Welcome to Litsy!

“I'm equally sure, however, that I won't walk into a lamp-post while reading {literature}, like I did with {a legal thriller} all those years ago; you don't walk into lamp-posts when you're reading literary novels, do you?“

#wondrouswednesday
@eggs

From my library‘s point of view this is an unpopular opinion since it there has a rating of 2,6 of 5 possible stars. On the one hand, I can see why because me neither knows many of the authors or book titles mentioned therein. And the ones that I know, he doesn‘t read. 😂 On the other hand, I love his humour and witness and Udo Wachtveitl, a quite famous German actor, reads it brilliantly.

🇬🇧 https://bit.ly/398s7ER shows his book lists.

#KeepLitsyPositive – Day 4

Well, Littens, I know, it might not be the smartest thing to drink a beer after having had serious nausea issues less than 24 hours ago but throughout the day I was a good girl and ate carefully. Thankfully I had no more problems so I allowed myself a beer. Which at the moment is an exception for me because I need help returning the empty beer crate back to the shop and that‘s difficult in times of social distancing.

Picking up an old favorite to try and fend off this massive slump. Hornby understands perfectly. 👌🏻

🇩🇪 https://bit.ly/3981LCW

As I learned, this is no running text but a collection of selected columns Hornby wrote for the U.S. American magazine “Believer” and the German magazine “Monopol”.

I quite love it. Not everything because many titles and authors are unknown to me. But I love Hornby‘s humour. When he describes his fear of never ever being able to buy books again or his antipathy for investigation-(book)-series – that‘s wonderful. 😂

#KeepLitsyPositive – Day 3

Sorry I‘m late for yesterday but in the evening a severe case of nausea 🤢 occurred to me and I spent over an hour commuting between my living room and the bathroom, followed by another 1,5 hours of lying in my bed feeling miserable before I finally found sleep in the middle of the night.

Those are wonderful blooming flowers in the flowerbeds set in the inner courtyard of my estate. I guess, it could be tulips. 🌷

Nick Hornby tells about his life as a bookworm and about some of the phenomena all bookworms know. (For example: Why do we start some books right after we bought them on the way home and why do others stay for years unread on the shelf? 🤔)

This seems to be a happy, short (scarcely more than 2 hours) pleasure to bridge over those 2 days until Michael Crichton‘s “Micro” is supposed to be available for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was fun! Thanks, Stephanie, for putting this series on my radar. Originally written for the arts and literature magazine The Believer, Hornby wittily chronicles his monthly reading (this collection is from 2004). Each chapter begins with a listing of what he purchased versus what he actually read that month. My TBR has grown a bit! I really appreciate a writer who‘s also a prolific reader, book buyer/hoarder, and thoughtful reviewer.

“Books are, let‘s face it, better than everything else.”

He‘s referring to cultural entertainment, but I think this applies to most things, tbh.

Someone evidently offloaded their #NickHornby collection at Goodwill, so I snatched them up. Some of the others will be rereads. In all, it‘s a fab #bookhaul for just $9!

@Reviewsbylola - Isn‘t The Polysyllabic Spree one of your favorites?

Just another excuse to post one of my favorite books/series.

#whatafoolbelieves: is this not us anytime we buy books? There‘s always a justification—we‘ll read it right away, it‘s a favorite author, the cover is so amazing, it just sounds so good. 😂 Nick Hornby lays it all out, and attempts to justify his book buying habit. #marchintothe70s

Our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are

Thanks to a hot tip from @Reviewsbylola I ordered these Nick Hornby essays! I tried not to get library discards but that one on the end snuck in. Oh well, it'll read. 😂 #bookmail

When I saw the prompt for #readingresolutions today, I couldn‘t wait to post. One of my favorite series EVER is by famous UK author Nick Hornby. It‘s a compilation of the monthly column he used to write for Believer magazine, “Stuff I‘ve Been Reading.” Every column starts of with two lists—books Hornby bought that month, and books Hornby read that month. The crossover is always interesting. I wish there was a more recent addition. Please Nick!!!

#17in2017 @Cinfhen great idea for closing the books on 2017. I couldn‘t stop at 17 but had to stop at 20 due to pic collage limitations

Tagging @Cathythoughts @Suet624 @julesG @BibliOphelia @Gezemice @OrangeMooseReads @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @Wbabdullah @Joyfulmimi @DGRachel @Eggs @Gissy @ReadOrDieRachel @Scurvygirl @AmyG @Anna40 @Lcsmcat @britt_brooke @Ms_T @Shemac77 @LeahBergen @Cupofjo @Libby1

#17in2017 @Cinfhen great idea for closing the books on 2017. I could t stop at 17 but had to stop at 20 due to pic collage limitations 5for2018 - 5 books you gotta read this year

