Welcome to Litsy!

Hubert Bird moved from Jamaica to England in his early 20‘s, met the girl of his dreams, and started a family. Now in his 80s and living alone, he struggles to make himself leave the house. A young neighbor pulls him out of his shell, and together they decide to address loneliness as a societal issue in their town.

Reminiscent of Ove, beautiful and sad and sweet, with issues such as addiction, estrangement, and loss of family members. Loved it!

A charming, heartwarming, feel good read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is a mood. If the world is overwhelming and you want to curl up under a blanket with some wholesome characters who will warm your heart while dealing with the worst life can offer, this is the cast I'd recommend for you.

Four stars.

Whew, this book! #emotionaldamage but in a good way... Be prepared to chuckle, laugh out loud, gasp, reread some lines, etc.

I don't know what I was expecting with this one but it really touched me. This was a book club pick otherwise it might not have hit my radar. This will make you laugh possibly cry (I totally did) and also make you reevaluate how easily it is to just disappear from life if you let yourself. 🌟🌟🌟🌟

All the Lonely People has me re-evaluating what it means to be lonely and what I should intentionally be doing to reduce its presence in my life. This book has served as a gentle reminder that self-isolation is too easy of a pit to fall into.

My September #BookSpinBingo report: one bingo, 13 books finished, including my BookSpin and DoubleSpin. My favorite was the tagged book but several of these were close behind.

This reminded me a bit of One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot because it features an older character in present day mixed in with chapters about their life when younger. Hubert is a great character who dealt with a lot of challenges and the book has both sadness and humor. The issue of lonely people is a real one too. I loved this book right up until the epilogue. I would‘ve preferred to just imagine what happened after the main part ended.

I absolutely loved this book! Loaded with wonderful characters that made me laugh, made me cry, and made me feel lots of emotions.

I loved this quote: “It used to be the family all looking out for one another but it‘s not like that anymore…It used to be neighbours kept an eye on you but people like to keep themselves to themselves now”.

Another good month for me. 8 books, all really good! I read my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin. No bingo this month. #BookSpinBingo

This book is in the same vein as "A Man Called Ove" but with notable differences. I really enjoyed this story of an 84 yr old man and his life's journey. Loneliness becomes a part of daily life, he has noone but his cat. He's lost loved ones, becoming disconnected from the world and not really wanting to change that. He's accepted it. Life has a funny way of messing that up for him. He finds friendships, love, community. He starts to live again. ❤

I‘ve got 7 1/2 days to read these two so I know what I‘ll be up to this weekend.

The premise of this book shares some similarities with A Man Called Ove. It‘s a charming story with a varied cast of characters. Read my full review here: https://debbybrauer.org/#all-the-lonely-people

#ThisWeekinNewBooks : One Kindle bargain; one Kindle #blameitonapodcast ; two library books; one purchased with Amazon points. Guess I‘ll start with the 7 day one. #MountTBR

I must preface this by saying I went in blind and had I known this book is one of those in the category of “lonely older man finds kinship” I would have never read it. I actually really do not enjoy those 😆 Never even read A Man Called Ove and sure don‘t want to. All of that being said, I really did love this story. The amazing audiobook narration could have been a big reason why.

How have I not read this author before? This book was sent to me from this year's Hachette Nook Club Brunch. I'm only a few pages in and love the tone of this book already. Author blurb says Mike Gayle has written 13 novels, so I will have plenty of blacklist if this finishes as good as it starts.

If you liked A Man Called Ove you will probably enjoy this one. I liked Ove more but this is still a pick for me. It kept me reading which is saying a lot these days! #bookspin

Urgh. I think I would have enjoyed this more if I hadn‘t read so many other books on the same theme… lonely old man finds friendship & companionship after thinking that part of life is over.

One down for #bookspinbingo though!

This was a really good book. Look for the authors name if checking it out as there seems to be other books with this title. I listened to it on audio it has a great narrator but I think I would have loved either way. I got this recommendation from the Currently Reading podcast season 3 episode 47 which was a listeners press episode. I have already read a couple of great ones from the episode.

A million stars. Full review here: http://girlwellread.blogspot.com/2021/07/all-lonely-people-by-mike-gayle.html.