Welcome to Litsy!

Here is my very fancy list of titles for #bookspin. I see that 12 was our lucky number and so I will be tackling Immigrant, Montana. 14 of the books on my list are ARCs that I haven't read 😔 and so I am really hoping that this gives me a necessary kick to finish these.

Thanks for the fun challenge

I probably read this at the wrong time and might enjoy it another time. Indian guy comes to New York for grad school. This is the story of his girlfriends. Didn‘t finish.

This book ranges from sexuality to politics to love. It is infused with the experience of an Indian immigrant. Fun read.

Author‘s note: “This is a work of fiction as well as nonfiction, an in-between novel by an in-between writer.”
It wasn‘t until page 200 that I was entirely won over, because there‘s a lot of preoccupation with sex. The MC is a young man, from India studying in the US, so it makes sense that he feels the tension between morality & pleasures of the body. His sense of dislocation & insecurity also come through clearly. Moving & refreshing.

I remembered the summer afternoon in Delhi when I had gone to watch the film for the first time, and how the sorrow had struck home. But here [in New York] I felt stranded in language. I had become a translated man, no longer able to connect with my own past. What else had I forgotten? The sorrow of the world, but sorrow also for myself, gripped my throat.

There were several clips of him, decades before the September 11 attacks, warning the US that the support of covert operations worldwide would one day come back to haunt America. If the US was going to be undemocratic elsewhere, peace was also unlikely at home. In one video from the late 70s, you can see Ehsaan explaining this contradiction by telling his audience: A man cannot be violent and sadistic to his mistress and be gentle to his wife.

A character in this novel wanted to visit four places when he left Pakistan to study abroad, including the site of the Haymarket riot in 1886 Chicago, because as a boy he had been taken to May Day celebrations. Years later he bought a bouquet of flowers to lay at the Haymarket monument, but found it was a statue of a policeman, for preserving order during that landmark struggle for an 8-hr work day. He gave the flowers to a woman instead.

“Your Honor, I was in pain, I suffered from the consumption of the soul.”

The first-person narrator in this novel often addresses a judge who resides inside his brain. An interesting way to frame internal dialogue. (Author photo from Internet.)

I liked Pushkin for saying things like You know I can see why Pico Iyer says “One reason Melbourne looks ever more like Houston is that both of them are filling up with Vietnamese pho cafes.” It gave me a sense of what it means to possess a global identity. It was something I wanted for myself too. But Shankar said Pushkin was only a jetsetter. “He isn‘t global at all. He‘s just from another planet. It‘s called the First World.”
(Internet photo)

Was there a link between Indians and monkeys? The Republicans think so. In 2006, a Virginia senator named George Allen called an Indian-American youth a macaca. Allen was on the campaign trail and the teen he called macaca was working for his Democratic opponent.

(Internet photo)

There‘s a cat that‘s named for Frida Kahlo in this novel. I figure that‘s a good enough excuse to post a photo of my darling, who is also named for Frida Kahlo. #catsofLitsy

Ehsaan said that Palestinians who left their homeland and were never able to return still keep the keys to the houses they had been forced to abandon. The keys are useless now because the locks are gone. But those keys are the portals to homeland.

Didn‘t buy this one BUT the cover was my favorite!!!!
#Waterstones #NEEDmoreTime #SoManyBooksSoLittleTime

I am inordinately pleased when my hold matches my outfit #librarylove

@shawnmooney came up with the plan for a day-after-the-wedding bookstore crawl. We Littens know how to have a good time! Shawn asked for my opinion on books I‘d not read. I hope I haven‘t led him astray with these selections. 🤞

Took my other stack of new books with me to brunch. So perfect. The tagged was released a couple weeks ago and seems to be well received. Also picked up Dietland and Female of the Species based on reviews I‘ve seen online. Norwegian by Night (Derek Miller) was an impulse buy based on his new book on the staff picks shelf. Looking forward to ALL of these 😍 #bookhaul

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left I buy food & clothes.”