Welcome to Litsy!

She‘s like, “yeah, right” 🙄 But it‘s my next read and I‘m looking forward to it. #booker2023

My 11th from the #booker2023 longlist is surprisingly humble. This search for a lost mother, who stepped out and was never seen again, is a life‘s work. Hughes has been reworking this story since she was a teenager, and it‘s her 1st and only novel. It reads like a memoir, and it feels real. It‘s just that deeply thought through. It seems to do everything Hughes wanted it to do. Recommended.

This one was rough up front. Advertised as Korean magical realism, instead it‘s satirical weird disturbing stuff, told with a humorous tone. But…if you can hang in there, it gives a scope of 20th-century Korean history, and a scathing view on South Korean capitalism and autocracy. This was published in 2004, translated only in 2023, and made the International #Booker2023 shortlist.

My 10th from the Booker longlist was wonderful! I came in with no expectations and was rewarded with an inspiring story. A novel about an autistic boy who misses the mother he never knew, working out a device for perpetual motion; and a school teacher in a bad marriage exhausted by her dysfunctional all-boys school, yet fully committed to it. A novel of the children of missing parents, some grown, stumbling through life. Recommended! #booker2023

I got a little buzz from the #Booker2023 award, and ordered these five the same night. They just arrived.

I‘m 7 and a half hours in. Just 18.5 to go! I‘m into it at the moment, but most of the 1st 7 hours didn‘t grab me. I spent a lot of time listening wondering why everyone was is so clueless. But i‘m carrying on optimistically. #booker2023

I really enjoyed the opening section where he writes about growing up in South Florida as the son of Jamaican parents. Fictional Trelawney has trouble fitting in SFl‘s very inflexible cultural divisions. I'm older than Escoffery, but I grew up that 1980's SFl world too—ethnically diverse, with no mixing.

The book goes much softer after that with less complicated characters and some social-media-meme friendly plot points. So, overall ok.

Maybe a little of a treat on audio. Tom Kettle, a retired detective and widower, has his memories prompted even as his current reality seems to fit loosely. We follow his thoughts more than any plot line, and then we have to wonder what it added up to. I really enjoyed this interior novel. #booker2023

My new audiobook. I‘m enjoying being Miami, especially in the 80‘s and 90‘s, which are familiar to me in a way. I recognize those many South Florida
cultural isolations! Phew.

I feel that if I had two weeks in an Irish cottage by the sea with nothing to do but read this book, then I would have really loved it. Sadly, that‘s not the situation, and it was often hard to follow Kettle‘s thoughts. I did want to give him a big hug though. #Booker2023