Welcome to Litsy!

The Summer Book was the first book we read this month for the Tove Jansson Author Spotlight.

This is a unique story about the relationship of a grandmother and her granddaughter Sophia, set on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland during a warm summer.

Told in beautiful prose, it deals with life and death, old and young, nature, resilience and loss.
A great first meeting with Jansson!

The Author Spotlight series is hosted by @HardcoverHearts

Today is the start of the Tove Jansson reading group in the Author Spotlight Series, organized by Sarah @HardcoverHearts starting with The Summer Book.

I have never read anything by Tove Jansson, so I‘m very curious!

The movie is premiering in Finland. https://youtu.be/Wzn7SAIXBkA?si=919qJHAFTR6L03xk

3✨ I wasn‘t completely engaged to this story, but enjoyed the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter. Read for #FoodandLit 2024 Finland

Audio cleaning today. This is fluff from a stuffy not snow. Got to love chewing pups. 🐶 🐶 🐶 🐶🥹🥲

I want to thank #foodandlit2024 for encouraging me to choose a book from Finland. One of my best friends growing up had a Finnish dad and a Swedish mum and I was exposed to all of the best things from each culture and continue to love Scandi style above all others. This novel is a love letter to summer and Finland told in short vignettes that flip back and forth through the main character‘s , Sophia, childhood summers with her grandma and father.

#foodandlit for December is Finland not sweden 🤦🏻‍♀️ and I‘ve started this to close out the year with because I knew that when I went looking for books to read! my husband‘s family is from Sweden and we go to a Swedish fair in Toronto every year to stock up in Swedish treats for Christmas- these Polly candies were new to us. They taste like a cross between a rum ball and a milk dud. I will do better with food choices going forward

I‘ve been hearing huge praise for this book for about 15 years so I think my reading experience suffered a bit from sky high expectations. But it is charming, with some lovely nature writing and the relationship between the little girl and her elderly grandmother is touching. Sophia Jansson‘s delightful afterword underlined the strength of the connection, both to the people and place. The photo is an outer island in the Stockholm archipelago.

A quick, charming read, whose pint-sized protagonist reminded me of my granddaughter when she‘s cranky. Lovely descriptive writing. A good farewell to summer and my #doublespin for this month.

Thanks for the surprise bookmail @Jas16 ! Both of these have been on my TBR wishlist for quite some time, and I look forward to enjoying them. I hope all is well with you! 📚🩷

This collection of short vignettes shows a child and her grandmother throughout a summer on a Finnish island. Another gentle read, but beautifully descriptive and full of humor and heart.
#24in2024

A fantastic start to my holidays! Reading by my friends pool (yes I did swim!) and eating fairy bread!
This is my book club book. It‘s a short, quiet, reflective read. It‘s a book about a 6 year old girl and her grandmother over one summer on an island. Not much really happens but it‘s beautiful and atmospheric. I hope to one day have grandchildren of my own who I can ramble around with in nature just enjoying life and each others company.

A lovely, quiet book that follows a 6-year-old girl and her grandmother through one summer on an isolated island in Finland. Beautiful descriptions of island life and the relationship between these two strong minded, clever individuals.

#Top10Summer2023 @cinfen
Thanks for the tag, @batsy 😊

These were my 5⭐ reads for June-August - some of my 4.5 ⭐ books would comfortably sit here, too, but the judges scores are in, so my hands are tied!

I was at turns charmed, then saddened, then amused by grandmother and Sophia‘s adventures on their quaint island. Sophia‘s papa is around but absent…I don‘t remember a single thing he said in the book. The action is largely between the young (6) Sophia and the elderly grandmother who carve, explore caves, picnic and through it all discuss minute details of life on the island but have much deeper meaning. #NaturaLitsy readers would appreciate!

Next summer activity: baseball for my oldest! Love watching him play. Still slowly making some progress on this slim novel which I‘m finding both sweet and melancholic.

I‘m very much enjoying summer and soaking it all in with my family. We‘ve been camping this weekend with friends. The weather was perfect! Bonus: I snuck a few pages in while others unsuccessfully fished.
I‘m sorely behind on reviews but hope to catch up today! I‘ve missed you all!
Ps — The Summer Book is a perfect read for camping!

#StoryGraph: fiction classics literary lighthearted reflective relaxing scandinavian translated-works
165 pages • first pub 1972 • 4.5 Stars

Sophia and Grandma live together on a Scandinavian Island for the summer. This book is translated from the Swedish, is character driven and I would classify it as contemplative literary fiction. The story of these two endearing characters is told via small vignettes about their life and relationship.

This was a lovely book with which to start the summer. A collection of short stories of a family‘s time spent at a summer cottage in Finland. The relationship between Sophia and her grandmother was rendered with grace and love. The author really captured the essence of both characters, likely because they were the image of their real life counterparts. I can see myself rereading this yearly as I ease into the warmer season. 5/5⭐️
(July 7, 2023)

The story of 6 yo Sophia and her grandmother as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. They are quirky but solid companions, who find delight in their conversations, play, and building together. “On an island,” thinks the grandmother, “everything is complete.”

