Welcome to Litsy!

I read 17 books in June (I am in therapy for my anxiety thanks!)
Here are my ratings:
5 ⭐
Giovanni's Room

4.25⭐
Henry Hamlet's Heart
A Single Man
Well of Lonliness

4⭐
If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

3.75⭐
The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
A Gentleman's Gentleman
Icarus
Maggie

3.5⭐
Automatic Noodle

3⭐
Happy Place
The Pairing
Queer Body Power
Witch King
Let's Talk About Love

2.5 ⭐
Wild Dark Shore

What‘s there to say that hasn‘t been already said about this book. James Baldwin is one of my favorite people (he‘s one of the first people that I started to listen to his old interviews when I started my antiracism journey). His writing is so powerful & plays such an important role in American fiction.

Storms are ruining my outdoor happy hour, but perhaps is a fitting atmosphere for this novel.

Baldwin was able write a complex portrait of David, an American young gay man in 1950‘s Paris, in such a way that the heartache, ambiguity, duplicity, longing, and guilt drip off the pages. I am left feeling ambivalent about him, which is perfect.

Poignant as hell.

Our library just started an intergenerational Read for Your Rights Book Club focusing on books that have been banned. Last night we met to discuss “Giovanni‘s Room.” I‘d never read Baldwin before and I was blown away by his prose. The discussion was wonderful. And the participants ranged in age from 18-early 70s, which provided a richer understanding and sharing of perspectives. Next up is “The Things They Carried.

Finally sitting down and the first 🍺 of the season is well deserved. I‘ve spent two entire afternoons in 95+ heat cleaning out our camper. For the first time in two decades of camping we had mice in it over the winter, which meant everything had to come out, be washed, and the interior scrubbed. 😝

Back to my Happy Hour Reading.

“But people can‘t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives us those and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.” 💙

Happy Hour.

#TLT @dabbe

Favorites
Baldwin (Giovanni & Go Tell It)
Invisible Man (should be required reading)
Talented Mr Ripley

Some I own but have yet to read:
Zorba
Cry Beloved Country
Dr Zhivago

"One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry."

5⭐

This is maybe my 4th time reading this and (my memory is not good) each time I am in awe of Baldwin's language and how he weaves the story of Giovanni, Jacques, Guillaume, Hella and David.

This might be my perfect book. I love the heart, the tragedy, the setting is visceral and the characters are incredibly realistic.

"'Somebody," said Jacques, "your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour--and in the oddest places!--for the lack of it."

#Baldwin

June TBR bookcase I have a few library books I need to get through, but mostly my focus is the books up top. Pride Month🌈

I have been reading Giovanni's Room in June for the last couple of years so wrapping up what I am reading now and then starting that. I hear Matt Bomer reads the audio if you have not read the book and would like to do it on audio!
The stack on the back left is my #14in14 which I am 1.5 books into!

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

2/20
Join if you would like!

#20Covers

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Excellent, but I kept falling asleep while reading the beginning (still sick). I can‘t tell if I was bored or the start was slow or if I was just still too sick to read. Worth persevering for the ending.

An LGBTQIA classic published in 1956, about an American living in Paris coming to terms with his homosexuality. His girlfriend Hella is on an extended vacation to Spain, when he meets Giovanni.

#LGBTQBookBingo2024
#10beforetheend

This was my first James Baldwin book, and I haven‘t been able to stop thinking about it. It was complex and poignant. I hung on to every word.

People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

First Baldwin and already one of my favorite reads this year!

The way Baldwin weaves the story between David and Giovanni is exquisite.

I read this on Kindle, borrowed from the library and I definitely need a physical copy for a reread and annotation.

So glad I have the rest of his backlist to enjoy.

Loved this!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Current read…Library holds coming in strong in the past few days and I‘m not mad about it!

🌈 This June, our tribute goes to extraordinary LGBTQ+ authors breaking boundaries in literature.

Find out why their stories are essential for broadening perspectives and their representation is key to a more inclusive and empathetic world. 🤗

✨ Discover our take on the profound impact of queer voices in books and beyond: https://blog.getbookly.com/10-lgbtq-authors-to-celebrate-this-pride-month/

#lgbtq #lgbtqauthors #lgbtqbooks #readmore

Sometimes you start a book knowing you‘re going end it thinking - I don‘t know how I waited so long to read this! And that was totally this book, BUT it also completely took me by surprise. I‘ve can‘t remember the last time I read something where you could pull out every third line as a standalone quote. (Maybe the last time I read Baldwin?) I kept thinking I‘m so glad I‘m not writing an essay on this, or my copy would look insane. #doublespin

Wow, this book hit me real hard. I barely know what to say about it. It runs so deep, I can't really find the words to describe it. Some scene made me cringe, so did some words or dialogues. But in this story it's more than clear that those are the words and thoughts of the characters, not necessarily the author's, which made them even more real to me.
This book left me with a heavy feeling on my heart and soul.

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

I love this word! The closest equivalent we have in American English is “bum a smoke” which sounds offensive, and really only works for cigarettes.

I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life. #firstlinefridays @ShyBookOwl

Giovanni‘s Room by James Baldwin!

I've been pining for this book to be adapted into a movie ever since I first read it. The knowledge of a secret screenplay squirrelled away somewhere in a London flat penned by Baldwin himself only made the notion more desirous.

Forever holding out hope!

