Welcome to Litsy!

What can I say that hasn‘t been said already?It‘s a book of unspeakable pain dealing with exile,life under and after dictatorship, inter generational trauma and torture. It‘s infuriating how little is also known about Italy‘s oppression and Mussolini‘s atrocities committed in Libya. The fact that Tony Blair shook hands with Gaddafi and his as well as Britain‘s ‘relations‘ with the regime went even further is just inconceivable…

#readaroundtheworld #libya Bookwormy has exited Litsy. I will miss her. This book is both a memoir of the author‘s search for his father who had been kidnapped by Qaddafi, but also a careful look at the politics surrounding Libya‘s historical revolutions, and finally how one grieves when one can not be sure of the death of the person you mourn. Slightly chronologically confusing but otherwise well written.

The book for today. I was first introduced to Matar‘s writing through his book “A Month in Siena” and fell in love with how clearly and beautifully he wrote about the Italian hill town. Different topic, but this one - so far - is just as wonderfully written.

#WondrousWednesday @Eggs
1.Tagged book was so devastating in its description of loss,exile and the ripple effects of the actions of the dictators, it made me weep with every page.Matar is a great writer.
2.Increasingly it's narrative nonfiction,some good practitioners of it.
3. All the Shah's men,about the CIA and British aided coup in Iran that installed the Shah is one of my favourite books.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4551863510

This is the personal recount of Matar in search of his father and the country he was born, #Libya. His father‘s resistance towards the Libyan dictatorship ended in his imprisonment and disappearance, and tore the family apart. The book jumps in time to phases and places in the author‘s life, always searching for or escaping from the memory of both his father and his country. Definitely no easy read.

#19822022 #2016 #ReadingAfrica2022 🇱🇾

Not an easy nonfiction read. A son‘s search for answers about his father‘s abduction & imprisonment by the Libyan govt. But I wondered, why do women not seem to exist in this book? His mother was his sole parent for most of his life and he even travels to Libya with her, but we never learn about her thoughts on her husband‘s disappearance.

Poignant and intimate! This is a great documenting of the pain and pleasure derived from the places we call home! Martin is honest and unflinching in his introspection. You will find yourself musing and meandering about the places and people in your lives!

The author is brilliant. His writing left me hurting for him and his family. I read this early in the year, so I don‘t have quotes handy now. At the time I was reading it, I often stopped to read a section to my husband or to talk through a concept or experience described.

It‘s here @Wife I‘ll dig in soon. Thanks! #lmpbc #groupq

#LMPBC #groupQ @laurenslibrary @Bookwormjillk (I still can‘t tag Stacy_31😕)

I don‘t want to send out any spoilers for my group. This was a book that I would never have read, but glad I did. I learned about a time and place and people that I knew nothing about. Thanks Lauren. I will try to get this in the mail today, but latest will be Tuesday because of the holiday. 2/5⭐️s

Finally, finished the remaining 30% during our monthly book club meet-up!

actually, waiting for my boba 😆 and some time to pass before I grab one rugrat from school...

I'm baaaack! 🤗🤗🤗

Terribly sorry for the hiatus 🙈. God, I've missed my #LitsyFamily! Between the move, deaths and births, a lot of extra work at the jobs, etc., I've been chomping at the bit to get back on here with the only community in the world that truly gets my bibliophile's soul! 🤗

So, what's new? What's going on with Litsy itself? I think I've gotten more followers being away than being active. Is that telling me something? Lol. 👇🏻

What do you do for your elf on the shelf? This is my idea for a literary themed Elf of the shelf for my kids this year. I am not very creative but I can stick a new book in front of this guy each night! If you do anything creative, please tag me! I am always looking for ideas! #elfontheshelf #christmasseason #christmasiscoming

Perhaps, like all stories, what Uncle Mahmoud‘s recollections were saying was: “I exist.” #passportlitsy #Libya

Finally getting back to #passportlitsy

I have always been interested in the idea of Revolution. How far do people have to be pushed before they are willing to risk their lives in order to take control back from an oppressive leader. This book deals with the horrors of the Qaddafi years in Libya and I am very moved by what these people lived through.

Absolutely Heart breaking when one thinks of the state of Libya now.

Heart breaking. And also a testament to the human spirit.

Such beautiful writing.

I'm uncertain how I felt about this one. I appreciated the writing, and the account itself. I found it awkward to keep track of when and who was being written about. However, this is possibly my fault as I was reading quickly.

After reading the opening pages of three other books, I finally settled on this one. I've no idea of the background or details so all very unknown.

I'm in Greece and I'm sick :(
My partner has been bringing me tsoureki (sweet bread) with nutella and medication while I binge read/watch. Here's hoping nutella cures me!

An excellent book and audio book performance by the author. A 2017 Pulitzer prize winner to boot.

This was an absolutely beautiful and compelling memoir. Loved the writing and learning about some history that I didn‘t know much about.

Need to have this finished for Tuesday evening and just getting started now...#lifegetsinthewayofreadingsometimes

Hisham Matar's beautiful book about missing his father, who is missing. #MissYou #Rocktober

Quote of the day. 💖📖 And this book is excellent so far. I love non-fiction when the story is well told and entertaining.

A moving story of life in exile from Libya and coping with his father being kidnapped and taken to prison. The uncertainty, which leads to question after question about life before the kidnapping and the state of qadaffi's Libya that led up to the disappearance.The opacity & lawlessness reminded me of stories from Russia & China. I love Matar's writing & this is an important book. I found it slow but poignant as he searches for answers.

So lovely to hear Hisham Matar speak tonight, thoughtful and gracious with a sense of humour.

This book is amazing and I can't wait to meet Hisham Matar tomorrow night. Reading time curtailed this weekend with my sister's 40th at our house, but I thought this serving board was apropos for this story of exile & life across #farflung countries... #MayBookFlowers day 28.

Using the public holiday here in Aus to do some cheeky sewing for the shop while listening to The Return on audio. Good day all round... link updated http://etsy.me/2pvgtBx #bookgogo #booksleeve #protectyourbook #booksleeves #bookcover

May have just purchased this #booksleeves because it matches 2 books on my May TBR. I'm maybe the makers daughter but you can only get so many freebies, still one in stock if you love it like I do! https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/totesaGoGo?ref=s2-header-shopname #bookgogo

Wow I've read all three of these, plus the winners in fiction and nonfiction.

I kind of feel well read right now! 😂

#pulitzerprize

"When your father has been made to disappear for nineteen years, your desire to find him is equalled by your fear of finding him. You are the scene of a shameful private battle."

A beautifully written and important memoir about a son searching for his imprisoned father in their homeland of Libya. Timely and highly recommended.

"The country that separates fathers and sono has disoriented many travelers. It is very easy to get lost here. Telemachus, Edgar, Hamlet, and countless others sons, their private dramas ticking away in the silent hours, have sailed so far out in the uncertain distance between past and present that they seem adrift."

In the beginning I tought "Oh no a boring story of memory set in an esotic atmosphere, with interminable nostalgic lines about the taste of the author mother's food". I was wrong, because soon the became a universal one, full of meanings and in which any other father-son relationship can mirror itself, even if far less tragic than his.

Wonderful personal account of being victimised by dictatorship and immorality of power and politics. Hisham Matar prose is superb and touching without being overly dramatic.

Terrifying and beautiful. One man's search for his dissident father who was silenced and imprisoned during Qaddafi's regime should serve as a lesson to us all.

Knowing a book by heart is like carrying a house inside your chest.

#libfaves16 #1 A Libyan dissident, Jaballa Matar was arrested by the Egyptian government and turned over to Qaddafi. His whereabouts were unknown. When he loses contact, the situation turns into an obsession. What happened to his father? Matar would spend over twenty years trying to find him. With the fall of the Qaddafi regime, he gets no resolution. In the end, he must accept the inevitable without any proof of what happened.

None are more precious than books.

'...he was a writer responding to ghosts and to history. Then at some point a crack opened and politics seeped in."

I always think poppies are a ghostly flower. I'm not convinced my first attempts at PhotoshopMix attempts show this though.

the days complicated my nights