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#12Booksof2023 April

Definitely the strangest 🦇💩🍌👖book I read all year, which also made it the most intriguing and fun. And I luuuurve the cover.

@Andrew65

I‘m afraid I‘m not in the right mind space to enjoy this very strange book. It was too convoluted for me just now. There are so many characters and storylines, I‘m just not really sure what happened.

There were parts I really liked, especially the bee/pollen mutation and hive mind infestation that developed from that.

Overall, 🍌👖 and downright strange.

Airport reading. ✈️ Headed to Colorado to visit family.

This is a strange one! Not sure yet if I‘m enjoying it or not. I‘ll let you know 🙂📚

A genre-defying novel full of memorably surreal occurrences. It was a wild reading experience, with moments of terror and laugh-out-loud funny satire that made our own reality scarier and more stark, but not entirely hopeless. In the end, I‘m not sure what else to say beyond praising its existence. Thank you again @Lindy for putting Stintzi on my radar.
P.S.- The cover depicts not a hawk as I thought originally, but a myna bird.

Finally, we‘re on. The #ToB23 has started!

Today was the Play-In and right from the start we‘re choosing another book than the judge in the official tournament. Their winner is, not surprisingly, My Volcano, a book that was very popular among us too. It was a close call between My Volcano and An Island. The latter however won with one more vote! An Island will enter the #LitsyToB 23 against The Rabbit Hutch. Thoughts?

🤯What did I just read? This is (I think) simultaneously four alternate version of what happens after a volcano bizarrely appears in Central Park NYC. I know I didn‘t keep it all straight. But I enjoyed the journey. The back of the book says “part parable, myth, science fiction, and eco-horror”. Yes, yes, yes. And more.

And with that I am an official #ToB2023 completist! 🥳

Well, that was a wild ride! Supremely weird, frenetic, polyphonic, impactful—I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to. I especially liked the storylines with Angel and Old Otherwise. Hope this wins the #ToB23 play-in match.

Wow, I‘m so glad I decided to read this despite my reservations. What a book. Unbounded creativity and an unflinching look at so many things we have to answer for, from climate disasters to transphobia. Sometimes I was definitely in over my head, but I couldn‘t put this one down. Thank you #ToB2023!

Now, this was weird and I didn‘t have a clue what was going on most of the time but I really liked it…! Does that make me a bit weird too?! 🤣

I liked some of the story lines better than others and I preferred the earlier parts of all of the stories. I *think* the book as a whole is an allegory of the ‘butterfly effect‘, where what we do, particularly in terms of environmental impact, can have a ripple effect across the world. 🤔

“And so, just like that, Ash became everything, and nothing, and forever, and never having ever been at all. He became the aching blank that bears the weight of everything.”

Sunday afternoon, with a book, a blanket and a dog! ❤️❤️❤️

This book is bonkers; I haven‘t got a clue what‘s going on, but weirdly I‘m rather liking it.

I‘m also reading A Little Life and an ARC of the new Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions For You) and that‘s pretty much my #weeklyforecast too.

(If only I could spend the whole week on the sofa with books, a blanket and the dog!)

Moving on to My Volcano for #ToB2023 🌋

Most of the time while I was reading this book, I had no idea what was going on, but honestly, that didn't reduce my enjoyment of the story! It's weird and chaotic but also has beautiful moments and creates very vivid images. #ToB2023

Second book finished for #FabulousFebruary @Andrew65
#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

So excited that ILL found me this! #ToB2023

“Reality is nothing but the opinion of power.” - old witch‘s proverb

I didn't love this one, and I didn't hate it, but I think I get what Stintzi is trying to do, and I appreciate it. The repetition and the multiple realities capture well the feeling of "where do we go from here?" that seems to be pervading life for a lot of us and especially for those in my children's generation (poor GenZ...y'all don't even get the hope of the late 80s/early 90s before you have to face serious crap. At least you have YouTube).

I didn‘t love it,but I didn‘t hate it either. It doesn‘t get a pick from me because it was hard to follow the story lines at times. I never would have read this if not for #ToBshortlist2023 and even then it took some of you saying good things about it and my library had it.

Just way too much going on here, which I know was the whole point, but the constant wtf-is-happening feeling made me tired. I really liked certain storylines, especially Ash & Joao, and the early parts of Mackayla‘s thread before it got real weird. I liked this more than 2 AM, but need to read the third play-in round book for #tob23.

This metaphorical book about climate change and gun violence lands in the top half of #tob23 reads for me. Another great one for discussion! I had trouble keeping track of the multiple timelines at points, but symphony of voices was hard to put down.