#Pantone2023 @Clwojick

#Midsummersolace

Photo challenge - Day 1 -Summer

I chose this as I'm off to the Lake District tomorrow for a restful long weekend. I chose Tove Jansson's The Summer Book as I adore her work and fancied something different to Moomins.

What would you choose?

📷 Picollage stock photo

Enjoying some wine, dessert, and an almost summer read of The Summer Book.

#TitlesAndTunes #IslandVibes @Cinfhen @BarbaraBB
Revisiting a favourite island in Tove Jansson's fictionalised childhood memoir of the close bond that develops between a grandmother & granddaughter during summer holidays on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland.
Song choice is "That Summer Feeling" from a favourite album, Jonathan Richman's "Jonathan Sings!" It's a record packed with whimsically yearning songs of love, nostalgia and joy. ?️??

Makes me want summer. Soon. Right?

Since I‘m on track with my #clarissa March letters, I‘m doing a reread of one of my favorites to get myself a #bookspinbingo. This is my first month really participating in this challenge and I‘m really enjoying it! @TheAromaofBooks

Read this on the plane yesterday. Parts of it made me laugh out loud. No plot, just incidents from summers on an island off the coast of Finland featuring a girl and her grandmother, both outspoken.

#WomeninTranslation as well as the Baltic Sea challenge on LT.

#summer # booked2023 suggestions so far-
Afrofuturism- My Soul to Keep
Neighbours- A Good Neighbourhood
Trans/non-binary- George
Three generations- Marrying the Ketchups
Will be thinking a bit more about weird reviews/books and sunshine noir 🤔

A meditative, sweet examination of life, death, and nature via the relationship of a young girl and her grandmother on coastal island of Finland one summer. A classic reprint from the New Review of Books.

This is a wonderful book, I love it.

With summer ending I thought it might be time to try this, the adventures of Sophia and her grandmother as they spend one or many summers secluded on an island. Sometimes sweet, sometimes melancholy, something in the timelessness or detachment from society gave me sense of foreboding that I can‘t quite decipher. 6/10

#ArtfulAugust Day 13: Nary a #Rain this summer. Sunny throughout in California. Taken last week when we rented a lakehouse with family and did some kayaking. 🏝 Preparing a few posts in advance since I will be traveling in the coming days.

I‘m so glad to have read this as my summer break is winding down and I prepare to go back to school. It was the perfect timing for these vignettes of a grandmother and granddaughter together on an island in summer. I also thoroughly enjoyed the illustrations.

#ReadTheWorld #ReadingTheWorld #Finland #translated #1001books
#Reading1001 #TBRTakedown August 2022

#ArtfulAugust Day 4: We have a #Boat of sorts in this lakehouse we are renting for the next three days. I found the perfect reading corner close to the boat and the lake. I think I brought the perfect book(s) with me.

Perfect summer read- I loved it 💙 the author is the creator of the Moomins! This novella is based on her own family and the island they lived on. It is hilariously funny and simultaneously moving and sweet. Highly recommend!

I can‘t wait for my book haul to arrive! The New York Review Books summer sale was just too tempting …
#NYRB

What else to read on a train through Finland than a Tove Jansson selection? I'm nothing if not predictable.

A delight of a book. Wonderful nature writting in this Scandinavian classic. A summer on an Island with Sophie and her Grandmother. Such a joy to read.

This was a lovely thing to see in the NYT - because when my brain can‘t focus on reading a book it can still focus on articles about books.

Finally some delicious sunshine in the Prairies, and a perfect time to read this book set in #Finland.

That‘s Grandmother and Sophia. 💙☀️💙
#currentlyreading

Thanks Kate for the lovely book. ! I also love this print 😍. I hope you and yours are all doing well now , take care ♥️ Cathy X

2021 top reads- apparently a year of reading classics by women and non fiction about women. @britt_brooke

Are you trying to get through more books before the end of the year? One strategy is to read shorter ones! You can see what I have to say about some darling gems here on a video that I made for Shawn the Book Maniac's booktube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joHQDnQmVOc

The gift of a book which makes you move while also bringing a stillness to the rhythm of life, is an excellent gift, no?

I received The Summer Book as a present from the sweetest, @JennyM last year. Thank you, love! 🥰

The writing in here encompasses multiple themes – philosophy, adventure, nature descriptions in their glory as well as chaos, inspirations from Jansson‘s life experiences, humour, mystery, literature and learning. 👇🏽

I love this book. I savoured all 172 pages. It is unlike anything else I‘ve read. It celebrates the relationship between a wild young girl and her equally wild grandmother as they spend the summer on a small Finnish island. Quote: “Wise as she was, she realized that people can postpone their rebellious phases until they're eighty-five years old, and she decided to keep an eye on herself.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

This vignette-filled short novel should really only be read during summer time 🌞. The relationship between Sophia and her grandmother, on an island home in Finland, was touching— but yet not saccharine.

I‘m surprised by the low overall Litsy rating on this one, which is also a #1001Books.

Just learned that yesterday was #nationalbookloversday . But that‘s everyday for us, right 😉?

📚📚📚📚📚

The 3 large oak bookcases here were built by my dad (who would have been 82 in two days ) ❤️

Tagged book is my current read.