Wow. Fantastic! 4.25/5

This is everything I had wished that awful Alex Michaelides was. Jane is having a breakdown and her psychiatrist is lost on what is going on or how to treat her and the mystery keeps growing. The writing is spot on, I loved seeing everything from his notes and her journal. I don't want to spoil anything so if you had read and want to discuss spoilers below.

Article from 2023.
Do you ever read a throw away line in a book and think "say what now?" I don't know anything about Bardot beyond her name and that she was an actor/model and somehow I missed that she is a god awful terrible person! This article from VF has me saying jezus multiple times. A supporter of Le Pen, Bardot encapsulates right wing bigotry and hatred.
I am glad I know now.

"I wonder if accepting moral complexity is a sign of my poor standards"

I am in love with Dinan. This is her sophomore novel and I cannot decide which I liked more. I do know I will be internet stalking her waiting for her next book. Her writing is wonderful, I love her morally great struggling characters, and how their daily life is never boring even if I cannot concisely articulate what exactly the plot is.
4.5/5 ⭐ I love this.

I fear these may be too obvious, but I would love to get to all 4 of these soon.

#CampLitsy25 @BarbaraBB @squirrelbrain @Megabooks

I love a lil quiz! Purple Reader is The Unbound Innovator—a bold, unconventional thinker who thrives on experimental storytelling and genre-defying narratives. They read to challenge norms, stretch their imagination, and fuel radical creativity. After finishing a book, they want to feel intellectually awakened and creatively invigorated, as if they've glimpsed a new way of seeing the world

Every single time.
😂

I think I am going to bail on this for now. I have read 30 pages and it isn't pulling me in. I know so many enjoyed it, but it is due back at the library tomorrow and so many people are waiting. There is no way I am going to push through it all today. And obviously I have plenty to read from the library.

😂😂

It's funny because it's true.

Edited to add: Solabees in Portland Oregon, they have an Instagram if you want to see more of their beautiful work!

Not book related...but my best friend just passed her licensure for therapy and I have picked her up these flowers from my favorite florist in my town.

Are they not gorgeous 🥰

I originally checked this out from the library, got 2 chapters in and ran to my bookstore and bought a copy. This book is amazing. It is written with such care and tons of research. The 5 women it focuses on each have small chapters woven into the narrative. Their struggles are glaring on the page, the way they controlled their bodies while struggling with so much racism and socioeconomic challenges.
4.5/5 this is wonderful.

“She wanted to be like her childhood heroes Ginger Rogers and Natalie Wood, emerging from limousines onto red carpets to snapping bulbs, the plot of her life playing out like one of the feel-good Million Dollar Movie films she loved to watch on her family‘s black-and-white television.”

Photo of the 5 beautiful ballerinas featured in the book

The man behind the company.
The first Black dancer at the NYC Ballet.
Arthur Mitchell started the Dance Theater of Harlem. He is both a monster (yelling at the women for eating or not being loyal enough to him and the company) but also seen as a father figure. The women talk about how his death in 2018 crushed them. A complex and interesting look at a teacher relationship.

While this book is about the women of Dance Theatre of Harlem, there is tragedy in how the men of the company were abandoned by government. They died of AIDS
“'I witnessed and entire male ensemble pass away.' Sheila Rohan says of the epidemic. She was working at Alavin Ailey in those years. 'These were our Black gods. Prima donnas of the dance world. And then you had to see them decline. At least 25, 30 of them, 1 right after another dropped.“

South Korea
I had such high hopes for this, the synopsis was great. Unfortunately the storytelling didn't live up to it for me. The characters are annoying. What do you mean you move into an apartment building where you are required to have more kids and you are upset that you might be hearing sex noises? Then the character finds out it is a husband beating up his wife and she is annoyed they kept her up at night? Whiny and not flushed out.

The Booker International shortlist is out!

Time to start reading! I have Big Bird and am reading it this week, are there any others people would recommend?

I am on a hold list for Leopard Skin Hat but my library hasn't received any copies yet.

You logophiles and Francophiles might like this story:
I was at my coffee shop in this sweater today and the barista asked me what it meant
After I taught him to pronounce the word I say "Ennui, French for sort of morose..."
Him: "Isn't morose French?"
Me "It is but this is like, more so, but without the anger."
?
Let me be your French teacher! I am on the ball

😂🤣😂 I feel this every day.