Suddenly, a volcano erupts in Central Park. There are links around the world where strange things start happening with animals. Meanwhile, the author notes the escalating toll of gun violence.

A light pick because of its originality. The book is bonkers! A volcano arises in the midst of Central Park and it seems connected to Mount Fuji. All over the world volcanos are acting up and weird things start happening everywhere. Unimaginable things. I don‘t watch many movies but I‘d make an exception if this book would be made into one.

#ToB23 #ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Mexico 🇲🇽 #52Booksclub23 #FirstWordIsThe #pop23 #FirstTimeAuthor

In a relatively lackluster #tob2023 year, I‘m delighted to say I LOVED this! It‘s completely bananas and won‘t be for everyone, but the volcano in Central Park, temporal anomalies, and metaphors galore really worked for me. I‘m so glad the tourney put this one on my radar.

#weeklyforecast 03/23

I am reading The Lover‘s Dictionary, a wonderful little book sent to me by the lovely @KarenUK . Next will be the tagged one for #ToB23 (just like you Cindy!) and I hope there‘ll be time to start American War!

The jogger, the first person to see the peak of the volcano sprouting from the middle of the reservoir in Central Park, in the early hours of June 2, thought the volcano was a breaching humpback whale. . . . She stared at it for a full minute--stretching all the while--before continuing her run. She couldn't afford to stop any longer because she didn't want her heart rate to drop.

#SundaySentence

First #BookMail of 2023🎉🎉🎉 I‘ve seen lots of MIXED reviews… so keeping expectations low 😉

This is the type of novel I would usually avoid and only picked it up because of #TOB23. I still really hoped that I would like it and become the kind of reader who would embrace this style of writing but as things progressed I found myself skimming more and more. I wanted to see where it would all go and now I know.

Wow! This book is weird but the message behind it packs quite a punch. We follow several different outcomes, through different POV's, all surrounding what happens when a volcano suddenly emerges in Central Park.

I love the diversity of characters and the author's ability to address social injustices and climate change all within this pre-apocalyptic world. This book isn't going to be for everyone, but it certainly leaves a lot to talk about.

Ouch. 😔 I'll keep my unreasonable optimism, thank you.

Doomscroll, anyone? 🙄 Oh algorithm, you were just trying to help!

July has been a great reading month. Lots of queer authors and Canadian writing.

What I‘ve been reading over the past week:

I‘m all about the 5-star books in today's Friday Reads… + a 2-star flop
#queer #retellings #ramayana
https://youtu.be/g35Ck1C2ws0

Weird, wonderful, pre-apocalyptic, kaleidoscopic, with a large cast of mostly queer characters who live in places across the globe. Set during alternate reality summers of 2016, when a volcano rose out of Central Park in NYC. Imagine a mash-up of works by Emily St John Mandel, Kafka, David Mitchell, Yan Ge, Sequoia Nagamatsu, & Baba Yaga tales… & throw in 16th c Mexico. I felt buoyed by the vast vision & hope for the future. #LGBTQ #Canadian

There‘s a certain amount of whimsy in this novel, and there are also pages like this one, set apart from the story, containing the name and death information of a real person who died as a result of violent racism, homophobia, or transphobia.

They stood & watched group after group of marchers pass. Marchers in leather, in rainbows, on foot or on bikes. Advertisements. Organizations. Politicians waving from the back of banner-laden trucks. So many queer bodies, watching & marching alongside so many other non-queer bodies. The parade was supposed to make the white trans writer feel included but they didn‘t feel it. They knew what they looked like to the people on the street. They felt ⬇️

In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan [ @shawnmooney ‘s hometown], a craft brewmaster talked about his inspiration to swiftly rebrand their bock as the Prairie Bock-cano, the new label an illustration of Saskatoon‘s modest skyline interrupted by an erupting peak.

As he carried the drink out to the patio, Susan Sontag‘s Regarding the Pain of Others under his arm, Ash felt his image of New York shift with the knowledge that a volcano was emerging in Central Park.

The urban spaces Dzhambul‘s greenness overwhelmed grew over with his mutant thistle and other plant life. The green‘s cells grew quickly with his guidance, and huge organisms spread effectively and efficiently. Giant hives of green bees occupied skyscrapers along their path. The air he liberated grew clean again. He wanted nothing but for the world to be one endless wave, and sanitized.

Arrived today! An erupting volcano in Central Park starts things off…getting ready for a kaleidoscopic ride tonight.😎