Tagging @Cathythoughts @Suet624 @julesG @BibliOphelia @Gezemice @OrangeMooseReads @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @Wbabdullah @Joyfulmimi @DGRachel @Eggs @Gissy @ReadOrDieRachel @Scurvygirl @AmyG @Anna40 @Lcsmcat @britt_brooke @Ms_T @Shemac77 @LeahBergen @Cupofjo @Libby1

#17in2017 @Cinfhen great idea for closing the books on 2017. I could t stop at 17 but had to stop at 20 due to pic collage limitations 5for2018 - 5 books you gotta read this year

Tagging @Cathythoughts @Suet624 @julesG @BibliOphelia @Gezemice @OrangeMooseReads @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @Wbabdullah @Joyfulmimi @DGRachel @Eggs @Gissy @ReadOrDieRachel @Scurvygirl @AmyG @Anna40 @Lcsmcat @britt_brooke @Ms_T @Shemac77 @LeahBergen @Cupofjo @Libby1

#17in2017 @Cinfhen great idea for closing the books on 2017. I could t stop at 17 but had to stop at 20 due to pic collage limitations 5for2018 - 5 books you gotta read this year

Tagging @Cathythoughts @Suet624 @julesG @BibliOphelia @Gezemice @OrangeMooseReads @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @Wbabdullah @Joyfulmimi @DGRachel @Eggs @Gissy @ReadOrDieRachel @Scurvygirl @AmyG @Anna40 @Lcsmcat @britt_brooke @Ms_T @Shemac77 @LeahBergen @Cupofjo @Libby1

#17in2017 @Cinfhen great idea for closing the books on 2017...I couldn‘t stop at 17 but had to stop at 20 due to pic collage limitations

Tagging @Cathythoughts @Suet624 @Angeles @julesG @BibliOphelia @Gezemice @OrangeMooseReads @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled @Wbabdullah @Joyfulmimi @DGRachel @Eggs @mjdowens @Gissy @ReadOrDieRachel @awriterchick @Scurvygirl @AmyG @Anna40 @Lcsmcat @britt_brooke @Ms_T @Shemac77 @Brie @LeahBergen @Cupofjo @Libby1

Needless to say, drink, drugs, food, and sex played no part in the festivities. But who needs any of that when you've got literature?

Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this.

We fought, Wilkie Collins and I. We fought bitterly and with all our might, to a standstill, over a period of about three weeks, on trains and aeroplanes and by hotel swimming pools. Sometimes – usually late at night, in bed – he could put me out cold with a single paragraph...Only in the last 50-odd pages, after I‘d landed several of these blows, did old Wilkie show any signs buckling under the assault.

Zaid's finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that "the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more."

That's me! And you, probably! That's us!

So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading -- about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time.

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!)

I don't want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it too.

Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go 15 rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. “The Magic Flute” v. Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. “The Last Supper” v. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points. See? ...I'm still backing literature 29 times out of 30.

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.

I'm not as funny nor as good of a writer as Nick Hornby but I've been keeping a journal of the books I read and my immediate thoughts upon completing them since 2006. These are my #notebooks for #riotgrams

I thought it would be fitting to show this little book ("one man's struggle with the monthly tide of the books he's bought and the books he's been meaning to read") up against the tide of unread Christmas gifts.

I enjoyed this collection of essays about reading & keeping up with a looming TBR. My reading interests don't completely overlap with Hornby's, but I still very much related to his thoughts on the reading life!

"Being a reader is sort of like being president, except reading involves fewer state dinners, usually. You have this agenda you want to get through, but you get distracted by life events, e.g. books arriving in the mail/World War III, and you are temporarily deflected from your chosen path."

"I read 55% of the books I bought this month--5 1/2 out of 10. Two of the unread books, however, are volumes of poetry, and, to my way of thinking, poetry books work more like books of reference... So, if it's OK with you, I'm taking the poetry out and calling it 5 1/2 out of 8--and the Heller I've read before, years ago, so that's 6 1/2 out of 8. I make that 81 1/4%! I am both erudite and financially prudent!" ?This is my kind of logic!

I had this plan that I wouldn't start any new books before the end of the year, so I could focus on finishing the three I'm in the middle of. Then my in-laws decided to exchange gifts early today, and I got this, and I am weak. I'm reading it now.

The weirdest thing happened: When I was ordering a couple of books for homeschool, a stack of other used titles just leapt into my shopping cart! 😬Thanks, Better World Books! #bookmail

This is probably my favorite series ever. Nick Hornby's column "Stuff I've Been Reading", published in Believer magazine. Every few years he published a compilation of his columns and I am always checking to see whether a new one is about to be released. I love talking books so this column is a fun way to add to your TBR list! #24in48

This is an interesting book in a series comprised of long essays by well-known authors. In this book, Nick Hornby talks about books he has bought, books he has read, and books he hasn't read. I'm not sure that description sells it but I liked it enough to give it four stars on Goodreads.