Welcome to Litsy!

A lot of what I write for Book Riot is fun list posts. Not so much today. Check it out:

https://bookriot.com/a-banned-1920s-book-and-a-nazi-era-filmmaker/

Not really in the mood to give an extensive review of this. It was a comforting, gentle, coming of age story. The writing, especially the expression of Annie and Liza‘s romance, was sweet. I wish I read this in high school. I find the cover a bit weird though…a bit too Hallmark movie which doesn‘t quite fit. Maybe that‘s a me problem.

A delightful reread for me. I read it first in paperback in the 70s. That book fell apart and this edition was given to me in the 80s. I believe Rita Mae has just turned 80. Amazing woman. I‘ve also, over the years enjoyed her cosy mysteries featuring a cat. Things have changed since she wrote this book but we still have a way to go .

I‘ve read a lot of “my life got derailed and now I‘m going to open a bookstore” novels, but so far this is the only one that looks anything like my experiences working in a bookstore.

Short stories are usually not my thing. But this was pretty good!

https://reecaspieces.com/2024/08/26/homemade-love-by-j-california-cooper-shortst...

“… they tell you whatever lie it is they're telling to Blacks and Puerto Ricans and women that day…After watching Daddy, I haven't got the heart to see it all over again." She stopped, took a breath and lowered her eyes to the linoleum floor, " … Maybe some of it is that I don't have real work of my own. I go around being beautiful and having fun, yeah, but I don't have anything for me, really mine, and you do, and it fucking kills me.”

A powerhouse of a novel depicting the AIDS crisis veridical to history, Schulman's work remains deeply poignant some thirty years after its original publication. Reminiscent of RENT, set on the sprawling, gentrified streets of NYC, the three central characters, caught in the midst of a love triangle, are three-dimensional and contradictory, entwined in the throes of sexuality, sensuality, grief, and a movement that alters them permanently.

1. Yes. But my grandfather helped. I inherited his beat up book of Robert Frost poetry. It's now in pieces in a ziplock bag. I'm hoping to re-bind it.
2. I went through a big Lisa Alther phase in high school.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez