Welcome to Litsy!

Taking a deep breath and starting this one.

Been some time since I've been able to listen, but beautiful morning audiobook walk through the fields with my pup ☀️

Too tired to read a physical book, but just alert enough for audio - time to continue with this one. About halfway through now.

I'm posting one book per day from the ever growing unread stacks in my personal library. No description or explanation, just books I own and plan to read. #tbr

Day 54 (Audible edition)

Read this book when you are able to sit in the light. Riggs chronicles her life after cancer diagnosis. It is heart warming and heart wrenching. What a courageous person to be able to be so open and honest during her journey.
#FabulousFebruary @Andrew65
#BookSpinBingo #7 @TheAromaofBooks
Final for the readathon 6/4 books read!!
Andrew I surpassed my goal.

Even though I knew how the story was going to end and that I was reading a book about dying, I felt grief and sadness when Nina left her body. I thank her for sharing the story of her life, family, and cancer with me. This is such an open and honest book. I am grateful to have read it. 💜#MountTBR

Beautiful reflection on mortality and meaning, written by a woman with terminal cancer, two young children, and a mother who is also dying. Plenty of Emerson and Montaigne references, which pair powerfully with anecdotes about daily living in spite of/in light of disease.

Reading Nina Riggs‘ moving book after a brush with cancer last fall was, well, scary. Her story emerges as my memento mori, “remember, you must die,” but in a real and beautiful sense. Finding joy in every day is no longer trite. It is essential.

Wow! I can't even cope with how emotional this was! I laughed and I cried. What a beautiful memoir of living and dying.
Nina Riggs memoir of living with terminal cancer is truly heartbreaking ? Her boys will cherish this forever.

One of my favourite quotes from the book -
"You are fully entitled to slap the next person who tells you that God only gives us what we can handle."

It‘s a book I don‘t normally read. There were times I skimmed and times I had tears. Sometimes it‘s hard to work in the medical field and read a book like this.

Okay update. This one made me cry.

After watching people die from cancer, I‘m hesitant reading this.

”For me, faith involves staring into the abyss, seeing that it is dark and full of the unknown—and being okay with that.”
Nina Riggs, The Bright Hour

This was beautiful and sad and tbh I‘m still crying about it... 15 minutes after I‘ve finished it. 😭 Thanks for bringing this heartbreaking memoir to my attention, @LMJenkins! I don‘t know if I ever would have read Nina‘s story on my own. 💕 #NewYearWhoDis #bookly

When you use your Kindle as a bookmark. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Oof. This book. 😭 #NewYearWhoDis

I haven‘t finished a book yet so far this year (all 4 days of it! 😂), but I plan to finish all three of these this weekend. I think I can, I think I can. 🤞🏻

And look what I‘m starting today @LMJenkins! Is this going to make me cry, though? Because maybe this wasn‘t the best read for the metro. 😂😂😂 #NewYearWhoDis

Great list from @LMJenkins for #NewYearWhoDis! These are the ones I‘m hoping to get to. I already own The Clockmaker‘s Daughter and Sunburn, so I‘m excited to finally read them. And the others sound so intriguing and haven‘t been on my radar till now, so this is already satisfying to me! 😂 Thanks for setting this all up, @monalyisha! 💕

4/5
Taking advantage of the very bad air quality here in SF to stay inside for a mini readathon. That said, I started this book awhile ago but never got past the prologue because I just couldn‘t emotionally prepare myself. I still wasn‘t ready, but glad I was able to finally read this memoir. Beautiful and devastating, it really forced me to reevaluate my own life and relationships through her words. And for that, I‘m grateful.

#ReadHarder2018

Beautiful writing. You can tell Riggs was a poet. This is an unvarnished and candid memoir of living with terminal cancer. She perfectly captures the tug-of-war between living in the present and acknowledging the nearness of death. Putting sentimentality aside, she is forthright about her desperate longing for more time with her young sons and husband and her attempts to prepare them all for inevitable separation. A wonderful writer gone too soon.

Absolutely beautiful writing. I picked it up for content and plot, but would read again for the wonderful way she wields words. Also led me to other literature with her poignant references.

