Not enough definition to see what's on Rick Astley's shelves... 😕

Such an odd book. His first, seven linked stories called a novel, apparently about a mythical 7th continent.
But is it?

Nice to relax and read it after a browse through an eclectic and small secondhand bookshop (on the Scotland/ Northumbria border).

It was one of those things that simply weren't done. You weren't supposed to cross your legs in the presence of elders, smoke in front of them, or return borrowed plates and bowls empty to friends and neighbours. Women weren't to curse, at least in mixed company, or go out in the street half-naked, and you weren't supposed to break wind in public.

Sonja laughed when she saw the face Gül was pulling.

New winner of the Dublin literary award.

Join Katja Oskamp & Jo Heinrich, winners of the prestigious 2023 Dublin Literary Award, for an in-depth look at the winning title, Marzahn Mon Amour, in conversation with Rick O‘Shea.

Fri 26 May, 18.15, Speranza - Merrion Square Park
Sign up to join online or in person.

https://ilfdublin.com/whats-on/festival/programme/main/in-conversation-with-the-...

Fascinating history of witches, or rather, one case where a couple who fell out with each other and their New England community, and were accused of being witches. I could have done with a bit less "imagined" feelings.

But he does acknowledge this in the afterword as a deliberate narrative device, and the depth of historical detail here is fascinating.

Is this my favourite? Maybe? 😍😍😍

#bookmark #childrenillustrator #charity

anita_bozi_illustration
https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/bookmarkproject2023

Early that morning, Pynchon guided Jonathan Taylor, Mercy Marshfield and the others through the already busy streets into the square between Treamont Street and Cornhill. Boston awed them as a metropolis of confidence and grandeur - and of varied sounds and smells and colours - compared to the more roughly hewn environment of Springfield. Nervous now, they passed the hulking prison...

Did they? ? I'd have liked a few more "may haves" I think.

Aren't we all?

#45 Anna Fleet
https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/bookmarkproject2023

https://www.instagram.com/annafleet_illustration/

Aw, I liked this. Romance, but with chickens, lockdown legacies and a welcoming small town.

I feel like the publishers missed a trick to photoshop a cute kitten on the cover though. 🤔

These remind me of orange #penguins.

#bookmarks

@squirrelbrain
https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/detail/auction_id/6760?search=Sheltonhickleb...

Wow! Someone really wants an original giraffe!

#Bookmark #Charity

https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/bookmarkproject2023

Beautiful book. So sweet, but so sad.

Safe in her room, Anna drew up the coverlet, turned on the lamp as the daylight began to wane, opened to her bookmark, and read on. And as she read ... her tranquillity returned, as she had hoped it would

Later she retained a single, grimly valued memory of the children's caricature - the paper they had covered with numbers and driven into the snow woman's heart on a wooden stake. It was, after all, a token of respect from the village. The children listened to their parents' talk and knew she was good at maths. They knew her heart was riddled with numbers.

Glad not to be around in 17c New England, where spending time by yourself was apparently a suspicious behaviour!

Purple book matches the early flowers...

Low tide. Ducks paddle in the shallow water. The red boardwalks of Itsukushima Shrine flow out over the sand like a carpet of blood. At the entrance, visitors are funnelled past an orange box. A white plastic horse's head sticks out above the box, empty-eyed. I stand on my tiptoes, trying to see the rest of its body, but all I can make out in the gloom is a manger filled with coins.

Cute GN aimed at YA audience. One of the characters had exam anxiety so hopefully useful for readers going through the same thing, too.

Sadness, I have been outbid. 😭😭😭
Insta is foxandthemagpie

https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/bookmarkproject2023

All about the bookmarks.

This one by Mariajo Illustrajo.

https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/bookmarkproject2023

I want all the beautiful bookmarks, it turns out.

https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/detail/auction_id/6760

Oh come on, solve the murder already! ⏰️

Charity bookmark auction featuring children's book authors and illustrators.
All too tempting!
https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/detail/auction_id/6760

New word (to me).

Early book burning

...he was tasked with sweeping away Pynchon's dead, tangled arguments, much as the Indians opened forest trails with brush fires, leaving only the healthy trees. This analogy was to be taken literally. The court ordered that a copy of The Meritorious Price be handed to the city hangman. Four days later, on the Sabbath after the lecture, a crowd assembled in the market place to watch the hangman put Pynchon's words on a bonfire.

It was exactly as it would have been in the stories his mother used to tell him. In those stories the craziness would have been because of love gone wrong, or bewitchment in order to steal an inheritance, or unfulfilled revenge. Nothing could be done about the craziness until matters had been put right, until the curse had been lifted. He wanted to say that to Khalil. Don't worry about it so much, it will all be put right before the story ends.

Really cute magical coming of age GN.

Amazing art project in Buenos Aires: the books were given away at the end!

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/minujin-the-parthenon-of-books-t14343

Mrs Kemp had a badly used face. Her hair was pulled back from a red and uncomprehending forehead. Her mouth fell into her chin. She marched up and down the hall. Now she was no longer a symbol, she was a cello accompaniment to a dirge. She came like a tiger thieving and walked away from the theft. She came like a panther back and forth, raising a head at the end of the bars.

Just realised this might not be suitable for desk reading 😳
#ItsaSign #WorkLifeBalance

Well, if the quiz results say so, then I guess I should?

#InternationalBooker

I had to go back to the photo to check I'd added them to my LT catalogue.

The ruddy-cheeked vicar came to shake my hand....

He had asked me to visit him the night before, but I told him over the phone that I didn't like meeting strange men. He reminded me that he had met me several times when I was a young girl when I used to go to church with Mum. I told him he still qualified as a strange man, so he agreed to discuss the arrangements over the phone...

Which prayer has the words "gloryoryories" in it?

This reminds me of my childhood, when I had similar ideas about words we repeated each Sunday. (Or misrepeated, in my case)

This impressive book manages to acknowledge the enduring weight of Berger's writing. Morland uses her year with an NHS GP to communicate powerful things about healthcare through the life and choices of a family doctor in rural England.

No more cinema nights at the village hall, or Pilates With Debs on a Tuesday. No impromptu encounters in the doctor's waiting room or over cider and peanuts at the pub. No Saturday market selling curries and jams, no parent and toddler group at the swings, no Open Mic Comedy or Notable Tree Walks or Weaving With Waste or Ecstatic Awakening Dance. No annual raft race, no spring fayres, no village cricket, no bonfire night, no Santa Fun Run.

V good.

https://womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/2023-prize
#WomensPrize #Shortlist #Ireland

"No access, the soldier says, motioning with his gun that she's to turn around.

He's smooth-cheeked and pink-lipped, no more than sixteen or seventeen. His teeth are skewed. He's a village boy. Certainly, not from Sarajevo.

"Why not?" she says.

He scowls and draws himself taller. 'This is now Republika Srpska. Only Serbs here.'

I'm a Serb.'

He stares at her, seemingly confused.

Next up for the Lancaster international fiction bookgroup (online).

More info:
https://litfest.org/international-fiction-book-club/

She sometimes says to fellow bookworms (who she knows will find the analogy resonant) that her job is like picking your way through some wonderful library with extraordinary tales on every shelf. Reduce any one of your patients to their affliction, the tumorous breast, incompetent heart valve or lazy pancreas, and it's akin to regarding a book as nothing more than paper and ink.

Korean bookshops / cafes. Where do I sign up for a tour?

Next up!

#11 #WomensPrize #Longlist

I discovered that if you pressed your face to Mary's face in the Nativity glass, you could peer right through her translucent eye and see New Orleans shimmering below like a moth wing....I saw Faubourg Delassize and Livaudais unfold to the left, Tchoupitoulas Street and the hypnotic ribbon of the Mississippi River to the right....

at dawn, I was astonished by the wattage of color that vibrated in the silken light.

"Let's play a game.'
"Okay!" He stopped near the Amin home. "Ram Ram!" he greeted Mrs. Amin. Outside their shanty lay a bedsheet of desiccated chilis, the skins bright but shriveled. Mrs. Amin nodded, then squatted to sift the peppers. "It's not the quiet game, is it? Adults always wanna play the quiet game with me."

"I can't imagine why."

Karem extracted a squat bottle of clear liquid. A mixture of Hindi and English lettering crowded the label. The only images Geeta initially recognized were a drawing of a palm tree and the ubiquitous symbol reassuring Indians that something was purely vegetarian: a green dot housed in a green square. .... it was made in Bareilly, a city in a northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which was famous for the Taj Mahal, handicrafts and escalating drug abuse.

Book #10 of my read the #Longlist attempt for 2023!

#WomensPrize

I reached for the strange fixture in the shower that was too modern for its own good. It's my opinion that water taps should not be intelligence tests.

[This is me in almost every hotel I've been in recently!]

I knew this beach well.... After one especially bad slick our mother signed us up to clean birds. We dipped hefty brown pelicans in tubs of soapy water, their poor beaks fastened with rubber bands, gently removing the tarry goo from their feathers. We helped with grebes, ducks, murres. You could feel their hearts racing inside their ribs. You could see them wondering if we were going to eat them.

Fabulous book. Recommended.
(Something in my eye though.)

#WomensPrize #Longlist