WhartonBuddyRead

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire | Edward Gibbon

My January #bookspin is volume 2 of this 8 volume set of Gibbons. #declineandfall is off to a good start! And my #doublespin will bleed over into February with the #whartonbuddyread.crew.

Graywacke, TheAromaofBooks

TimEW @Lcsmcat Wow, someday I would like to tackle that book. I think I have it on one of ereaders ready to be read🙃🙏 good job 👍 23h

Lcsmcat @TimEW I‘ve owned this Folio set for years, and when I finally read volume 1 last November I was surprised at how un-dry they were. It was funny! 23h

TheAromaofBooks Yay!! Enjoy!! 23h

Graywacke Gibbon had charm? I‘m much more interested in that monster now. Enjoy! 21h

Lcsmcat @Graywacke He did! There were many bits that I had to read out loud to my husband because they were so amusing. I don‘t think I could read the 8 volumes back to back without intermission just because they‘re so long (and many Latin names to keep straight!) but I think you‘d enjoy it. 21h

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Lcsmcat

The disciple | Paul Bourget

A blame it on Edith Wharton book arrived in today‘s mail. My reading plate is full for January, but maybe I‘ll get to this in February. #whartonbuddyread @Graywacke

Graywacke Wow. Pretty too! 1d

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Isn‘t it? I‘m very curious. 1d

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BkClubCare

Smash Your Goals: A Holistic How to Guide to Setting and Smashing Your Goals Time After Time | Krysia Jones

Happy New Year! Setting same goal of 💯 books for 2026. To participate in #LitsyWinterCamp and #WhartonBuddyRead, to track #PieinLit occurrences, complete the #ReadICT and #AsheCoNCReadingChallenge, blog at least once a month, and keep a positive hopeful resilient attitude.

Remember: it doesn‘t matter how many books you read! Feeling great to be a reader. Support your local library.

Note: Litfluence 57,988

Gissy Amazing! 🤩📚📚📚🎉🎉🎉👏👏👏 2d

Ruthiella Happy New Year! 🍾🥂🎉 2d

dabbe #bravo! 🥳🥂🎉 2d

34 likes3 comments

BkClubCare

Edith Wharton | Hermione Lee

I'm joining in @Graywacke 's #WhartonBuddyRead for Jan/Feb 😁

Happy NYE 🥂

Lcsmcat Yay! Glad you‘re joining us! 3d

Graywacke I‘m so happy too. (And with a handwritten schedule on your library receipt 🙂) 3d

Leftcoastzen Yay !👏👍 3d

kspenmoll I just got mine from the library- want to try… now

40 likes4 comments

Leftcoastzen

Edith Wharton | Hermione Lee

#WhartonBuddyRead #ChunksterJunior Got this brick out of the library today hoping to join in the fun !

Graywacke

Graywacke We can read it or use it for a cornerstone 🤷🏻‍♂️ (I‘m really curious though) 6d

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LitsyEvents

Edith Wharton | Hermione Lee

repost for @Graywacke

#whartonbuddyread

Who is up for Lee‘s biography of Edith Wharton? It‘s a chunkster (pictured above next to a 6 lb cat). While the book has 900 pages, many are notes. So a mere 760 pages of narrative. Comment if you want to join.

Proposed discussion schedule:

January 24: Chapters 1-4
January 31: Chapters 5-8
February 7: Chapters 9-11
February 14: Chapters 12-14
February 21: Chapters 15-17
February 28: Chapters 18-20

31 likes

Graywacke

Edith Wharton | Hermione Lee

#whartonbuddyread

Who is up for Hermione Lee‘s biography of Edith Wharton? It‘s a chunkster (pictured above next to a 6 lb cat for size). While the book has 900 pages, many are notes. So a mere 760 pages of narrative. Comment if you want to join.

Proposed discussion schedule:

January 24: Chapters 1-4
January 31: Chapters 5-8
February 7: Chapters 9-11
February 14: Chapters 12-14
February 21: Chapters 15-17
February 28: Chapters 18-20

Graywacke @CarolynM @Currey @IMASLOWREADER @jewright @Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen @TheBookHippie 7d

BkClubCare OOOOooo. This would fit the category of "independence" for one of my challenges. ? sure! Sign me up ? 7d

Lcsmcat I‘ve got my copy. It‘s an ebook, so I had no idea how long it is. 😀 #chunksterJunior 7d

See All 37 Comments

Graywacke @AllDebooks @amysisson @Ann_Reads @arubabookwoman @batsy @BookishTrish @catebutler @Catherine_Willoughby @Cathythoughts @cindyash @Crazeedi @dabbe 7d

Graywacke @Daisey @emilyhaldi @IndoorDame @KathyWheeler @kspenmoll @LitStephanie @llwheeler @Louise @rubyslippersreads @SamAnne @sarahbellum @Suet624 @Tamra @willaful @vikaplus321 @kenw3 7d

