pickHello after two weeks, Litsy!
This collection of reflections on feminism in 2019 is near perfection. Tolentino is an extremely talented writer who takes on everything from narrowly envisioned female protagonists to the way women (and all people, really) are prescribed (by “society”/instagram) an “optimized”, free version of themselves which is anything but.
Lots to mull over in this book, so if you‘ve read it let me know!
pickThis book on casual internet language (think abbreviations, emojis, and strange punctuation) is an interesting linguistic history by Gretchen McCulloch.
As someone who would be categorized as “Full Internet” based on her classifications in the book, I still learned a lot about how internet language developed in the past and continues to evolve today. E.g. Did you know there are widely accepted *sarcasm* punctuation marks used on Tumblr?
1. Too much abuse of power as it starts with a 50 year old prof who forces himself onto an undergrad and gets in trouble for it. I think we‘re supposed to be sympathetic with his plight? 🤢🤷♂️ Still, hard to believe it was Nobel worthy in 2003.
2. Bojack Horseman (and yet it‘s also so sad ☹️)
3. Toast with Peanut Butter (Mr. Peanut butter anyone? 🐶)
4. Eastern
5. Blue Stripe Internet
#FriYayIntro
pickWhat if you were obsessed with something that you were only middlingly good at?
All The Wrong moves explores Sasha Chapin‘s extreme obsession with chess and his attempts to drastically improve his game to beat a player with a rating of 2000. His journey starts in Thailand and takes him back home to Toronto, then to St. Louis, India and LA. If you like chess at all or want to read a metaphor for your ultimate hobby you will enjoy this book!
”Chess demands the sole ownership of a bunch of brain cells that the post-adolescent mind may have already devoted to the ability to navigate a grocery store lineup without screaming”
This is too relatable! Does this mean I‘ll play better chess on days when I feel like I can‘t handle being at a grocery store? 🙋♂️Anyone hate unnecessarily long grocery store line ups as much as me?
Double Fault by Lionel Shriver was a wild ride. A searing look into the complexities of married life in the context of pursuing one's dream career. Wilhemina (Willy) and Eric are two aspiring professional tennis players battling their way through the WTA and ATP circuits, but when Eric's innate talent well surpasses Willy's, Willy is unsure whether her marriage to Eric is to blame. I loved this novel and will read more Shriver in the future!
Ho hum...a quiet Friday night. Is it wrong that I‘m drinking coffee while reading this amazing novel so late at night?
My latest #bookhaul are books that I heard about in unusual ways. All The Wrong Moves, a chess memoir, kept showing up on my instagram ads (targeted ads McClelland & Stewart?). Someone Who Will Love You is by the creator of Bojack Horseman (why does it feel so good to watch something so existentially depressing?). I heard an author interview for Because Internet on the Book Riot main podcast (maybe I‘ll finally understand early 20-somethings).
so-soA couple weeks ago I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, which came highly recommended to me from a former classmate in my graduate program. This book has a reputation for being at the same time philosophical and pretentious. I have to say, the womanizing main character Tomas and his acquiescing wife Teresa were immensely frustrating. However, there were interesting scenes of life in communist Czechoslovakia.
pickWhere has Jeffrey Eugenides been all my life? I just finished reading The Marriage Plot, which is much much better than the name suggests. It follows the lives of three individuals, an English major, a Religious Studies major and a Biology major after they finish undergrad at Brown. I would say the writing style is very reminiscent of Meg Wolitzer or Lauren Groff. This is the perfect type of literary fiction I was craving this summer!
Found an English bookstore in Warsaw! Got the pictured book which I‘ve never heard of before, but seems to be the history of a small, and potentially cursed, Polish town. Also got Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (I really enjoyed flights)!
I figure getting Polish books in translation in Poland is probably fitting, right?
And although I am at a Costa coffee, which isn‘t a Polish chain, it‘s still exotic enough 😆
On Book Culture:
I‘m visiting Warsaw, Poland right now and I got to say that I am loving their literary culture! Coffeeshops and cafes are frequently decorated with artful stacks of books on shelves, I frequently see people reading on public transit, and it is not uncommon to see ads for books splayed across the city. Amazing!
What is the literary scene/culture like in wherever you are right now, be it your home or on your travels?
🤔😃😉
Gotta love bookmarks for indie used bookstores!
Use the hashtag #IndieBookmarks and let me know what your favourite indie bookseller is!
so-soI‘m not entirely sure what to think of this book.
