My favorite delivery of the day: Auntie‘s Books in downtown Spokane! (As featured in one of the stories in Jess Walter‘s fine collection.) This is the first of two cartloads - 44 pieces total. Great selection and great people too!

So I‘ve had this on my TBR for YEARS and finally got around to reading it. Boy am I glad I did! It‘s a tour de force! Joins The Latecomer and The Goldfinch in a Trinity of masterful books about art. I love the interweaving plot threads and the verisimilitude. And the rootedness in place (Chicago and Paris). All the feels for this excellent story, excellently told ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Photo of Chicago‘s Marina City from Wikipedia)

I love the way this book messes with my head about whether the MC is justified in her actions - or at least sympathetic - or not. Lots of social commentary about the nature of representation, fame, and success, especially as these pertain to the publishing world. I‘m not sure if all the topical references will hold up in a few years, but maybe that‘s the point? Here today, gone tomorrow. Still, definitely a fun page-turner. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can‘t believe my youngest turns 18 in just a few days! I sent this pic in for the senior baby ads in his yearbook. On another note, this book did a great job depicting the (mostly hidden) ripple effects of childhood emotional neglect. I wish I could buy lots of copies to give to all the people in my life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2

Mitt wants everyone to know that he‘s a VERY GOOD PERSON. A man of CHARACTER, INTEGRITY, & PRINCIPLE who‘s anguished over his MANY IMPORTANT DECISIONS because he‘s always been concerned about his LEGACY, PUBLIC SERVICE and the INSTITUTIONS of DEMOCRACY. Meh. He‘s not much more self-aware, or less self-important, than DJT. A well-written book about an earnestly decent yet dull person who comes off sounding like a sanctimonious scold. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Unpopular opinion: this was my 1st disappointment of 2024. I struggled mightily to get all the way through, & was tempted to bail multiple times. It seemed to lose momentum about halfway in, when POV zooms out from MC. I guess the point is that life‘s hard enough on the frontier, all the harder for racial, gender, & sexual minorities who don‘t conform to utterly arbitrary group norms. And that unlikely people can be allies/adversaries. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

First 1/3 felt rushed, but then the author digs in and finds herself part of the story about the foster care system and how it creates more problems than it solves. And that it‘s just one more way to undermine the lives and families of people of color. I‘m not sure what the answer is, but in its current form child welfare is perpetuating generational harm on innocent people. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘“Feeling right” is about living the life that‘s right for you.‘ This is exactly how I felt about becoming a UPS driver at the advanced age of 48. I‘d spent twenty years in higher education but it just never felt right to me. It‘s hard to explain but becoming a UPS driver felt like coming out of my cocoon and becoming the butterfly I was all along. And THAT‘S why I‘m so happy now!

‘In fact, for both men and women — and this finding struck me as highly significant — the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn‘t make a difference.‘ Huh 🤔

I blazed through this like a comet. I could so relate to MC‘s midlife reflection on paths taken & not. On doors closing that were blessings in disguise. On your kids realizing you‘re not just their parents, you‘re actually human beings with rich/fascinating (pre)histories. On rootedness in people & place. On reckoning with decisions & finding peace & contentment amidst pain & regret. Pure perfection. Meryl on audio is the cherry on top! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay am I the only one who spent the first one-third of this book waiting for a character named Tom Lake to enter the story? Lol so confusing! Wow this is so the right thing for me right now. I usually can‘t do audiobooks on my route but this one is an exception. Less than 24 hours since I started and I‘m more than halfway done!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My 1st 3 2024 reads have all been about NYC, but this one is the best! After walking thru Central Park, my son & I spent hours in the vast Met Museum. The book brought it all back for me. Author narration is an acquired taste but I appreciated his musings on art, love, work, family, friendships, the city, the passage of time, beginnings & endings & everything in between. All the love for this gem. My fave work memoir since Skyfaring.

Like an inflatable Santa, this book falls a bit flat after its peak. Still, a fun read and engaging characters. I‘m always a bit skeptical of middle-class depictions of the 1%. I never know how much is realistic vs caricature. Book‘s/author‘s backstory is just as interesting. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️ I‘ll be honest, I probably wouldn‘t have picked this up if it hadn‘t promised a story about UPS drivers. That story, like most in this collection, starts with one thing and pivots 90° to something else. I appreciated the focus on everyday black lives in the unglamorous parts of NYC. I probably appreciated it more having just run the marathon there. If you‘re looking for diverse voices in your reading, look no further.

lightbulbquest.com/I-asked-chatgpt-to-write-this-heres-what-happened-next

Mentally preparing for a strike by doing a deep dive into the last one. Apparently it‘s not as scintillating reading to the pups 🤷‍♂️

