Well done.

I have a strong yearning for fantasy that is a) set in Ireland or at least Celtic-flavored and b) involves fairy, fae and/or witches. Could be YA or not YA. I don't have a lot of time for research right now, but I'm hoping the hive mind can make some suggestions?

I was reading the most recent biography of Jackson, and there were so many references to her short stories that I paused that to read this collection. This lacks the polish of an intentional collection of stories, but I love the way you can see Jackson working out ideas, repurposing characters, and polishing her craft. If you're a fan of Jackson and/or short stories (esp. Salinger or O'Connor) you should check these out.

I swear this woman lives inside my head. I laughed, I cried, and I felt less like a totally bizarre and misunderstood sniper.

Okay, to be clear: view this "pick" as a subjective thing between the book and me. I am NOT recommending this book to you.

The protagonist, who appears to be lacking basic knowledge of philosophy has somehow gotten a scholarship to Oxford. The writing is kind of klutzy. There are gaping logical holes.

And yet, I totally enjoyed it. Oxford spires, dark secrets, a country estate with a freaking maze (!), cream teas, libraries & gaslighting.

This book is heavily derivative (kind of All Souls Trilogy - vampires (so far) + The Secret Circle - witches (maybe)), not incredibly well (or badly) written and I am LOVING it. Loving it. Proof that I will read anything set at Oxford or Cambridge that involves mysterious hounds-on.

It's strange how much I loved this book. I listened to it, and I highly recommend it for a) her voice and b) her music. There's so much here for different needs, like a Swiss Army therapy knife: totally non-goopy thoughts on owning your own stuff and asking for what you need, GREAT thoughts on crowd-funding, and painfully keen insight into leading a public life. Searing honesty and lots to make you think. Oh, and a love story with Neil Gaiman.

Just a few recent reads with #alliterativetitles for #marchintoreading.

I don't really feel all that guilty about my love of "aga sagas," but I do tend to pop them like candies when I need comfort or distraction. #marchintoreading #guiltypleasures

Although I didn't love this nearly as much as most folks, I DID love the parts in the lighthouse, and the broadcasts from its top. I also love the idea of living in a lighthouse. #marchintoreading #Lighthouses

Score. (And I didn't write on the tickets. I bought them from someone who did. Which is a really strange thing to do, but I was so happy to get these that I would have accepted the covered in marmite.)

Today's #marchintoreading is #Happyreads, and these are a few of mine. Really all Giant Days or Sarah Addison Allen makes me happier, but the Harry Potter books are less "happy" and more complex once the emphasis shifts from feasts and quidditch to darker and more serious things. And if you need to feel hopeful, there is nothing better than A Wrinkle in Time.

I have loved this book since I first read it (this very copy) as a high school freshman. I haven't re-read it for at least 20 years, and it turns out I still think it's a miracle of prose. What I hadn't realized was how much this book and Salinger's slim output shaped me as a person, a writer, and an observer of the world. I only wish Plath had lived long enough to see the impact of her wrenching honesty on generations of girls and women.

...and you'll all be thrilled to know this the end of my #marchintoreading post-o-rama. Until I found Litsy, I didn't know about Giant Days (or Goldie Vance or Paper Girls or Lumberjanes) and now I am just another addict. And happy to be one.

So this is my #marchintoreading #didn'tlikebutstillfinished. Maybe it's because I'm monstrously cynical, but this had the same sticky-sweet, kumbaya feeling I have previously gotten mainly from Mitch Alblom and anything with "Chicken Soup" in the title.

For #marchintoreading this is a #Recentnon-fiction read. It was tough, funny revelatory read and I highly recommend it for anyone who is trying to understand the realities of being black and female in this culture.

Another #marchintoreading entry, this one #judgedbyitscover. I knew nothing about this recent YA book, but was intrigued by the cover and the title and as it turned out, I really liked the book!

Getting caught up on #marchintoreading and will be posting at an obnoxious level today. This is kind of a cheater #MarchTBR because I'm not really a TBR- doer. I know I'll finish Palmer & Saunders because I'm already reading them, and the other two are safe bets because...they're pretty?

I've been thinking about this since I "panned" it yesterday. That wasn't fair. It wasn't great literature, but it also wasn't a bad read (for me) until the end. My unhappiness about wasting an Audible credit and feeling cheated was not the author's fault; it was all about press and marketing. Let's think about that. I expected a psychological thriller and got...something else. I also kept reading (like a moron) to get to the Amazing Ending. Why?

