Welcome to Litsy!

A carnivalesque children‘s adventure story of trauma; Freud meets Rabelais. Rebecca West‘s blurb sums it up best: “A hot draught of mad, primal fantasy and poetry”. In tone, reminds me of Unica Zurn‘s Dark Spring. This is gallows humour with a complexity that can‘t be ignored; a grim parody of Victorian adventure stories & the anti-Famous Five. Full review here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5547619162 Absolutely odd, a surreal fever dream.

#TitlesAndTunes This my song+book pick for #IslandVibes A bit of a broad definition of island for the book, which has been on my shelves for some years & that I've been meaning to read! The song is pure Sade bliss. When it starts I am instantly transported to a secluded island, soft wind blowing through the palm trees, a cool drink in my hand & sand under my feet, listening to the waves... 🏝️ https://youtu.be/9WxczfQgMgk

@BarbaraBB @Cinfhen

This book is deeply weird. In theory I think it‘s supposed to reveal the “true nature” of children, and I suppose by extension, all of humanity, but it gets so many things wrong. Proving old men know nothing about children. That said, the MC‘s surprising abilities, and the tendency of adults to underestimate her, I did find more interesting than the rest of the book.

My December gift to #NYRBBookClub is a second chance to read the books that almost won a previous vote.

Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to go further than show what the ordinary man would be most likely to do under presumed circumstances.

Alright @vivastory and the rest of our #NYRBBookClub friends, it‘s time to vote for our August pick. Looks like I‘m taking us to a pretty dark place, wonder what that says about me 🤔

1. Sand, Wolfgang Herrndorf
2. A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes
3. Black Wings Has My Angel, Elliott Chaze

Vote in the comments! And please tag anyone I may have forgotten.

Well! Pirates. Children. Animals. Open sea. Adventure and plot.
With a sinister edge...
Flippin good read!

Wowzers! So this isn't what I expected!

A gift from an adored friend.

She is also a book lover and reader. 😊😊

While traveling from Jamaica back home to England some children are unintentionally taken prisoner on a pirate ship ⚓️ Hughes takes a satirical and sometimes comedic look at childhood innocence & morality that might make you look at kids in a new light 🧸🍭 Brilliant!
#goneaway
#winterwonderland

Children are creepy. This guy gets it.

I usually get rid of most of my paperbacks after reading them, but I keep my NYRBs (and Persephones and Viragos, too 😄).

#PaperbackWriter
#HeyJune
#NYRB

For, only a few yards up, there was a Frangipani tree: a mass of brilliant blossom and no leaves, which was almost hidden in a cloud of humming-birds so vivid as much to outshine the flowers. Writers have often #lost their way trying to explain how brilliant a jewel the humming-bird is: it cannot be done.

#quotsynov17

#aprilbookshowers day 2: #weather. Probably one og the oldest books I own, inside a previous owner has signed his name and when he bought the book, which was in 1942. However there is no info on when it was printed. @RealLifeReading

So I'm reading along in this (so far) slightly dark pirate kidnapping adventure book, and a kid just up and dies! (Still pretty good so far though)

It's #FunFridayPhoto time! Today's photo: books that take place in warm climates.

I don't know about you, but it's cold where I am now. Nothing like some hot climate books to help your brain stay warm! This is a classic about pirates who accidentally kidnap a group of children and take them out on the high seas. But it turns out, the children are the real monsters, and wreak havoc all over the place. 🤘🏻📚💕

A friend highly recommended this to me, but I didn't enjoy it. I don't really have a reason, it was just a miss for me.

A friend gave me her extra copy, but the cover kinda terrifies me! These kids are creepy, right?!

I've been devouring this one. Top-notch summer reading.