Welcome to Litsy!

Supporting #durhampridemonth with a bookclub sponsored by @queenysdurham and @lettersbookshop this afternoon.

Enjoying a sour beer in the meeting.

#sourbeer #bookclub #localbusinesses #booknerd #booklover #librarian

SMALL BEAUTY lives up to its name. In only 160 pages, it offers up an affecting portrait of one woman‘s grief for all she‘s lost and all she‘s survived. These days, I dip in and out of things more often than not, but I read this in two sittings. Highly recommended. #gaymay

I ate some soy sauce noodles, then dove into SMALL BEAUTY. It‘s off to a very promising start. I‘m excited to sink into it this afternoon.

A beautiful but heartbreaking novel centring a Chinese Canadian trans woman, largely dealing with the deaths of family - both blood and found - in her life, as well as converging identities.

Coping with the death of her cousin, Mei abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, and reflects on the trans women she has left behind.

I'm always on the hunt for books about small lives with meaning and found it in this quiet novel. There are no big revelations and no Hallmark movie moments, just daily struggle and tiny victories, like leaving the house.

So I devoured this one whole, in a single (albeit long) sitting. The prose is lovely. Sparse, poetic and lovely. I found the narrative to be engaging was quickly paced enough for me. I would also say it‘s left a melancholy tone in my heart- something deeply sad about how my own experiences relate to the book. All in all 4/5 stars. #queerbooks #transbooks #catsoflitsy #lastpostofthenight

It felt cruel, a landscape brutalized but surviving, thriving in some parts but left with the damage, and these new plants selected for a job that was impossible to do but forced here because they really had no other choice. #queerbooks #transbooks #quotsy #quotes

So excited to dig into this lovely #halloweengoespostal gift from @Bibliogeekery 🏳️‍🌈🦆 #queerbooks #transbooks #canadianbooks #beautifulbooks

A page from my #Persephone 2017 Diary. It was my Christmas gift to myself when I saw @BooksForYears post about hers. I wrote these quotes back in April when I read @Bibliogeekery 's #QGP1 book. My Persephone diary keeps track of book swaps such as #summersantagoespostal, #covertocover rounds, #ssgp and other Litsy things. The puppy chewed a corner of the diary, but still many many pages left to use throughout 2018.

Midnight, at last! The witching hour, if you will. 👻 @Bibliogeekery, I am beyond touched. All three of the books sound amazing, and I've not read any of them! I was just saying the other day that I need more #queerbooks on my shelves. I'm in love with the tattoos and I don't know if I can bear to use them, they are so beautiful! Thank you for making my first bookswap such a success. 🎃🎃 #halloweengoespostal #fallbookexchange @BookishMarginalia

“People question too much about me, Sandy. I don‘t need them asking around if you are my son.”
“Ma. We were the only Asians in Herbertsville when I was born. Even if we were as unrelated as Amy Tan and Margaret Cho, they would have thought I was your son.”

(Internet photos of Cho and Tan.)

This slim novel documents a Canadian mixed race trans woman‘s interior journey from grief & isolation towards community. It unfolds in brief, nonlinear scenes grouped in 3 sections: guidance, bridges & wisdom. A light touch with metaphor—a Canada goose, access to a large body of water, the health of a potted plant—makes for graceful inclusion of big subjects: intersectionality, gender identity, closeted older & rural queers, & Chinese diaspora. ❤️

Mei picks up a drawing of the house, Bernadette, Sandy and Jinhou, the dog. The teacher had circled Jinhou‘s name and written ‘spelling?‘ underneath the word. Sandy had been so excited about Jinhou, about having a dog, but by the time Jinhou died, he was exhausted by having to explain his name to everyone they met. He said the next dog he got would have a white name so he could get on with walking it.

Re-visiting this gorgeous book in preparation for my queer bookclub meeting tomorrow. Can't say enough good about this book!!! 😍📚💕 #transbooks

My dear friend reading a book I deeply love - in the treehouse! 🏠🌲📚😍

Can I say how much I love this book?!?! Wish it was wider available in the states. Pepe is enjoying the first day it's cool enough to read on the balcony. #litsypartyofone @Bibliogeekery

I'm finally one of the cool kids who gets to understand the untranslated parts of the books. My professor would be so pleased this is how I'm using my Chinese minor. 😆

We read Last of the Mohicans in high school. I swear half that book was in French and all I know in French is cheeses and wines. I finally feel like one of the cool kids

I've wanted to get my hands on this novel by a transgendered Asian-Canadian writer ever since I first laid eyes on its gorgeous cover! (My only quibble with this latest printing is the addition of the lit award badges—imprinted, not peelable stickers—which clutter up the cover design a bit.) Can't wait to read it!

#bookmail is the best mail. #qgp1

A beautiful novel by a mixed race trans writer about a mixed race trans character. A quiet exploration of life and community and dealing with loss.

Loved this. The language and imagery was so beautiful-it flowed like water & I felt fortunate to swim along with it. It is a story of an intersectional life. We watch as Mei deals with life as Chinese trans woman grieving her family while discovering who they are & consequently who she is. What I like is this is her as just that-life. There is no embroidering it with mystique & glamour-that's the point she's a person living a life, as we do.

Again & again wilson-yang's use of language silences me with its beauty.

I know this...

Had never really thought about sci-fi like that, though it doesn't take much thought to see it. Why do we work so hard to other people? Why can't we just appreciate one another for we are? Humanity makes me sad.

Again, just beautiful imagery. Wilson-Yang's language has a very liquid feel to it. I love it 😍

I love this imagery

So happy that jia qing wilson-yang won the 2017 Lambda award for Transgender Fiction last night at the Lammys. Small Beauty is such a gorgeous book! Check it out if you haven't already. #transbooks

Description of anger.

Beautiful, meditative book about the experiences of Mei, a mixed-race Canadian trans woman. This story gives the reader the opportunity to spend some quiet time with Mei as she is dealing with past and present grief and trauma. The mostly rural setting of the book provides beautiful imagery as a backdrop to haunting scenes of loneliness and loss. 💓 #transbooks #queerbooks

"She took care of me. You wouldn't get it. How amazing it is to meet someone like you who's older, when you've been living with the idea that no one like you ever gets to be older. How incredible and terrifying it is. All at once."

??? THIS BOOK

Despite being unable to take part in a large scale demonstration today, I found small ways to celebrate International Women's Day. This includes starting this beautiful novel by trans author jia wing wilson-yang. Only 30 pages in and I'm already in love with her writing. 💓

@CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian has already glowingly reviewed this – I read her review without paying too much attention to the gorgeous cover – now that I've properly gazed upon it, I am hopelessly smitten… I would buy a book with this cover no matter who wrote it or what it was about – the fact that it's by and about a mixed-race Canadian trans woman makes it all the more intriguing!

This was an unassuming gem of a book that I would heartily recommend. It's a quiet, meditative, authentic story of Mei, a young queer trans woman dealing with the death of her cousin and learning some family secrets after leaving the city to spend some time in a small town where the house she's inherited is. While she's there, she also reflects a lot on who she is, especially as a mixed race person with Chinese background. #TransBooks #QueerBooks

I really love how this book doesn't explain anything (Chinese food, transmisogyny, Mandarin words, how characters are related to the protagonist). It feels like real life. #TransBooks #QueerBooks

Eating dinner (sun-dried tomato pesto pasta) and trying to decide which one of my review books for my blog I should read next. I've accumulated quite a backlog! Any suggestions?
#QueerBooks

I constantly lose bookmarks, so I tend to use business cards, receipts and whatever else is at hand. I haven't lost this one yet though! I don't know if you can read it, but it says "keeping gay book lovers satisfied" ❤️ #booktober #bookmarks #queerbooks @RealLifeReading

I visited one of my favourite independent bookstores: Another Story Bookshop! #getindie

"Where she had been engulfed in the landscape as a child, she is now caught in her body's reaction to it." ?

Gorgeous imagery! I want to be in that boat!

This book was so beautiful! Someone on goodreads said that it "is more than a novel, it's a blueprint for survival." It's the story of a trans woman dealing with grief, intrgenerational trauma, belonging and healing. It's so well written I was sad when it was finished. I definitely recommend it!