This book is intriguing so far. Including the way it casually weaves recent events into the story. “It was the week Obamacare was rolled back, everyone was talking about preexisting conditions. David was wearing a ski jacket zipped to the neck.”

This is a powerful collection of stories/portraits of women. They are raw and candid and Roxane Gay doesn‘t mince words or avert her eyes. Women shouldn‘t have to hide the things that happen to them, and I feel like this collection helps bring them into the light. #LitsyAtoZ

This is an incredibly well-done biography of Justice Ginsburg, told through her writings, speeches, and legal opinions over the decades. Seeing the full span of her legal scholarship on gender, race, and sexuality in one book is awe-inspiring and reaffirms why she is a force to be reckoned with. 💪 I love that the audio book uses archival recordings to deliver the text whenever available.

It‘s been a little while since I‘ve sobbed while reading a book. This is such a beautiful story of loss and grief, and at the same time of love and life and resilience and hope. I kept thinking of the Woolf quote: “I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.” #LitsyAtoZ

“Airport, car door, buy a shower curtain, get divorced.” This book is wrecking me. It‘s so incredibly sad, but also has lines that make me laugh out loud.

I‘m with you @merelybookish - reading this book again has been quite an emotional experience. It‘s exquisite. The way she captures how time and space change (and don‘t) our perspectives and our feelings about one another and ourselves, is breathtaking. As Lily Briscoe says, “so much depends...upon distance: whether people are near us or far from us.” Thanks for reading with me!

When a friend comes in from out of town and brings you a book that‘s on your TBR.... 😍

I laughed and cried on my commute this morning listening to Justice Ginsburg give a speech written by her late husband two months to the day following his death. She told the story (in her husband‘s words) of the case she took on in the 70s that helped launch her efforts to establish the unconstitutionality of laws that discriminate on the basis of sex.

I am in awe of how Woolf is able to shift between the perspectives of different characters to build the complex narrative of the story. This parenthetical chapter from the hikers‘ perspective answers Mrs. Ramsey‘s question about whether Nancy went with them. And then the narrative comes back to Mrs. Ramsey in the brief following chapter: “‘Yes,‘ said Prue, in her considering way, answering her mother's question, ‘I think Nancy did go with them.‘”

Current audiobook. I‘m such a fan, and the audio version of this book is incredible because so many of the pieces are in her voice as archival recordings. She also reads the preface. ❤️💪

“Such she often felt herself-struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: ‘But this is what I see; this is what I see,‘.... And it was then too, in that chill and windy way, as she began to paint, that there forced themselves upon her other things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for her father off the Brompton Road....”
Always so taken with Woolf‘s ability to articulate the vulnerability of being human.

This book is so wild and disconcerting. The structure of the narrative kept me off-kilter, blurring the past and present and placing my understanding of events in the hands of two narrators who are ... poisoned? dying? already dead? All the while, horrifying things have happened, are happening, are going to happen any moment. It really is like a fever dream. #LitsyAtoZ

Desmond does groundbreaking work to show the impacts of housing security on poverty and vice versa, and he combines stories with data to illustrate how systems and policies work as they‘re designed to keep the power structure intact. He offers solutions, too; there is evidence to show what works to lift families out of poverty and ensure access to stable housing, if we have the political will to do so.

It felt so different to re-read this book as an adult. It was beautiful and sad and familiar and comforting; I savored it to the last line. Woolf can capture the emotions and experiences of life like no other writer. In this book she weaves together moments of the characters‘ everyday lives; we follow them as they grow up, make choices, have regrets, are happy and unhappy, fulfilled and unfulfilled. ❤️

This passage felt very appropriate as I read it today during the crazy snowstorm here. ❄️ #bombcyclone

Happy Friday y‘all. 😁

A great story that examines human relationships, hopes, and passions, in the context of slavery and racism. As Wash makes his way in the world, comes into his own, and seeks answers about his life, we also see through his eyes the complexities of the other characters - because his survival depends on his ability to read others. #LitsyAtoZ

I had a long drive to and from a work event today, so I made some progress on this audiobook. It‘s an excellent portrayal of the systemic and structural barriers to housing and economic security faced by some families. We must do better.

