I started reading this book at the end of February and only recently finished it as I kept reading other books in between. This is a work that I would have liked to discussed in a class setting even having read the entirety of the notes. Within a few stanzas at any given time Dante alludes to Roman myth, Biblical stories, and Italian politics/people of his own time. The Inferno was by far the most interesting for me.

One of the cool elements about this book is that the heroine, Lydia, likes to read gothic fiction like The Monk and Mathilda, and yet she somehow becomes entangled in a story of her own just like the same kind of books she reads about: shocking, dramatic, uncanny. I loved the meta idea entwined. This book reads more like a gothic book with a Regency Austen romance blended in more than an outright witch story. Another pick.

Read this graphic novel story collection last night with the dim glow of amber fairy lights, the candle, and just my booklight. Some great stories, but I think my favorite was “His Face All Red”. Quick and spooky pick for Halloween.

Hello friends! I‘ve been wanting to read The Master and Margarita for awhile and had picked this version up at a Half Price for a few dollars. However, I would like to read the best possible English translation. I also want to read the complete version. I like detail, but also would like it to read as close to the original as possible. Internet searches on Reddit have been helpful, but I wanted to ask the Litsy community, which version is best?

Just picked this up from the library. It seems like a good pick for October first. 😊🍂🎃🧡

My issue with this book is that perhaps the people who will pick it up and read it are already conscious of the harm in over-productivity. It has some great ideas about where we choose to focus our attention. On social media sites and if so which ones are best for us? I loved the thoughts on bioregionalism and getting involved in our own communities. I already ask my son all the time to stop and listen to what he hears around him, but this book

1. Book- In the Middle of Fall
2. Movie- Autumn in New York
3. Autumn Leaves 🍁 🍂

Accidentally skipped yesterday‘s post. #7Days7Covers #Day7 #Covercrush #Coverlove

#Day6 #7Days7Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove

1. So-so. I haven‘t read as much as I‘d like.
2. I lettered in drama in high school. I really think very few people know. 😂
3. Classical, Indie, but I love a lot of different kinds of music.
4. May
5. ✋
@howjessreads

#Day5 #7Days7Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove #Bannedbooks

To play along just post a picture of a book cover that you love, no explanation required.

#Day4 #7Days7Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove

To play along just post a picture of a book cover that you love, no explanation required.

#Day4 #7Days7#Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove

#Day3 #7Days#7Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove.

To play along just post a picture of a book cover that you love, no explanations required! If you haven‘t been tagged and would like to play, please do! 😊

#Day2 #7Days7Covers #Covercrush #Coverlove

To play along just post a picture of a book cover you love, no explanation required. If you‘d like tag someone else who you think would have fun with this. 😊

I liked Small Spaces so much that I got the sequel, Dead Voices, from the library and I liked it even better than the first one. This time Ollie and two friends go on a skiing trip over winter break. The hotel, they are told, used to be a school, but they weren‘t filled in on some backstory of the creepy happenings until they are snowed in and it‘s too late to leave. It‘s up to Ollie and her friends to solve the mystery. Freaky & fun!

Ollie and her classmates visit a local farm on a school trip where the fun day quickly evolves into a nightmare. This book is intended for young readers, but it was a fun, creepy read perfect for this time of year. I also liked that Ollie takes clues about their predicament in the mist from an old book! Really enjoyed this one.

#Day1 #7Days7Covers “#Covercrush #Coverlove

Thank you for the tag! @TCLinrow

To play just post a picture of a book cover that you love, no explanation required. If you‘d like, tag someone new each day who you think would like to play. @Taotev would you like to join?

If you love books about books like I do then this book is a must. The feel of the paper alone will make a book-lover giddy. Incredibly well researched this book is divided into four sections discussing the page and how paper was produced, the text from writing to typesetting, illustrations from illuminations to woodcuts and lithographs, to the form and why books are the size and shape they are. Illustrations throughout and labels for book parts ♥️

This sequel follows Cass and her best (ghost) friend Jacob along with her spirit-hunting parents to Paris. Cass is once again drawn into the veil, an in between for the dead, where she tries to solve the mystery of what one ghost is seeking. Another unputdownable book by Victoria Schwab who never fails to weave an entertaining story.

