Welcome to Litsy!

#Read2025

I finished this one last night for #ChildrensClassicRead2025 & it‘s a soft pick for nostalgia for the author. I found it too long & disjointed with it being separate stories really rather than cohesive chapters. It could be because I waited for the end of the month & was hurrying a bit but I had a hard time keeping track of all of the family & other characters. It did have some charming moments though.

Another charming read! I enjoyed getting to know more of the world of Ingleside and Anne's presence was still felt throughout. What surprised me was how late in time this was set - I always imagined the Anne of Green Gables series to be set in the 1800s, but there were a lot of references to historical events from the early 1900s. It makes sense, but still surprised me! Just one book left and I'm done this series. (Pictured with my next read)

A Toronto-based story centered on four Anishnaabe characters (a professor, a grad student, a visiting hockey player, and a bush pilot), a Caribbean writer, and a white detective: all brought unexpectedly together by a series of abrupt and incredibly brutal murders. This is far more than a murder mystery, going into Indigenous culture, history and human rights; sports culture; and a bit of romance. Very well developed, but the ending is a bit neat.

Street of Riches, by Gabrielle Roy (1955, trans. 1957 🇨🇦)

Premise: A series of stories about the author‘s childhood in Manitoba‘s francophone community.

Review: This was a marvelous surprise. These stories — seventy years old themselves, but recounting events of thirty years earlier — strike a perfect balance: You feel the foreignness of this version of Canada from a century ago, while also seeing the seeds for the country we‘ve become. Cont.

#Naturalitsy #HyggeHourReadathon

Tonight‘s #HyggeHour is being spent with Marigold. Trying to finish this one for #ChildrensClassicRead2025 March. My drink is coconut tea & my snack is a haupia (coconut) cupcake. (Which is yum!) 😋

My mood is a little tired & wishing the weekend was longer as it will be another busy work week ahead.

A darkish totally gray cloud morning. Perfect for hot blueberry scone , clotted cream & coffee. Off to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford for a cafe lunch & to view Divine Geometry: Islamic Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Here I am, biding time with a cute dog and my daily short story while I wait for the snow (UGH) to stop. I keep reminding myself that next week I‘ll be in France, where it‘s supposed to be 20° and I won‘t even need my new tweed jacket.

In the meantime, I‘ll continue to be impressed with Drew Hayden Taylor‘s range. This guy excels at every genre he turns his hand to. His SF is as great as his nonfiction, his theatre, his YA, etc. etc. #MFMarch

#CoverStories #Lake @Eggs
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Jennie‘s Boy, by Wayne Johnston (2023 🇨🇦)

Premise: A memoir of the author‘s childhood living with chronic illness in an impoverished Newfoundland community.

Review: This is close to being a perfect memoir: full of humour, insight, and vulnerability. It does a fantastic job of showing the reader the insecurity of growing up in illness, poverty, and as the child of an alcoholic, but also the power of familial love.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“I was trying to suggest a reconciliation, but…”
“What was the reason for the separation?”
A third coffee. He definitely needed a third coffee. Normally Trent would be drowning his sorrows with tea, but there were some things in this world that tea could not fix. It was definitely a coffee morning.
“We were having some personal problems.”
“Who had the affair, you or her?”
The way Birch asked disturbed Trent more than the question itself.