Having a wonderful fall mini-vacation in Northern Michigan. The weather is perfect, the trees are showing their colors, and lots of time to read. Really enjoying this one.

I love it when so much effort is put into creating a great audiobook. I wouldn‘t have liked this as much without the effects the audiobook provided. The story is set up with super creepy undertones of what‘s to come, and then a whole lot of unraveling. I could have done without the very last bit - it was a bit too much. One of the top audiobooks of the year for me!

When you happen across a date on the date you are reading it. Too bad it‘s about a murder trial on my wedding anniversary 😂😂

Mrrrrrr. It‘s me. I‘m the problem. It‘s me.

My #FallingforFallSwap package has been sent west, to arrive on Saturday!

My #FallingforFallSwap package has arrived! Thank you, Alethia! Now to hide it away until opening day 😂😂

A fictionalized story of the inhabitants of Malaga Island, off the coast of Maine, who were forcibly removed. This is a quiet but heartbreaking story of one of the first integrated spaces in the US. It‘s history I‘m glad I learned about, but I‘m having a hard time enjoying the Booker Longlist, so I‘m taking a break. Pictured are children from Malaga Island. #Booked2024 set in a neighborhood

My #AThingADay package arrived and it indeed brought a big smile to my face! I LOVE the dog butt tea towel and it immediately went to my kitchen 😁. So kind of you to do! I‘m glad I signed up!

When Jay goes in search of his father‘s bones, lost to the sea, he gets ensnared by a giant squid and swallowed by a sperm whale. This is the making of my biggest fear, so to read a story about it is the best kind of horror I‘m going to get. A compulsive read: how will he escape? WILL he escape? But also about grief and difficult relationships. I couldn‘t put this one down.

I feel that if I had two weeks in an Irish cottage by the sea with nothing to do but read this book, then I would have really loved it. Sadly, that‘s not the situation, and it was often hard to follow Kettle‘s thoughts. I did want to give him a big hug though. #Booker2023

Note: I am getting over Covid so out of laziness I‘m copying my collage and blurb from last year 🙃
My #HauntedHollowSwap aesthetic is more fall-inspired with a little creep factor - darkness, flickering lights, fog. There‘s also a little witchiness thrown in - rituals, bonfires, thin spaces. Mostly cozy with a little creep. #HHS

September‘s #Bookspin List. Most looking forward to the tagged book.

#BOTM got me with the utter fall vibes on You, Again. I have high expectations for a fabulous fall reading season.

This one started strong for me, and then started to fall flat, and then left me wanting more. There was a lot going on in this book - scary pandemic, memories, taboo relationship, mysterious letters. I liked the revisitor, but found the characters a bit grating. Finishing the book, I think I spent the next 10 minutes going, “Hmm,” “meh,” “hrmmm.” I really didn‘t know what to think. Looking forward to the last discussion for #CampLitsy23

I have somehow started too many books and have made slow progress, so this #20in4 readathon comes at the perfect time. Hoping to finish the bottom 3 and make progress on VF so that I can move on to others for vacation starting in one week!

1. Waking Ned Devine!
2. Barbie, and it‘s resulted in so many good conversations in our household.
3. Oof, big question. I‘ll say peace, on many different levels.
#WondrousWednesday

Any other Jeopardy watchers who nailed the Middlemarch category tonight?? #pemberlittens

1. I work at a university and school starts August 28, so it‘s about to be my busy time of the year with a new school year starting.
2. The post tag was one of my favorites last year, and The St. Ambrose School for Girls is one I‘m most looking forward to this fall.
#Two4Tuesday

Excited to participate in one of my favorite swaps. I‘ve been waiting for fall since last November 😂. The process is quick for this so sign up soon if you want to participate! See @Avanders page for the link to the form. #FallingforFallSwap

My first Booker read and I am left wanting (no surprise there). There were nice moments, and more I expected more from, but there were a lot of things that happened that I didn‘t quite understand, leaving me confused. It reminded me of a bleaker, less fleshed-out version of Claire Keegan‘s novels.

