Welcome to Litsy!

This author can really write! I love her stories, the secrets and surprises seep out of the pages and the meanings are never crystal clear. In this book, the narrator lives her quiet, routine life with her family until she starts receiving pages from her diary of 20 years ago, pages she hasn‘t thought about in all this time. It‘s a mystery and a character study, each of equal importance.

This is a quick cozy read about an 80 year old woman who finds a mouse in an abandoned aquarium and slowly befriends him. And makes some other friends along the way. Similar feel to a Backman story, but simpler. Cute.
Ann Patchett raved about it in an instagram post, and from the cover comment you can see she loved it.

I‘m starting a new book tonight, and I flipped to the back to read about the author since this is my first by him. The beginning is standard “he‘s written a lot of stuff,” but at the end it gets interesting. And really the last line wins it all for me. I‘ll probably love this based on that one line 😁.

An Austrian housewife, estranged from her husband and kids, keeps herself busy by tidying the house. One day, she receives her own diary entries from 20 years earlier, sent anonymously by mail.
These entries transport her back to a time away from her family, and the reader gradually learns more about why. But this is Marlen Haushofer, the author of the enigmatic The Wall—and this book is just as mysterious. Perhaps even more so.

#Gladstones25

Just finished this one. A charming story of a lonely older woman who "adopts" a mouse, and the odd connections that are made due to his presence. A quick read, and some of the writing is beautiful. Recommended.

#fiction #animals #mice #loneliness #friendship

This was a sweet little book and just what i needed. A little bit like A Man Called Ove but a shorter, simpler read. I seem to be reading a lot of books about elderly people finding connections!

Photo: a lot of folk in the water this weekend for Junior Surf Club.

Cute read!

🐭🪤

So.. this book had been on my TBR since last year‘s #AuldLangSpine but as I am writing this I now realize the book on last year‘s list was actually the same title but a different author 😅

But it worked out and was a pick for me. I think fans of Emily Austin will enjoy it. Lots of dark humor and existential themes. Kind of Six Feet Under meets Dear Evan Hansen in terms of the pickle the main character puts himself in. ⬇️

A portrait of loneliness & the power of connection. I loved this story of an English woman who returns to the UK after 60 years in Australia. Her path crosses w/a little mouse & unexpected connections follow. It reminds me of an even lovelier Man Called Ove. It was a reminder to look deeper than 1st impressions. It‘s one I‘d love to reread in the future. “The pleasantness of Sunday has come apart and lies in pieces at the feet of Monday.”