City on Fire | 
pickI feel like I've just finished a marathon... what a book! This teeters between a pick and so so based on sheer volume. There's A LOT going on in this but I stuck with it for glimpses of the city on the cusp of what I grew up with. I liked it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know personally. I'll go take a nap now before my next read... 😴😴😴
My dad was an NYC police officer in the 80s and I find myself repeatedly raising my eyebrows about Sam & Charlie hanging out in places I was absolutely and totally FORBIDDEN to visit in the city! Lol, Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park were both in his command and off limits to me in the late 90s. The Village was okay, though, as long as I stayed close to the beginning of Alphabet City. 🤣
I went back to this a few days ago & totally forgot what an investment it is!!! It's a sweeping epic of NYC in the late 70s with an overabundance of rich character development. That being said, I recalled all the characters and plot points since I returned this several months ago!
bailedI really just can't go on with this one. I felt like it was sucking my soul away and I was standing by watching it go. Wonderfully written but S-L-O-W... if they make it a series, I'd watch it in a second but I can't give it another 19 hours. Maybe another time...
Getting this started while I have busy work to do at work. I'm finally getting to the books listed in my 2018 Book Lover's Page-A-Day Calendar! 🤣 It seems a lot of them are on audio so I'll have plenty to refer to outside my wheelhouse!
Settling in this evening with lots of beans (of the coffee and chocolate variety 😉). And I'm going to attempt to start this chunkster again... everytime I start it, multiple library holds seem to come in 🙄
Tag me with your answers! #LitsyMemories
#3Books #NYC @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620
I love Stuart Little and The Golem and the Jinni. I haven't read City on Fire yet, but it's on my shelves.
Here is my belated #bookhaulchallenge @Lcsmcat ; had to scroll back 3 years to find it. Not too bad either. I read the top two books, bailed on the third, and only have City of Fire sitting unread on my shelf.
This kept catching my eye. Finally decided to start reading it. So far it‘s quite good. #cityonfire #garthriskhallberg #book #books #reading
#wanderingjune
I actually didn‘t like this book and I‘ve only kept it because I bought it in The Strand 😁. However it‘s very much #summernightcity - set in NYC in the 70s when arson and looting was rife and there were fires all over the Bronx....
panI finally finished this marathon of a novel, but unlike a marathon, one gets no sense of joy or achievement from doing so. Hallberg could've told this story at one third of the length, and even then, it wouldn't have been a story worth telling. I suspect that, for about the next month, I'm going to get a huge sense of relief every time I go to my Overdrive app and no longer see this terrible, stupid book in there.
The reason we can say anything we want in America is because we know it makes no difference.
Choice isn't the same thing as freedom--not when someone else is framing the choices for you.
Incidental, all of it, of course, but this is what this city bestowed that novels couldn't: not what you needed in order to live, but what made the living worth doing in the first place.
"William, an artist is someone who combines a desperate need to be understood with the fiercest love of privacy. That his secrets may be obvious to others doesn't mean he is ready to part with them."
Success in America was like Method acting....
First really giant actual book I‘ve read in a long time. It‘s HEAVY!! Over 900 pages.
#BookMail Pt9 And finally, my last mail of the week is this chunkster of a novel. This has been on my LitsyTBR for awhile but never bumped up, until I watched a documentary a few weeks ago about the blackout in NYC in July 1977 & was fascinated with how people change when they think they‘re not being watched. A group of people are under suspicion of a murder that happened NYE 1976. They‘re under the eye of a cop, until the lights go out.
bailedI tried. I did. But I couldn‘t get through it. I just didn‘t care about these people even though the setting really intrigued me. Too bad.
On a snowy New Years eve on Manhattan, a girl is shot in Central Park. I can‘t remember if it is the #FirstSnowOnBrooklyn this night, but I do remember the descriptions of the snow, the cold and the quiet city 🏙❄️🌨
#WinterWonderland
A big THANK YOU! to @MicheleinPhilly for sending me the tagged book 🤗 I've been in quite the #chunkster mood of late so this is high on my tbr!! I love the generosity of fellow littens ❤️
Today's other book mail is my very bittersweet LAST #BOTM 🖤
#AbbaInAugust While this book opens on a cold winter night it reaches its climax on a hot sizzling #SummerNightCity ✨☀️✨ it‘s July 13th, 1977 & the lights go out in New York City. There was tremendous hype surrounding this debut, which I think was in NEED of better editing. Too long & overdrawn but otherwise an interesting view of NYC on the cusp of change. I would say #BorrowNotBuy
so-soThis had such good reviews when it came out that I snagged a signed copy. Unfortunately, this was just okay for me. I agree with other Littens...it became a challenge to finish and not b/c of the length (I love long novels). It really needed more editing, which made it feel like an obligation to finish b/c I wanted to know how it ended.
