Welcome to Litsy!

A strange little book about a woman who is left stranded with a dog when a glass wall comes down out of nowhere and kills everything on the other side. Apparently. She writes down the first two years of her life there and that‘s all we. And she has to take full responsibility for every aspect of her life as she‘s out in the hills somewhere. There‘s no conversation because there‘s nobody to talk to. Imagine living like that?

I assumed this was a new release when @Hooked_on_books and others were reading it for a recent prize longlist, but no it‘s a translation from the original German written in the 60‘s.

A woman wakes after a night alone in her family‘s hunting lodge to find that an invisible wall separates the property from the town. She is alone with a cow, a dog, and a cat, and apparently everyone else in the world is dead? ⬇️

I'm not particularly enjoying the artwork in this graphic memoir so far, but I did spot an Italy!

#WickedWords @AsYouWish

Goonies never say die! Thank you for the birthday gifts @Hooked_on_books ! The glass is perfect, so cool that you remember my favorite movie. I just read that it released 40 years ago this week.

All of the books sound great, and I‘m faced with the dilemma once again of what to read first! Seeing that you chose The Wall as the winner of a recent award makes me lean towards it.

Thank you Holly! (Happy to see Powell‘s stickers, glad you‘re back)

A woman visiting the Alps one day discovers an invisible wall. No other people seem to be trapped on her side, so we move forward into a story of her efforts to survive. This definitely shares some DNA with I Who Have Never Known Men and On the Constellation of Volume. I found it riveting.

Best of 2024 for me. If I had to pick just 1 it‘s the tagged book (I think! 🤣)

Meet my son‘s new kitten Earl.
Well this book was extrordinary, profound and devastating.
Basically it‘s about the last woman alive who could just lie down and give up but refuses too as she has a cow, dog, bull and some cats to look after. She struggles through everyday for them. Her family now.
Even though her future is bleak and uncertain the book is contemplative and beautiful too. It‘s a book that I will think about often.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A 170-page unbroken paragraph composed of a would-be piano virtuoso's obsessive, paranoid reflections on his former friends and fellow students - Wertheimer, now dead by suicide, and the great Glenn Gould, whose genius sent the others' lives into a tailspin (all three of whom are really different aspects of Bernhard himself). Venomous, funny, and formalistically daring, this was not an easy read by any means but well worth the effort.

One of the more disturbing stories of a mother-daughter relationship I‘ve read, and an intense account of a woman‘s self-destruction. It was a bit too much for me at times, but I do admire Jelinek‘s bold approach. I‘d still like to see the film at some point.