Litsy

#SaturdayChatterday

Saturdays are my mostly solitude & regroup time. As I work from home I like to go out to a semi-quiet coffee shop.

Today I stopped by the craft market & found my favorite card vendor back-so I restocked. I‘m going to eat my breakfast, drink my coffee, read for various readathons & HauntedShelf, get some #LitsyLove responses & Halloween greetings out & get around to some #5JoyFridays posts.
Hope your weekend vibe is good! 💛

TieDyeDude, Read4life, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, AllDebooks

AllDebooks Sounds like a lovely day 😊 1mo

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 💛💛💛 1mo

48 likes2 comments

ReadingisMyPassion

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

pick

This is a captivating and well-researched novel. I was immersed in the dangerous and heroic world of resistance fighters during Nazi-occupied Europe. The book's exploration of themes such as sacrifice, bravery, and the resilience of the human spirit resonated strongly with me.

I highly recommend it for fans of historical fiction and World War II literature.

16 likes

Eggs

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

pick

Gripping, edge-of-your-seat storytelling from Jenoff. WWII, Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪, this is based on an actual rescue mission. Resisters Matteo, his sister Marcheline, and widow Hannah join forces to attack a railcar bound for Auschwitz to free Hannah‘s cousin Lily and her son. Solid characters who, like us readers, are never sure who they can trust

#Sharreadathon Day 8
#ReadAway2024

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES

DieAReader 🥳Awesome! 10mo

Eggs @DieAReader ☺️☺️ 10mo

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Sounds great! 10mo

Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks It really was 👌🏼 10mo

54 likes1 stack add4 comments

Eggs

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

Happy Wednesday! How do the weeks fly by so quickly??? 🩵🤍❄️📚❄️🤍🩵

Q & A:
I. Mom teaching me to sew, making Christmas cookies together, reading to me

II. Loyalty and grit

III. Tagged

wanderinglynn, Captivatedbybooks, kspenmoll, DieAReader, BookNAround, Susanita, Clwojick, JuliaTheBookNerd, TheLudicReader, JessClark78, Bookwormjillk, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, Arvena, Ruthiella, TheSpineView, dabbe, DaveGreen7777, ElizaMarie, IndoorDame, GHABI4ROSES, LiseWorks

LiseWorks @Eggs for some reason I can't copy this o my phone so here are my answers.1. I have tons of memories too long to post here. 11 My strength as a woman, my creativity 111 Naked I Death, Neighbor Favor, and The Study in Scarlet Women 10mo

wanderinglynn Thanks for the tag! 10mo

Ruthiella Thanks for the tag! 10mo

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dabbe Will do; thanks for the tag! 💜🩶💜 10mo

TheSpineView Thanks for the tag! 10mo

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 💙 ❄️ 10mo

kspenmoll Thanks for the tag! 10mo

Eggs @LiseWorks Thanks for playing🥳🥳 (edited) 10mo

Eggs @wanderinglynn Welcome!! 10mo

Eggs @Ruthiella Welcome! 10mo

Eggs @dabbe 🥰😍🥰 10mo

Eggs @TheSpineView 🥳👏🏻🥰 10mo

Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 🩵💙🩵 10mo

Eggs @kspenmoll Welcome 🙏🏻 10mo

49 likes14 comments

angieinwonderland

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

so-so

Every single character's bad decisions grated on me. It took a while for me to get through it. The story itself is interesting, but this isn‘t my favorite of hers.

9 likes

OutAndAbout

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

pick

Fantastic listen! Great characters, fast moving intricate plot, great writing and a good narrator.

29 likes

tpixie

Code Name Sapphire: A Novel | Pam Jenoff

WWII Belgium 🇧🇪 - What choices would you make to save yourself, your family, your countrymen? I have never been truly tested in my life, thanks to many brave women & men before me. 💙💙💙

Bandette loves it when I read so she can lie down in her favorite spot! 🐶
#DogsOfLitsy

Crazeedi I like Jenoff, but havent read this one 1y

tpixie @Crazeedi It‘s the first I‘ve read of hers, but several of hers are on my TBR list! 1y

