repost for @LeahBergen
Here it is, #PersephoneClub … our 2026 #BuddyRead list! Thank you all for your nominations and votes and we‘ll see you in February.
Here it is, #PersephoneClub … our 2026 reading list! Thank you all for your nominations and votes and we‘ll see you in February. 👏
(Please take note of the new list of members ( ⬇️) when tagging your posts).
rubyslippersreads, quietjenn, Caryl, CarolynM, daena, LeahBergen, elkeOriginal, Gissy, Tamra, Teresereading, andrew61, Cathythoughts, Bookbuyingaddict, willaful
pickI hate to see a long weekend go, but at least I got to spend this Sunday wrapped in a blanket reading this powerful, important novella. It is one of the few books about Stalin's Great Purge written during the actual events and centers on the experience of an everyday woman in Leningrad. It was written and hidden away by the author and a number of her friends, published first in France but not in Russia until nearly 50 years after it was written.
Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing.
1. My sister and I had an interesting conversation with a ballpark acquaintance about various books and other things, in which he declared his love of Russian literature.
2. Amazing French Open men‘s final.
3. Thanks to prompting from @TheSpineView I went to the bookstore and preordered the upcoming Ann Cleeves book.
4. Dark Winds on Netflix.
5. Large #libraryhaul and a pedicure on the same day.
#5joysfriday
Where I finally read a book recommended to me about fifteen years ago. Thank you to mother and daughter, Anna Kosloff & Anna Bilbrough, for writing their story, Stateless.
https://www.suzs-space.com/stateless-by-anna-kosloff-anna-bilbrough/
#NationalPoetryMonth #April #day18 #water #AprilPoetryChallenge
These poems were translated by Jane Kenyon with Vera Sandomirsky Dunham in 1985. They are included in her book, Collected Poems, which is how I was introduced to this Russian poet.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anna-akhmatova
pickThis was very strange, and so very Russian. It contains almost every Russian trope and is full of allegory, including a modern Christ figure. Most of it is dialogue and digression, and almost every character has episodes of mania, delirium, or hysteria. It wore me out a bit by the end, and I had a lot of "wth is going on?!?" moments, but it's still a pick.
