Fall On Your Knees | 
The Women's Prize longlists have delivered some of my favourite reads over the past couple years. So, inspired by @vivastory and the #BookerDozen, I decided to look back at my top twelve reads from the history of the Women's/Orange Prize (Longlists, Shortlists, and Winners). Feel free to play along!
Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace
Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
Nicole Krauss - The History of Love
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun
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I read this book 25? years ago and it has remained in my Top 10 Reads ever since. Alisa Palmer & Hannah Moscovitch (with AMM‘s blessing) have adapted it to stage. The play is in two parts, we saw Part 1: Family Tree last night and will see Part 2: The Diary tonight ( it‘s only running for 5 nights in London ON) It is so good! How clever, creative and imaginative are these women to attempt and succeed bringing to life my favourite book ❤️
#DailyChallenge #MarchMadness
Happy World Theatre Day, everyone!
Recently, I was lucky enough to attend part one of the adaptation of Ann-Marie McDonald's Fall on Your Knees. It was one of the most beautiful, effective pieces of theatre I've seen. Ever.
@Andrew65 @DieAReader
Fall on Your Knees on the stage, from a group of creators including Alisa Palmer and Hannah Moskovitch?!?! This is freakin' exciting news!!
https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/epic-novel-to-become-two-night-play-co-p...
pickThis book was an emotional roller coaster ride with a very complicated family. I adored it on audio. #oprahsbookclub
Happy Victoria Day to those that celebrate. 🇨🇦 My quick research says it was initially to celebrate Queen V‘s birthday.
This tagged book is a great story set in #Canada #MagicalMay @Eggs
pickThis is the story of how four sisters, beautiful, repressed, wild, and saintly, each in her turn (am I describing the March sisters?!) choose to live their lives amidst the toxic influence of a man who has a pathological desire to prey on those he can easily control. The poetic writing keeps the soap opera events from feeling exploitative.
Heading to the hospital bright and early Monday a.m. for knee replacement surgery. Will only be in the hospital overnight, but I‘ve heard the recovery can take a long time. These are the library books I‘ll have with me to (hopefully) read over the next week.
“[...] a real and beautiful voice delicately rends the chest, discovers the heart, and holds it beating against a stainless edge until you long to be pierced utterly. For the voice is everything you do not remember. Everything you should not be able to live without and yet, tragically, do.”
#AprilReads: I read 7 books this month!
4 were written by women: 2 Jodi Picoult, 1 Darcy Coates and 1 Ann-Marie Macdonald
I listened to the audiobook of "Fall on your knees" which I absolutely loved.
pickSomewhere between a pick and a so-so for me as I feel like I‘ve been battered by every trauma ever that a family could go through!
I nearly bailed at about 90 pages as the story wasn‘t pulling me in - then, wham, it gets you and then there is just so much story!!
Those poor girls 💔
Train reading. Travelling back from friends daughters wedding....tired....but lovely day ❤️
#timbittunes #theweight
Drawing a long bow here but if you‘re carrying a heavy weight you might fall on your knees right? I read the tagged book when it was an Oprah Book Club pick. And @Reggie ? I think this might be the second most disturbing book I‘ve ever read - and you‘ve read my most disturbing book! 😂 The reveal in this book is burned in my brain. Feels like great historical fiction and then DARK and TWISTED.
I‘ll spoiler tag a TW below.
Making a very concerted effort to not spend all of my lunch break at my desk. It's a smart move. So was picking up the paperback (and thus slightly more portable version of) this, which I finally started and am loving.
pickWhat to say about this devastating masterpiece? It's the 2nd time I've read it, and while the 1st time was hard, I think re-reading is perhaps worse, because I knew the horrible incest/rape was coming. I don't know how she writes beautifully about such dark things, telling the intergenerational story of this fucked up family. The voice actor does an incredible job. If you can stomach it, this is a masterpiece, as I said. But fuck is it ever dark.
What I really want is a book in which Kathleen and Rose live happily ever after in NYC and have fabulous music careers. What can't I have that??
Did some audiobooking and forest bathing on my lunchbreak! This adaptation of the novel is fabulous so far.
pickSo amazing. One of those books I grabbed at the book sale, started reading thinking “this may be boring, but whatever I‘ll get through it” and it turned out to be beautiful, raw, and one I‘ll be thinking about for a long time. Sad it‘s over.
This is a #familyaffair. #augustgrrrl @Cinfhen
This has been sitting on my TBR shelf for at least 4 years. In my effort to whittle down my stacks, I'm finally going to read it! I picked it from a box of books a friend was giving away because of the Nova Scotia setting (I have ancestors from NS). Anyone enjoy it?
@Liberty #weekendgiveaway
pickWhy had I not heard of this book? I got it at a library book sale, and I'm kind of glad I went into it blind. I had no idea where it was headed, and although it could easily be titled "Everyone Dies" it wasn't a depressing book. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. #litsyAtoZ #letterF @BookishMarginalia
Lily has understood everything in the happy death prayer except for one word. "What's a viaticum?" "It's a holy word for clean underwear."
This novel takes place on Cape Breton Island, so it's surrounded by a #bodyofwater. #maybookflowers @RealLifeReading
Starting this today. It's one of my finds from the library book sale, and it's my #letterF for #LitsyAtoZ. @BookishMarginalia
pickIn many ways a great read, I liked that I had no idea where the story was going.
I fell hard for Fall On Your Knees, back in the day. I missed those characters when the novel was finished. The Way the Crow Flies was okay, but with Adult Onset, MacDonald had me by the heart all over again. This time, it seemed like she was writing my own life, as it might have been. #CanadianAuthors #lgbt #queerlit
The base thrift store gave me something to add to my Found In Books photo series. It's so much harder to find things to add in here in Japan.
#photoadaynov16 #publishedinthe90s #publishedinthe1990s CanCon edition. Some of my 90's favorites. ❤️🇨🇦📚❤️ @RealLifeReading
pickFamily saga set on Cape Breton, as depressing as CanLit has ever been. Veers toward luridness but saved by spectacular lyrical writing and excellent characters.
Bookmarks don't last long in Spikes domain. Everything is toy to the gentleman. Check out this chapters title. The whole world is this cat's cradle.
Just started this today and I'm having a very hard time putting it down.
I checked out the actual book and had a heck of a time reading it.. I quit. I decided to give it another try as an audiobook.. I feel like I've been listening to it for 32 months. I think I'm liking it.. It's just keeps going and going and going😬
#augustphotochallenge #alltimefavebooks Of course it's impossible to list All of them 😁 but these are the ones I consistently rattle off when asked what my favourites are. Missing from the picture are two of my ultimate faves: The Prince of Tides (Pat Conroy) and A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving), and always go on top of this list of 5. 💕
"She's no lady. Her songs are all unbelievably unhappy or lewd. It's called Blues. She sings about sore feet, sexual relations, baked goods, killing your lover, being broke, men called Daddy, women who dress like men, working, praying for rain. Jail and trains. Whiskey and morphine."
pan
Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
Pat Barker - The Silence of the Girls
Louise Kennedy - Trespasses
Becky Chambers - Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake
Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees 11mo