This book has no cover photo in the Litsy database, but the thread has some amazing shots! Here are a few of the ones I enjoyed the most. As for the book itself, it‘s a pleasantly forgettable tale reminiscent of at least a half dozen other time travel / futuristic stories I‘m familiar with. Barely a pick for me. Photo credits below ⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2

You never know what you‘ll come across when you‘re out on the road! These dogs weren‘t menacing but I wasn‘t taking any chances as I was outnumbered. I enjoyed this breezy, poignant memoir by a fellow driver. Recap: truckers work incredibly long, hard hours; they have mad skills; they deal with a lot of bullshit; they see beyond the myths of their personas and the country as a whole ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I decided to read this after The Foundling raised the issues of criminality, heredity, and eugenics. It‘s an excellent exploration of how at least 60 members of just one family have been imprisoned or under supervision for committing a crime. The book doesn‘t really settle the nature/nurture debate; it‘s likely an interaction between the two - as with so many other (anti)social phenomena. A family saga of a different kind ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was very meta. Young Paducah, KY, writer takes college writing courses while working a campus job & living with grandad. Published immigrant girlfriend is pursuing a career as a writing professor. So, LOTS of conversations about writing, literature, representation, & appropriation. Plenty of local color & depictions of cultural/political/class differences. It doesn‘t try to do too much, but what it does do, it does very well ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So I figured out that what Littens really want to see are my animals so I‘ll keep on posting pics of them! This book was a bit didactic but definitely a page turner. Held my attention throughout with plenty of twists along the way. Others have mentioned the many social issues raised in the story. I especially appreciated the fact that nearly all the MCs, heroes & villains alike, are women. Action-packed! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Trying to enjoy some reading before work today, but am feeling a bit distracted.

I can think of a few other titles that work equally well for this book. Nightmare Machine. Terror Machine. Outrage Machine. Radicalization Machine. Polarization Machine. Destruction Machine. Emphasis on Machine. With the rise of AI algorithms, the humans have left the building. But they aren‘t off the hook. As long as decisions are made to prioritize profit over human wellbeing and development, it will keep getting worse. A sobering read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I absolutely LOVED this juicy, twisty, clever, puzzle-like book where the various storylines weave & intersect. PLUS it situates the characters among actual people, like Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (above) - always a bonus for me. Like The Goldfinch, art figures prominently in the plot. Likewise religion, politics, & vocation. But ultimately a story about family finding themselves, individually & together. Not at all too lengthy. Exquisite ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Our local abortion clinic is the site of a pop-up church, & across the street from the Salvation Army. I drive past it every morning in my UPS truck. The protestors I see are usually older (white) people, mostly men. I wanted this book to shed more light on those folks but it felt like the author couldn‘t quite get inside their heads/hearts. More heat than light here (see what I did there?) But an interesting story overall ⭐️⭐️⭐️-1-2

I resonate with all the Litsy reviews on this book. More than a memoir about ‘accompanied suicide‘ — in a room like this one, in the suburbs of Zurich, because it‘s illegal everywhere in the US without a terminal diagnosis of 6 months or less — more than an account of a spouse with Alzheimer‘s, this is a depiction of a married couple whose sweet & gentle love for each other is stronger than the death that ultimately separates them ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oh my goodness, I‘m less than 1/3 through but am loving all the juicy twists and turns! Apparently there are more to come.

Conover is a masterful narrative nonfiction writer. As a bonus, he narrates his own audiobooks. Although the area he depicts here IS definitely remote - I've driven through it more than once - it sounds/feels familiar to me as a UPS driver in the Pacific Northwest AND as a fan of the Little House series. The pioneer impulse is alive and well in the 21st century. A superior companion to Nomadland ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This burrowed underneath my skin and flayed me. It‘s not, as so many have asserted, about female desire. It is in fact about female invisibility. If it is about desire it‘s not so much sexual desire as the desire to be seen, and believed, and respected, and equal, and empowered. This could never have been written about 3 men, as it‘s still very much a man‘s world. The words go down like butter but come up like bile. A tour de force. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is my top nonfiction pick of the year so far. I‘ve read some very good books but this one is excellent! I can‘t believe this actually happened!! If you believe your relationship with your mother is complicated and fraught, you‘ve got nothing on this author! I don‘t want to spoil it but you don‘t want to miss this one! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have no idea how I managed to pick up this book but boy am I glad I did! This isn‘t a difficult read. It‘s chock full of wisdom collected from personal stories, stories shared by friends and clients, and through her copious encounters with books. We are all blessed by older women in our lives. Reading this helped me appreciate that even more. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Y‘all. This book wrecked me. I. Am. Devastated. My insides are all torn up and I know I‘ll be feeling it for weeks to come. It‘s the first novel I‘ve read this year and it may very well be the last — nowhere to go but down from here. This helped me see myself, my marriage, and my spouse in sharp focus. Shimmering brilliance. All the stars for all the feels. Stack it! Read it! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘That was what I knew for sure, that this was the only way to get someone to listen to a woman — to tell her story through a man; Trojan horse yourself into a man, and people would give a shit about you.‘ This sentence explains the entire book.

