Getting very near the end on this one - for whatever reason this has been a difficult one to get through. Curious how it all turns out.
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Stephen Florida | 
Getting very near the end on this one - for whatever reason this has been a difficult one to get through. Curious how it all turns out.
panA lot of people seem to love this, but there were too many ‘peeing-off-balconies‘ (and other places) and wth? moments for me.
#ToBTournamentofFavorites
Road trip read #3 #ToBToFavorites
I DNF‘d this when it featured as a contender in whatever year‘s TOB. I don‘t recall for sure but I think it was an audiobook. So far, I think I can get lost in this with print version.
pickThis book stayed with me so powerfully after I read it in December 2017 that I decided to make it the required book club experience for the Summer Reading class I've been teaching. I originally listened to the audio but read through Kindle Prime this time around.⤵️
Litsy friends!! So sorry for absence, its the first day of my first week off work since Christmas and I am so excited!!
Main aims are to actually finish a book as I have started about a zillion but hardly completed any at all in lockdown. So much for all those library books I got out!
And also to send some Litsy mail - thanks so much @squirrelbrain and @kezzlou85 for checking up on me today! #jbuk Xxx
#7Days7Covers #covercrush Day 3, I think.
My latest reads are both gifted from the lovely and generous @BarbaraBB I‘m not feeling Stephen Florida at the moment ( sorry @britt_brooke ) so I‘m switching over to Sally Rooney💛 so nice to have options!!! And the sun is shining bright today 🌞
@Cinfhen is doing a giveaway for these books! Check out #TwosweetGiveaway for more details!!! #payitforward
Next book up. Apparently Stephen goes to school in North Dakota. #babyitscoldoutside #winterwonderland #seasonsreadings
Some midwinter pick me ups delivered by my brother and SIL 💕💕💕I have high hopes for tagged book, but @emilyhaldi just left a rather disappointing review😥I‘m still hoping I‘m #TeamBritt because it was her review which led me to order the book😉🙏🏻and then there‘s wrapping paper because apparently Israeli‘s find the premise wasteful🙄oh, candles!!! Because if it‘s not books or music then it‘s aroma therapy candles 💜
so-soYou know when you start a book and immediately think, yes this is going to be a 5⭐️ book, I just know it. And then you get to the halfway point and have to reevaluate those expectations and then by the time you‘re nearing the end you‘re utterly bored and ready for it to end? This was that book for me. Disappointing 😟
Another pretty fantastic reading month!
Completed: 15
Nonfiction: 8
Audio: 8
Rereads: 2
ARC: 1
#novemberreads #novemberstats #novemberwrapup
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Steven Forster became a wrestler simply because there was nothing else to do. But this book isn‘t really about wrestling. The sweat and singlets are always near, but that takes a backseat as we enter our solipsistic narrator‘s head. A good character study should be relatable. It‘s in the honest details; the odd things people do, but hide from others. Stephen Florida is about being lost and painfully lonely. And it‘s damned funny, too.
Oh, damn. 😆🔥
Gross, but this made me cackle. 😆 I grabbed this on your recommendation @vivastory . I‘m halfway in and digging it.
pickI love writer couples! Here‘s Julie Buntin debuting her novel Marlena (which is an incredible portrait of a young female friendship that only Ferrante can surpass) with her partner Gabe Habash. Florida is a fully-fleshed, belligerent wiseass with a surprisingly engrossing psyche. The closest literary equivalents I could only compare to Rosa Guy‘s Wade Williams and Ellison‘s Invisible Man. Horrendously brilliant and disgusting individuals! 😊
pickHow can a book about a misfit amateur wrestler in North Dakota be so compelling and fascinating? Seriously, how??? Gabe Habash, what a talent - and this is only his debut novel!
pickWell. This book was Something. Bizarre, disturbing, unsettling, I didn't exactly enjoy it but I couldn't look away. And I sure as hell won't be forgetting it anytime soon. I don't want to recommend it but at the same time I really want to talk about it. 🤪
"... the idea of "everyone's different" is just a sentiment created to help explain the failure of people who don't get to the standard."
Most cynical thing I've read in a long time. This book is messing with my head ?
I have to stop at Shakespeare and Company whenever I‘m in Paris, although I actually like The Abbey Bookshop more. It‘s only five minutes away, usually empty, and I come close to knocking down a precariously stacked tower of books every time. Perfect!
This book is dark and some of the descriptions gross me out. I‘m not very far in, but I have a feeling Stephen Florida is going to get even darker.
Today‘s #BookHaul saved me from severe train delays so my impulse shopping trip was a true success 😏
But really, I just needed to do some in person browsing to boost my mental health and Gabe Habash is the teacher of a writing workshop I‘m attending in a couple weeks so I figured I‘d do a bit of “research” into his style.
I‘m proud of myself because I had 3 other books in my hand but I made notes of the titles and put them back. Baby steps!
pickThis is a book I appreciated more than enjoyed. In fact there were times that I almost bailed. Why the pick? Because I haven‘t been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it yesterday.
panUm . . . What?
Lots of people loved this book. I may be intellectually unsophisticated, so I just didn‘t get it. At best, it was boring, at worst, confusing. I love an unreliable narrator, but I also need a purpose. Sorry folks, not for me.
