Welcome to Litsy!

Thank you so much for this behemoth of a birthday book, @TrishB ! 😆

It had somehow flown completely below my radar but it sounds WONDERFUL and just my sort of thing (and I‘m never afraid of a good chunkster 😆).

Thank you! ❤️❤️❤️

I enjoyed this sumptuous historical novel, though it was ambitious in the stories it merged and its sheer length. The characters came to life with lively story-telling & it gives a behind-the-scenes feel for how D H Lawrence, Jackie Kennedy & J Edgar Hoover operated. The obscenity trial scenes were propulsive & dramatic. Some plot points seemed unlikely but Macleod gives motive to her characters so it feels real. An immersive, layered story.

Beautiful writing and subjects made for a very satisfying reading experience.

This scholarly and beautifully written novel highlights the remarkable coincidence of the publication of Lady Chatterley‘s Lover and the election of a young progressive President making it clear that nothing was inevitable about either and that progress comes with hard work intelligence and not a little luck. But most of all the novel highlights the beauty and tenderness of Lawrence‘s work and the passion that great literature inspires

An Officer and a Spy was just not working for me, so I‘m hoping Tenderness sticks! Writing so far is lovely. Wine is Pelee Island‘s Lighthouse Riesling. Cheers!

It‘s pretty daunting starting a 600 page book particularly when a fellow Litsy reader bailed in chapter one. But armed with recommendations from Elif Shafak Madeline Miller and the lonesome reader I am giving it a try. It is another of my half price hardback Waterstones sale picks. And of all the books I chose this is the chunkiest. A good warm up for To Paradise?

Readers are keepers of secrets:as an illicit page is turned, as a dangerous truth is inferred. The pulse quickens. Something explosive ticks between the lines. There is an intake of breath; the voyeur‘s silent flare of recognition. All the while, his or her face is impassive, unresponsive even, because like all subversives readers lead careful double lives.

This book may be great, I don't know, but there was a sentence in the first chapter that was so stupid and gratuitous that I immediately quit. (Only posting this for #scarathlon points :) )

#scarathlon2021 #teamhendrix @StayCurious