J.M. Coetzee‘s writing was amazing, but I feel that the protagonist of this novel, David Lurie, who is ostracized from his college community for not recognizing that his affair with a student was an abuse of power is hard to emphasize with in 2019.
Yet, the book was written in 1999 so its themes are ahead of its time.
Lurie‘s development on his daughter‘s farm doesn‘t do enough to redeem him.
so-soNothing like travel to finish a bunch of books! First book finished is Havana Requiem by Paul Goldstein, a legal thriller in the vein of John Grisham that takes place in Havana and New York. While it has its moments with descriptions of Cuba, there is a lot of old white maleness going on with the main character Michael Seeley. What‘s with old men always thinking they are hot enough to get with younger women 🤦♂️.
Won the 2013 Harper Lee Prize!
pickI always tell myself no more selfies, people are just here for the books, but 🤷♂️.
Anyways! Dark Places was an amazing read. Despite the hype surrounding Gillian Flynn this was my first novel of hers that I read. Honestly, I was inspired to read this by how good the HBO series of Sharp Objects was and I wasn‘t disappointed. Beats many popular thrillers of today (ahem, The Woman in the Window)! Highly, highly recommended.
Any read-alikes?
Hey everyone! Sorry to be showing up so often on your feeds today 😆, but I just wanted to share a Litsy milestone with you! I‘ve reached 18,000 Litfluence thanks to my wonderful interactions with you all here on this site!
These milestones are usually blown past by the time I usually get around to checking Litsy, so I am happy to have caught it for once!
🙌
Tagged book is another book I started today🤦♂️😁
Wow! I‘m trying the web version of Litsy for the first time today and I would just like to say that it is a thing of beauty!
The suggestions of people to follow (who are actually recent) and trending books features are amazing!
When you‘re waiting for a seminar to start so decide to sneak off to your university‘s library to squeeze in some personal reading.
Anyone else try to take some moments out of their day to read when they have some downtime?
pickFinished this book yesterday! So yes, it has the eerie story about a nanny that murders the children she is caring for (not a spoiler, revealed in the prologue to set up the book), it also contains a multitude of existential reflections about what it is to be a parent, a spouse, or even a progressive who ultimately becomes an employer of a nanny. I guess I‘m saying that the chapters about the parents were more compelling than those about the nanny
I'm really craving a good new (to me) horror story on par with The Shining by Stephen King or The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp.
Anyone read any amazing horror that they couldn't put down and that made them unable to turn off the lights? I'd love to hear your recommendation as I'm making a list for myself!
Hey all! It‘s Saturday night and I‘m reading The Perfect Nanny and sipping some wine. Looking for some good book chat, so if you have anything on your mind about books or reading at all (or even a non-spoilerly opinion of The Perfect Nanny), I‘d love to hear it!
pickWow! This is one of the best books I‘ve read in 2019! If you thought Harper Lee called it quits on writing after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird, you‘d be wrong! Partly a biography of Lee, partly a true crime story of “The Reverend”, which was the focus of Lee‘s 2nd book (that she never finished)and partly a legal thriller. I empathize with Lee‘s struggles after Mockingbird, and wow, I‘d consider visiting Alabama (crazy politics aside)!
pickFascism: A Warning by the former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright is a very clear and concise overview of fascism, starting with a refresher on Hitler and Mussolini and moving on to our present day with an overview of a multitude of countries with leaders who are dictators or have demagogue-like qualities.
A much needed rallying cry for democracy on days when it is sometimes easier to put your head in the sand and hope it all works out!
Thanks to the post by @BarbaraBB I now know that bookstores can be tagged and shelved in posts! The tagged bookstore is one I visited recently, Westgate Books in Saskatoon, Canada and was the topic of my previous post.
As you can see it is a used bookstore, but what do you think about this level of clutter? It made finding titles very tough!
Also, random crowdsource moment, does anyone know of good English bookstores in Trieste, Italy?
