Welcome to Litsy!

Finished my 8th #10BeforetheEnd book.

This is a short novel which finishes in a very different tone than the mocking one with which it starts. Written during and published just after WWI , it‘s about the horror and futility of war but also the very human ability to see only what one wants to see, until the scales from one‘s eyes are forcibly removed. Still relevant.

#weekendreads

Putting effort in this weekend to finish all the books before the year ends!

#LitsySciFiBookClub
#10BeforetheEnd
#ChristmasCrimeChallenge

I was out of town this past weekend and (naturally) found a secondhand bookshop. Lo and behold, I found two #PersephoneBooks that look unread and still have their matching bookmarks.

The truly amazing thing is that I own about 75 Persephone books BUT NOT THESE TWO. 😆

Oh my this was great! William and Griselda are pompous social activists, parroting the opinions of others instead of forming their own, listening only to those who agree with them, and believing themselves heroic, even though they risk and sacrifice nothing. That is until they find themselves, quite by accident, on the WWI Belgian front. Still relevant even a hundred years after it was first published, it turns from hilarious to brutal on a dime.

Feeling very proud that I limited myself to 5 books at Persephone. 💕
Tagging the other 4 in the comments...

No trip to London is complete without a trip to Persephone Books! ❤️🎡📖🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏰

I told my brother I loved the look of these books so he ordered these for me for my Birthday! I am so excited... but they are still on my #tbr after a few months 😐 I promise I will get to them very soon!! #giveawaysix

William traveled a very long way to get to me, so I'm going to let him rest awhile before I ask him to tell me his story. Thanks @shawnmooney !!

#JubilantJuly Day 6 - A Whole New World

In 1913, William and Griselda are married and spend their extended honeymoon at a remote Belgian cottage. When they emerge, they find a whole new world - one that is in the throes of WW1, and they must confront the brutality of war that is all around them.

#persephone

Hated the monstrously bloated, abstract, Latinate prose. Abandoned on page 12. Blech!

#ReadJanuary Day 19 - Endpapers

I'm a fool for lovely #endpapers, which is one of the reasons I so love #Persephone Books.

On the L is No Surrender, about suffragettes from differing social classes. On the R is William-An Englishman, about the general shock of WW1, with women's suffrage undertones. The endpapers are both from Omega Workshop fabrics produced in 1913 - a year that features prominently in both books, and are #suffragette colors.

INFINITY BOOKS (GREAT USED BOOKSTORE IN TOKYO) FIND #6

This was one of the three Persephone Books I picked up. They were as expensive used as they are brand new off the Persephone website, but when I pointed that out to the store owner he slashed the prices by 50%. According to @Eyelit this is the very first book in the series!

This is the first book Persephone Books published - and what a stellar choice! It's well written and you can tell Hamilton writes from experience (come to find out she wrote this novel while serving in the auxiliary during WW1). This is basically a story about an Everyman named William. Through a series of tragic events, he's forced to shed his naivety and idealism and adopt the disillusionment war inevitably brings. First for #bookisholympics