many characters!

Shay, a Black American woman, marries an Italian man and they build a house on a resort island in #Madagascar. The book centers around Shay and her ties to this house. There are stories about staff, locals, and guests. Shay‘s crumbling marriage is at the center of many stories.

This Japanese novel about a Faustian bargain was made a bit awkward by the #audiobook narration, but I enjoyed it overall. The narrator was very chipper for voicing a dying man meeting with the devil. Weird…

The devil appears to a dying postman and offers to keep him alive for each day he chooses a thing to disappear from the world. But how do you select something to be gone forever?

Massive #bookmail day!! Speediest #botm ever + a book depository order 📚👍🏻

@vivastory I couldn‘t pass up this gorgeous edition of The Stone Angel. Really looking forward to it.

Now off to make my first living #BookspinBingo board!

My board! I love it when most of the free spaces are in a row because I either use them all OR I mostly stick with my TBR, so hopefully I can get a few bingos this month either way. 👍🏻

Thanks Sarah!! #BookspinBingo

I was vaguely hoping my #bookspin or #doublespin would force me to read a mount TBR book I put on, but I am reasonably happy that they are two books I definitely planned to read.

I‘m going to try to follow the NYRB discussion on Basic Black with Pearls, but tbh, I‘m afraid I‘m not smart enough to hang. 🫣 The Novak is my #LPMBC #GroupC choice, so it‘s definitely happening too.

This was such a brilliant book! I loved every character. Even the dead ones were so alive.

Emma has landed back in her small NH hometown and is roped into caring for her father, who is dying of a brain illness. This is no sad book though! Buoyed by a precocious class of 5th graders & a chorus of dead folks in the cemetery, her father manages to make a lot of trouble, including buying a tame fox & papering the town with flyers for a missing girl.

These facts blew my mind 🤯 Published in 1981, Davey was 16 when the book ended. That would make her 57 now. 🤯 The dad who was shot at the start of the book, who seemed terribly old to me when I read this, was 34. I‘m 42 now. 🤯

This mostly stands the test of time as a great book about loss, family, and moving on. Davey‘s high school struggles don‘t seem the same as YA books today though. The drunken friend storyline was very cheesy.

I tinkered with it until yesterday, but I feel good about it now. #Bookspin #BookspinBingo

I had to do a Kentucky Derby background for May! 🐎 (No, I‘ve never been. Waaayyyy out of my price range. Even the infield, which used to be a cheap thing for locals, is too expensive now.)

Unlikely Animals was truly special! Can‘t wait to write a review tomorrow. How High and then Checkout 19 weren‘t far behind in the best of the week.

Deaf Utopia and the Klein were both great memoirs. Klein more funny and Nyle more thoughtful. Also I loved reading more from Strout and Lucy-land. Excited for Lucy by the Sea this fall. My Tiger Eyes review tomorrow will 🤯! The Fell was the only clunker. Can‘t win ‘em all. 🤷🏻‍♀️ #BookReport

I loved this book, which is more extremely interconnected short stories than novel. The ending was superb as well!

In the near future, climate change has released a deadly plague from the melted Siberian tundra. The initial story is about the family that discovered it. Then there are stories about waves of infection and then how humanity is left changed afterwards. It is dark stuff. The one about a euthanasia amusement park was a favorite.

I checked out a new-to-me indie on #IndependentBookstoreDay, Bluestocking Social in Evansville, IN. I had been following them on social media for awhile and knew it was my kind of store because their last book club pick was Nightbitch!

It is a small store, just one room, but the selection was well curated and a good mix of hardcover and paperback. I was glad to get the free Kawakami short story, too!