Welcome to Litsy!

read There Are Rivers in the Sky in record time—it completely drew me in. It‘s a fascinating account of how water has shaped lives, cultures, and history. The characters and settings were vivid, and I especially loved learning about Mesopotamia and the modern countries that now exist in that region. The multiple timelines were equally compelling, and the depiction of the atrocities people endured was heartbreaking. A powerful, immersive read.

Halfway through Somewhere in the Balkans, the 1st tome of a family saga trilogy about an Armenian family from Rodosto (now Tekirdağ in #Turkey) at the turn of the 20th century. Written in Bulgarian by an Armenian Bulgarian author. I am reading the French translation. Loving it so far, but I know the 2nd tome will be difficult to find, and it looks like the 3rd never was translated (unless it's included in the 2nd - informations are unclear).

A sprawling tale starting in 600BC and then through 1840, 2014 and 2018, on the banks of the rivers Thames and Tigris. This was a very slow burn for me, taking me an age to get into and I did find the interweaving stories differed in strength. That said in the final third all strands pull together in a really beautiful way. Largely a great read, huge amounts to learn and think about, but something held me back from truly loving it.

I'm not all that knowledgeable about Turkish literature, so it was nice to get an introduction to a writer I hadn't heard of before and who is so revered in Turkey. It was also fascinating learning about the difficulties in translating Turkish to English (I love modern translator notes), and in translating Atay's complex sentences specifically. Weird, dark existentialism of the best sort. I especially loved 'A Letter - Unsent'.

Heartbreaking and beautifully written story about three people whose lives and fates intertwine throughout time, history and the Epic of Gilgamesh. I‘m enamored with Shafak‘s prose —I will definitely read more of her backlist. My only criticism would be that the ending felt a bit too abrupt after 430 pages of build up to find out how and why all three characters were connected.

More reading with cricket.
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Somewhere, at some future time, Dimitrios might happen to find Mr Peters and then Mr Peters would die as Visser had died. Somewhere, at some time, Dimitrios himself would die: probably of old age. But he, Latimer, would not know about those things. He would be writing a detective story with a beginning, a middle and an end; a corpse, a piece of detection and a scaffold...

I don‘t drink alcoholic beverages, and I particularly dislike wine and beer. Recently discovered Töst, a non-alcoholic sparkling beverage made from white tea, berries and ginger. It‘s lovely and very refreshing! (Not to sound like a commercial—I really do not have any stock in this company. ?) Just putting it out there in case others are interested.

Hubby is working 48 hours in a row (2 24-hour shifts back-to-back) so I took myself to the state park at the beach for a little bit of Vitamin D and a nice view for reading my book.

Geopolitics is my passion, therefore I really enjoyed this one. For people who are not familiar with conflicts and the world map - could be diffcult to follow. It still is a pick if you wanna understand the world‘s politics !!

A common science essay: “describe the journey of a water molecule” is transformed into an epic POV novel based in Nineveh, London, and Iraq. I rooted for each main character for different reasons. Each POV had their own strengths and I loved the history lesson of the Yazidi faith and history. Narin‘s grandmother had wonderful nuggets of advice and one-liners that made the novel worth reading in itself. Wonderful.