Welcome to Litsy!

This is a collection of short stories about “despair and desire in the modern day Ireland” (book blurb). As always in my experience, some short stories are better than others. But I can say that what I like in all of them was author‘s writing style to describe the places, so atmospheric. Love the characters voices and love this cover. This the first time I read a book by this author, definitely it would not be the last one 3,5⭐️

(This book is written by Keegan, not by Rowling, as you can see on the cover.) These short stories are pure Keegan & of course the writing is beautiful. However, maybe because it feels like the 120th day of no sunshine in VT, these stories all felt so sad. Then I realized all of Keegan‘s stories are sad. I‘m a sucker for sad stories usually but this time it was harder for me to recover from her world of complicated & depressed Irish men & women.

Enjoyed my books again this week although struggled to finish the tagged book. While there are some exquisite sentences in the book I am reminded that short stories just aren‘t my thing. #ShortStoryCollection #Booked23

Less than an hour on the Larson and Mirror is short. Not sure what‘s next…

#BookReport

My nightly ritual is to read a short story and have a drink ( tonight it‘s a glass of rosé) and slow down my brain. ( I do not know why JK Rowling is showing as the author, the author is Claire Keegan and she is so freaking fantastic I‘m pissed right off to see that JK Rowling there)

“But death, at least, was certain. Every man needed to be certain of something.” The people in Irish author Claire Keegan‘s short stories tend to have many uncertainties — mostly due to circumstances. Being born a woman, or poor, or both, for example. They are interesting and seem true to life, no matter how eccentric. I enjoyed this audio production with three narrators: Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn and Aidan Kelly.

Your father moved into the other room but your mother gave him sex on his birthday. She‘d go into his room and they‘d have it there. It never took long and they never made noise, but you knew.

My favourites were the title story: Walk the blue fields and the last story in the collection: Night of the quicken trees.

Definite fan of Claire Keegan! I‘ve only listened to the tagged collection and read Small Things like These, but I‘m going to gobble up anything else she has written. Very engaging and intimate characterization. I‘m going to keep my eyes peeled for the tagged book in print.

Just listened to the first short story of this collection and what a fabulous beginning to what I suspect is going to be a trove of delights!

Not five minutes after she'd hung the wash out on the line...

Why can't they stop talking and embrace each other?

Hey, look at this! A #BookReport that's actually on time. Above is my report for the month of November. I did not finish as many books as I did in October. The top row are the books that I finished. All of them are really good!

The bottom row are all books in progress for various reasons. The #LibraryLottery has been impacting my reading *hard* this month. Plus more #chunksters on the month's #TBR. Pressing on!

@Cinfhen

Claire Keegan is becoming a must-read author for me. I love her spare, strong writing style. This collection of short stories, while not all complete winners, are all worth your time. If you need more Irish writers on your #TBR, Keegan is a strong choice! I come away from reading them feeling like I've learned something true about what it means to be Irish.

This counts for my short story #bookspin commitment for the month!
@TheAromaofBooks

Earlier, the women came with flowers, each one a deeper shade of red.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

My partner assembled my new garden seat today, I‘m looking forward to spending some time here with a few good books (and a glass of gin!)