pickZeal is much like the book I read at the same time last month, This Strange Eventful History, set in Algeria mostly after its war for independence, but in Zeal set in the US just after the Civil War. Both follow generations of families and are character-driven, not plot. Zeal begins with two former in-love slaves looking for each other in the chaotic immediate aftermath of emancipation in the south. This was exceptionally well described: ⬇️
Nominations are open now until November 30. We hope to include countries from these 12 regions. Feel free to nominate by commenting to this post your country picks, or nominate a country for each region. Preference will be given to countries not previously chosen, but depending on demand we may duplicate past countries. Countries will be vetted for availability of a range of books, food, and ingredients. Tag me if you post other than to comments.
My next book for #foodandlit #Algiera @Catsandbooks
Also my #letterQ for #litsyatoz
#wordoftheday
“This seems astonishing now, but we forget how confused and febrile those few weeks in 1975 actually were, the “reassessments” and the “calculated gambles” and the infusions of supplemental aid giving way even as they were reported to the lurid phantasmagoria of air lifts and marines on the roof and stranded personnel and tarmacs littered with shoes and broken toys.”
#authoramonth @Soubhiville Joan just keeps on giving.
Nominations are open now until November 30. We hope to include countries from these 12 regions. Feel free to nominate by commenting to this post your country picks, or nominate a country for each region. Preference will be given to countries not previously chosen, but depending on demand we may duplicate past countries. Countries will be vetted for availability of a range of books, food, and ingredients. Tag me if you post other than to comments.
so-soAdmittedly this book was written at a sorrowful stressful time in the author‘s life, his wife having just told him she‘s divorcing him. So he‘s very sulky as he travels across Oceania in his portable kayak that he carries with him as he flies from place to place. But that doesn‘t excuse his utter lack of humility, and a serious superiority complex with his smug judgments about 90% of his encounters with folks. He starts by blasting New Zealand ⬇️
pickFrench, but not quite French enough, the Cassar family felt most at home in #Algeria. The Cassars have moved to Algeria as WWII is ramping up and Germany has invaded France. What was Algeria to do? Where did it stand? Rather than following events, this book moves chronologically forward but is told by different members of the family during either personal or world events that affect that particular family member. So we aren‘t told what happened ⬇️
A new #wordoftheday
“Intermission at the ballet, one of those third-string touring companies that afford the women and children and dutiful providers of small cities an annual look at … “Nutcracker”; an occasion, a benefit, a reason to dress up after the general fretfulness of the season and the specific lassitude of the holiday and stand outside beneath an improvised canopy drinking champagne from paper cups.”
#authoramonth @Soubhiville
I‘ve reached the “holidays” in the book. I‘m not sure if that means winter holidays but it‘s a good excuse to post another image from another dish from my grandmother‘s Old Curiosity Shop dishes.
Reading how popular this serialization of this book back in the day, I now understand why these dishes were made. Even the book description calls it the Harry Potter of its day.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
⬇️
This book has taken a very very dark turn. Oh my heart hurts for Little Nell!!! I wouldn‘t have thought Dickens could go to such heartbreaking places. And I‘ve read enough Dickens to see an immense range of emotions. But dang, this is brutal. (I removed spoilers and replaced with ellipses.)
We definitely needed a bit of humor from Mrs Jarley deciding not to become an atheist.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
But this is what she does instead:
“But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received.”
😂😂😂
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
Before we open up nominations, your #foodandlit team has a few announcements. @Butterfinger (our founder and who I met in person this summer and we had a blast!) will start cohosting again this year! We will miss our very valued team member @Catsandbooks who was instrumental in helping us keep it going through the years. And her artwork has been phenomenal. And we have a new artist! Welcome @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick to our team!
#foodandlit country nominations for 2026 will be opening soon! Keep an eye out for announcements!
Want to be tagged? Let me know below in the comments or tag me!
@Butterfinger @LitsyEvents
Women: imagine needing to supply a husband‘s information or worse needing his permission for such things!!
#authoramonth @Soubhiville
#wordoftheday
“Her attention was entirely fixed on the man who sat across the table, a stranger, considerably older than we were and notably uncomfortable in the rather louche camaraderie of the studio.”
#authoramonth @Soubhiville
“Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply.”
Then he offers to make her Mrs Quilp number two! Eww!
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
“On the Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called 'Quilp's Wharf,' in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered.”
The boy on his head is, I believe, Tom Scott.
Meet Daniel Quilp (far left):
“The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again—with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this slight action—and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to himself.”
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
“There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams.”
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
Part 2: here the unknown author has changed the names a bit from the originals. But he has kept Arthur Holmwood, son of Lord Godalming. So curious, to what end?
