Getting the weekend started! Weddings and brunches and lots of friends this weekend.

I would do First Line Friday but this book's first line is super racy!

This was a remarkably layered story. Centering the relationship of three children who are now adults and have become mostly estranged, but still get pulled towards each other due to the fierce love of growing up together and the history they have with each other. Most of the twists I saw coming but it did not dampen my interest in the story. There was one reveal about the narrator that I am struggling a bit with But overall Perrin does it again.

Earthquake prep.

#camplitsy25

#TuesdayTunes. @TieDyeDude

I have been listening to a lot of French singers lately. They go well with reading Valérie Perrin.

Always my favorite French singers are Stromae, GIMS, Barbara Pravi, Indila, and I am super excited that Eurovision '25 introduced me to Claude from the Netherlands but who mainly sings in French.

Where it all began.

Running errands then hoping to finish this one today!

Oh no! This one is not for me. I normally like rambling existential books, and try to give things 50 pages but I am 15 in , have no idea what us going on - a guy found a book with funny writing and weird things are going to happen but only a couple of sentences a page seem to actually matter to the story. I have a bunch of other Prague books I need to get to so going to skip this, it was also my #doublespin

🤷‍♀️
@Dilara @TheAromaofBooks

#bookspin The Books of Jacob
#doublespin The Other City

The spin of destiny gave me my longest (920) and shortest (163) book of the list!
#BookspinBingo card ready to go!

August #TBR

I am half into the tree in the front, and goodness the library holds are out of control. I have three more to pick up this weekend!

Hanif Abdurraqin is a genius. No doubt about it. The way he looks at American culture, especially Black culture is smart, lyrical, and honest. An important look at minstrels, black face, Beyonce's super bowl.
I love his writing, many lines and paragraphs stopped me in my tracks and had me rereading. I learned a lot and enjoyed all of it.

#Bookspin - ARC (Heart the Lover) ✅
Double Spin - Instructions for a Heatwave ✅

I am technically not totally done with Perrin's Three, but I am so close to the end I am going to count it here and not on next months board.

3 #BookspinBingos

"Even the Naked Bike Ride gets too crowded, and we stopped going the year we had to walk our bikes the whole way because the street is jam packed with glitter covered limbs."

Ahahah this book is so aggressively Portland!! Last weekend was Naked Bike Ride.I had forgotten about it &was waiting outside w/ a friend for a brunch table as they started riding by. A yearly ride that is just starting up again after covid so isn't as crowded, but Yes Naked

Silly for those who live in say NYC or LA, but I have never seen my neighborhood on a book map before and it makes me really happy!! I also think she has drawn in my office building downtown!

#CampLitsy25

“I have wanted to die enough times in my life to understand the idea that wanting to die is not a foolish thing... I don't mean to prop up the idea of wanting an exit, but for me, not to imagine it as a foolish means that I am, by default, tasked with taking it seriously. I can't life as I once did, telling people that I was doing fine and desperately wanting them to wade through the language and see that I was in pain.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib,

“I‘ve run out of language to explain the avalanche of anguish I feel when faced with this world, and so if I can‘t make sense of this planet, I‘m better off imagining another.”

There are so many passages in this book that just stop me in my tracks.

This is my second Vasti, and while I enjoyed both, they are too long. I once again stand by my belief that no romance needs to be over 250 pages. I almost gave up at 100 PG in then there was a really fun twist so I kept going but then I was bored again by 200 pages with another 150 to go! I skimmed a bit the last 1/3. I enjoyed the characters and the outline of the idea, it was just much too long.
Out Sept 23, 25

What I am going to try to read for Women In Translation month
We'll Rx You A Cat - Japan
Minor Detail - Palestine
Three - France (already started!)
People In The Room - Argentina
The Books Of Jacob - Poland (and giant, it is almost 1,000 pages, I have grabbed the audio to help me along with this one)

Has everyone hear about Dan? Dan was a Reader! He passed recently at 92 and left a 109 page list of the over 3k library books he read along the way. No star ratings no reviews just book title after book title. He was diverse in his reading too! From John Gresham to Carmen Maria Machado, biographies from MLK to Barbara Streisand. Link to article in the comments!

Holy August! Cannot believe summer is almost over.

#bookspin
#bookspinbingo
@thearomaofbooks

August is Women In Translation month!

WIT was founded in 2014 by Meytal Radzinski to raise awareness of underrepresentation of translated books by women. Less than 35% of books translated into English are by women.

I hope everyone can pick up a book or two in August translated by a woman! In the comments I will tag some of my favorite reads for this month.

I am a bit disappointed. This is pitched as a reverse colonization novel. The Incas take Columbus' shops and sail across the ocean to take over Europe. It is painfully (for me) slow, with pages and pages of religious edicts. I had a really hard time concentrating, unfortunately the prologue was my favorite part. I had such a high hopes but this wasn't for me.

We worry more about tsunamis on the coast than earthquakes in PDX.
More concerned about Hawai'i at the moment. OR and WA could see up to 2 feet extra rise in tide, we are fine.

#Camplisty25

And the list is here! Booker Prize Long List 2025

I have read 2 and have to say they are not my favorite books (Universality and Audition) but they were both unique and I am excited to dive into the rest of the list!

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2025

"There are no tourists here, only travelers."

This is a book for travelers. People who understand that it isn't always easy, but always worth it. Steves found his old journals from 1978 when he was 23 and he and his friend (who works at the travel company) went mostly over ground from Frankfort>Istanbul and then through the "hippie trail" to Kathmandu.
A quick read with photos he took on the journey It's a beautiful book.

A "I am going to Prague" book haul, trying to get a lot of history from the library as I realized I do not know much about the area.

#weeklyforecast

Plowing through things I wanted to read in July! I cannot believe it is August already.

"... wrapped only in a towel, we were led into a steamy world. My unshaven Turk said, 'okay, merhana,' and put me belly up on the big round, marble slab, where I was allowed to lie, sweat, look up at the cloudy sun rays spraying through the little holes in the domed roof, and worry about the body- ripping massage I was about to get. I prayed my joints would survive."

I adore Steve's writing!

Not book related, but I am so excited to get out of the house and see magician+ comedian Lucy Darling, have you seen her on social media? Hilarious.

Every once in a while we need to leave our books and houses and experience new things

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 🤣