‘Whatever kind of woman you are, even when you‘re a lot of kinds of woman, you‘re still always just a woman, which is to say you‘re always a little bit less than a man.‘

Can I get a witness?

Reads like a female version of Cherry by Nico Walker. I found myself learning a lot about how so many of us try to redeem our brokenness through manic self destruction on the one hand, and the earnest yearning and reaching out for connection on the other. A wild ride — albeit the most unsexy depiction of porn and kink imaginable. Depressing but not without hope. ⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2

What is wrong with the publishing industry, that a book written by an English major, and presumably edited by one or more English majors, makes such an easy — albeit — common mistake!! It‘s ‘left Lucy and ME,‘ and ‘gave my sister and ME‘! Direct objects people!! Am I the only grammar nazi in the house?!?

In 26 days I‘m running 26 miles for the 26th time — 26 years after being diagnosed with T1 diabetes. I‘ve chosen to make my upcoming race in Jackson a fundraiser for the Diabetes Foundation of MS, which provides a range of services & programs for the nearly 400,000 diabetic Mississippians. Will you consider being 1 of my 100 supporters? I‘m asking for $26.20 but you can donate any amount; nothing is too big or small! Link is below. Thanks!!

An important but not always an interesting book. Unless you‘re interested in the behind the scenes work of journalists you may not find all of this compelling reading. However, as a document of the rise of the #MeToo movement and the part the Weinstein investigation played in that, this will be required reading going forward. I did appreciate how gut wrenching the process was for Christine Blasey Ford — helped me understand how that unfolded.

🤣🤣🤣

Like John in exile, this author‘s extended meditation on the cataclysm of climate change reads like an apocalyptic vision of the future. The haunting beauty of his lyrical description belies the horror of what fossil-fueled growth has already put in motion. Relentlessly bleak, the true takeaway is that we can‘t shop or consume our way to a better world; our only hope is through political action. A must-read for all global citizens. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

That part in Batman Begins where Bruce and Rachel survey the ruins of Wayne Manor. He says he will rebuild it just the way it was, brick by brick. Alfred suggests improving the foundations. Meanwhile, from The Uninhabitable Earth: ‘It took New York City 45 years to build 3 new stops on a single subway line; the threat of catastrophic climate change means we need to entirely rebuild the world‘s infrastructure in considerably less time.‘

Aside from my mortgage, there aren‘t a whole lot of big numbers in my life. Here are 3 I‘m celebrating today as I cross the threshold of 10,000 in both total Litfluence points AND total running miles on my Garmin. As my 16 yo son would say, ‘Let‘s GOOOOO!‘

‘What that means is that we have not, at all, arrived at a new equilibrium. It is more like we‘ve taken one step out on the plank off a pirate ship....The last few years of climate disasters may look like about as much as the planet can take. In fact, we are only just entering our brave new world, one that collapses below us as soon as we set foot on it.‘

‘Climate change is a “hyper object” — a conceptual fact so large and complex that it can never be properly comprehended. But time is perhaps the most mind-bending feature, the worst outcomes arriving so long from now that we reflexively discount their reality.‘ It‘s a calamity that we confront such a problem at the very moment in history when our attention spans have never been shorter.

1 of just 25 books to make NPR, NYT, & WaPo year-end lists, this is an ideal analysis of who DJT is & why he does what he does. Describes the 4+ decades of Trump‘s prodigious relationship with TV. Context about the changing nature of storytelling & industry are also insightful. I hope this will help us think & talk differently about this man instead of always reacting & playing his hateful destructive game. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2.

So true!!

👆👆👆So much good stuff here! 👆👆👆

‘The Caldecott-winning tale of a young boy‘s encounter with snow has been checked out 485,583 times from the NYPL since it was published in 1962.‘ As a child this book was a revelation for me — not just because it‘s about a little black boy, but because it‘s about snow. It snowed exactly once in the town I grew up in, all of .01” After living 25 years in the desert I now live where I can enjoy all 4 seasons, including snow in the winter.

This essay collection is fresh and sharp, lean and tight, moving deftly from autobiographical material to cultural commentary and back again. The author is smart and self-aware, and yet she doesn‘t take herself too seriously. She accepts herself as the walking talking contradiction that she is. And maybe that‘s the biggest takeaway of all — in today‘s world how can any of us be anything but? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️