Crazeedi @tpixie she has written some really great ones 1y

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tpixie @Crazeedi I need to revisit her. Do you have a favorite? 1y

dabbe Hello, Beautiful Bandit! 💙🐾💚 1y

tpixie @dabbe she says hi!! 🐶 🐾💚 1y

Crazeedi @tpixie

The Orphan's Tale

Crazeedi Or

Ambassador's Daughter

tpixie @Crazeedi thanks 😊 The Orphan‘s Tale is on my TBR. Maybe I‘ll start there, then Ambassador‘s Wife!! (edited) 1y

Richryan52 Holmes fan? 1y

tpixie @Richryan52 no, sorry 😞 1y

59 likes2 stack adds11 comments

Robotswithpersonality

Open City | Teju Cole

pan

No thank you.
I was barely tolerating a less than stimulating, somewhat standoffish protagonist for the sake of Cole's ability to turn a phrase, but then he decided to throw in a despicable act near the end, perhaps recognizing that his work was lacking a little spice, and then left it unacknowledged for the remainder of the text. I'm sure some literary glitterati view it as a 'stylistic choice' but I just found it underhanded and distasteful.

Robotswithpersonality 1/? Before that particular passage, here's what I was thinking:
Somewhat of a natural transition to go from Cole's collection of essays (Known and Strange Things) to this work of fiction, as the narrative feels like a series of interlinked vignettes, not quite a short story collection. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 2/? The main character tells snippets of his own life but also conveniently meets a number of people in his walks and other travels that seem to feel compelled to tell him their life stories in the span of a few pages, often in retrospect, not quite mournful, but war/conflict/violence/loss seems to be in the background of many stories.
Insights into personal histories, and how world history has shaped people. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 3/? Thought after the essay collection, that given his penchant for slipping into the poetic in the middle of non-fiction, any fiction novel would benefit from Cole's writing style, but it mirrors the essay collection in being heavy on the descriptive and ready at any moment to take on society's ills. These are not necessarily bad qualities, but they fail to gel into a compelling narrative. 1y

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Robotswithpersonality 4/? If you're looking for a slow quiet collection of moments of people discussing art, literature and social issues...[I might have suggested it before having gotten to the unnecessarily ugly twist]. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 5/? Cole introduces a side character called Farouq, and given the man's ideas and plans expressed (the frustration with Othering, and the need to see the different appreciated rather than assimilated, his translation studies and his work in the phone/internet boutique -seen as a microcosm of different kinds of people, from different places, religions, languages, all existing in harmony- a pacifist with sharp, even contentious, religious and political views), I would dearly love to have a novel from Farouq's perspective... [if I still believed I could trust this author not to pull dirty tricks out of nowhere]. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 6/? Narrator seems a teensy but elitist in his tastes and judgement of other's scholarship [but wait, he gets worse!]
Might have loved this more if it was framed up as journal entries in walks taken [turns out not enough of the story is framed that way to make it worthwhile]. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 7/8 The disconnect the protagonist seems to feel towards strangers reaching out, contrasted occasionally with his interest in communicating with other strangers when they have a story he wants to hear, and his coolness in the early days and subsequent and retroactive woundedness about a recent ex moving on make a bit more sense if you take the view that the long game for this author was to make the main character unlikeable, but I've learned that the only thing I like less than a book focusing on an unlikeable character filled with attempted suspense and thrills, is a book that can't make up its mind on the likeableness of a character, and is more likely to deliver New York history trivia than any kind of revelations. Do NOT recommend. 1y

Robotswithpersonality 8/8 ⚠️SA, ableism, ableist and homophobic slurs, racism/xenophobia, recounting of hate crimes, discussion of planned end of life, discussion of bedbugs 😖 1y

batsy I read this a long time ago but I felt the same about the ending. Felt cheap and using sexual assault as a way to pull the rug out from under the reader left me angry. Especially if it was a way to look back on the character to "get" why he is that way. 1y

Robotswithpersonality @batsy Yes, Exactly! 1y

batsy @Robotswithpersonality I thought it was good at the time but I had to reread it and then felt disappointed (with myself, and with the book)... 1y

Robotswithpersonality @batsy Don't be too hard on yourself, the re-reader hindsight happens to us all 🤷🏼‍♂️ 1y

batsy @Robotswithpersonality Yes, that's true 🙂 1y

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