This was a great read. A creative spin on the myth of Oedipus, and an intense look at the relationships between parents and children, with our past, and fate. Fantastic storytelling from start to finish. “The places we are born come back.” #LitsyAtoZ

Excited to start this one today!! 😃

I appreciated the genius of this book. It really lets you inside the mind of the narrator as you try to follow his unraveling, and it‘s hard to read at times. But the narrator‘s love for humanity and for this manuscript he is describing throughout the book is pretty beautiful. I really got sucked into the story in the manuscript, even though it‘s conveyed secondhand through the narrator. #LitsyAtoZ

A few books I may have accidentally purchased this weekend.... Thanks everyone for your great reviews of these books! I‘m excited to get to them! 😃

Enjoying a fine Saturday afternoon with these beauts. 😁 #booksandbeer

Working my way through my next #LitsyAtoZ book. I really admire Krasznahorkai‘s writing, but it‘s always a challenge. In this book, each short chapter is one long sentence. 😃

#LitsyPartyofOne 😁

A retelling of the myth of Iphis by the brilliant Ali Smith. The myth is woven into the story in multiple layers, starting with the opening line - “Let me tell you about when I was a girl, my grandfather says” - and Smith uses the myth to make a powerful statement about the ways in which gender still factors so much into our lives today. #LitsyAtoZ

I love Anne Carson, and this book was another example of her talent. Autobiography of Red is still my favorite, but this was a great read. “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.”

“She is beneath this roof. . . . She is beneath this roof!”
Happy Birthday Virginia Woolf! ❤️

Here‘s mine. 😊
#20thingsaboutme @LibrarianRyan

Thanks for tagging me @merelybookish

Love. This. Book. Such a unique narrative voice and powerful story. Burns describes the experience of the main character, middle sister, perfectly, capturing the nuances of emotions, perspectives, and misperception. I didn‘t want this one to end! #LitsyAtoZ

... as if in all his years of researching, of shadowing and of setting people up to be murdered, never had he come across anybody odd enough-actually odd enough-to take time to drive to a sunset which-excepting the research and the shadowing and the setting people up to be murdered-was exactly where I, regarding maybe-boyfriend and sunsets, was coming from myself.”

The sentences in this book are blowing me away. Amazing writing. One of my favorites (it‘s too long to even fit in one post): “Then he said the young guy liked sunsets and he said this as if it were an incongruity that anyone-particularly anyone male-should even notice sunsets ...

Really enjoying this book so far. The narrative voice is captivating and manages to convey really disturbing (and unfortunately familiar) events in the story in the most chilling way.

“For the first time ever I did not do my reading-while-walking. I did not do my walking. Again I did not tell myself why.”

First book of 2019 and first one checked off my #LitsyAtoZ list! A terrific romp through the world and mind of Murakami.

I loved this puzzle of a book. I think at least in part it is about travel as a significant part of the human experience. We travel in the vessels of our bodies; and our bodies (or parts of them) can travel without us after we‘re gone. And maybe we can travel absent our physical bodies as well. There are subtle threads that tie the narratives in the book together, and the stories are sad and beautiful.

“Every moment is unique; no moment can ever be repeated. This idea favors risk-taking, living life to the fullest, seizing the day. And yet the innovation is a profoundly bitter one: when change over time is irreversible, loss and mourning become daily things.”

Really enjoying this book so far.

I usually like books that weave together multiple narratives, but I didn‘t love this one. It was interesting enough to finish, but I never really got into it.

“accept yourself as you were designed.”

In the spirit of Halloween....😁

These stories!!! Our quest to understand others and ourselves, through relationships and connections across time, within time, across space. And our attempts to use language to make connections, make meaning, and define ourselves, even though language is limited. Your duck is my duck; we are all bound up in this together. This collection was really worth the wait.

Just finished reading this book again. Love it so much.
“He has not flown for years but why not be a black speck raking its way toward the crater of Icchantikas on icy possibles ... he smiles for the camera: ‘The Only Secret People Keep.‘”

So excited for this new collection!

“No one met people in person any longer - you couldn‘t hear what they were saying.”