#burnittotheground #GetMovin
I am rebooting a photo from last year as the book went to charity shop. A huge book about the 1976 New York riots. A good read if not a little bit too long.
The name selector has spoken.
🎉Congratulations @umbrellagirl !!! 🎉
Please contact me at christyco125 @ aol to make arrangements for the shipment of your prize package.
#yay5k
#GetMovin photo challenge. Day #1 #Justlikefire I also read this book in the last year and man is it a chunckster. I felt like I was just trying to get thru it as quickly as possible this didn‘t follow the story as well as I would have liked to so, I really want to go back and re-read it. Anyone have thoughts on this chunkster?r?
“When you were young, you had the resources to rebuild after each crater fate blasted in your life. Beyond a certain age, though, you could only wall off the damage and leave it there.”
#RiotGrams--day 15--hot books. I realize that Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, must really love hot titles because I think I acquired all the titles pictured here (except the Sedaris) via my Indiespensible subscription.
I read this about a year ago and had mixed feelings about it. I remember finishing it and thinking to myself I need to reread this because there is a lot of things I didn‘t catch the first time around. The only thing is, this book is a time investment, 910 pages. I wanna hear what you all thought about this book. Go ahead spill......
Please advise Littens...is this one worth tackling? It‘s been on my TBR for awhile but now that I have it I‘m just not feeling into it. I‘m not sure I have the attention span for it at the moment either. Thoughts? You loved it? Hated it? Felt it was only ok? Should I just try again another time??? Thanks in advance!!
On New Years Eve 1976, bad things are going on #DowninthePark. A teenage girl gets shot, and this incident sends ripples through a lot of people‘s lives.
#NuYear
Starting this beast next; anyone read it?
Charlie Weisbarger from CoF is an #invisbleman (or, boy actually). After the birth of his twin brothers and his father's death, Charlie is overlooked by his mother. And everybody else really. No matter how hard Charlie tries, nobody really ever sees him for what he is.
And yes, that is my sorry attempt at making something that looks like an invisble man might be wearing it 😄
#MonsterMadness2017
so-so*Warning* negativity will follow!
CoF could have benefitted from some serious editing, less character povs and less hype. Don't get me wrong, I did like parts of the book, but some character povs were unnecessary, the ending felt chaotic and unfinished and there was a huge chunk in the middle which really didn't do it for me.
I would be interested in seeing what Hallberg publishes next, unless it is as long as this one.
#LRC12
My reading stats for September. Considering I have started uni again, I'm pretty happy with how many books I've read. 📚
I'm still currently reading The Brown Fairy Book and City on Fire (#puttingoutthefire), and hoping to finish them both tomorrow 🤞
#bookstats #Septembowie
It is sweater-coffee-blanket-stay-inside-weather in Denmark, and that's what I plan to do exactly 👌 I'm home alone, I have all the food I need in the fridge, and I have a very, very long book to keep me company. My Saturday is looking good!
#currentlyreading
I love when I finish my uni reading an hour before I have to go to class. That way I can squeeze in a couple of chapters from the beast while enjoying a cup of meh-coffee ☕️👌
#currentlyreading
This book seems to be full of #shhsecrets. But I'm starting to think Hallberg should learn the secret of less is more - I like books with multiple povs, but at the moment, a lot of the characters are getting on my nerves. Hopefully, everything will tie up rather nicely at the end 🤞
#AwesomeAutumnBooks
#Nextup! CoF, coffee and the last piece of carrot cake (😢). I love starting the week with a new book, and I have been wanting to read this for so long and now's the time!
#Fallintobooks
I am quite stingy with my five star reads. I love a lot f books, but a five star read is one that stays with me long after reading it, or literally hugging it when finished. Or crying. Or giving it to everyone reader I know. 😆 However, I have a good feeling about these #fivestarpredictions.
pickThe writing is a little ostentatious at times and parts could have been edited out. But I couldn't help respect and admire the author's use of language and intellect. If you are interested in 1970's NYC, its punk scene and social unrest you will enjoy this read. Plus the villain originates from Buffalo!
I have thrown in the towel for now. I'm about half way done but I'm just having a hard time finishing. I'm not ready to bail all together but definitely putting it back in the shelf for now. #maybelater #shelveforlater
so-soI so wanted to love this book but I found it really dragged in places. I lost interest towards the end and I think therefore I wasn't concentrating and just didn't 'get' it.
Whilst I'm glad I read it I don't think I'd recommend it.
panYou know that Twitter account, Guy in Your MFA? Well, this is the novel that guy would write. It's not 1000 pages long because there's a lot going on; it's 1000 pages long because the writer is obscenely self-indulgent. Add to that the fact he's incapable of imagining a female character who is not (a) somebody's mother, (b) somebody's sex toy, (c) grossly objectified at every possible opportunity, or (d) all of the above, and this a HARD pass.
