Welcome to Litsy!

I told a bookseller that I loved Shotgun Lovesongs and asked for her recommendation for my next Nickolas Butler. She recommended this one, and she didn't steer me wrong! I love his writing. As a Midwesterner, I feel he captures the setting so vividly. It's dark and moments are hard to read, but it's beautifully written.

I somehow forgot to post a review of this book....I read it probably end of May beginning of June. #ReadingUSA2020 #Wisconsin 🇺🇸 Having read and loved Shotgun Love Songs , I had high hopes for this one, sadly it wasn‘t a book I‘ll remember. Really unlikeable characters and a weak plot line. I think the cover art was the best thing about this book. It pains me but this gets a Pan.

Eine berührende Geschichte über Männer und über die Zwickmühle, wie sie zu sein haben. Dies war mein erstes Buch von Butler und ich mochte es wirklich sehr ❤️

I choose this book because of the camp theme. I didn't expect it to be so dark and chalked with the ugly evilness of men. So sad.

Well written & propulsive, it nevertheless loses focus going along. In that respect it reminds me of Smiley‘s Last Hundred Years trilogy. On the bubble between Pick and So-So, it compares unfavorably with my last book, Home Fire, which uses a similar narrative device of shifting POV. Not sure what kind of comment on 20th-c masculinity it offers, through the lens of the now quaint seeming Boy Scouts. Except that men need virtue now more than ever?

I actually gasped when I saw this deal, I ❤️ this local author. A steal!

So, I started reading this one last night and I‘m already absolutely taken with it. Butler writes beautifully and takes the classic coming-of-age elements and transforms this into something new and fresh. I find myself writing down passage after passage in my quote notebook.

I thought this book was alright. The author made you feel sympathetic about some of the characters when they were young, but when they grew up into men, they just seemed flat. The ending was kind of a disappointment for me. The author chose to use a strong female protagonist at the end of the novel in a heavily male-dominated story. But this book did have its strengths, though. Like, the writing and when the characters were still young.

Currently listening to this audiobook on #libby. It's pretty good so far. It's about a boy named Nelson who is a boy scout and is trying to earn the honor of being Scoutmaster. He forms a friendship with another fellow boy scout named Jonathan. Years later, when both are adults, something unthinkable happens.

Pick ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The author explores what affects how boys grow into men, and also what men think actually makes them men. Several different characters show how honor or lack of honor, worship of women or disdain of women, make a man. I enjoyed this story. All told with the backdrop of Scouting and its relevance to changing societal norms. Intriguing work of literary fiction.

What‘s the opposite of a reading slump? A book boom? That‘s what I‘m in! All three of these are so good! 💥

Wow, wow, wow. The story lagged a little in the middle, but the ending is one of the best I've read in a long time. It's a bit of a sausage fest and doesn't pass the Bechtel Test at all, but I'm really glad I read it. It's a fascinating look at the follies of toxic masculinity.

I guess I‘m going as a stripper this year! 😳 #letthebookdecide #halloweencostumes

A book a book group will love makes the March 2017 list. “In the summer of 1962, popular Jonathan & social outcast, Nelson, are friends. The only thing they seem to have in common is they spend a few weeks of one summer at Camp Chippewa in Wisconsin. Over time, their lives & the lives of loved ones are fiercely intertwined. This wonderful novel reveals layers of male friendship & shows what loyalty, compassion, & selflessness looks like."

"Rock on Wisconsin!"

Intense. I cringed at times but truth and people can be grotesque in their ugliness.

An all American book on Independence Day! Love this author, for 3 bucks, get it:) 🇺🇸

#junetunz day 27 - #mandown

Another theme I would've done on the day, but I couldn't remember the title and couldn't find it in stores. Finally had to trawl the #allthebooks archives for the episode where they talk about it.

This is a moving story of family, fathers and sons, and love and forgiveness. Plus, this man is a charmer! #catsinthecradle #rockinmay

Despite the one main female character needing more 3D development, I liked Butler's latest a lot. It's about boys becoming men, parents and children, bravery and decency, romantic and platonic relationships changing you, and being a flawed human. Butler has a sensitive boice and his storytelling is immersive.