Posting a picture just because I can now! Litsy is a pretty lonely place without accompanying images. My mom sent this photo to me recently: my nephew and I reading on a hammock during our yearly family camping trip, taken years ago. Such a good memory. #TheGreatBlackoutof2023

This is not for everyone as it deals with a group of strangers who want to end their lives and take a road trip to do so, but if that‘s not a trigger, this audio is really well done. I found it on a list of best audiobooks (it‘s full cast). I really appreciated the discussion around suicide: the various reasons, who gets to decide and judge the reasons. Why is this suicide illegal but that one isn‘t. There were laughs to be had as well.

Another enjoyable read for #CampLitsy23. It wasn‘t the perfect read. The MC‘s insecurity started to grate on me, and I wish the author had inserted some creative license with the show instead of copying so many details from SNL, but those were minor things. A few people at Silent Book Club added this to their TBR after seeing me forcing down some laughs in an attempt to be quiet 🤭😂 A great book to finish at Lake Michigan 🌞

When your contemporary read (tagged) mentions the same place as your classic read (Vanity Fair). Both read in the same day. Weird and wonderful.

Emily Henry throwing out some teasers on IG! I saw a title was released recently…so maybe cover or publication date???

I finally locked down August‘s #Bookspin list. I didn‘t mean to do this, but I love how Summerwater is sitting on the horizon 😍. Pictured is the place we spend the last week of summer in Glen Arbor, a perfect way to end summer.

For #CampLitsy23 Littens, this book was reviewed on Code Switch today. I caught it right after participating in the discussion 😊 https://www.npr.org/2023/07/21/1189451728/summer-reading-lets-keep-it-casual

#CampLitsy23 books have mostly been a hit for me this year. This memoir hit me in an unexpected ways. There were ways I could relate, and ways I wish I could relate. This memoir is so valuable in learning a story like theirs and being able to go with them on their growth journey. I was so intrigued that they could keep their faith and make it their own. Looking forward to the last discussion on this one.

This may have sat with my unread #BOTM books for much longer if not for #Bookspin and #Booked2023. 3 generations of strong Italian women. I don‘t usually like WW2 novels but this took me to France, Scotland, and Italy so I couldn‘t resist. I also learned another side of the atrocities of WW2 from the Italian perspective. I still think about the Cabrelli women.

It‘s that time of year, where I‘ve spent the last 6-8 months swearing I was going to take a break from the Booker Prize, only to get sucked in, watching all the Longlist prediction videos which makes my TBR grow massively, and I add August 1, the Longlist announcement date, to my calendar 🤦🏻‍♀️😂 I‘m hoping Demon Copperhead and Birnam Wood make it just so that makes 2 chunksters I don‘t have to read 🙃 Anyone else following? #bookerprize2023

Catie, dear friend, what a wonderful and thoughtful package! I saw the book was one you posted about some years ago, that changed or inspired you, so I‘m really looking forward to it. I have a growing collection of Michigan shirts so this is perfect 😁 #Nunlit folks, please note the prayerful pretzels. I will snack on them while reading my nun books. The tea looks delicious. Everything is lovely - thank you so much Catie! I hope you are well!

My first #Aardvark box arrived and color me impressed! Quicker arrival than expected, the books are great quality, and the box is fun. Those aardvark ears on the book@ark need a little redesign though. Cute but totally impractical and are going to bend and rip if I ever use them. Looking forward to all the #Aardvark choices in the future. Also please note the impossible tag of *only* white pieces left for the puzzle 🧩😵‍💫

Like others, I couldn‘t stop at the halfway point and finished in just a couple of days, though I did go back and forth between not being able to put it down and needing to take a break while the cringe feeling settled down 😂. This will be on my top of the year list. Thanks to @Megabooks for hosting the discussion and not shying away from potentially risky topics and questions. #CampLitsy23

The Bandit Queen wins this month, and faces off with The Very Secret Society, and the two were just so different, made me feel totally different (cozy satisfaction vs hell yeah badassery), so I‘m going to need some time before the winner makes itself clear.
#ReadingBracket2023

July‘s #Bookspin list. Here‘s hoping July reading is as good as June was!

I probably would have skipped this month again, but I really wanted the tagged for #CampLitsy23. It might just be time to switch to Aardvark…

1. They are going surprisingly well! I will be finishing #Booked2023 ahead of schedule.
2. I‘m hoping to catch up on some Book of the Month books to get to 15 by the end of the year, read some more from the #AuldLangSpine list, and continue with #Bookspin picks. #Two4Tuesday

Starting this one for #Booked23: A book about Afrofuturism on this welcomed rainy Michigan day. Described as “A technicolor Afrofuturist fever-dream of a book,” not only is the cover gorgeous, but there‘s a map, and this first line is fire: “She had the witchery of fire in her eyes and her skin twinkled…”. I hope it lives up to its promising start.

Carton is a bit too smart for me, so I wasn‘t that keen to read this one. BUT it ended up being more readable than anticipated. In The Luminaries, I was frustrated that I didn‘t understand the chapter title symbols, and here - no chapters at all! 🤣. My thoughts are all over the place on this one, and I tend to agree with others‘ reviews. *Definitely* look forward to our discussion. #CampLitsy23

I have been slowly collecting Sarah Moss books for the past few years, attracted to their premises. I finally dove in for #Booked2023 about a pandemic, and it did not disappoint! A group of people in Greenland on a dig at the start of a global pandemic, this tells the story of what happened as technology failed, with no communication to the outside world, no knowledge of how the pandemic is spreading. Is anyone even alive? Cont. ⬇️

An atmospheric summer read, reminding me of the hazy, lazy days of summer, and the angst that happens wondering how people perceive you. A family goes on their yearly summer lake vacation, but things do not go as normal when the Godden boys join them. Recommended to me by @TheLudicReader for #NYWD 2022. Thanks for the rec - I really enjoyed it!

I‘ve been drawn to Moss‘ books for a few years and slowly collecting them, but had yet to read one until I started this one for #Booked2023 About a pandemic. It‘s wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, and with my dog barking in the middle of the night lately, and my spouse leaving for a week, it‘s necessary to sneak in daytime reading for it 😂🧟‍♂️
Edited to add: I can‘t put it down! Looks like I‘ll just have a creepy night 🫣😂

This is my first outstanding read since January. I *loved* it. The nuance and complexity, the humor in the midst of heavy situations, the fantastic dialogue. As a non-violent Quaker, I feel a little sheepish at adoring a book so full of violence. I also really appreciated the author‘s commentary on things like motherhood, gender, and caste. I‘m not sure I would have read this if not for #CampLitsy23. Looking forward to our next discussion.

My spouse is out of town during this whole period so it‘s going to be a solo Jamie reading party for me 🎉🎉🎉 and if you can‘t tell, I‘m so excited! I think I will also have my first Lake Michigan beach day during this time, so another fabulous reading location. Not sure what my goals are yet, except to read as much as possible.
#JoysofJune

I was all over the place with this one. I started it in January, and then restarted it several times. Almost decided to bail, and then committed in May and slogged through, but then was enraptured, calling Kingsolver brilliant, during the last 30 pages 😵‍💫. It‘s one of those strange books that I really did enjoy while reading but had a hard time picking back up. There were many more shining moments than I expected. Continued ⬇️

None of the books I read this month were total standouts, but the tagged snuggled it‘s way into my heart so it wins for May.
#2023readingbracket

A passage where Tommy learns what others think of Appalachian people. Clever one, Barbara Kingsolver. Just wait, Tommy. Florida will get its turn.
Just over 100 pages from the end and determined to finish this one this month.

I scoured through my bookshelves for all the summer vibes, plus some #CampLitsy23 and #Booked2023 reads for June #Bookspin

Almost a pan. I think I must be getting less tolerant as I get older. The premise is great, the setting promising, but I wish a better writer had written this story. The characters were immature, and the storyline too over-the-top and felt amateur. Pictured: The Write Inn, where I stayed during my own writing retreat hosted by author Elizabeth Berg. It was *quite* the different experience than was had by these characters 😆😆

This isn‘t my favorite Emily Henry, but that‘s not to say I didn‘t really like it. It had the great dialogue that makes me feel all sorts of things and laugh out loud. She brings me to locations that I love, like the coast of Maine, pictured. I could have done without the romantic relationship, actually, in favor of exploring more how friendships evolve as we grow up. A solid pick for me.