I love the prose in this series of vignettes that makes every scene so palpable. We hear a voice of Esperanza who in turn is speaking for every other voice in her neighborhood, but mostly women, many of whom seem to have their voices elided either because of being female or a language barrier. This book in parts is both serious, joyous, and funny and I think everyone can recognize themselves in how awkward coming of age can be. Wonderful book.

Actually thought of the nursery rhyme Sleep baby sleep, down where the woodbines creep...
While you were Sleeping
Dream for Dreaming by Patrick Watson

It feels like autumn today where I live. Hoping to get to read a bit with my cup of chaider. I‘m behind on a few book reviews, but today I want to say that my husband Dan has joined Litsy as I have been telling him how wonderful this bookish community is. If anyone wants to help me welcome him his handle is @Taotev Thanks everyone! 😊

Another non-fiction that caught my eye at the library thanks to the famous phrase. This book is not about Byron, however, but about the fathers of Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce and how they played a part in the works of their sons. I enjoyed this quick book and it makes me interested to read more about the authors themselves and more of their works than I already have read.

I took this out of my library, but now that I‘ve read it I feel this is a book I want to own and slot next to my other reference books, yet it‘s so much more than just a reference book for me. Parts were laugh out loud funny and informative without being condescending. It covers grammar, but also common spelling errors and confusables. Five stars for this one. ❤️

Nice light end of summer read about the Waverley family who have always possessed strange gifts. I enjoyed the relationship between sisters, Claire & Sydney who try to connect for the first time after Sydney chooses to return to her hometown to escape a dark part of her life. I liked quirky characters, esp. Evanelle and the apple tree. I wasn‘t as interested in the old frenemies like Emma. I‘m not going to read the sequel as it is 9 years later.

All seven stories within this book are in the public domain, but this collection has enriching illustrations by Bill Bragg and cool gothic endpapers. I completely enjoyed sampling these authors‘ Victorian ghost stories which left me with just enough feeling of the unsettled and uncanny with none of the modern demonic or slasher horror. If you, like me, like the old-fashioned things that go-bump-in-the-night light scare then this is for you, too.

This book had been on my tbr list for years. I loved the first portion about the storage of scrolls, codices, chained books, books in presses and on rotating lecterns. The illustrations are a great addition to this book. I was less interested in the engineering of bookstacks in more modern times as it is quite technical, but overall found this book informative and interesting. Do read the appendix which makes me want to re-arrange my own books!

“Loafe with me on the grass...loose the stop from your throat.” I finally got around to reading this poetry collection and I‘m happy I did. It feels much more contemporary and is more sexual and physical than I expected. I loved the mix of the natural world and then the people who inhabit it. It‘s clear how different this body of work is from other poets of the time and is worthy of its praise.

Since I don‘t know when or if I‘ll get the chance to visit Shakespeare and Company this book is the next best thing! There is a section at the beginning highlighting Sylvia Beach, but the book centers on the new shop of the same name owned by George Whitman, his early travels (fascinating) the start of his bookstore in the 1950s and his vision of being a frère lampier. This is the history of the poets & writers who frequented the shop. Love this!

I am borrowing this from Lit Hub as I thought it would be of interest to some here on Litsy. https://lithub.com/here-are-the-biggest-fiction-bestsellers-of-the-last-100-year...

Winner of the Edgar award, this cozy mystery is about Milo, twelve-year-old, who is pulled into the secretive affairs of the guests of his parents‘ hotel over Christmas break. Each of them is after something, but what? This story is as much about Milo discovering his own identity as the patrons of the Smugglers inn finding what they are after. Stories are told throughout which unveil clues on all accounts. A fun read!

This book takes place during the Meiji timeline into modern society and not that many decades after Japan had opened its boarders to Westerners. It looks at these generational differences though the college student and the man he calls Sensei. The story is divided into three sections. First from the point of view of the young narrator and his country parents and the 3rd from the Sensei. Themes of change, isolation, and inaction. Enjoyed this one.

Friday night plans hopefully include finishing this book with some tea. How about you?

I‘ve shared this page because it was one of my qualms with this book in suggesting she felt a certain way or that literature resonated with her a certain way that she might have read. I also prefer texts to be linear. I enjoyed reading about the books Mary read pertaining to her interests or where she traveled. This book assumes the reader knows the basics of her life, but fills it in with richer research. My sympathies lie with what she endured.

