It‘s rare that my TBR list is color-coordinated, but apparently pink is very in this season? (The photo cuts off, but the next book in the list is also pink. Weird!)

It feels like I‘ve waited for this for SO LONG. Kathy Acker means a lot to me: I began reading her a little over a decade ago and it‘s fair to say that her playful use of language, her sharp critiques of gender relations and contemporary American society, and her general boisterous chaotic weirdness totally changed my sense of what a book could be and do and inspire. Kathy Acker is a writer I think of as “mine.”

Hot chocolate and Gingerbread...

Oh, this book is wild! It‘s not great literature, but: Tarot! Outrunning loan sharks! Family secrets! Homage to Daphne du Maurier‘s Rebecca! It‘s got it all! I‘m endlessly indebted to my friend Angela for the recommendation.

I can‘t believe it‘s been almost 11 years since I read To the Lighthouse, but the torn receipts I found between the pages, used as bookmarks when I needed them, tell me that it was March 2008. I was living in Ohio. I had gotten a cheap haircut that I absolutely hated. I loved the brownies at Middle Ground. There is almost nothing in my life that‘s the same as it was then. Except, of course, for this incredible book.

Friday night. Cat on my lap, film history in my hands. It‘s been a hard second half of the year but this is the sort of thing that makes life seem way less bleak.

"I played along, but I couldn't help crying, too, and I couldn't help covering my face to pretend I wasn't crying for all the ways I knew we would have to mold ourselves into princesses even though I knew perfectly well we were meant to be witches."

My month in reading! #febstats

Thurston has a bath while I hang out with Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy. #catsoflitsy

Curling up for the evening with my first-ever quilt (made at a workshop at Brooklyn Craft Co. on Sunday!) and Voyage in the Dark.

Lord Redesdale was as mercurial as his daughter was tough-minded. Toward the end of his life, Nancy was playing a parlor game with her father. "Whom would you like best to see coming round the door," she asked. "Decca," he said. #NotCryingAboutTheMitfords #OKCryingALittleAboutTheMitfords

Just for funsies: a shelfie! Complete with books about ladies and lady-friendship, embroidery and cross stitch, and some art objects by me and by other people. The tagged book, The Gallery of Unfinished Girls, is one of my top reads from 2017. I'm not a big YA reader, but I loved this dreamy, magical story about an artist in love with her best friend and struggling to make art (and to make sense of her life).

Late summer, wine with strawberries, and "the radiance" of manic depression, art, and the city. "I am glad I have the radiance [...] Perhaps it is a virus--a virus causing my being to expand and glow instead of causing nausea and weakness."

"The whole thing is simply this: Is it possible to be a Reckless Libertine without spending a great deal of money?"

Took two of three cats to the vet today. We are all having a well-deserved rest.

A little surrealism on a Saturday afternoon.

Reading The Power with a lemon drop martini at hand. Just the right drink for this complex dystopia--a little sweet, a little bitter, zapping straight to my head. (I'm talking about the book, of course.)

Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus at the 92nd Street Y tonight! Part of my extended Birthday Weekend (and Then Some) Celebration. Myles has a book coming out about a beloved dog. Kraus has a book coming out about her frenemy Kathy Acker. All very relevant to my interests!

A quiet Sunday evening: wine, Diet Coke in a "crazy cat lady" mug, and The Mothers. (Imagine a Forest is really great--folk-art-inspired designs and drawing tips. I spent part of the afternoon drawing striped and patterned lions!)

"The isolation of these people from the currents of American life in 1970 was startling and bewildering to behold. All their information was fifth-hand, and mythicized in the handing down. Does it matter where Taos is, after all, if Taos is not in Mississippi?"

Excellent #bookhaul, courtesy of my local public library. (I love being an academic librarian, don't get me wrong. But still, there's just something about a public library that speaks to my soul...)

Complicated female friendships in literature are my favorite thing. Well, my second favorite thing, just behind hanging out on the couch and reading with a cat nearby. #catsoflitsy

So, it turns out that Roth's The Plot Against America is almost viscerally upsetting. I want to put on my #pussyhat and pull it down over my eyes.

Reading with my buddy Thurston. We just started this book, the first in a series involving the chief of police in a small French village, and we're enjoying it so far. #catsoflitsy #ThurstonPrefersCatRelatedMysteries

My 2016, according to Goodreads. (I'm 2or3things on GR.) I had set some reading-related goals for myself--write short reviews for everything I read, finally read the Hermione Lee bio of Virginia Woolf--that I didn't quite achieve, but I did manage to read more nonfiction than is typical for me, so that's something. 81 of the 102 books I read were written by women; I need to read more by writers of color. That's my reading resolution for 2017.

Reading Dora: A Headcase by the light of the tree. Happy holidays, Litsians!

Since I'm spending almost an entire day (literally!) on a train, I'm amusing myself with knitting, wine, and reading. Pretty sure I could solve a mystery on this Amtrak, if it came down to it. I'm regarding everyone with suspicion and remaining alert for the smell of chloroform...

"I would never have considered myself an expert on real blood or murder mysteries or staged deaths or party etiquette, but I have a good deal of experience with fake blood; and this just did not look like genuine fake blood."

The arrival of a new A.L. Kennedy book is cause for great rejoicing, even if Knives seems sort of annoyed about being used for a photo op. #catsoflitsy #knivesisoftenannoyed

Claire DeWitt is not the typical damaged-goods, rough-around-the-edges private eye. While her goods are mightily damaged and her edges splintered indeed, she's mystical, obsessed with a cultish French detective, and, in this installment, keenly worried about the plight of miniature horses. Imagine Nancy Drew plus drugs or Stephanie Plum plus otherworldly visions: that's our heroine. I really, really hope that Sara Gran will continue this series.

Reading Eve Babitz at lunch on a workday in New Haven, CT seems super antithetical to...well, all that is Eve Babitz-y. Clearly I should be hungover and overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Possibly wearing a fabulous coat of some sort? And yet!

I made a rookie mistake: I watched the Miss Fisher TV series before reading the books, and now the characters I see while I'm reading are the actors from the show. But I'm enjoying the first book nonetheless, as I have a very high tolerance for communist cabbies and descriptions of glamorous frocks.