Welcome to Litsy!

My first book for the #TransRightsReadathon is one I found in an article interviewing Torrey Peters on her recommended Trans books. It wasn't on my radar before.

This novel took me several months to finish and I'm sure the library will be so happy to have their copy back. It was absolutely brilliant, this may be one of the few books that make it back into the rotation. The depiction of queer characters was refreshing and familiar, and reading this book feels like returning to a community of friends.

This was an okay story, there are two story lines the main narrator who comes across a manuscript for Jack Shepper, a Trans Rouge who meets up with the London underground and faces off against many foes as he transitions from female.to male. The main narrator who is reading the story intersperses their own Transition story. It was okay but the transition from the manuscript to present time in the story was not well done.

The first half of the book was amazing. Loved the characters and the story about having to break away and find his freedom, living in the streets and meeting the other girls. Some of the sex scenes are very well done, the language is brash and unexpected but it makes you pay attention.

But the second half was weird, hard to understand, didn't make sense ... I'm not sure what really happened at the end and the worst part is, I don't think I care.

Back at work. Two months to go.
[Currently listening to: Leave Me Alone by NF]

This. Book. Is. Wild.

Jordy Rosenberg has given us a novel that is at once a purported seventeenth century memoir/narrative, that morphs into a rallying cry against the commoditization of bodies, of prison abolition, of anti-colonialism, of anti-racism, of trans self-determination. Surrounding this is a framing narrative in footnotes of the professor annotating this tale and his fight against a university increasingly...

#24in48

Finally finished it!
I didn't love it, even though I desperately wanted to. I think it's a book you need to read at least twice before you can fully appreciate it. I quite enjoyed the first half, then it got somewhat confusing, maybe because the character's motivations weren't all that clear to me. But it's a fascinating rewrite of history that reminds its readers that history may well not be as cis, white, and male as they think. Would recommend!

A bit overzealous with the references to genitalia? This book?? Why'd you think that? Though I have to say I enjoy the footnotes (maybe not these in particular ...) a lot more than I expected to. Gives the whole thing this weird and somewhat parodistic academic vibe. Right up my alley.

Next up! I kind of love the cover, although I don't quite get it (yet?). I'm hoping to use this for a translation project at uni and so far it's looking good!

My experience with this was all over the map. It's a strange mix of genres: a trans man academic finds an 18th century manuscript about a famous thief, also a trans man. The majority of the story is the historical one w/ footnotes taking place in the academic's dystopian world. I was super into it at first but found my attention waning and felt uncomfortable w/the role WOC played and confused about how trans and intersex identities intersected.

A manuscript detailing the rousing misadventures of trans Jack, lockpicker extraordinaire, and Bess Khan, anarchist and the love of his life versus London‘s Thieftaker General falls into the hands of an academic. The story explores gender, class warfare, social transgression and power while the scholarly annotations parallels power plays in academia. Exhilarating, funny, and fascinating.

The satire of academia in this book is gold. Although the fact that the American audiobook narrator is not very good at British accents is kinda distracting. Like, he's not terrible, it's just that the accent fades halfway through a sentence sometimes. #QueerBooks #TransBooks #audiobook

"Faculty like to imagine being upset counts as political activism. Not like I was much better. I went to one [faculty] meeting just to see if there was anyone cute there." Hahaha. #QueerBooks #TransBooks

Two exciting queer #audiobooks coming up in my Libby account! #QueerBooks #LGBTQBooks #TransBooks

#FebruaryStats

Highlights were
Taurus
The Coroner's Lunch
The Hangman's Daughter
The Burning
Madame Tussaud &
#MeToo

The only 3 🌟 went to A Minor Deception, the rest are 4 & 5 🌟's!

This was fantastic. At first I thought I might find the Professor‘s footnotes a bit annoying, but I absolutely grew to love his rambles. Not as heist-y as I‘d hoped, but still a great read.

The moment when you‘re searching for a title on Scribd and see an article by the author... and the professor you‘re taking Queer and Trans writing with starting in three weeks. 😳

Got these speakers & turn table for xmas. Feels goodto be able to listen to records again after a good three years. I think they fit in great between the books & crafts. Finished the wonderful Confessions of the Fox while setting it up.

Can't stop listening to this book. J is watching terrible #xmas movies and I'm just hangin next to him on the couch with my airpods in listening to this story unfold. Also: #knitting progress! Hat's like 3/4 done.

Here's some of the last-minute xmas knitting. I fucking love some chunky yarn... They'll never know it only took me two hours to knit this long-ass scarf. #knitting #audiobooks

Starting this'n while I do some last minute xmas knitting.

Professor Voth, a “guy by design not birth” annotates a 18th c manuscript describing the bawdy adventures of a transgender thief. Copious footnotes & copious sex. Part contemporary campus satire, part queer theory, part romance, part social philosophy, part historical romp. #Audiobook deftly performed by Aden Hakimi. If, like me, you prefer to skim the piss drinking & other sex scenes, print or ebook would be a better format. #LGBTQ #trans

An unexpected connection between these two novels: opposing perspectives on draining the fens in historical England.

These two debut novels have a lot in common:

✅Queer characters acting with agency in historical London settings.
✅Underworld (or specialized) argot.
✅Many queer sex scenes. Many.
✅Sociopolitical commentary.

All history should be the history of how we exceeded our own limits.