#weeklyforecast
I am feeling incredibly indecisive right now. So many books so little time.
I am finishing Disappoint Me this week (so good!) Under the Eye of Big Bird is due back to the library by Friday so need to get on that. Also chipping away at Swans of Harlem and I Captured the Castle.
For my daily walks I have the tagged

What are you reading this week?

Following up Agent Zo with another book about forgotten Women. These are 5 of the Black ballerinas that came before Misty Copeland

@BookmarkTavern #sundayfunday

I don't read many books about heists, for some reason I would rather watch them. I LOVE heist movies - Baby Driver, Inside Man, Usual Suspects, but mostly the franchise I am obsessed with is Fast and Furious. People are often thrown off by this when they learn. I have a group of friends we all get together for cinema nights when they come out and text each other when we travel and one is playing on cable 😂

🎧 was not the best way to read this. Unfamiliar with Polish names and I struggled with keeping people straight. But. What a book. This is a feminist look at not only an amazing woman also war. I had never heard of The Silent Unseen - Polish paratroopers trained in Britain and dropped behind enemy lines in Poland Zo's story is both fantastical and frustrating as the Soviet punished Nazi fighters and men refuse to recognize women's contributions.

Intense. Be careful going into this on, lots of TWs. It starts with a bang as narrator 1 decides and goes through a misoprostol abortion on her own, the last story that focuses on a best friend murder but is at its heart about femicide in Mexico was incredibly powerful.
My only criticism is that the voices of each narrator were the same, I would have liked to have seen more language and cadence variety.
You can tell a poet helped translate 👇

Sunday reading with coffee and cats

(Cats- Mayhem, Calamity, Serene)

This is a tough book. But also very poetic

"I was dead. Those fucking mayates had killed me. I held my bloody hand and cried for a while."

#BookerInternational

I picked this up after a rant by Dr Rath on Tiktok where she told Trump supporters not to read her books, and I am very happy to find out I really enjoyed this! It is called a slow burn, I would call it a snail paced burn 😂 the book is 460 pages and there are 3ish sex scenes. I loved the character development and the scene, it is isn't really believable but it is fun!

"But even though my great- grandmother, grandmother, and mother were all pioneers who broke the glass ceiling so women could hold the offices where decisions are made, amigui, I'm not really into public service or politics, myself. I don't want to wield power, I want to marry it. Know what I mean? Zero Angela Merkel, all Michelle Obama."

The point of feminism is that women have choices, but if she thinks MO had no power she doesn't understand

Listening to the tagged on my neighborhood walk where the cherry blossoms are blooming

A poem for the poor tariff targeted penguins.

(Found on Blue sky)

Viva le pingüino!

And that is that. I used Blackwells all of the time to get UK books (because they were not yet available in the US or because I liked the UK cover better) I am glad I guess this happened after the Women's Prize, but just so bummed. It is a little thing compared to how much housing and food is going to crush us but I feel like we can still be sad about the smaller things that are being taken away from us.

#Bookspin
#DoubleSpin
#BookspinBingo

Well here we are!!

I know people are going to be annoyed All Fours is on here, I don't mind so much - I love a book that makes people incomfy and gets people talking.

Good Girl and Fundamentally I had waffled on both being on the prize.

I guess the judges this year I just don't jive with.but I am incredibly glad Adichie didn't make it. I think it is down to Safekeep or Strout for the win.

Oh this one hurts! RIP Iceman.

When Top Gun came out I was immediately obsessed, so much so my dad destroyed the VHS because he couldn't handle having it on one more time 😂

Be my Huckleberry - Tombstone

What is your favorite Val Kilmer?

Trans authors you should read! This is a very American based list. I think it is very cool and important to read Sarah McBride now that she is the first Trans senator! Read her life in her own words as you see her making headlines for wanting to use the toilet at work....
Others to read who I love:
Akwaeke Emezi - Vivek is my absolute fav
Imogen Binnie
Nicola Dinan
Janet Mock
Aiden Thomas

Yesterday was Trans Visibility day, and in the spirit of we should be reading trans author all year round I wanted to make a post for 6 books I intend to read this year by Trans authors!

I am SO excited for Disappoint Me, I loved her Bellies and I have the ARC I have already started, Stag Dance is up next I really enjoyed Detransition Baby and Peters latest interviews, I am impatiently waiting for Gentleman's Gentleman!

Who are you reading?

#WP25 short list prediction/hope

I thought this was not the best list I have seen from them, but then I went to make my predictions and had 8 I wouldn't mind seeing make it!

