Welcome to Litsy!

#Roll100
#OffMyShelf “One Word Title”

Mary Karr writes beautifully of her tween years and adolescence in Leechfield, Texas in the ‘70s. Not as sympathetic as her first memoir, because it‘s a difficult age for many and particularly for Mary, who is smart but also often impudent and challenging as well as challenged by her home life and the counterculture movement.

I would have made the prologue an epilogue, however.

#14Books14Weeks
#OffMyShelf “Magic Realism”

I think I prefer Erdrich‘s later novels, but this was very good. It gives context and background to her debut “Love Medicine”. Set in the early 20th century and told from two perspectives: Pauline who is adrift from real family, mentally scarred and eventually mad and Nanapush, a wise and wisecracking elder who is troubled by the continued incursion on and internal collapse of Native lands and ways.

#OffMyShelf “Historical”

Not for the easily offended. Flashman is a terrible, amoral person. He‘s just incredibly lucky. Expelled from Rugby, he joins the army and ends up in Afghanistan, right in time for the first Anglo-Afghan war. I may continue with the series since Zelig-like, he is always at an interesting historical moment. The author is obviously a historian at heart. And I don‘t think the author endorses Flashman‘s behavior. Far from it.

#ChunksterChallenge2025
#AllergictoChunksters
#DoorstopKristen #KLBR
#OffMyShelf

I finished this 1125 page bind-up of all three novels. What a journey! This is the life of a medieval Norwegian woman - from her happy childhood, to her tumultuous courtship and marriage, to her years of motherhood and wifedom, to finally retreat to a nunnery and her death. Undset makes the characters, time and place come alive and feel relevant to the modern reader.

#OffMyShelf “completely different”
#14Books14Weeks

Short stories are not something I normally gravitate toward, but I did enjoy this book of linked stories featuring a 30 something woman in the‘90s. Lucy‘s a photographer and a real “guy‘s girl”. She sails, she white water rafts, etc. but she is unlucky in love.

I have had this book on my shelf since 1999. 😵‍💫 It‘s moved with me three times in 25 years ! Glad I finally read it. 😅

#OffMyShelf - memoir
#OhCanada

“Healing isn‘t a freeing experience when you‘re in the middle of it. It feels like land mines are exploding and ripping your flesh apart. Everywhere you step is dangerous.”

Powerful and raw. Knott writes about her struggles with addiction and abuse as an indigenous Canadian. Reminded me also of “Tattoos on the Heart” with its appeal to withhold judgment.

Trigger warnings for drug use, sexual assault and abuse.

Two more #offmyshelf ! @wanderinglynn

Book with a map: afterimage. It actually doesn't have a map in the front matter, but maps are an important story element, and there's a map in the cover art.

Non-fiction: The Good Women of China. I picked this up from a LFL over 6 years ago (I only know that cause I remember it was before we moved to this house) so I'm very glad to have finally read it!

And I got my first bingo 🎉

#OffMyShelf “one season”

This was a fast paced procedural but after finishing it, I‘m not sure the plot actually hangs together. DCI Erika Foster is recovering still from the death of her husband when she takes the case of a peer‘s daughter who was brutally murdered in London. She finds herself stymied when the powers that be appear to want to pin the murder on an innocent man. The crime and its unraveling all happen during the winter season.

#OffMyShelf “translated”

Mon dieu! Zola does not pull his punches. Interesting to read this so close to the Rules of Attraction. The Kill is also a novel about amoral people behaving badly.

Set during the rampant speculation and corruption of the 2nd Empire, Saccard comes up from the provinces to collect his spoils by using any form of fraud or deceit. Everyone is a tool to be exploited him, including his wife and son.

I had such fun completing the first #OffMyShelf challenge, I‘ll try the next board too! 😃 “Story was adapted”

Paul likes Sean but Sean likes Lauren but Lauren likes Victor… This was disturbing and transgressive yet surprisingly funny at times. Students behaving badly at a liberal arts college in NH. Very‘80s. So much sex and drugs. I didn‘t realize Ellis writes all his books in the same universe with character overlap.

CW for rape l/suicide.