Here‘s who‘s who so far in order of appearance:
Jonathan Harker is Tom Harker
Dracula is Draculitz
Mina Murray is Wilma Murray
Lucy Westernra is Lucy Western
& many new characters
But
Arthur Holmwood is Arthur Holmwood
Trying not to peak ahead to see if Van Helsing is Van Helsing.
Lap kitty while I read.
In what universe is it ok to reveal the ending of the book in the introduction to the book? In the first paragraph of the introduction to the book? 🤬
I‘m on chapter 11 and decided to go back and read the introduction. I‘m mad as heck.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
I started this my first book for #authoramonth. @Soubhiville
Almost 300 pages into this chunkster I‘m finally at Part Two!
Well, well, well there‘s an evil magic ring in this Swedish version of Dracula. A ruby ring.
Could this 1899-1900 version have any influence on Tolkien? Did Tolkien read Swedish? He was a language genius, so maybe.
I‘m going to have to post photos periodically of my grandmother‘s Old Curiosity Shop dishes. Here it is! The Old Curiosity Shop!
These dishes are among my most precious possessions. I only use them once a year for Christmas.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
Daughter and I are having a read-in evening at our lake house. She‘s reading the tagged book and I‘m reading Powers of Darkness, the Swedish version of Dracula. I‘ve finally just reached Part 2. This book is massive.
October is normally an awesome reading month for me. It was still a good month considering I still had 3 books, 2 of them chunksters, in the works going into November. Dracula still beats the heck out of any book I read. I‘ll admit I get a little bored at the end—never a fan of chase scenes, in books or movies. And Dr Van Helsing (who always will look like Hugh Jackman to me) does seem to drag on a bit.
Theroux thrives on unusual words, prompting me to want to start a #wordoftheday or week or whatever. That‘s not new to litsy. But it‘s new to me since I‘m continuously looking up words in the tagged book. Mom @Doll8455 and I, both avid readers and fairly well educated, but we both had to look up “lugubrious” from this book. Now we toss it out often to one another! 😂 and then 😔
I‘ll start today with the word “ruction.” Use it in a sentence?
Dickens always names his characters appropriately. We meet Mr. Swiveller, compatriot of the grandfather‘s grandson Kip, both of whom seem to be up to no good.
I‘m looking forward to Chapter 3, where we will meet a fellow named Daniel Quilp. That‘s an ambiguous last name, so it will be interesting to see what sort of character he is.
Oh I do love Dickens.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
A previous owner of my Oxford edition disagrees with this Cast of Characters (love this) that the old man (the narrator) is the single gentleman, brother to Nell‘s grandfather. I‘ve only read 1-1/2 chapters but at least so far I have to agree with this unknown persons‘s “No.” I can‘t wait to see if this bears out.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
Image from my Oxford edition. This illustration is entitled “The Old Curiosity Shop.” It does appear to accurately depict the shop as Dickens describes it. In Chapter 1, the old man meets a pretty little girl at night and walks her “home,” to this unique place. Here the old man meets her grandfather and suspects he‘s up to no good.
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
The author ridicules Thor Heyerdahl to the ends of the earth and then there‘s this statement: “Probably the most obnoxious aspect of Heyerdahl is that he appears to display a deep bias, bordering on contempt, against Polynesians.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!!
If you ever have a desire to read this book, be aware there is a lot of this.
The author is thorough, and 80% into it, I‘m getting a ton of detail about every possible island in Oceania. I‘m not fond of his constant criticisms (Wikipedia calls it a strong stream of irony, that‘s not what I‘d call it) of pretty much every single person he meets, and judgments of swaths of people based on those he encounters. But as usual I enjoy reading about ⬇️
This is how far I am in this chunkster of a book. I‘m still at it. Because the book is so valuable it doesn‘t go on work trips. And it‘s not broken into chapters but only into 3
Parts, I have to find loads of time to sit down with it. So I may be reading about Count Draculitz through Christmas at this rate!!
I lose my head sometimes too when I‘m reading
#blackcatcrew #hauntedshelf @BookwormAHN @PuddleJumper
Happy National Cat Day (it should be everyday)!
Whose celebrating with me? 🙌🏻
Me and the Count…scrolling, scrolling, scrolling
#blackcatcrew #hauntedshelf @BookwormAHN @PuddleJumper
The book I‘m reading about Oceania now references anthropophagia quite a bit. Yes, I had to look up that word and it‘s relevant to this cartoon. Enjoy. Numnum Kevin!!
#blackcatcrew #hauntedshelf @BookwormAHN @PuddleJumper
My next audiobook for #Algeria #foodandlit @Catsandbooks