Thinking about the qualifications of the prize the book must show: excellence, originality and accessibility. From this I thought that the 6 above were my good guesses of what we might see tomorrow.

2 Books that I thought would be okay were Good Girl and Fundamentally

Aarvark peeps!
I was thinking about signing up, and was checking out their IG and saw this. I would love to give someone a free credit!

If you are a user of this book box comment below and we will organize. (I can only subscribe once so sorry first person here gets it)

Tagging my favorite book of the month, one I was very disappointed was not on the Women's Prize Longlist.

March was a...do I have a mental illness or is my country a dumpster fire reading month. Some people cannot concentrate on anything, I cannot get enough stories. I read 18 books in March, no DNFs

Only 3 are Nonfiction, so I need to pick up way more of those in April.

This is really very good. Green reads the audiobook, which if you are a fan you will enjoy. I loved the mixture of history, little trivia facts, and heart wrenching personal stories. There is just enough levity here to not have the facts and heart of the book take you down. But the information is here and it is easy to see the urgency and why Green is so obsessed.
4.5/5

#bookspin #doublespin and 3 #bookspinbingos

This was a good reading month!

Bring on April, I am ready to get past the Women's Prize books and read some fun things.

This was my most anticipated book of the #WP25 longlist, and once I got used to the writing I enjoyed it. I did think it went a bit long at the end, I started to struggle picking it up and it took me longer to finish then I would have thought, but overall I thought it was original, creative and a good read. I found the characters endearing (though Tibb needed some therapy, hearing how she blamed herself over and over was a bit wearing)
4/5

A soft pick for this #WP25 book.
I think I am just a bit burnt out, I can see why the judges picked it, there are some really good scenes, and the characters are compelling, it was just missing something a little extra that I expect from Women's Prize books. I also had a hard time keeping the storylines straight and would pick the book up and be confused who the POV was on.
Good not great 3.5/5 ⭐

The Women's Prize For Fiction Shortlist will be announced on Wednesday the 2nd of March, which is just days away!
I am finishing The Persians and Trickerie today, and have Strout queued up on audio I am trying to decided between Amma and Birding for my next read, has anyone read both? Which is a quicker read? It looks like I am not going to get to all of the books before the shortlist drops, but I will read enough to get a prediction out on Tue!

We laugh so we do not cry ......
#Libraries

April?
Oh my!

#bookspin
#bookspinbingo
@thearomaofbooks

And the short list for Nonfiction is out! What does everyone think? I know a few didn't enjoy Cherry's book, I DNF'd What the Wild Sea Can Be but might try it again.

I think the winner will be down to the Heart or the Hare.

I still have some reading to do here... most of them actually.
#WPNF25

You need to be prepped going into this, it is a Gay Horror Book, set in Hollywood. Our MC is a screenwriter who is mostly in the closet, but he has a boyfriend. Zeke, my boyfriend. The one thing I couldn't get past was how often his boyfriend was pointed out. The writing is not great, but the story is original and propulsive, I really grew to like and root for our MC. I thought the horror elements were brought in well, if a tiny predictable
4/5

This is a slow, quiet character study of a man who is supposed to be moving houses but cannot seem to make himself. The professor contemplates his life and how he got to where he is. I thought it was interesting, but maybe a bit too scattered I really enjoyed the bits about his time excavating Native areas in New Mexico but thought the jump from that to other topics was too abrasive.
Still enjoyed it, I always like Cather's writing

#Weeklyforecast trying to finish up the #WP25 this week, not sure I can make it! The tagged is my #doublespin for this month should finish it today
I started Chuck Tingle yesterday and I am obsessed, then going back to A Little Trickerie which I was excited for but which has proven not as easy to get started on.
Disappoint Me on my Kobo for Trans Awareness Readathon

I spent 10 years working events at Barnes and Nobles up and down the West Coast, and I now live in PDX with Powell's books so I have been lucky enough to meet and work with a few big names some are so terrible I don't read their books, some are utter delights!!
Some of my favorites: Carlos Ruiz Zafon (RIP), Angie Thomas, Jodi Picoult (who I still call Jodi Pickles in my head) Patrick Rothfuss, Aiden Thomas, and Curtis Sittenfeld

My first book for the #TransRightsReadathon is one I found in an article interviewing Torrey Peters on her recommended Trans books. It wasn't on my radar before.