Graywacke @BkClubCare yay! Welcome 7d

Graywacke @Lcsmcat that hashtag 🙂 Of course, I‘m grateful you‘re joining! 7d

Leftcoastzen Yes , please! I loved Lee‘s Biography of Virginia Woolf . 7d

kspenmoll Possibly! I may have it somewhere!?😂 (edited) 7d

Graywacke @Leftcoastzen I have plans to read a lot of Woolf in 2026. That specific biography is an end goal! 7d

Graywacke @kspenmoll yay! 🩵 7d

Liz_M @LitsyEvents 7d

Leftcoastzen 🐈‍⬛😻👏 7d

TheBookHippie Tentatively 😅 yes 7d

Currey @Graywacke and other #chunksterJunior readers. Yes, I will join you 7d

Graywacke @TheBookHippie no pressure. It‘s a commitment (although i think i spread out enough to be easy) 7d

Graywacke @Currey ❤️ I‘m happy you‘re joining. #chunksterjunior will be our new tag. 🙂 7d

TheBookHippie @Graywacke I‘m reading Proust this year 😅🤣 7d

Graywacke @TheBookHippie proust 😍 Enjoy. Have a madeleine. 7d

TheBookHippie @Graywacke oh for sure!!! 7d

BookishTrish If I can get my hands on a copy… 7d

Graywacke @BookishTrish fantastic. There are ebook options, if you can‘t find the physical book. 7d

CarolynM I intended to join you with the autobiography but life got in the way. I don‘t feel like I can commit to this, but I‘ll look forward to reading your thoughts about it. 7d

dabbe Your lovely buddy read is now on the new #LELH (#LitsyEventsLittleHelper) spreadsheet! 🤩

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xB17c0YZ6-IcngwWteNPyWiwoLn3bvcb7kjtqOLu...

@LitsyEvents 6d

Graywacke @dabbe does that make us official? 🙂 Thanks. (edited) 6d

dabbe @Graywacke Not really. It's (hopefully) just nice to have all of these events on one document so one doesn't have to doomsday scroll to find anything. IMHO of course. 🤓 6d

Graywacke @dabbe it‘s an impressive list. 👍 Thanks for sharing 6d

PageShifter I have this on hold now... But is this too spoilery for someone who hasn't read Wharton's books? 6d

Graywacke @PageShifter well, I don‘t know. I like to imagine she will make you want to read Wharton‘s novels. But she must also talk about plots. I think you need to decide what you‘re comfortable with. Of course, if you‘re indecisive and want my advice, I‘m going to encourage you to come join us. 🙂 6d

PageShifter Thank you for answering 🥰 If I just have time I am going to join! 6d

Graywacke @PageShifter ❤️ 5d

PageShifter I got my copy from the library and it's HUGE 🤣🤣 5d

Graywacke @PageShifter it‘s a door stopper! I paced it out. 100 pages a week, if you follow the discussion schedule. I think it makes it a lot less intimidating. 5d

PageShifter It really does! 5d

BkClubCare @PageShifter - I have only read Ethan Frome and DNF'd Customs of the Country 🥴 But I am hoping this is just good fun 🤩 Edith's story herself, I mean. 3d

PageShifter @BkClubCare Yay! I am not the only one then 🥰 3d

BkClubCare @PageShifter - probably/ maybe saw a movie adaptation of… something. 🤪 3d

46 likes37 comments

Graywacke

A Backward Glance | Edith Wharton

pick

Infamously unrevealing, but Wharton‘s voice was gorgeous. Her prose magnificent. What she does tell us, including extensively about Henry James, is magical. All of it. She captures a world that existed before WWI, the experience of that war, and her personal devastation afterwards as she realizes that pre-war world is lost.

I wrote a long review here: https://www.librarything.com/work/46322/reviews/261461607

#whartonbuddyread

Currey @Graywacke Wonderful Library Thing review. Thank you for sharing it here. 2w

Lcsmcat Great review! Thanks for sharing. 2w

Suet624 I always forget to look at library thing for reviews. Thanks for the reminder. 2w

See All 8 Comments

Graywacke @Currey @Lcsmcat @Suet624 thanks guys. Sue, I don‘t usually link my reviews here because it feels like the wrong format. 2w

Suet624 @Graywacke I understand but I‘m okay with it. It‘s nice to have the option to see a more in-depth review. 2w

TheBookHippie The prose. Gorgeous. Wonderful review. Unrelated the 60 percent rating on Litsy makes me sad. I loved this. I‘m so glad I had this with me these months. Weirdly soothing. 2w

Graywacke @TheBookHippie I‘m happy to see that and so happy to have read this with you guys. As for the ratings, they are low everywhere. I think readers want dirt. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 2w

TheBookHippie @Graywacke ohhhhh. Ha didn‘t even think of that! Oy. 2w

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Lcsmcat

Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit | Carol J. Singley

so-so

Dryly academic in style, this work proposes some interesting ideas. But like the cartoon above, there were many places where Singley leaps from a supported point to an assumed conclusion that isn‘t convincingly argued, in my opinion. It took way too long to read (and I almost bailed several times) but it did make me think about the novels we‘ve read. #whartonbuddyread @Graywacke

willaful One of my husband's favorite cartoons. 2w

Graywacke Great comic. I‘m glad the sloggy book rewarded. I‘ve been thinking over all our Wharton reading. 2w

Lcsmcat @Graywacke She (Singley) would do things like say in her letter to so-and-so she said she was reading X at the same time she was writing Y, and therefore Y expounded on X‘s theory. 🙄 Or, because a book was in her library she assumed Wharton agreed with what was in it. And (personal issue for me) she trashed the Episcopal church while simultaneously using Episcopal/Episcopalian incorrectly. Horrors! (edited) 2w

Graywacke @Lcsmcat ok, the last bit made me smile. And, yes, that‘s a lot of careless or manipulative assumptions. 2w

31 likes4 comments

Graywacke

A Backward Glance | Edith Wharton

A Backward Glance

Chapter XII widening waters
Chapter XIII The War
Chapter XIV And After
#whartonbuddyread

I didn‘t realize how much the war broke Wharton. Nor how much great stuff she wrote during and in its wake. Arguably, she never wrote as well after this stage.

What were thoughts on Whartons take before during and after WWI? And on the book as a whole (published 1934)?

Graywacke This quote defines this section for me: “It was growing more and more evident that the world I had grown up in and been formed by had been destroyed in 1914, and I felt myself incapable of transmuting the raw material of the after-war world into a work of art.” 3w

Graywacke @CarolynM @Currey @IMASLOWREADER @jewright @Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen @TheBookHippie 3w

Graywacke On writing Summer during the war - “The tale was written at a high pitch of creative joy, but amid a thousand interruptions , and while the rest of my being was steeped in the tragic realities of the war; yet I do not remember ever visualizing with more intensity the inner scene, or the creatures peopling it.” 3w

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Graywacke On the big guns in a post-war parade: “But all those I had seen at the front, dusty, dirty, mud-encrusted, blood-stained, spent and struggling on; when I try to remember, the two visions merge into one, and my heart is broken with them.” 3w

Graywacke TAoI has been my favorite because of the sense of magical nostalgia. So I felt reassured reading this: “Meanwhile I found a momentary escape in going back to my childish memories of a long-vanished America, and wrote “The Age of Innocence”” 3w

Graywacke On writing A Son at the Front - “the book was written in a white heat of emotion” 3w

Lcsmcat That first quote - one I marked too - is so sad! But I think many artists had this issue. I know music changed dramatically around this time. 3w

Graywacke Kein Genuss ist vorüber gehend - which translates roughly to: No pleasure is temporary 3w

Graywacke “These and other wanderings have been the high lights of the last years; when I turn from them the sky darkens.” 3w

Lcsmcat Did anyone else notice the reference to “Professor Tonks” and go straight to Harry Potter? 3w

Graywacke @Lcsmcat I think it goes a ways to explaining the post-war artistic development. Broken narratives. Broken visual arts. 3w

Lcsmcat “In our individual lives, though the years are sad, the days have a way of being jubilant.” (edited) 3w

Graywacke @Lcsmcat Tonks 🙂 - i did not go there… 3w

Graywacke @Lcsmcat beautiful - the lives and days quote 3w

Lcsmcat @Graywacke a quick Google search indicates it might be a Henry Tonks who taught art - right era but I can‘t be sure. 3w

Currey @Lcsmcat yes, I marked the years versus days quote. And although Summer is not my favorite (I lean towards TAoI) I always thought it was richly felt when she was writing it. It simply has so little of the societal pretense she draws on for her other works. 3w

Lcsmcat @Currey I liked how she linked Summer and Ethan Frome 3w

Currey @Graywacke @Lcsmcat One of the themes remembered from my WWI history lessons was that before the war the “workers” movement, or socialists truly believed that the workers would never go off to fight for the rich or nation states representing the rich ever again. They were wrong. 3w

Lcsmcat @Currey Yeah. Some things never change. 🙄 3w

TheBookHippie @Currey yes they were wrong… 3w

TheBookHippie @Graywacke I really like Summer so much so I bought a cloth bound edition. That being said I couldn‘t exactly express why it hits me so, and now I like it more. 3w

TheBookHippie @Lcsmcat the days have a way of being jubilant hit me so hard. It reminded me of my grandparents telling us although there was war and fear and sorrow they did experience joy. I do think it all affected her deeply. 3w

TheBookHippie @Graywacke your first quote I both underlined and put in my journal. Just seeped through the page, her feelings this section. 3w

Graywacke @TheBookHippie i adore Summer. It has surreal absurd elements, like you might find in Muriel Spark or Deborah Levy. It‘s also sexually charged. And ultimately shocking us into rethinking it all. It‘s maybe my second fav. 3w

TheBookHippie @Graywacke yes I adore both those authors! 3w

Graywacke @TheBookHippie that quote on her lost world, her apocalypse, says a lot about her and a lot about everything else too. 3w

TheBookHippie @Graywacke it just hits right in the heart -hers then and ours right now I think. 3w

Graywacke @TheBookHippie yeah. Ours too. I was thinking more about pre and post war literature ☺️ 3w

39 likes28 comments

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