This is the first horror book (or shall I say “terror” after visiting Radcliffe‘s ideas of what separates the two) that I have ever read. I did find some scenes disturbing as they are supposed to be psychologically, and as silly as it sounds only read it during the day. Hey, I‘m a highly sensitive person with strong beliefs about the spiritual world. It was no We Have Always..., but an intriguing read that I‘m glad I bolstered my nerves against.

I am not mentally prepared to do justice to this book in a true review at this time, but I am too excited about how much I loved this little book not to share my enthusiasm. I can see why this is considered Jackson‘s masterpiece, it‘s brilliant. I loved looking at this world through the eyes of Merricat, one of the most interesting characters I‘ve seen in a long time. I‘ve read some harsh reviews & just think this book was wasted on those readers

This book is the story of Collingwood Ingram; a man who started off as an ornithologist and through his travels became enamored with the Japanese Cherries. The book talks about his eccentric family, his time spent in Japan and how he became a keeper of cherries eventually returning the Taihaku cherry to a country that almost let it go extinct. Also talks of history of Edo through Pacific War and what the cherry symbolized at different times.

This was my first experience reading a collection by Oliver. I feel that in order to do a poem justice it really should be read a few times. I didn‘t break each poem down, but I could feel the coalescence of nature, stillness, a quiet moment. With any collection I enjoyed some poems more than others. One of my favorites was “I happened to be Standing.” I will definitely be returning to Oliver‘s poetry again.

Thank you so much for my decal and darling bookmark from the #oscarmeyerturnsfive giveaway! I really appreciate it! 😊💜😺

I‘m a bit torn over the Mary Shelley biography I‘ve been reading, In Search of Mary Shelley. There seems to be a bit of supposition to the point of overreaching to form a connection in how Mary viewed herself in the world. Also, I can tell the author despises Percy Shelley. I do like a lot of the other info, but my husband surprised me with this biography which includes Mary Wollstonecraft as well. Now I‘ll compare. Cake was a Mother‘s Day treat!

I should get into the habit of reviewing books right away or jotting down things I want to say because I finished this Thursday and forgot all the lovely things I wanted to say already. I loved this fantasy as it pertains to storytelling, dreams, a library and destiny. This should be a blurb instead of a review by rights because I‘m afraid of giving away spoilers. Though written for teens, a few parts made be get giddy with delight in a “yes!”

1. A Christmas Carol
2. Shakespeare‘s The Tempest
3. Before Goodreads I just kept them in my memory.
4. Picture taken Sunday when the brick was warm from the sun.
5. Join in if you feel like it! 😊

Fish wants to wish Oscar a very Happy birthday! #OscarMeyerTurnsFive #giveaway

I used a gift certificate I got for my birthday from my mom to buy In search of Mary Shelley and Muse of Nightmares today at my local bookstore. I put my name in a drawing for Independent Bookstore day and won my choice off their gently scratched rack and chose The Best Minds of My Generation and The We and Me book was from a free rack for anyone who came into the store today! Woo hoo! So excited because I don‘t usually win stuff!

Wore my Commit to Lit shirt today from Storiarts in honor of independent bookstore day. The writing gloves have text from Hamlet and are from Storiarts as well.

A former professor of mine wrote this great essay for Shakespeare‘s birthday and death day. https://lithub.com/was-shakespeare-agnostic-about-the-afterlife/

So I finished this book last night. It‘s been on my tbr pile for years, but the upcoming tv series prompted me to read it. I loved Crowley and Aziraphale! I can‘t remember laughing out loud at a book that much maybe ever? But, I only did the first 40-50 pages and at the end. Unpopular opinion maybe, but the middle lagged for me with some of the other characters. While necessary to build the story, didn‘t really do it for me. Still glad I read it.

1. What was popular? Gangsta‘s Paradise, but I remember hearing The Connection by elastica on the radio and I love R.E.M.‘s Strange Currencies that came out in ‘95.
2. Pisces cusp March 20 (same as Ovid)
3.Madeline L‘engle and later Shakespeare
4. Hey friends, it‘s still Wednesday somewhere! 💜