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!

I 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.

I 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.

Unfortunately, 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

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

It‘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!

Washington 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!

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

That feeling when you are rushing to catch up on your Life After Life #BuddyRead after a busy work week. 😅 #LAL2019

I 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

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

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!

One more day! Our Litsy buddy read starts tomorrow! Join @Ingerella and I (and a ton of other Littens) as we start reading Kate Atkinson's iconic novel Life After Life. Perfect for fans of literary fiction and speculative fiction! Be sure to use the hashtag #LAL2019! I'll add some other tags too #LifeAfterLife #BuddyRead

New (to me) Podcast Alert!

Ever wanted to get the feel of being at a constant literary festival? Look no further than Literary Art‘s The Archive Project whose mandate is to provide high quality recordings of author interviews at literary festivals.

This episode featuring Groff and Kushner on stage at the same time is phenomenal. Both The Mars Room (Kushner) and Florida (Groff) have shot waaaay up on my wish list.

When Margaret Atwood recommends a book, I pay attention!

#CopSong is a tough hashtag since I don‘t read that many crime novels. However, I did fall into the hype of The Woman in the Window last year, so there is at least one crime novel on my shelf. Admittedly, not my favourite.

#MusicalNewYear

Hopefully a fitting post for #SunnySunday! Here‘s a mini-collection of books that is organically growing on my shelf about one of the sunniest cities, LA.

The books are :
1. Dead Girls - Alice Bolin
2. Dear Los Angeles - Ed. David Kipen
3. Mirage Factory - Gary Krist
4. Black Dahlia, Red Rose - Piu Eatwell

Yikes, despite lots of sun some of these titles are dark!

#ANewChapter

The countdown is on! Only one more week until our Life After Life buddy read begins!

Hope you can join us, I‘ve only ever heard amazing things about this book!

Found another Litsy challenge to try my hand at! Looks fun as always! #MusicalNewYear

Now just to find some time to get creative with my posts.

Tagged book is one I just finished reading today and loved! Now what to read next? 🤔

Dear Los Angeles was a delight. This is the first collection of letters/diaries I‘ve ever read. It is so good I‘m hooked and want to read more.

What enriched the experience even further is the appendix at the back with biographies of all letter writers. Thought you knew all there was to know about Aldous Huxley or John Steinbeck? There‘s more!

Also interesting was that the complaints/praises about LA have been essentially the same since 1847!

How you know it is a weekend. Books and booze and no end in sight (for now)!

Drinking a 2017 Riesling from Megalomaniac vineyards in the Niagara region of Ontario. Crisp and light, it goes down easy...although it is very clear. Is this normal for a Riesling? 🤔

My collection of bookmarks is always in a state of flux depending on how many books I have that are randomly marked to return to later (or never).

My collection hasn‘t been this small for a while, but pictured are two bookmarks from my favourite indie Canadian bookseller, McNally Robinson, one from my favourite (and only) Canadian bookstore chain Indigo, and one from an amazing indie bookstore in Madison, WI.

#PageSaver #ANewChapter

I‘ve been looking for a new Litsy posting challenge to increase my activity. Took me a couple of weeks, but the #ANewChapter challenge by @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks and @vkois88 looks fun. I‘ll be participating with my first post soon.

Also, tagged book is my current read.

Clifford Odets was a playwright and screenwriter who lived in LA. This quote is from his 1940 journal, collected in a book of writings from a variety of individuals about the city of Los Angeles.

As you can see the writings capture something universal about what it means to be human as well.

Ever since I quit Goodreads, I needed to devise a system to keep track of the books I wanted to read. Here‘s my solution.

I use the Notes app on my Mac which syncs with my phone. I arrange the books I want to read alphabetically by author last name divided by fiction and non-fiction. At the bottom of the list I have upcoming books listed by month and day available.

By the way, Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs was amazing. I highly recommend it!

Preparing for my first book purge of 2019! On the stack are:
-A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
-The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
-Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
-SS-GB by Len Deighton.

The theme is books that I (unfortunately) could not finish, most of them early on.

These books are going to my local library and will most likely end up in their used bookstore at the central branch or at the yearly book sale.

Amazing collage by @Ingerella detailing our buddy read for Life After Life!

We‘re not getting started until January 21st, so if you don‘t happen to have a copy of Life After Life, but want to read it, there‘s still time!

A lot of you have joined us already and hopefully more of you can!

Feel free to repost!

#lifeafterlifebuddyread

Has your copy of Life After Life been gathering dust on your shelf while you were always hoping to get to it?

Well I have the perfect New Year‘s resolution for you! 👌

Join @Ingerella and me in a 6-week buddy read of Life after Life! It‘s my first Litsy buddy read and I am excited! More details to come!

I received this offbeat book for Christmas. The giver billed it as “describing me perfectly”.

It‘s about a time traveller in 2071 who celebrates his birthday in a hotel with himself from past and future years. When an older version of himself is found dead in an elevator, he needs to solve the crime before his future selves disappear.

While the pacing is uneven, it kept me reading to the end.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

While I don‘t regret reading this book about how the stock market was gamed by traders to make heaps of money, the number of characters involved and the level of detail David Enrich goes into made this book a slight slog!

Recommended for fans of offbeat true crime (i.e. about crimes that are not murder related). However, the dramatis personae at the start of the book rivals that of A Game of Thrones!

I‘ve been on a short story reading kick lately. Within the past month I‘ve read Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (heralded by the New York Times), Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood (one of my favourite short story collections I‘ve read by Atwood to date) and now I‘m on to Three Moments of An Explosion by China Miéville who reminds me of a more political Neil Gaiman.

Hands up if you settle in for the long haul 🙋‍♂️

I‘m about 445 pages into Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami and am loving it.

In other news I‘ve deleted my Goodreads account after seven years and wrote a Medium post about it: @pruzy/what-i-learned-about-myself-after-i-quit-goodreads-4fbf4a2e61a5" rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://medium.com/@pruzy/what-i-learned-about-myself-after-i-quit-goodreads-4fb....

Do you agree? Anyone else tired of Goodreads?

If you thought $300 was steep for a signed edition of Bag of Bones by Stephen King in my previous post, check out this $500 price tag for 2017‘s Sleeping Beauties signed by Stephen King and his son Owen King. Does that mean Owen‘s signature is worth $200 🤔?

Do you see the price tag on this Stephen King book? It‘s $300 for a signed edition at my local used bookstore! I‘ve never read Bag of Bones, but what do you think? Would you pay that much for it? Yikes! 😬😮

This was a well written history about Los Angeles in the years 1900-1930. It hinges the development of LA into the inkling of the city we know it as today on three key people. DW Griffith, William Mulholland and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Despite technically being a “history” book, its fast paced writing style kept me wanting to read more. I appreciate LA more as a city and appreciate why LA has Mulholland Drive.

I have mixed feelings about Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murara (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori). I thought it was going to be about embracing your weirdness and living your life. It is more about how mental illness (which one was never defined in the novel) can affect ones life and how one manages to move past these illnesses even if they don‘t completely check every box on a mentally healthy person‘s list of life todos.