Welcome to Litsy!

We do not care what else is happening this weekend, or what may come up. We will be attending the protest Saturday (if our joints cooperate), then promptly heading home to hermit up for the rest of the weekend. We do not want company. We will be reading, napping, and watching trash.

#wdncw #wedonotcarewednesday @dabbe

Amazing!!! So beautiful... I don't really have any other words! I was dubious at the beginning... It felt a bit Cloud Atlas (which I didn't love) but by the gut wrenching end I was completely swept away by all those intermingling rivers.

This book was ok as an introduction to or broad overview of Ottoman history. However, it jumped around alot, such as to different time periods, topics, and such. Generally, it seemed to try to cover too much in too short of a book.

Next up for reading.

Im just not a fan of this author. Her character dialogue is juvenile, basic. This is a adults fiction book with fully grown adults as characters and honestly there's better dialogue out there in YA.
There's also a lot of personal rants in here. The whole rant about fish and sanitary towels is one example of how information is shoe horned into the narrative. Its awkward.
And there's no trust of the reader. A good author will show not tell.

My daughter asked me to have a book club with her and I‘d just bought this book so we took turns reading sections. A lovely short classic from 1943 dealing with a love affair and feelings of isolation. From my 50+ yr perspective - it reminded me of other books and ideas - from her 20yo perspective it was utterly new and devastating. Also: spring blossoms!

Wow! Gorgeous, creative, heartbreaking, and hopeful. The story of a Greek and a Turk who fall in love in Cyprus while a wise fig tree and their future daughter try to make sense of it all. Some passages read like poetry. This wonderfully complex novel lives up to the hype!

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.