This is probably my least favorite O'Farrell I have read. I don't know if it is my lack of attention, but I was so confused on what time we were in, who everyone (but the children) was. Names kept getting dropped and I kept saying "Have we met this person?" This really isn't about the husband/father going missing, it is focused on the adult children - their lives and attitudes. I would start to get interested in Monica's family life then get ?

This is so good! I read a lot of trans writing so I don't feel as blown away as others seem to be, but I really enjoyed this. Particularly how the other S. Dakota people were represented. "Allies" hiding in unlikely places, while you still are very aware of the results of an election that has not happened yet (quotes b/c you cannot be an Allie and vote for someone like Rose).
I thought the characters were realistic, the setting was perfect & ?

The idea of names in this novel. I am not sure if we are going to tackle this on Saturday but I had so many thoughts as I finish - in comments under spoilers.

#weeklyforecast
I didn't get much reading done this weekend, but hoping to make up groud this week!

Looking for book recs!

I am thinking about going to Prague in September. I have never been! There are not a ton of book recommendations online, so I am hoping some of you might know some. Either fiction or NF set anywhere in Czech - I would prefer a Czech writer (I only read in English), and NO WWII****

I have read most of Kafka, & The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Life imitating art, imitating life?

#camplitsy25

A apt title, I really enjoyed the play on words. Cutting For Stone is part of the hypocritic oath. If you cannot handle health/surgery talk this is not for you. Verghese pulls a lot from himself - he is an Ethiopian -American doctor. His MCs are Ethiopian twins born of doctors who become doctors. The background of the Ethiopian revolution. I was a bit nervous about this but it was very readable, the characters are vivid and the pacing is perfect.

I could have caught up on the #CampLitsy25 read for discussion, but instead I went to a local OPS showing of the tagged. The actors do things as close to Shakespeare's days as they can - they do not rehearse, carry scrolls with their lines and cues, gender bend (but this is PDX so don't we all normally?), They also have a guy with a whistle who calls our lines when needed and stops everything when a plane goes overhead.

"The hospital 's old septic tank was located here, deep underground, and for years it has overflowed before it was taken out of use. USAID concrete, Rockefeller funds, and a Greek contractor named Achilles had built a new one "

Try as I might this will not be the book that doesn't remind me how far America has fallen. To be reminded that we used to help the poorest of the poor across the globe ?

"It's a thing we transes do. The second we learn who somebody is, we can make them snap into place. "There you are," we say, because there you are."

???

Well researched and easy to read. I do wish we had gotten more dates (or just her age), I had a bit of a time figuring out exactly how old Marsha was during some events. I had to look it up, she was 23 when she started the Stonewall Riot. A true legend. Marsha did not have an easy life, but she lived the most authentic one she could. I learned a lot, and liked how Tourmaline really set the stage for what was going on around Marsha.

Marsha by Andy Warhol
MPJ ran in amazing circles. She was driven to be an actress as well as an activist, which threw her into the lives of artistic people
Title: Ladies and Gentlemen - 1965

Was this sponsored by Kleenex? I stayed up way too late reading this, longer than it should have taken b/c I was sobbing and struggling to see through the tears.
I adore this. Our MC meets 2 boys during college, she dates one who is a challenge, and she falls for the other. But that isn't really the story. I like that we don't know her name, but we know the boys call her Jordan b/c she reminds them of Gatsby's Jordan Baker. 👇

"I'm aware that I had ideas about the future that I hadn't discussed with myself."

^^^^^. I love this ?

#weeklyforecast

I am thrilled to get into this biography of Marsha P Johnson. There is so much about her I do not know, also in biographies I got an ARC of the new Tupac Only God Can Judge Me which is starting really heavy on his mom which I am interested to learn more about her. I have Cutting For Stone on 🎧 it has been on my shelf for years!
And starting #Camplitsy25 last July select!
I am so excited for this reading lineup.

Goal! Yesterday I hit my 100 books read in 2025 goal.

I still have a good chunk to go to get to 50K pages, must pick up bigger books!

I am such a snob. Genres view always makes me realize “Literary“ (I hear this in a nasally voice while seeing someone push up their glasses) I also find it weird LGBTQIA is a category, it covers so much.
romance
contemporary
historical
history
Sci-Fi
Memoir
Fantasy

Winner of Weatherglass Books‘ Inaugural Novella Prize, chosen by Ali Smith. This book came across my TBR when people were mentioning books they would like to see on the Women's Prize list. It still has only about 200 reviews on GR!
While I think the writing is pretty, and the idea is fantastic, the storytelling felt distant, and I spent the entire day wishing I was reading Russell's The Sparrow. Still a pick for quick original (sad) read.

Question for the pet people.

