Read this if you LOVE puns, wordplay, translations, and precocious children! I think I am going to be thinking about this one for a long time. Chockfull of creative inventiveness and will appeal to a particular reader. I thought this impressively clever. If I was the judge for this round, Rooney would get my admiration but not advancement. #tob2022
(So tempted to write a review as if a judgement to advance this over BWWAY)

The word play! I am astounded that this is a translated work (and thrilled that I know the bookstore that is owned by translator Emma Ramadan.) I would love to hear more about the entire project to create this. #tob2022
#PieinLiterature #PieLit “easy as pie”
(I am reading this on western KS getaway trip)

I am not yet convinced that audio was the best choice for me to experience this - haven‘t quite had the best conditions to listen, maybe. So tonight! #audiobaking time! #LitPie #CaresPieShow 🍋 #LemonTarts #MiniPies
I have encountered two pie references so far!

I really enjoyed and appreciated this one. And tbh? I blew right by the author as a character in this EVEN THO I do know that she owns a books store in Minneapolis. I am really starting to think my brain is not firing on all cylinders. Anyway. My #tob2022 🧟‍♀️

I really enjoyed this audio collection of stories. The title one, especially, made me teary. I have a new favorite author. A perfect read between challenge reads, refreshes my love of books, restores the joys of spontaneous reading. #blueberrypie 🫐🥧 Book#3

LOL! This would be my reaction, too. “My god, has it come to this?” 🤣

Blueberry 🫐 🥧 Pie! Sliced into 3 pieces and piled with ice cream. Oh yea! (Being audio, I don‘t have the *exact* words) #PieinLiterature #LitPie
I think this is an Audible freebie and yes, it didn‘t hurt that Ann Patchett blurbed it… yes, I might have a crush on AP… #WiaN2022 category Seasons
Go Chiefs! 🏈 #DogsofLitsy #EsthertheGriff

This will be the 3rd Erdrich book for me. She‘s good.

(Confession: I voted this for my 🧟‍♀️ Zombie! #TOB2022! 😩 I really feel guilty? Dishonest? Voting for something I haven‘t yet read...)

No book buying ban in my house! Bought these beauties today. Only In Concrete by Anne Garreta and the Baldwin were planned; for #Tob2022 and #BookSpinBingo respectively. Excited for Disreputable History for #ReadICT (been on my tbr forever!) the Pachett and the Quindlen because of auhor. The Rachel Long for my #PoetryEveryDay project. 😁💖📚💪🌻

Yeah, I liked it.❤️ But yea, there is something about Rooney‘s writing that is uncomfortable, or inspires cynical annoyance? Not really, but I tried to read this for why she seems to really provoke strong (negative) reactions. 😂 #tob2022 #IrishLit #relationships (also, VERY interesting to read this at the same time as The Mermaid Chair due to thoughts on Catholic religion.) And?! “She looked around at him.” Huh?

In my quest to read everything by Sue Monk Kidd, because I really enjoyed her thoughts about how she came to write The Book of Longings. I set this as #FirstBook2022. Mostly because I had just lifted it off the shelf to fit #WiaN for Mythical Being category. And #ReadICT! But this had problems. I enjoyed reading with a more critical eye rather than a hope-to-love it expectation. #DogsofLitsy #EstherAssisting #Griff #WHPG

Thank you to our host for the fun activity and my friend @La_Cori for inspiring the alteration of the image! I hope to listen to Matrix (for #TOB2022) and read print of the Baldwin (for #CC50). #BookSpinBingoJan2022

Does anyone have an opinion if Matrix could be considered “genre-blending”? I need to fit that category for the #ReadICT Challenge.

Getting my #BookSpinBingo game ON! I didn‘t do great with December‘s 😞 (nor November, for that matter 😨) But it‘s fun and does help me gather all my challenges into each month‘s possibilities. Now that I think about it, I need to fill one of the filler spots for a #readict challenge book… 🤔

Setting the same goal of 75 books for 2022; starting The Mermaid Chair (with low expectations?!) today for #FirstBook while the wind blows and the snow/sleet coats everything outside. Brrrrrrr. Happy New Year!