“We are certain only that there is so much of which we are not certain”

today was a good day 🙂

1. I went camping at The Festy, a three day music festival in Charlottesville.
2. I am working from home, listening to an audiobook and tidying my house.
3. The tagged book was finished this week.
4. I bought a 6-month Audible membership for a friend going through chemo.
5. Hard question! I love Italian food, steak and risotto, Indian food, savory Mac & cheese and salads with lots of goodies in them like meat and nuts.
#HumpDayPost

I woke earlier than I needed to this morning, so I‘m reading a bit. I‘m approaching the end of this book and it‘s exquisite but torturously sad. Her sentences are perfect and as I read them, I am feeling what she must have felt or a fragment of it: knowing you‘re about to leave your two beautiful boys forever, much too early. 💔

I originally chose this because for the Read Harder challenge but it was significantly better then I could have hoped for. I was rooting for Nina the entire way and just wanted her to live even though the title already tells you otherwise. This was a slight mistake to listen to at work because I had to stop every so often to stop from bursting into tears but it was just so heartfelt. #readharderchallenge

I picked this one up at the library, because I‘m doing the bookriot challenge this year. This was published after the author died of cancer. She is a poet & it shows. Told in short snippets, the reader learns about the family she has to leave behind as she is diagnosed with cancer shortly after her mother. She passes at a very young age and her husband finishes the story. This was heartbreaking, so I‘m glad I finished it in a few sittings.

💛 My kiddos make me happy.
📚 Right now I am only reading one! The tagged book.
⛰ I miss a lot about my hometown, but if I have to pick one thing, I‘d say the terrain. It‘s hilly and rocky and lush.
💲 I don‘t, but I should!
🙁 Tough choice, but I really do already have “access” to every book, so I guess I‘d choose the million dollars and try to be happy without books (I‘ll be sneaky and read magazines).
#HumpDayPost

Today‘s entry for #MonthOfMemoirs is a five tissue read. Brings all the feels.

https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/the-bright-hour-nina-riggs/

I‘m sitting on my porch in the shade with a big tumbler of ice water, trying to decide which one of these beauties to start right now. Help me choose!

This book was incredibly heartwarming and inspiring. It‘s incredibly sad that Nina lost her fight with cancer, but she spent her remaining time leaving behind a legacy that will encourage many others.

❤🍨📚❤

50 pages in and loving it. ❤

What a beautiful, sad book. Unflinchingly honest and as beautifully written as you'd expect from a poet.

#ReadHarder challenge 17: a book published posthumously

This is so terrible and also completely relatable.

This book is marvelous. Devastating, hilarious, touching, honest, poetic, and shockingly compulsively readable, even as you dread the end of the book. I recommend it even to those who may be reluctant.

Good morning! Nothing like a lazy Saturday with a new book. Making slow progress with my #ReadHarder challenge, I thought I'd be farther ahead by now! This one covers the first book challenge. I have the tissues ready.

I started this book ten minutes ago and it's already devastating and amazing. 💚

Finally going home. I love reading on the train! 🚊 📚 ♥️ 😊

A beautiful written memoir, not just about dying, but also about living: how you go on living with terminal illness, with chronic pain, with the death of your mother, with the knowledge your kids will have to go on without you. Riggs tries to work through these and other thoughts as she deals not only with her own diagnosis, but that of her mother, dying of a completely different type of cancer. 💔😭 #cancersucks

I knew this one would be a tough read - aren't all cancer books, especially when your family has been personally impacted by cancer? What I wasn't expecting was to go through the death of Nina's mother with her. It's definitely hitting close to home. 😢

Just started listening to this one today. It feels a little disjointed, but I'm enjoying it so far. New fun fact: the author met her husband in the same town in which I went to college: Carlisle, PA!

#audiobook #cancersucks

Totally should have waited to read this book as it hit way too close to home. Still a good listen.

Love this book. Poetry.

Sitting in the car waiting to pick the kids up, and I can‘t stop the tears. I am nearly the same age as Nina, and also have 2 kids the same age. My heart breaks for her family. Life can be beautiful and cruel.
Go well, Nina.

1. The Bright Hour - see tagged book for synopsis 😿
2. Reese‘s Peanut Butter Cups
3. Forever Winona in Reality Bites
4. Apple Watch
5. Super Bowl party 🎉

#humpdaypost