Litsy

Creekfinding: A True Story | Jacqueline Briggs Martin

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The story was good. It's a true story about a man who owns a farm and wants to dig it up to bring the creek underground to light so that nature can come back to the area. He does it and wildlife appear and he stocks the creek with trout so now he has his own ecosystem in his backyard. Awesome graphics and story.

32 likes

Bookwormjillk

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression | Mildred Armstrong Kalish

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A sweet memoir of the life of a child growing up on a farm in Iowa during the depression. I first read this in 2008. Seemed like it was time again. #ReadingUSA

55 likes1 stack add

willaful

Gilead | Marilynne Robinson

This was my favorite quote from the book. I guess I find it comforting, because I often feel like a jumble of terrible feelings doing its best to somehow be a decent human being anyway.

Gilead was a bit of a slog at times, but ultimately very beautiful. There's so much kindness and thought in it.

#DoubleSpin

BkClubCare I just loved reading Gilead and the whole series. I may not even quite remember what exactly the books were about but how they made me feel. 💜 (edited) 2w

27 likes1 comment

willaful

Gilead | Marilynne Robinson

This is lovely but it seemed like it was getting to a perfect ending and I'm only a quarter in.... 🤔

#BookSpin

24 likes

Tamra

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression | Mildred Armstrong Kalish

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Iowa farm life growing up during the depression. Far from feeling deprived, Mildred looks back with affection on her rich & vibrant experiences as a child. This isn‘t one of those woe-is-me memoirs. As to be expected, she felt some things in society had changed for the better, others not.

CSeydel I should get this. My husband‘s grandmother, also named Mildred, grew up on a farm in Iowa during the depression and always spoke fondly of her childhood. 2mo

Tamra @CSeydel Mildred must have been a popular name because it was my grandmother‘s name as well. 😄 2mo

Leftcoastzen My mom really loved this book . She was a farm kid growing up in the Midwest in the depression as well. 2mo

Tamra @Leftcoastzen it‘s a vanishing way of life - the family farm. 😒 2mo

Leftcoastzen Sad but true. Still have one cousin whose son farms in Iowa ! But worried about his year with all this turmoil. 2mo

44 likes1 stack add5 comments

LitsyEvents

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World | Vicki Myron

Reposting for @MatchlessMarie

29 likes

MatchlessMarie

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World | Vicki Myron

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPri8ZqkRAy/?igsh=MXdhc29uNXJ5dGQ5

28 likes

MatchlessMarie

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World | Vicki Myron

I don‘t think the @DeweysReadathon Litsy page is active anymore but today kicks off the Dewey‘s 24 hours readathon over on IG. Here‘s their bingo board. I‘ll post the photo challenge next in case anyone is interested.

xicanti Alas, Litsy‘s one of the social media outlets the current organizers abandoned when they took over from the old guard. They‘re mostly focused on Facebook and Goodreads now. 2mo

MatchlessMarie @xicanti I kind of feel like ppl who end up on Litsy are the ones meant to be here 😂 I try so hard to convert ppl but a lot of ppl can‘t get into it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 2mo

julesG @xicanti They also host a Discord server 2mo

MatchlessMarie @julesG yeah but discord makes me twitchy i can never seem to keep up with all the replies speeding through 2mo

julesG I check in from time to time, but like you I am often overwhelmed with the hundreds of messages that have accumulated. 2mo

34 likes5 comments

Robotswithpersonality

Universal Harvester | John Darnielle

so-so

Well, I read Devil House, didn't love it and still decide to pick up another John Darnielle, so this one's on me.
From what I remember of Devil House, this book basically has the same issue, the premise, the synopsis, the cover hint at something darker and more intriguing, the book is mostly just sad.1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? And in this case, even that feels a bit of an overstatement. There's something about the strong, yet understated thread of American mid-west pragmatism woven into this story and all its characters such that melancholic feels too dramatic a word.
I'm frustrated primarily because I love where this author's stories start, 3mo

Robotswithpersonality 3/? and I'm truly impressed with his subtle conveyance of deep emotional ties, and detailed but not flowery establishment of a sense of place. There's so much here that recommends his writing, yet it never really pays off. I think part of the issue is that he's being advertised or trying to write in the wrong genre. It's a story of family much more than it is a mystery. 3mo

Robotswithpersonality 4/? Yes, there's a religious cult, yes, a woman disappeared, or rather, clearly abandoned her family to join a fringe religious group, but it definitely doesn't feel like the big moment when it occurs, when the characters find out, when the reader finds out, it feels like the book is focused on not letting any one moment be too big, too loud. 3mo

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Robotswithpersonality 5/? I could see readers getting frustrated that the storytelling keeps hinting at things and then changing POV, introducing a different character, perhaps in a bid to increase intrigue, but it veers off for lengths of time that don't fit the mystery genre. And it doesn't feel very satisfying or enlightening in the end, for what there is in terms of a reveal, versus what, in theme with the actual story being told, the reader never gets to see or 3mo

Robotswithpersonality 6/? know.
I was in the mood to enjoy the explorations of mother and child, wife and husband relationships, before grief and loss, the father and child relationships after, and how people react differently, how debilitating loss can be and how many not-therapist-recommended ways of managing that loss there are - some considered more acceptable than others 3mo

Robotswithpersonality 7/? the difference between knowing the final, too-soon, fate of a loved one and never knowing. But I can't say if I'd known what this was at the start that I'd have picked it up. 3mo

Robotswithpersonality 8/8 From the description, I can't help but wonder if Wolf in White Van, Darnielle's first novel, actually described as contemporary, might answer my questions about receiving his writing differently if I didn't go in with misled expectations, but I think it'll be another couple years before I give him the chance for a third strike. 💁🏼‍♂️ 3mo

9 likes7 comments