A case of not the right book for my mood and time-sense. I think I would have loved it if not stressed/anxious. So, what I ended up doing is jumping over the middle and reading the last 40 or so pages. I don‘t feel like I missed anything. Is there a term for this? A bridge skip, perhaps? I am giving it a pick because it did make me think, I was intrigued by the italic word drop sequences, and I could relate to her relationship with her father.

A tough read, really. Much more scholarly approach needed than an expectation of entertainment. The first third is all explanations of its discovery and place in history so it almost felt like nonfiction. #CC50 #ClassicsClub

#BookSpin November! Read for #DoubleSpin, actually
@TheAromaofBooks

I gave this 4/5 in goodreads (book cover as in the gr app, Esther assisting) though I actually listened to the #audiobook. It is an unreal situation and told quite amusingly; office dysfunction and romance. It is full of surprises. #tob2022 #DogsofLitsy

Merry🎄Christmas to all Littens!
From Kansas

My pick for #FirstBook2022 (going to take a break from #TOB2022, tho am working on which audiobook will be first: The Matrix or The Sentence?)
Also, this fits the Mythical Being category for #WiaN2022 #WhatsinaNameChallenge

Cranberry Pear Crunch Pie #CaresPieShow #LitPie

#FavoriteAuthor Very enjoyable; Strout captures human nature and those inner doubts we all have trying to understand ourselves and each other. It‘s a mystery.
@TheAromaofBooks #BookSpin

I read the entire list of names out loud.

A tulip stem inside me snapped.

#favoriteauthor #tob2022longlist #tulips

I am giving this 4.5 slices of pie. #CaresPieShow #LitPie #BooksandPie #audiobaking #tob2022

It‘s a tough book to review; probably because it is an Ozeki! I want to challenge myself to write a post as if I was the judge writing to defend why this book over another in TOB style; and that other book is one not in the upcoming tourney but was on the long list: Cloud Cuckoo Land. A few similar themes but wildly not, as well. First, tho, gotta pie 😉

Starting this tonight! Just picking it up from the library. #tob2022

Ann Patchett is such a favorite of mine! If she says, read this! ➡️ I am adding to my tbr. She is also inspiring me to read Eudora Welty.

I have to put this aside and try again later; just can‘t seem to get into it.
#tob2022
(Anyone else on Untappd?)

“… I tried to end up anyplace but here. Who am I kidding? Here I am.”
GREAT collection. Very much enjoyed, appreciated, and provoked by these poems. REMEMBER this poet‘s name.

I bought another book today. #sigh
Esther assisting #DogsofLitsy

On a road trip, trying to read and listen. Strikes me that this book shares some #coinkydink with Benny losing his dad then having a super imagination and with The Kid in Hell of a Book. Similar themes, maybe? Not sure yet. Could just be overlap. #tob2022
I think this might be the longest in length of the shortlist.

#BookSpin ❤️📚 Very excited for this title and I have had the #DoubleSpin title *Gardens of Water* on my 2021 tbr for the #WhatsinaNameChallenge, all year. Yay! Happy December, Everyone 🤩🎄🥧
#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

(Adding last month‘s missed spins to this month…)

A lot to admire and appreciate — depth sadness and humor. A pick for sure and yet, conflicting. I think it is part of the point. Not meant to be academic or “impressive” but a recognition of how hard it is to human, flawed. Flawed, good and struggling to be good, struggling to make good. #tob2022 #tob2022longlist #natlbookaward #pieinlit #libraryhardcover #duetomorrow

My December #BookSpin #BookSpinBingo List

Sadly, November reading took an (expected) turn when the #TOB2022longlist was announced; have placed a few of the #NonficNov titles ongoing. I present a December list @TheAromaofBooks

Hell of a Pie and Hell of a Book! #caresbooksandpie #pieinbooks #LitPie #CaresPieShow #RhubarbMeringuePie #TOB2022longlist #NatlBookAwardWinner (book mentions pie in page 7 😄🥧📚 Traveling home from the in-laws. Mother-in-law made the pie; had some for breakfast.

