Welcome to Litsy!

I‘ve spent 5 days in Paris and came back last Thursday.

A visit to Shakespeare and Company feels almost mandatory as a reader and book lover, but I also love that store.

These are the books I bought.

I also bought this new tote bag with the very fitting quote

This catchy title caught my eye in a used bookstore. At first I thought it might refer to the AIDS era, post-70s, but it‘s a memoir about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his sad decline after the heyday of the Jazz Age. Tony Buttitta, a bookshop owner and writer befriended Fitzgerald in the summer of 1935, and this is his recollection. It‘s well-written and I‘d recommend it for anyone interested in Fitzgerald or Asheville history.

My grandmother‘s copy 💛

#Published100yearsago
#Aboutabook

🌞 📚💛

🐃

Blume tells the story of Hemingways struggles to get his big break and the story behind The Sun Also Rises. What did I learn? Hemingway wasn‘t nearly as creative as I had thought, in this case using the story of a strange bender with friends as the plot for his book. It confirmed than Hemingway was quite honestly an ass. Yet at the same time, I‘m tempted to actually read one of his books for the first time in over twenty years.

#bookspinbingo

31 May-3 Jun 24 (audiobook)
I read many reviews before deciding how I feel about this book. Yes there is little plot, too much drinking and brawling, disagreeable characters and some anti-semitism all of which make it quite depressing. Not to mention bullfights! But Hemingway captures both the ennui and restlessness of the certain class of which he was a member during the period between the wars. Not likeable but somewhat authentic and evocative.

“It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening.”

Belief: drinking to excess makes one forget life‘s tragedies. Fact: drinking to excess is its own formidable tragedy resulting in depression, paranoia, irrationality, cirrhosis, suicide, death 💀 The Great War was horrendous and barbaric and unforgiving. Rivers of alcohol and loss😞

According to the weather forecasters on TV, we have had only 2 full days of sun since before Christmas.I knew it‘s been a long stretch,but hearing that makes it much more real. No wonder everybody has felt so sluggish! I plan to be out in the sun today for a walk and try to get some vitamin D,my levels were so low that the doctor has given me a prescription of 10,000 vitamin D twice a week. 🔽

https://youtu.be/GKdl-GCsNJ0?si=F5_3IY7zatfQp0Go.

Delightful. Short. A look at Hemmingway‘s life in Paris 1921-26, driven to write while still happily married and still unknown. Oh, there are many reasons to visit the Louve, but the reason given here was a new one for me. ☺️

Sometimes reading is a battle, especially on cold days. This short book, by the way, is absolutely delightful. It‘s really short. I‘m almost done.