The Dante Club: A Novel | 
bailedMy last DNF of 2025. The story is moving too slow to keep my attention. I gave it over 50 pages, but I don't feel it's going to get any better. #hailthebail
#weekendreading @Andrew65
Appreciation for this late-19th-century academic atmosphere/setting following the Harvard Poets of Lowell, Longfellow, and Holmes, Sr. Reminds of the literary references and quoting in the letters between Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg I'd briefly dabbled in. Now I just need some evening rains for it, instead of lingering but unyielding clouds!
pickWell, I didn't see that coming! A very surprising twist that caught me by surprise. A very interesting and historic cast playing sleuth to catch a killer. Not the quickest of reads but worthy of your time. My February #bookspin. @TheAromaofBooks
February #bookspin and #doublespin
Dante Club has been on my TBR a while. Gentleman in Moscow has shown up here multiple times with good reviews.
'A verse too polished will not stick at all:
The worst back-scratcher is a billiard ball.'
'Sometimes I feel I am not the stuff that professors are made...Too sensitive and not conceited enough---physically conceited, I should call it. I know it is all wearing me out. And why shouldn't sitting in the professor's chair all these years benumb me to the world? What must someone like you, prince of industry, think of such a paltry existence?'
Defend Dante!“ 'Shall we have England lord over our bookshelves? Why did we not just hand Lexington over to the redcoats and spare General Washington the trouble of war? Till America has learn to love literature not as an amusement, not as mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will not have succeeded in that high sense which alone makes a nation out of a people.' “
“ 'The happy advantage of democracy is that we are free to puff our books as hard as we can manage and be perfectly safe of any harm...We extort everyone we know, Osgood, or nothing should get done...The Corporation lords over Harvard's reputation by controlling ever word allowed past the College gates, Osgood---anything unknown, anything unknowable, stands to frighten them beyond measure.' “
“Most humiliating, most pitiable, was not the broken condition, not even the fact that the body had been so maggot-ridden and layered in flies and wasps, but the simple fact of the nakedness. Sometimes a corpse, it is said, looks for all the world like a forked radish with a head fantastically carved upon it.“
Little miss is making it very difficult to get up and leave for work 💝
#catsoflitsy
I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description or reason for wanting to read the book. Some are old and some will be new. Don't judge me - I have a lot of books.
Day 37
#tbrmountain #bookbuyingdiet
Aldi for the win! Is it too early for Christmas gingerbread? Reminds me of the gingerbread cookies from Toruń.
#MrBook1inAMillion #LitsyPartyofOne #24B4Monday #readathon
We went out for a delicious ramen dinner so I didn‘t get as much reading time today as I‘d hoped, but moving on to this used book I bought in Seattle, which was previously owned by someone in Baton Rouge, and is now being read by me in Connecticut.
#MrBook1InAMillion #Readathon #litsypartyofone #24B4Monday
pickFantastic! Henry Longfellow, James Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, George Washington Greene and J. T. Fields are working on an English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy in post Civil War Boston when a string of murders based on descriptions in The Inferno threatens the lives and reputations of the poets of The Dante Club.
I could do with less flies and worms. Hope it tones down soon
Bonus Round
1. A popular book in my hometown I despise is by a woman I know. She ridiculed & humiliated a teacher my kid loved who then quit teaching, in a so-called Christian memoir Sparkly Green Earrings.
2. I really enjoyed the tagged book—one I was sure Littens would like—but it has received 50% Litsy love. My mom (we share literary tastes) even bailed on it!
3. @GingerAntics @Eggs @TheSpineView
@shadowspeak17 #unpopularopiniongiveaway
@jenniferw88 thank you so much the lovely card and the book. Loved them a lot. I wasn't expecting them to arrive so soon. So so happy you made my day ❤❤ lots of love and hugs for you
pickAn almost 5-Star book (I give it 4-1/2) much to my surprise. The first 2/3 is so slow you have to fight not to bail (as my mom did). My impression was the author shared so many details to prove he is an expert on all things Dante, and I‘m sure he is. But then wham! The mystery is complex, impossible to decipher, with many many twists and turns that are all relevant. The last 1/3 made up for the rest of the book and I loved it.
Shakespeare Humor
Lowell talking to Longfellow in Cambridge Massachusetts 1865:
Lowell: “Did I tell you the one who came by the other week to see General Washington‘s headquarters...he asked if Shakespeare did not live in the neighborhood.”
Longfellow: “Daughter of Eve! What did you tell him?”
Lowell: “I said that if Shakespeare has moved nearby I had not met him.”
Triple Play for me! 1 book for 3 challenges!
#auginbooks18 #morethan400pages
#abbainaugust #takeachanceonme (Dante is scary)
#augustisatrip #boston
Boston 1865. Murders inspired by scenes in Dante‘s Inferno.
