Welcome to Litsy!

I love how Frantzen goes from "Foucault missed a lot in The History of Sexuality when it comes to the medieval era" (true) to "so all of queer theory is stupid and invalid and also they probably said something mean to me". I don't even care. I usually like academic pettiness, but this has been going on for 21 pages! I'm not out of the fucking intro yet. Do your own work instead of bitching at everyone else. Jesus fuck.

It's probably not a good sign when I'm irritated with the author before even leaving the introduction.
More soon.

I didn‘t love this one from the Booker Intl. longlist, but I liked it enough to finish it. I think it was mostly the MC‘s mother that kept me invested; the MC himself is somewhat of a letdown, although I think that‘s intentional. I haven‘t read Kracht‘s other work, but his family story in the book is atrocious. By the end, I almost loved his mother for her moments of hilarity and poignancy as she tries in her own way to come to terms with that.

So, what had happened was…😆

When making our reading schedule, I mistakenly consulted the table of contents for a retold/abridged version of the book, which only had 19 chapters. The actual book has 33 chapters. SO—I have adjusted the schedule accordingly! I divided the remaining number of chapters by 3 weeks, so now the pace is about 9 chapters per week instead of 5 —but it should still be really doable. ⤵️ #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMAdjacent

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead check-in, 5 chapters in! I‘m reading this Book League of America edition from the 1940s & the print is TINY. 😵‍💫

I‘m having trouble keeping track of the various players & alliances in the conflict, but I‘m interested to see where things go with our travelers. I‘ve also been on edge about how this is going to go as far as racism & stereotypes.

What do you think of our main characters and of the book so far? #LMMAdjacent

It‘s National Book Week in the Netherlands, a yearly celebration of books for a whole week, since 1930. There are bookish events all over the country and when you buy a book you receive a free novella that is written for this week by a literary author.
My buys were French author Eric Chacour‘s debut about a gay doctor in Cairo, and the new book by Annet Schaap, a children‘s author who excels in Dutch language and is read by kids and adults alike.

This was a great read. It was so intense and thrilling. It was truly worth the read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau #HGWells #book #books #bookworm #bookworms #bookwormproblem #bookwormproblems #bookworld #bookword #epicreads #bookend #bookends #bookending #bookendings #bookedit #bookedits #bookeditor #bookediting #bookrecommendation #bookrecommendations #Classics #ScienceFiction #Fiction #Audiobook #Horror #Fantasy #Literature #19thCentury 🤎

This didn‘t work for me as a novel (as its described) because there is no plot and there are no main characters who you get to know or care about (The narrator is an observer not driving most scenes). But as a documentary it‘s interesting, with intricate detail & some vivid scenes from prison life in Siberia in the 1850s. I found it slow & dense but it‘s a valuable record for anyone researching the subject, done with an eye for human nature.

#thewholethingithinkissick

#WeirdWords Squir or Squirr: "To throw with a jerking motion; to skim".

A spendthrift heir being disinherited & bequeathed only a silver shilling, "put him into such a passion, that having taken me in his hand, and cursed me, he squirred me away from him as far as he could fling me."
From Addison's, "The Adventures of a Shilling", in which an Elizabeth I coin recounts its travels from Peru as part of Drake's plunder, to its minting & circulation.