Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m posting one book a day from my massive collection. No description, no reason for why I want to read it (some I‘ve had so long I don‘t even remember why!) Feel free to join in!

#ABookADay2023

I might be weird. 🤪 By nature I‘m a monogamous reader so having multiple going on at once makes me a bit anxious, like I‘m not focusing or making progress. How silly, I know. The mind is a strange organism.

😆 People used to write such entertaining correspondence!

Getting back to my morning nature reading AND it‘s finally greening up here in earnest! 🌲🌳🍃

I actually got this soon after it came out, because I liked Fortey's book that was heavy on geology way more than I ever expected to like anything about geology, and then didn't touch it until now. Oops. It's gentle, curious and exploratory; not everything was of interest to me, but it was interesting to poke around into the corners of the woodland.

I think this is about where I stand with #BookSpinBingo...

😍 Bookmail! I am hoping this is right up my alley. Will take its place on my nightstand to dip into.

Phew. I had a pretty hectic few weeks trying to make my escape for summer holiday. At last I made it, without biting anybody even, so, success!

Been reading lovely books, lots of nonfction by my beloved Richard Fortey and the like. And managed to reach my reading challenge goal so that's nice too. 📚🥳

It‘s a tiny patch of beechwood in SE England, just 4 acres, but Fortey examines it so closely and writes so engagingly that the place seems infinite. Insects, mosses, flowers, microscopic creatures, historical use by humans, connections with Tudor royalty etc, connected month by month for a year. Also love the specialized vocabulary, like bodgers: itinerant wood-turners. #Audiobook narrated by Mike Grady.

Fortey writes that children inspired by Harry Potter wanted their own broomsticks so they could play quidditch. “The right kind of bundles of beech twigs could easily be cut in Lambridge Wood. More than a century ago, there was an artisan known as a broom squire who plied his trade deep in the beech wood, so it was a traditional skill. Now there was an unprecedented broom boom.”
(Internet photo)

“Spiders have been playing the arthropod version of cat-and-mouse with insects for 400,000,000 years.”

(Above is a screenshot of one of my favourite YouTube videos: https://youtu.be/sHzdsFiBbFc )

#TBRtemptation post! Wow, wow, wooow! One of today's preeminent science writers takes a Thoreau-ian turn by focusing on his patch of beech-and-bluebell wood (once owned by John Stuart Mill) in the English countryside, and poetically writes about the animals, plants, bugs, soil, and human interaction with his patch. With a shrewd naturalist's eye, Fortey greatly enhances his plot's breadth, purpose, & sanctity. Wow! #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

This was a fascinating and in depth look at the year long life of a small patch of English woodland. I can't wait to see the complete edition with its pages of color illustrations.