The windows of the Wide Oaks mansion were draped in heavy black cloth, permitting only faint stripes of daylight along the sides. Widow Healey lifted her head from a mound of lotus-leaf pillows. “You have found the murderer, Chief Kurtz.”
I decided to try this one even though @Momreviews bailed. Not far enough to know if I will make it all the way through but I did voluntarily read Dante‘s Divine Comedy as a 7th grader and am having to look up James Russell Lowell (bottom left), and I did not know Longfellow (bottom right) translated Dante for the American reader. I am fascinated!
My new TBR pile. Honestly, just hoping to finish this by the end of the year. 🤷🏼♀️ Happy Saturday!
A group of scholars #high up in their ivory tower must make the descent necessary to solve the #mystery of a Dante inspired killer. A must-read for any fan of US literary history and/or Dante's Inferno.
"Rey, as he descended, couldn't escape the blurring words the man had chosen for whatever reason to bequeath unto him as his last act of life. Voi Ch'intrate. Voi Ch'intrate. You who enter. You who enter."
#quotsyjuly18 @TK-421
⚀ My bruise from a pressure dressing after a stent!
⚁ A bowl of corn flakes
⚂ Historical, intriguing, slightly creepy
⚃ The inside of my phone cover
⚄ Just under 5'1
#Humpdaypost @MinDea
This showed up on BookBub today. I read this a number of years ago and really enjoyed it. Excellent mystery. It probably would have been even more interesting if I had read The Divine Comedy, but I enjoyed this without having read any Dante. A good buy, in my opinion.
bailedThis just wasn't for me. It is probably a great book for someone else.
pickTerminado el primer libro de 2018
El club Dante de Matthew Pearl.
Reseña:
Está muy bien ambientado en el Boston de 1865. Diferencia de una forma muy buena a los cuatro amigos erudito, cada uno tiene sus problemas y sus virtudes. Es la primera vez que veo un malo que sea analfabeto, pero le da la pisca que necesita para entender su locura!!
Me fascina los libros que al final tengan un apartado que te cuenta que es ficción y que no del libro!
En el convulso y puritano Boston de 1865, los miembros del club Dante -poetas y profesores de Harvard dirigidos por Henry Wadsworth- dan los toques finales a la primera traducción norteamericana de La Divina Comedia a pesar de la oposición de la vieja guardia de la Universidad, que quiere mantener al Nuevo Mundo alejado de lo que considera supersticiones extranjeras. Al mismo tiempo se suceden una serie de brutales asesinatos basados en los...
Thank you Erika! I haven't read The Dante Club yet, but I have read The Last Dickens by the same author, which I enjoyed so looking forward to this one! @Emiller #LitsyPenPals I will start writing a letter back this week at some point!
Last one then I'm back to planning. My #currentlyreading list. One for #lotrchapteraday, one for #lengthylit and one for me!
#AugustLibrary17
#junetunz Day8: #joiningafanclub
A group dedicated to the study and promotion of Dante use their literary knowledge to solve a murder mystery.
@Cinfhen
Just got this book at a local library sale! I talked myself down from three books and just bought one. 😊 My bookshelves are overflowing, so I have to get picky at this point. I hate being a slow pleasure reader! Anyway this takes place in the 1860s, which is part of the time period I write in. Should be interesting!
Picked up another book on another bookstore adventure! 😁
#basedonitscover I've had this for years and I still don't know what it's about but the cover is pretty #marchintoreading
pickA great detective chase, into more of the grotesquely detailed Dante torments; a sure read for fans of the Se7en movie. The interesting take in this historical fiction, has classic poet and Dante translator, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on the investigation team, tracking the copycat killer. 👹
Find your local buy & sell bookstore: I'm always able to find hidden gems and great deals.
Happy New Year from West Texas!! (Yes- I'm in bed, in pjs, & no makeup before 9:30)
She also loaned me this little gem that she picked up recently, which I thought looked super interesting!
pickThis is one of those books I so enjoyed but others didn't. This happens to me in reverse too (Outlander!) so when it does I'm always looking for friends who felt the same (aka ppl who will make good recommendations!) so please follow me if you liked this. Or if you didn't. Lol!
bailedI really wanted to like this, but the plot was too slow, even for a self-professed lover of slow plots. There are so many more books I want to read right now that this one will have to go on the back burner for a while.
They got my name correct today! Finally continuing with this book. Hope to have it finished by the end of the week!
Beach reading is the best reading.
50 pages in--I read a lot of mixed reviews on this, and it is definitely slow going. I am enjoying it, but I may be a bit biased to liking it more because it's set in Boston. We'll see what the next 300 pages bring.