A bold story to have been written in the mid 1950s. It‘s a tale of homosexual love that, pressed by the times in which it plays out and ideas of masculinity that are held at the core, lead to the destruction of two lives with significant consequences. I wanted to love it more but sadly I didn‘t, but I think it‘s a courageous work that deserves to be widely read. So far though, I prefer Baldwin‘s non fiction work more.

#aty24 #fitssuggestionthatdidntmakefinallist
#52bookclub24 #apostropheintitle #februaryminichallenge #authorborninleapyear

@BarbaraBB @Kristy_K @LaraReads @KarenUK @Hooked_on_books @BarkingMadRead @brittanyreads @Magpiegem @BookBelle84 @Larkken @julesG @Deblovestoread @MidnightBookListener @Librarybelle @triplem80 @Tove_Reads @Read4life @Bluebird @eeclayton @hissingpotatoes @Book_Lover95 @TheAromaofBooks @kwmg40 @Crazeedi

Early Sunday morning in Giovanni‘s Room❤️

Cold night planted on the couch…hubby‘s feet near fireplace and me ➡️ reading!😊

#roll100 @PuddleJumper

Luckily, these are all quite short!

I really need to buy myself a copy of this #novella It seems like every time I decide to borrow it there‘s a 6 month wait time, and then life distracts me, so I actually have yet to read this masterpiece… #HumbleHarvest @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Gay flirting disguised as incisive commentary on French society disguised as a dick joke. GodDAMN, James Baldwin.

God, Baldwin could write. He could especially write gay flirting disguised as incisive criticism of American society disguised as gay flirting.

gorgeous yet so shattering. not in the sense you‘re life is changed completely and you‘re sobbing shattering but shattering like i just became david and left the one i loved

“…love him and let him love you. do you think anything else under heaven really matters?”

8-26-23: Just got back from roaming around my city with my daughter visiting all the participating bookstores in the first annual Philly Book Crawl including the country‘s oldest LGBTQ bookstore, Giovannis Room. It was a magical day! Love having reasons to buy books! 📖📚💖

#2023 reread

5⭐

Baldwin is a marvel.

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks #Booknotes

Giovanni's Room needs French music of course, I have been in love with Barbara Pravi since I saw her in the 2021 Eurovision. Her Le jour se lève song fits the feel of this Baldwin read, it is all about kissing, and dreaming of kissing, and has a bit of a melancholic piano feel.

"He smiled, 'Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home' He played with my thumb and grinned.
'Beautiful logic, ' I said. ' You mean I have a home to go to as long as I don't go there?'"

#FirstlineFriday @ShyBookOwl

“I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.“

😍 😍 😍 😍

Really wonderful feature in NYT with several queer writers, including Roxanne Gay, reflecting on, commenting on, the most influential queer writers of the last several decades. Some writers I had not heard of. And some phenomenal portraits and photographs included in this feature. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/t-magazine/queer-postwar-books-plays-poems.ht...

Amazing. Reminder that we can't run from ourselves/can't escape our minds

Unfortunately, my copy got ruined in the rain.

I finished this on the treadmill this morning and I will be thinking about Giovanni and David for a long time. It‘s heartbreaking and yet beautiful. But I wish I had read it instead of listening. This narrator couldn‘t speak French and butchered the name Guillaume and even the word “monsieur!” But the book made it worth putting up with that.

#BlackHistoryMonth Recommendations Day 19 Fiction
Baldwin. Baldwin! I am constantly in awe of Baldwin. His intelligence and ability to relate it into gorgeous earth shattering stories is unmatched. This atmospheric novel set in Paris is a masterpiece. But it also is a slim accessible read. Full of love and sorrow, it is truly worth all the praise.

Book bingo reads 2 down 7 to go for two lines 😂cancel the house 🏡 work call in sick to work and just read ! 🤓😂 happy Monday #bookspinbingo #doublespin #februaryreads

This was incredible. Baldwin conveys so much about humanity, shame, pain, love, and hatred in this story. The writing is open, honest, raw, and so very human. I am in awe. Definitely a new favorite. I cannot wait to discuss this at my next LGBT+ book club meeting at the end of this month!
#lgtbq #queerlit

I recently joined a newly formed LGBTQ+ book club in South Carolina and today we found out this is the first book we‘re reading. It‘s my first ever in-person book club and I am hopeful that it will be a good experience.

#bookclub #lgbtq #southcarolina

My new favorite Baldwin book and probably going to stay in my top 10 reads of the year. This is about a man struggling with his sexuality and relationships as an American in Paris. It‘s heartbreaking and beautiful.

Again, possibly in my top 5 favorites of 2022. This book blew me away. Also, I need to come up with new superlatives. Anyway, I only regret not reading this sooner.

#12Booksof2022 @Andrew65

2022 has been a rather marvellous book year for me!

I've discovered new favourite authors. Unearthed book series that have become lifelong obsessions. And one cannot forget the stand-alones that have found a permanent home in my heart.

⬆️ These were my absolute favourites ⬆️

1: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.
2: Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez.
3: Into This River I Drown by TJ Klune.

Have been reading this as a buddy read with my son and wow it was wonderful. Such beautiful prose, brilliantly written characters and a hard hitting story.
This one is definitely going into my all time favourites list
5 ⭐️

A short story brilliantly narrated. David‘s efforts to escape both the morality of his American upbringing and his own contradictory desires play out in the small and suffocating atmosphere of Giovanni‘s room. 9/10