#trans #ownvoices #lgbtq

(Author photo from the Internet)

Mindless tasks, like winding skeins into balls in preparation for knitting, are made pleasant with an #audiobook. Ditto for knitting test swatches. #knittersofLitsy

On the manuscript‘s continual theme of spread legs, well, this obsession I frankly postulate to be an inversion of Marcel Duchamp‘s genius/sick fuck masterpiece Étant donnés, which aimed to be the last word on spread legs.
(Internet image of Duchamp art + modesty sticker)

Inter-textual connections: from Rosenberg‘s MC, a trans man & professor, in his footnotes to “dear reader,” I learned that that there‘s a link between Esi Edugyan‘s Washington Black & Frederick Douglass‘ My Bondage & My Freedom. I looked it up online to confirm that Douglass inserts a fantasy narrative rather than give details of his escape from slavery: “Disappearing from the kind reader in a flying cloud or balloon, driven by the wind…”

Emails containing foreign words have begun to mysteriously go to spam. Well, perhaps not so mysteriously. Surely this has something to do with the university outsourcing its electronic communications department to the private, mercenary, electronic corporation Militia.edu.

I've never read anything quite like this. A very interesting concept - the narrator's story told in the footnotes of an imagined re-telling of the eighteenth century tale of Jack Sheppard; thief, jailbreaker and in this book, hermaphrodite. It's both confusing and fascinating with archaic language (all explained in the notes), and political, racial and sexual themes. A lot to take in. Extremely well written, not sure if I enjoyed it though.

Finished this one on my trip. It‘s a manuscript about an 18th century transgender thief annotated by a modern day professor.

There were editing choices that I wish had been different. The footnotes can last for several pages of tangents about the professor‘s life when I think alternating chapters might have flowed better.

That being said, I‘ve never read a more realistic fiction book about trans men before and that was amazing.

#transbooks

“Thank god for the women who rescue us from the medusan horror of our mothers‘ gazes; for the women who see us as...us.”

There are some quotes in this book that resonate so deeply. I could write a whole essay about that sentence.

And it‘s a really good example of why more books by the people who experience these things need to be published.

#transbooks #lgbtq

SNOW DAY READING!

I‘m really excited for this book. It‘s a fictionalized autobiography about a notorious thief in eighteenth century London. It‘s reveled in the manuscript that this person was actually transgender. It seems like a really interesting idea and a way to honor some of the erased histories out there.

The author is also transgender so YAY.

#transbooks #lgbtq

I have so many thoughts on this one. First of all this was recommended by Book Riot‘s new TBR service. The comparison‘s to Sarah Waters ( who I adore) are real but this book made me feel so unnecessarily dirty. The story is fiction that wanted to be non-fiction and the footnotes were so distracting (pages and pages). At times the writing was beautiful but could not get over all the other factors.

Thank you so much @Shadowfat !!! I was out of town all weekend and only just checked my mail. I am really looking forward to this read! It‘s a #blameitonlitsy pick! Thank you so much again! 💗💓📚 #justabookswap

This book took a lot of concentration, due to historical slang. Earthy, honest, academic, brilliant observations, queer theory and characters. Completely unlike anything I‘ve ever read. #queerbooks

This was of my first recommendations from Book Riot‘s #TBR. Never heard of it before then. But the personal notes they gave me showed a ton of thoughtfulness so I have extremely high hopes.

A queer reading of historical fiction, reimagining a famed 19th century British thief as trans and his allegedly white lover as WOC. At the same time, there is a historian making annotations whose own story is playing out in the footnotes. Imaginative and Trojan horse-d full of queer theory.

1. 112 so far
2. 120. Clearly I'm going to need to bump it up to 150 or thereabouts.
3. I'm a broken record at this point, but the tagged book.
4. My Sister the Serial Killer, White Dancing Elephants

#2018checkin

It'a a corker. My summary: A little ditty about Jack and Bess-Ann, two 18th-century, gender-non-conforming kids doin' the best they can. Oh, yeah. Archives go on, long after the thrill of the patriarchy is gone...

#catsoflitsy #bookkaraoke #currentread

1. Visiting my mom, going to see Won't You Be My Neighbor? and reading.
2. See above
3. Bacon. Ech.
4. Despite being nearly six feet tall and getting asked constantly whether I played basketball, I was actually rather uncoordinated and had poor visual acuity due to a double astigmatism.
5. Thanks!

This book was sort of two stories. An old manuscript and the footnotes from a professor who was going through it. It was a cute gimmick and I loved the footnotes.

The nuanced ways this novel addresses racial inequality in the eighteenth century (note: "lascar" is an old timey word for someone of Indian or Southeast Asian heritage) seriously makes my heart sing. I'm 68 pages in and predicting this will be a five star read, if not an all-time favorite. ?

#queerbooks

"You're being neither rational nor virtuous, Jack"

big mood

Pretty jazzed to start this one tonight. Queer historical fiction with a trans protagonist, AND it's blurbed by my bae China Miéville? Gimme gimme.

#queerbooks

#LibraryHaul

Goodies from the library!!!!!

"He was on the other side of a high thick Hedge of branches with vicious tips. He could not come through. And she could not come through to him."

oooohh that's a big #dysphoria feeling for me too Jack

Luna is obviously excited to start on Confessions of the Fox. Finished up two books I started earlier this month, so it‘s time to start in on my first new book of the day. #24in48 #readathon #24in48readathon

ARCs for review. Must read faster!

incredible footnotes and we are only just on page ten 👏