Welcome to Litsy!

#Movie2BookRecs @Klou
Prompt: Daylight

#inlaws #reviews #others
Reflecting in pitiless detail the poverty trap into which so many people fell, but is at the same time readable and relatable, you really feel for these people. It‘s also a salutary corrective for twenty first century readers. Millions of migrants are still struggling, in ways unimaginable to most of us, to improve their lot while being both exploited and vilified for wanting a bit of what we too often take for granted.

#inlaws #reviews #others Am I missing something here? Where some authors make the everyday experience of characters feel relevant for all humankind, others don‘t. The characters in this book, rather than leaping off the page, lay there, inert.

#inlaws #reviews #others An extraordinary insight into what people had to do to survive in pre-revolutionary China. The immense hardship & lack of any safety net is chilling, especially when one reflects that things are not so different for millions today, all over the world.

#inlaws #reviews #others You may never have heard of Patrick Hamilton, but you will have heard the term ‘gaslighting‘. This book is an evocation of lives lived in London in the 1930s. It exquisitely details the minutiae of every day experience

#inlaws #reviews #others

I am not easily spooked by books, but this one really sent a shiver down my spine. I haven‘t been so creeped out since I read The Turn of the Screw as a teenager. A slowly developing sense of menace suffuses the entire story & that the writer manages to imbue a rucksack with malevolence is particularly impressive. A concise, powerfully evocative read that left me feeling as chilly as the Himalayas in which it is set.

#inlaws #reviews #others

So evocative of a time & the feelings - love & pain - in a beautifully written tale. However, a bit like Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it's a book of two pieces and could have been better tied together.

#inlaws #reviews #others

History is important, very important. If we don‘t know about it, we can‘t learn from it. Read this absolutely terrifying account of everyday life in Stalinist Russia, and if you had any nagging doubts about the value of democracy and a free press, they will be erased forever. While far from perfect, democracy is still better than all the alternatives.

#inlaws #reviews #others

I found it fascinating when I learnt the author researched the whole thing without leaving London. It shows the power of imagination in conjuring up worlds of which one has no experience. This shouldn‘t, I suppose, be a surprise. I don‘t imagine JK Rowling has ever visited a school for wizards, Tolkien never ventured very far from Oxford, & CS Lewis had perfectly normal wardrobes, but it‘s still impressive nonetheless!

#inlaws #reviews #others

If you‘ve ever struggled to understand evolution, claimed by some to be the most important idea ever, read this. If you still don‘t understand it, read The Blind Watchmaker. If you still don‘t get it, go and lie down in a darkened room for a while before trying again.