I was totally immersed in this story of Boy Scouts, young and old, and what it means to "be prepared" and to be decent.

I loved Shotgun Lovesongs by this author and so I'm excited about this one!

Wonderful author! Great evening with @peaknit

And the Cubs were in the book, so Holy Cow indeed! Thanks Nikolas Butler, you are a rock star writer.

I melted into a big gushy book dork, but I love this man's books! He is a cool, quintessentially Wisconsin dude and I can't pimp his books enough. ❤️ thanks @JenReadsAlot for suggesting this photo😊

Had the opportunity to meet Nickolas Butler lat an event today. He signed a boom for my dad - such a nice man and a great storyteller. I was in full author groupie mode today!

Listening on audiobook and I'm just losing interest. The writing is gorgeous but the story is just frustrating to me. I think I'm too female to get it 😉 Very much a man book (if you liked The Touchdown Special, you would enjoy this one, I think)

[pic from my walk today]

Excellent insight into the masculine experience. The characters' interactions with others and participation in institutions such as the Boy Scouts shape them and also reveal just how close to the surface both the best and the worst of them can be. I haven't read Nickolas Butler before this, but I am now interested in reading more of his work.

#LyricalApril #AmericanBoy

Using my current audiobook for today's prompt. What says American Boy more than an Eagle Scout?! 🇺🇸

Finally got my hands on this !

Best email ever ! My hold is available!

I can't wait to read this book - I Love love loved Shotgun Lovesongs.

I'm already up past my bedtime but this book is so good I can't put it down.

I dropped off my trembling and confused dogchild at the vet for knee surgery this morning and, you guys, I am wrecked. He is my constant, my confidant, the one thing in my life that does not put into question my confidence or qualifications. The surgery is "routine," they say. But my routine is taking a hit today, and so is my heart. So, with my coffee this story I sit next to a group of laughing elderly ladies and try to end the pity party.

I cannot remember a character that I wanted to hug this much. Only on page 57 and I am deeply invested in Nelson. So much so that I am considering slapping a few Boy Scouts. (Reason #4527 that I do not have children.)

I really loved Shotgun Lovesongs a lot so I'm delighted to read this latest novel from Butler. Gatsby intends to sleep through my reading.

And anyway, isn‘t this the reality of today‘s America? No one‘s marriage lasts; no one is innocent; and the Boy Scouts, like every other code of morality, is just an antiquated set of stone tablets, the words melting into obscurity, acid-washed by rain and returning stone to sand, until it is all just so much tiny particulate, forever shifting beneath our feet.

Butler has a tender and compelling voice, which is the reason this book works. The narrative is loose enough that it feels more like a collection of short stories about people who happen to know each other than a novel, but the consistency of the tone, tenor, and quality of prose holds it all together. (Though implied by the title, it's worth noting that women are unapologetically sidelined here, acting only as lovers and mothers.) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

He has no idea where the boy even finds these books, where or how he buys them. This whole world Trevor dwells in, where love is still a reality, where people say NO! to drugs (instead of THANK YOU!), where mothers and fathers love one another, and Boy Scout camp is something to be excited about.

This is the second Nickolas Butler I have read and the second I have loved. He just writes so beautifully. And being Wisconsin-bred, I can't get enough of his settings. In this book, just when I was getting a bit tired of the (sometimes self-imposed) dramas of the generations of male protagonists, he shifted focus to a female character who won me over completely. The ending felt a little rushed/contrived to me, but overall I really liked the book.

This has turned out to be a good reading weekend. I really liked this book about three generations of Boy Scout camp attendees. No character is even close to perfect but I still hurt for them. Guess I will be seeking out Butler's backlist.

You don‘t think I know how the others tease you? I told you in the mess hall and don‘t you forget it: they tease you because they‘re afraid of you.

Just bury me alive with my feelings, it's fine

Not bad for mid-March. #books #beer #booksandbooze

After a long week of more househunting/two rejected offers (and next to no reading, waaah!! 😭), we're treating ourselves to a day of rest, a little lowbrow culinary indulgence, and an already-so-good book (I'm just a few chapters in). 🏝🍔📚