What do you do when that is the book you were going to read today??

"In a low voice Ivan answers: I love you too.

You don't have to, he says. I would forgive you if you didn't "

Ohhh Sally Rooney. What you do to my heart. I am going to have to move from calling her my Sad Irish Girls novelist to My Sad Irish People Novelist. These Koubek brothers. I want to shake them and then give them a hug. Every is simultaneously the worst and the most heartbreaking character. Rooney is just my kind of hopeless. ?

"and she knows that whatever happens in those coming days, she will get by with a little help from her annoying, tenderhearted, and utterly luminous friends."
This is SO good!! It had me cracking up throughout. It is going to hit hard with the hippy liberal/progressive crowd that can laugh at themselves and their friends. I loved all the animals and all the relationships. I might have to go buy myself a copy to own and reread!

"Live
Laugh
Lesbian"

I snort laughed ?

This comic is amazing

"Well, if that's suffering, he thinks, let me suffer. Yes. To love whoever I have left. And if ever I lose someone, let me descend into a futile and prolonged rage, yes, despair, wanting to break things, furniture, appliances, wanting to get into fights, to scream, to walk in front of a bus, yes. Let me suffer, please. To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life"

This book is cracking me up 🤣

At the coffee shop where we gather to read. ❤️

I randomly started reading these at the same time and they are totally different but yet have the same themes of AI, tech, and art throughout and they are fascinating to read together. In Death of the Author Okorafor (I am only half in) seems to have great hope in what AI can do for Zelu. While in Immaculate Huang starts with a tech artist but makes sure you are suspicious of AI - quickly showing how it can impact & destroy the art world and 👇

Obsessed. This is so good. Superficially this cover is amazing. Inside though, brilliant. I love the play on words throughout (Dahl=doll for example), the characters are so complex, you want to shake or hate them but they are so human and you also want to pity them. The interweaving of art and tech and how we can both create and destroy the concepts is so interesting. What are the limits to a human mind, in art? In tech? What is too much? 4.5/5

Thanks @dabbe I have been thinking about music to play today, and I now have a 2 hour playlist.

My guy and I are going to go eat tacos and watch 40 Acres (A movie about cannibals) which sounds like a perfect “Independence Day“

My playlist is public on Spotify if anyone wants to take a listen, it is a bit eclectic, but leans old school:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6nnEIs9Z6h2GxLVOjDGHZR?si=706fab0713774cfe

Reading this American long weekend -

A Nigerian -American novel with a disabled MC (it is disability pride month) #camplitsy25

A graphic novel from a famous lesbian American

A freaky little novel about art and friendship from a bisexual Asian -American.

This is America.

@dabbe #Playlist #4thofjuly

1) Beyoncé - Freedom
2) Public Enemy - Fight the Power
3) Gary Clark Jr - This Land**
4) Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam
5) Bob Dylan - Hurricane
6) Prophets of Rage - Unfuck the World*
7) Childish Gambino - This Is America
8) Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth
9) Shea Diamond - I Am America
10) Tom Petty - American Girl
11) Mavis Staples - We Shall Not Be Moved
12) Green Day - American Idiot

I am torn. I loved the first 2 sections of this. I really loved the writing, the characters were varied and believable. But (like Audition) I get to the 3rd part and my brain had trouble switching gears to new MCs. I still loved the writing and thought it was interesting, but I was fairly distracted by it. And in the end I think it is a bit (maybe 100pgs) too long. So it is a soft pick. I will for sure read more from him. Hopefully more focused.

@TheAromaofBooks

#bookspin = ARC I have a few thatook really good and I am excited for!

#doublespin = Maggie O'Farrell's Instructions for a Heatwave perfect for July!

@thearomaofbooks #bookspin #bookspinbingo

I love that Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea ended up next to each other at the top. My goal is to read them together.

Got some very chunky books this month, hoping to slow down a bit and enjoy not only longer stories, but also these gorgeous longer days.

Happy Summer to the Northern Hemisphere!

My plan for this evening had been to read a chunk of our #CampLitsy25 book. Then I fell and cracked my head ... Wish that was a fun riddle.

I think I am fine, just super sore waiting for test results, getting good care. Sitting here worried about the government and about how soon we are close to having millions more people who cannot get this level of care.

If you are in the US please call your rep tell them to vote no: 202-224-3121

One of my yearly goals is to read less than 50% of books from Authors / Set in the US

Some day I would love to throw England into this, and read half books US+England and half from the rest of the world, but I am really not there yet.

But for 25 I am doing pretty good with 44% US based books, and the rest from 19 other countries.

Okay half way through the year.

Here is how I am looking, how are you doing?