Managed to visit my favourite used bookstore in Saskatoon, Canada called Westgate Books. It‘s been some years since I‘ve been. This is my first time visiting their new location and it perfectly replicates the feeling of their old location! My only complaint is that their literature section is divided by male/female authors and the female sections are startlingly small. I couldn‘t find Wolitzer, but I found the tagged book!
so-soI don't usually read books naked (without the dust cover), but the artwork on the Canadian edition of the hardcover is hideous! Looks like a softcore erotica. Unfortunately, the novel itself is not one of McEwan's best. Full of rants and plots that are better handled in his other novels, this book is about an alternate 1980s in which a man buys a Blade Runner-level robot who inserts himself into the lives of the main character and his girlfriend.
pickI really enjoyed Songs For The Cold Of Heart by Eric Dupont (translated from the French by Peter McCambridge). This book is sprawling, taking place across a small town in Quebec in the early to mid 1900s, Toronto, Berlin and Italy in the late 1990s, with detours to WWII Germany and East Prussia and intermittent stops in New York. This book is on nearly every bookshelf in Quebec and with the masterful way it is written it is easy to see why.
I‘m loving the Cora‘s inspired subplot in Songs For The Cold Of Heart by Eric Dupont (Translated by Peter McCambridge).
For those who don‘t know, Cora‘s is a Canadian national breakfast restaurant chain (think IHOP, but classier) started by a woman from the french speaking province of Quebec.
In this novel it‘s called Mado‘s! I love how a breakfast place features in this quintessential novel about life in small town Quebec.
so-soUnfortunately, The Buried Giant by the Nobel prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro lived up to its controversial hype. It was not controversial due to any lurid material, but rather the story falls somewhat flat and the ending is predictable from fairly early on.
This novel lacked the emotional resonance of Never Let Me Go and The Remains Of The Day. That said, maybe this mediation on marriage resonated more with other readers?
Also, can someone tell me whether this is the cover for the UK edition? I got this from a used bookstore in Calgary, Canada called Fairs Fair. I think it is about 10,000 square feet, but they‘re saying they‘re moving out of their building from the historic Inglewood region. Will still be in the neighbourhood though...
#CanadianLittens
I‘m about halfway through The Buried Giant and I am enjoying it so far! I admit it took me a while to get into it, but now I‘m hooked!
I‘m also looking forward to seeing what sort of twists and heart wrenching turns Kazuo Ishiguro has planned. If there‘s one thing my experience with Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day have taught me it‘s to protect my heart!
#NobelPrize #Selfie
Well, everyone, the last day of our Live After Life #buddyread has arrived! Thanks to all of you who participated and made it this far. Congratulations! This was a really rewarding book to read and I‘m definitely going to read more by Kate Atkinson in the future. Special shoutout to @Ingerella for keeping the buddy read going on weeks where I wasn‘t able to engage as fully as I would have liked!
My question for this week is below! #LAL2019
Dogearedcopy, Laura317, LapReader, TheBookAddict, DivineDiana, daena, readordierachel, cobwebmoth, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, Elma, squirrelbrain, Meaw_catlady
So my local used bookstore was having an inventory clearance of their basement sale items. Every book in the basement was a dollar!
Here‘s what I found:
1. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
2. What is Stephen Harper Reading by Yann Martel
3. Four Souls by Louise Erdrich
4. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Has anyone read any of these books or heard the hype around them? If so, what did you think?
#BookHaul #ShopUsed #BuyLocal
pickIt‘s been a very long time since I finished a book in one day! I recommend this to anyone who enjoys coffee!
This is the non-fiction story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Yemeni American who dreams of bringing high grade Yemeni coffee to the speciality coffee world. There are only a few problems...Mokhtar is no coffee expert at the start of the book and Yemen is on the bring of civil war.
Read this exciting adventure of the Indiana Jones of coffee!
pickWashington Black by Esi Edugyan won the 2018 Giller prize, Canada‘s highest literary award and after reading this book I can say the prize was well deserved.
It is about a young slave, Washington Black, in the 1800s who is freed by Titch, the brother of a slaveowner named Erasmus, and is trained to become a naturalist. Unfortunately, Erasmus hires a bounty hunter and Washington and Titch find themselves on the run.
The writing was exquisite!
@Ingerella is focusing on the purpose of this section for today‘s #LAL2019 discussion, so I‘m going to take this opportunity to ask about a more obscure event that occurred while Ursula was in London...she saw Sylvie leaving a hotel with another man! Do you think her eyes were playing tricks on her or if it actually occurred, what so you think Sylvie was doing? Was it an old fashioned affair or some sort of espionage? And what does it mean?
To everyone participating in the Life After Life buddy read, it‘s been a crazy two weeks, but I‘ve finally caught up. Sorry about the delay in facilitating our discussion! Hopefully all of you are still interested in carrying on because the last section was extremely intense and I‘m sure will harbour much discussion.
Looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow and keep those reading pics coming! #LAL2019 #BuddyRead
Dogearedcopy, MellieAntoinette, Laura317, LapReader, TheBookAddict, DivineDiana, daena, readordierachel, cobwebmoth, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, Elma, squirrelbrain, Ingerella, CoffeeNBooks, Meaw_catlady, sblbooks
That feeling when you are rushing to catch up on your Life After Life #BuddyRead after a busy work week. 😅 #LAL2019
so-soI finished reading Love is Blind by William Boyd a few days ago. While I appreciate Boyd as an author and really enjoyed Brazzaville Beach, Sweet Caress, Waiting for Sunrise and Ordinary Thunderstorms, this book was not his best. The story is somewhat ho-hum without the gut-wrenching tension and emotion of his other novels. I did like the classical music connection. It is about a piano tuner in the employ of a famous pianist in the late 1800s.
Time for Sunday‘s Life after Life buddy read discussion! Feel free to ask any questions you have here or make your own post! I‘m going to ask my question below because it is spoiler-y. #LAL2019 #BuddyRead #LifeAfterLife
I‘m ready for Sunday‘s second discussion on Life After Life! I feel like we are finally getting some answers!
I hope everyone else is in our Buddy Read is enjoying this week‘s section. And, if you‘re somewhere that‘s completely frozen, I hope you‘re staying warm!
#LAL2019 #BuddyRead #LifeAfterLife
Dogearedcopy, MellieAntoinette, Laura317, LapReader, TheBookAddict, DivineDiana, daena, readordierachel, cobwebmoth, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, Elma, squirrelbrain, Ingerella, CoffeeNBooks, Meaw_catlady, sblbooks
A new week, a new section of Life After Life! Thanks to everyone who participated in the first discussion for the book on Sunday! I‘m reading the book with a new eye towards the characters‘ points of view.
What are you looking forward to the most as we get started this new section??
Have a great week, everyone!
#LAL2019 #LifeAfterLife #BuddyRead
Dogearedcopy, MellieAntoinette, Laura317, LapReader, TheBookAddict, DivineDiana, daena, readordierachel, cobwebmoth, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, Elma, squirrelbrain, Ingerella, CoffeeNBooks, Meaw_catlady, sblbooks
What a great first week of our Life After Life buddy read!
Here‘s my Sunday question: Ursula is the character who experiences the titular Life After Life, but the story really seems to be revolving around Sylvie‘s perspective. At this point in the novel, have we gained anything from the repeated framing or would the story be just as good if told without the stops and restarts?
#lifeafterlife #buddyread #LAL2019
Finally, a quick moment to read a good book over breakfast!
I‘m all caught up for our Litsy #BuddyRead! Kate Atkinson‘s writing style goes down easy! Didn‘t feel like 70 pages at all and I‘m looking forward to reading more!
I‘m all set for discussion! Here‘s my idea for Sunday...anyone who has thought of an interesting question to discuss make a post about it with #LAL2019. Hopefully we all get some good back and forth going! We‘ll probably need to use spoiler tags...don‘t forget!
Wow, I had no idea that city libraries paid so much for eBook editions in their collections. Can you believe that Little Fires Everywhere is over 3x more expensive?
This was first brought to my attention by the instagram feed of the local library of my old home city, but you can read more about it at econtentforlibraries.org
Are you joining us for the Life After Life #BuddyRead, but don‘t have the Back Bay Books paperback edition?
May I present the chapter numbered reading schedule! Essentially if a chapter appears more than once, I‘ve assigned it a number based on which iteration of the chapter title it is.
Hopefully this makes it easy to follow along with eBook versions, different localized editions, etc.
Any questions? Let me know!
#LAL2019
It begins! The Life After Life Buddy Read! Who‘s excited to get started?? Feel free to chime in with your own initial impressions and thoughts (like, dislike?), but let‘s keep it spoiler free until the first 70 pages on Sunday! #LAL2019 #BuddyRead
Today's #bookhaul! Pictured are:
1. The Monk of Mokha by David Eggers
-A biography of a man who buys coffee beans in bulk from Yemen when the war breaks out
2. Mouthful of Birds by Samantha Schweblin
-A South American short story collection
3. You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian
-A short story collection featuring the buzzy “Cat People” which I want to read
And, didn‘t notice this until now, but all the spines have the titles in caps!
![[tagged book]](https://pics.cdn.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
