Welcome to Litsy!

Wendy was, without a doubt, an extraordinary individual with many outstanding qualities. Her strength of personality coupled with her incredible drive, determination, and positivity in the face of what for lesser mortals would've been a devastating diagnosis is inspiring and humbling.

However, I was not in the right place for this...perhaps no more medical memoirs for me for a while...

I'm sure others would find this a source of hope.

#Maid. #CharacterCharm

@Eggs
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

The store‘s Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book Club read this and I loved it! It‘s a quietly unsettling book about a near future world where things are eliminated from society (the physical item and the memory of it) without notice. For example, one day birds are gone, or the concept of music. An aspiring writer, her mentor, and an elderly neighbor are the main characters. I found it lovely, haunting, contemplative… a great choice for a book club.

#amnesiac
#charactercharm
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

3.5⭐️ It was a well told story that was very cute to read. My issue was that there wasn‘t a way of really knowing where one was, whether one was in the more contemporary storyline or the flashback. Overall a pretty solid story. #2025 #bookclub #canadian #fiction #wwii #greatdepression

An accessible read about how our brains process information and store it. An interesting read after recently finishing a book on Alzheimer‘s disease. The brain is fascinating!

2/5 - Pan for me
Not my cup of tea... This story just didn't work for me. The end was quite disappointing too. Not fan of the writing style.
But I'm glad I've finished it on time for bookclub today, and I write this review while having coffee and strawberries with crème fraîche and a little bit of sugar, miam!

I truly enjoyed this book except for the last paragraph which didn't seem to fit with the conclusion. I'd rate it a 4.95 if I could. A beautiful story about memory loss, friendship, love, mathematical formulas, and Japan.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper (2015 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: An 82-year-old Saskatchewan woman living with dementia embarks on a long-desired trip to see the ocean, leaving her ailing husband alone with his memories.

Review: This novel felt to me like it wasn‘t sure whether it wanted to be a modern fairy tale or something more down to earth. Its themes of dreams deferred and duty, and depiction of prairie are great.⬇️

The author tells his journey of being a reporter and becoming the champion of the US memory competition, through a fluke of chance encounters during research for an article. He tells about the techniques he learned from European competitors and how after one year of training, beat the past US champions and other favorites.