Welcome to Litsy!

A look at the Irish Magdelan laundries completes the #Booker2022 longlist for me.

The opening to this novella is quiet and mundane. But as story tensions develop, that opening style becomes a sturdy story framework. I got into it and enjoyed it and I had only about 2 hours in which to do that because it‘s really short.

A child's perspectives of folklore and magic, one that is strikingly playful with language. I can relay that, but I actually struggled with this book. It demands you meet its playful-thoughtful-childish-not-childish mindset. But it's so short that I finished well before I had a chance to do that, so I didn't get much out of it. But, still, it was nice to get a window into this Alan Garner experience. #Booker2022

A reflection on Sappho‘s and history‘s fragments. We are left with so little Sappho, we can only confront the lost and unrecoverable. Here a handful of famous fin de siècle lesbians form a comparable set of fragments of a lost, repressed world. I lost my mom while in the middle of this book, which is why i‘ve been so quiet here. When i got back to the book, it had unfortunately lost its magic. But it deserves a look.

This is a fast, fun, gory, light book full of wisecracks that is legitimately funny and entertaining…and then it brings in Emmett Till, and the history of lynching, linked to the names we know from very recent news. So how does one go back to seeing anything fun. Percival doesn‘t change anything. The fun and gore continue. My brain had trouble flexing, and it‘s little unsure how to feel. That must be a compliment. #booker2022

Some Batik?

I‘ve now read 9 from the #booker2022 longlist.

I found this a little awkward on audio, opening with heavy satire. But I stuck with it, took it slow, through all those momentum-deadening dialogues, and I feel rewarded. It comes around. It has an overall structural arch that I can appreciate in hindsight and that made it all worth it. I got attached, and I got to really like Maali and his posthumous self in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1990.

My 8th book from the #Booker2022 longlist. I‘ve had to sit on this. Like the novel Trust, this is a collection of unreliable documents, here a look at where psychiatric therapy appears to have led to a suicide. It takes some focus and begins as a little work for the reader. But an intelligent tension develops as we try to understand our narrator and this _nonfictional_ quack therapist from 1965. I enjoyed it a lot more than i thought I would.

I have no clue why this has a blank gray audible book cover. I started on January 1. It‘s heavy satire which is tough on audio. I can appreciate it, and find it interesting. but I‘m not really enjoying it. #booker2022

Looking for something to read when I tire of Robert Musil, I picked this up. But…however it opens a little dry and is not great for that. #Booker2022

Something about islands and stories. Earlier this year I loved An Island by Karen Jennings, and here I was again, smitten by isolation and the focus on quirky inexpressive characters against stark elements on an small isolated Island (here Irish). The inexpressive simplicity and implied complexity is compelling in itself somehow. And Magee kept me a state throughout. This is my 7th from the #Booker2022 longlist, and currently my favorite.

Rembrandt van Rijn Drawings : A SEATED FEMALE NUDE AS SUSANNA c. 1647

So, I‘m not quite halfway, but really enjoying this novel on a small isolated Irish island. ( #booker2022 )