I‘ve walked past this print at my in-laws house for years without realizing what it was. My father-in-law would have hated Litsy because it would have taken him away from reading but he was the the most bookiest person I ever knew ❤️
Going into this book like ☝️
Unreliable narrator, disturbing bodily grossness, described as Donnie Darko meets Fight Club
I‘m in, but Im afeared!
Day 9 - State Name in Title: Yay! Saved by a monthly Book Box Subscription. Auto book selection. Auto send. I don‘t have another book with a state name in the title & I‘m not sure that I would have found my way to this author & this book without the guidance of a book club subscription. I cancelled all of my subscriptions (no space for HBs), but I sure do miss them. I live vicariously through you all when you post BOTM photos. #ReadingResolutions
Reading Envy Podcast 115: "Quote, Unquote" with Scott Eaton, our very own @vivastory. We chat about vampires, poetry, true crime, and the best character studies. #linkinprofile #podcast https://tinyurl.com/ReadingEnvy115
Found a signed special edition at a used book store today! The owner said it was hers and she decided to put it on the shelf to sell. I convinced her it was going to a good home.
Yippee!! Or... oh no?!! My Library hold for this in ebook format just came through. I sure hope it is a quick read. #tob18.
AND WE'RE OFF TO THE RACES!
The 2018 Tournament of Books starts today! Think of it like March Madness, but for books. I recently finished reading the shortlist and doing a mock bracket. Sadly, my bracket is busted with this play in round, because my favorite book about wrestling didn't make it. I won't spoil who actually won, but you can check out each match (added daily most times) at
https://themorningnews.org/tob/
#tob
#tob2018
pickStephen Forester has obsessively focused on being the National Champion of wrestling in the 133 weight class. This goal is his main distraction from the crippling grief and loneliness that he is suffering. Stephen is impulsive, exasperating, and sometimes downright weird, but I was always interested in what he was going to do and say next. He wonders at one point if anyone would read a book about him. The answer is, most certainly, yes. #TOB18
pickOh, I love an unreliable narrator! I think Patrick Bateman (American Psycho),Hal Incandenza (Infinite Jest),and Lester Ballard (Child of God by Cormac McCarthy) had a moment of simultaneous coherent thought and out popped Stephen Florida...
My TBR for February. Some Booker, some books from the 1001 books list, some ToB finalists, the highly anticipated buddy read of Confederacy of Dunces and of course the books for the challenges: Booked2018, PopSugar and the Litsy Reading Challenge. 😀😀
#whathappenedtofreechoices?!
so-soThis story is marked by strong writing that takes the reader along on the main character‘s descent into madness, and by the depth created by symbolism and ambiguity throughout. This is a book that I really appreciate for its artistic merit, but I can‘t tell if I actually like it.
#TOB18 progress. I finished listening to So Much Blue. A skillful novel but it didn't wow me. Now on to Stephen Florida which is a perfect example of a novel I would never read if not for the tournament. Creepy narration so far, but I am intrigued. This makes #9. I've read 8, bailed on 1.
How are others doing?
(And thanks again to @starrdom for pointing me to Hoopla.)
pickI've been trying to get through all of the books on this year's Tournament of Books shortlist. All of have been good at the very least so far, some have been stellar - like this one. Woke up today, saw it, got excited to read it, then was so sad when I remembered I finished it last night. Book hangover.
This is about a wrestler obsessed with winning his senior year championship and his descent into madness as he pursues perfection. Beautiful. #tob
pickI found this book strangely compelling. It was completely what I expected but I found it hard to put down anyway. I did learn a bit about wrestling, although the reliability of the information from the narrator might be a tad uncertain. I do love a bit of stream of conciousness, even if it is about wrestling.
I'm about 5 hours into this 12-hour #audiobook and Stephen's world just feels so claustrophobic to me. I'm struggling but I gotta finish because it's a #tob18 selection.
pickStephen Florida is a unique character that is alternately sympathetic and disgusting. He is at times petty and at others magnanimous. He is childishly sadistic and a seeker of justice. We see both a brusque exterior and a wounded interior. With all these contradictions, the author deftly creates a multilayered character that feels lifelike in his complexity.
Starting this as my next audiobook. I have the hardcover, too, so I‘ll probably switch back and forth between the two.
pickThis is a great book that explores a singular obsession, isolating masculinities, and the somewhat anticlimactic feeling of triumph. Also sportsing. I think it should make the ToB shortlist because it has a lot.to discuss. In the Newest Literary Fiction group in Goodreads we are discussing it right now and interesting theories are arising. #hoopla as audio and ebook.
I listened to a few minutes of this last night to see if I wanted to listen to it on my trek home. This might be the least Jenny book I read all year! #tournamentofbooks #tob #hoopla
Still I'm driving five hours in the dark so I might do podcasts and musicals to keep me awake.
The joy of getting home to #bookmail is only beaten by FREE bookmail. My Goodreads giveaway is here! (I am literally only reading this because of @shawnmooney's fabulous review but I am excited to read it!)
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a pretty amazing cover and an equally stunning debut novel. Stephen Florida does things that repulsed me, he is often manic and self sabotaging and yet Habash manages to make him endearing. No easy thing to achieve in a novel about a college wrestler.
There is eye-gouging, spitting, a lot of peeing in places unbecoming. In short it's a bit of a testosterone fest. But it's also very funny and weird.
#indiespensable #tob18