#AmReading #TOB2022longlist #bookConnections #coinkydink
“…she birthed half-avian chicks” #birdbaby LINK! To Chouette

#Audiobaking! I managed it this time, @Ruthiella !!
#CaresPieShow #caresBooksandPie #nopiereferenceYET #PecanPie #HappyThanksgiving

Also, anyone else recently read The Promise and catch the link/reference to Arcadia? I love book #coinkydinks

#CaresBooksandPie #CaresPieShow

Starting this #TOB2022longlist now, after baking the custard part of these Apple Cider Cream Pies for today‘s pre-Thanksgiving dinner with my parents. #iLovePie #ApplePie

#BookerPrize For such a short book, this is dense and slow-going. The narrator was effective but also disorienting because Involved = All-knowing, and the reader is spoken to. We don‘t get enough of the hero, in my opinion and it is heart-breaking to pick favorite characters. The title promise is a diversion from the point of humans frittering away their potential. And I hate that phrase: “not living up to your potential” but there it is.

Um, I am overwhelmed. It‘s the start of the holiday season and people want my time and my pies and all I want to do is read. This just came from the library; I have two ebooks from the library and less than 2 weeks to read all! Yikes. Grant me the focus to keep my nose in a book! (Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary and hub wants to run around town and “play”…) #NatlBookWinner #tob #tob2022
Photo is #tob2022longlist analysis & strategy

“And that‘s Manie, her much-younger brother, who looks to her eyes like an owl, a baby owl she‘d picked up and kept once as a child.” #owlchild
#booklink #coinky-dink When a book reminds you of another! #Chouette #TOB202LongList #TOB #TOB2022 #BookerPrize2021

What does the photo have to do with the book? Nothing. I am trying to transition away from IG where I usually post my #CaresPieShow photos. I just finished The Radium Girls audio+print and am now listening to tagged #audiobook.
VERY EXCITED abt the #TOB2022LongList #hashtagmania #TournamentofBooks #TOB #TOB2022 #ApplePie #iLovePie #PieLit #PieinBooks #CaresBooksandPie #WhenYOUencounterPIEinabookthinkofme

Just arrived! Very excited.

“Arresting, darkly funny, and unsettling, Chouette is a brilliant exploration of ambition, sacrifice, perceptions of ability, and the ferocity of motherly love.” #TOB-adjacent #ARC #DogsofLitsy #EstherAssisting

“… everyone wanted a slice of the radium pie.”

#NonfictionNovember #PieinLit #ReadListenTandem

“The epic of Gilgamesh, the renowned king of Urik in Mesopotamia, comes from an age which had been wholly forgotten, until in the last century archaeologists began uncovering the buried cities of the Middle East.”
#FirstLineFridays (The first 60 pages are intro! Am counting this for #NonfictionNovember!)

Tagged book is NOT my #BookSpin — I have a similar book of same title but mine is by Bob Tiede. My #DoubleSpin is Tagged in the comments. And it looks like I will only need to read Listen Like You Mean It and What the Eyes Don‘t See for a Bingo. #NonfictionNovember (Ask me how or about BookSpinBingo and I will tag 🏷 you on the info post)

This book takes too long to get going and all the talking to the reader stuff and sugar-sentimentality is grating. But chapter 58 is fun and I wrote down a few quotes. And… I admit, my waterworks 💦 kicked in and I might have gotten damp eyes. #whatever #HEA with suicide talk?! I feel played but it is so dang earnest. Too long, could be edited; but maybe not. Dang it! #bookclub #EstherAssisting #HardCover #Library

My goal to read more #Poetry continues.
#DutchApplePie #CaresPieShow #iLovePie

I highly recommend reading AND listening to the Invisible Man #audiobook narrated fabulously by Joe Morton. #ClassicsClub #cc50 #Classic #NatlBookWinner 1952
#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks Column-4

(So close to Row-4 Bingo, too but don‘t have enough time to read Ask Again Yes AND my book club choice Anxious People.)

My #BookSpin #BookSpinBingo list for November aka #NonFictionNovember

I searched my blog posts for the word #candy and found my buddy read review of Geek Love. I am so due for a reread!

#Scarathlon #PhotoChallenge 🍬🍭🍫
QR code links to the post.

What‘s the best #PhotoChallenge for November?
How do I find out about it?
What is the point if not to make new friends and find out about great books?
#LitsyParticipationInformationChallenge