94/100 books read
30,818 /50,000 (62%) pages read

I have read 7 books over 500pgs my goal is 12 so I am right on track there.

My nonfiction reading is needing a bit of focus, I am currently at 19% when my goal is always 25%

#25in25 we are halfway through the year and I am doing not as great as I could have hoped on the 25 books I have chosen to focus on in 2025.

I feel like July and August are going to be my time to shine on this! A perfect time to read Anne of Green Gables, Three, A Trace of Sun, all those lovely summer books.

I grabbed the audio of Cutting for Stone from my Library so will dive into that this month.

Current count 11/25

I read 17 books in June (I am in therapy for my anxiety thanks!)
Here are my ratings:
5 ⭐
Giovanni's Room

4.25⭐
Henry Hamlet's Heart
A Single Man
Well of Lonliness

4⭐
If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

3.75⭐
The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
A Gentleman's Gentleman
Icarus
Maggie

3.5⭐
Automatic Noodle

3⭐
Happy Place
The Pairing
Queer Body Power
Witch King
Let's Talk About Love

2.5 ⭐
Wild Dark Shore

#bookspin #doublespin #BookspinBingo

Read 1 spin, got 15 pages into the other and realized it was defiantly not for me. and had 3 bingos! I kept getting close to more but then getting distracted by something shiny.

3rd bingo with the help of a couple of DNFs which is a bit of a bummer, but both of them I kicked off my TBR which is the whole point!

ARC pub date July 22

Our MC is having a rough time. Her husband has been having an affair, and has left her for the mistress a woman named Maggie. And now the MC gets diagnosed with breast cancer, and she decides to name her tumor after her husband's mistress
This is not really humorous (even from a dark humor POV) but it is very human. I really love how the MC starts to reevaluate everything, to start to see herself and her husband in new ways👇

I am thrilled at this Agatha Christie old timey cover haul I got at the Goodwill today!

I am planning an Agatha Christie 2026 and this for $10 is a big help!

#weeklyforecast

I am about 150 into the tagged so hoping to make a big dent in it this week.

Death of the Author is the next #CampLitsy25 read, having much higher hopes for it then the last read.

I need to tuck into Spent and get it back to the library! I grabbed Immaculate Conception on audio from the library so will start there on my daily walks.

Written in 1928 but this "lesbian classic" (as my cover calls it) could easily have been written this year. The language is easy and the prejudices of that day still linger, even as strides are made. I felt for Stephen throughout the book, she is drawn as a vivid and complex character, even when she is doing unwise things I found myself rooting for her (maybe for her to get a grip, but still, rooting).

I am ready for some summer reading!! I have 3 books to finish up for June which has been super grey and gloomy here in PDX. But July is almost here and the sun has agreed to come out!

Pulling all of my summer feeling books ☀️🎉🌈

Saturday morning vibes featuring Serene Cat actually being serene.

Hoping to finish this book today.

This was so interesting! I really loved the different POVs and the sharp change in the third act. I loved the look at privilege and how there are many layers of privilege.
This is also an interesting look at belonging. How we are "from" a place but might not "belong" to that place.
The writing is beautifully lyrical. This is short but very well done.

@dabbe #TLT (a day late)

Realizing like books I will read (watch) the first in a series and will rarely follow up with the rest.

Favorites:
Top Gun (I was obsessed with this as a kid!)
Grease (what a trip watching this again as an adult and realizing how dirty it was!!)
Back to the Future

??? Who is your favorite Batman??
He is by far not my favorite superhero (too whiny) but I loved Michael Keaton's version

This year for #PrideMonth I wanted to challenge myself to read all of the letters in the Pride spectrum (well the most common at least - LGBTQAI)

I found that Intersex, Asexual, and Queer were the most difficult books to find.

Q- while queer is often used as a catchall category I was really looking for authors who specifically called themselves Queer, and it turned out harder then I had first thought.

These are the books I read.

I really have to stop just buying books. This Emezi book is NOT for me. I normally love their work but I am only about 30 pages in and I hate everything about it. There is a lot of sexual abuse going on. I think it could have worked if there was more of a lead in but I just feel gross reading it.

#allhailthebail

A lyrical YA story about a boy trained as an art their and the boy he falls in love with that changes everything. Very Greek with Icarus and Helio as our main guys! I thought there were a few unusual and interesting ideas in this story, and I overall enjoyed the writing, even if some of the elements were a bit too fantastic.

Low pick. It is hard when people pour so much of themselves into a book. This is a good introduction for people who are new to body positivity, eating disorders, and queer and disabled body talk. As someone who is familiar with the issues there wasn't much new for me here. A lot of the book was Instagram quippy talks.
I don't recommend the audio. There are a lot of quotes she reads from I think her IG communityand it started to be confusing.