Well, I feel cheated. It's hard to say why without getting spoiler-y, but I think I can safely say a) this is a good example of what great PR can do, and b) the ending really makes this a book entirely different in genre from what's (so deliciously) advertised. Tana French did a similar thing in The Secret Place but it was far less critical to the plot. Also, I am NOT OKAY with two cat killings (or even one) and if you are like-minded, skip this.

So my reading stuff was always in the place where I wasn't. I found this old tool caddy thingie in the basement and made it a Reading Centre. (Note affected use of English spelling.) In it are current and next "real" books, Fire (for newspapers & comics), Voyager (for ebooks) my #readharder list, book journal and sticky tags. Let's see how long it lasts.......

I was on a YA-but-not-fantasy kick and this looked interesting. It IS interesting, mostly because it balances the genuine angst and uncertainty of being a teenager with a kind of calm, loving reassurance that isn't pushy, but wise. The best message, the one I wish I'd understood at that age, is that love isn't necessarily "forever," but can be perfectly real even if it isn't. Oh, and the descriptions of a HS newspaper are hilarious and dead on.

Part II of my #februaryreads. I had insomnia and read a lot of YA & mysteries in the deep, dark night. I definitely loved Dash & Lilly the most.

Part one of my #februaryreads. I think this represents the most non-fiction I've read in a month since I was in school.

I seem to have liked this more than most Litsy folks, maybe because the audio version was so good. There is a character with a heavy accent, as well as a snotty teenager, and the narrator did a great job of bringing them to life. It's not Anne Tyler's best, but it's still Anne Tyler, which always makes me happy. But at the very end I think I see validation of the misogyny of Shakespeare original with Kate talking about how hard life is for men?!

It's not Christmas, and this is technically a Christmas book but...the holidays really just provide a framework for the story. Also, I'm not a teenager, and this is a YA novel but that doesn't really matter either. It's a love story, and a book about books, words, reading and The Strand Bookstore. The main characters' are named after Lillian Hellman & Dashiell Hammett, and Lilly's brother is named Langston. Funny, light, and joyous.

The premise is interesting: teenage boy commits suicide, leaving a playlist to tell his best friend what happened. I'm a sucker for a playlist, and believe them to be magic, so I bit.

The problem is that the author tries to cram too many YA tropes into one book (One-dimensional Football Playing Bullies, Cold Rich Controlling Parents, and a Manic Pixie Dream Girl) which leaves no room for real characters and prevents any real "feels."

I'm very picky about Holmes adaptations, but couldn't resist the enticements of Holmes and Jack the Ripper (I'm a ghoul) AND Faye's writing. It was everything I'd hoped it would be, from a credible Watson telling the story to accurate details of the Ripper murders interwoven with plausible detection and resolution.

I'm sorry Mia is sick, but she's obnoxious and annoying. Zac criticizes his mother's weight. I dislike them both immensely and, although I wish them well, I'm not sticking around to find out what happens to them.

Sometimes it is a great thing to request that Overdrive add a book when you don't live in a big city, but you live in a big college town. Sometimes, they add the book quickly because there's a demand, but you have cleverly asked for it early enough that when it becomes available you get it very, very fast.

And if it's this book, you drop everything and read it.

This high school, lgbtq romance totally hit the spot for me. It was charming, compelling, and despite being a relatively easy read, deeply insightful. There is an explanation about the inability to really know other people that characterizes humans as having big rooms inside, with small windows. Which is totally apt and creative. If you love The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Rainbow Rowell's YA, or John Green, this is a good pick.

This wasn't my favorite in the series; in fact it was probably my least favorite. Too much going on for depth, at least one big thing unexplained, and Duncan behaving somewhat badly towards both Gemma and his parents.

That being said, Crombie's worst is better than many mystery writer's best, and I wouldn't want to have missed one in this series.

This was both hilarious and bracing. Robinson pulls no punches and is not catering, here, to the feelings of guilty, liberal, white folks like me. I found it very empowering as a woman, and I especially loved the section of letters to her now-toddler niece about how to be in the world.

This isn't for everyone, but it was totally my groove. It is, like The Goldfinch (which I also love) a book with radically different parts. It's a coming-of-age story, a mystery, a Secret History-esque school clique story, a book about books and scholarship, and by turns very funny and terrifically sad. Oh, and Pessl writes similes that are like shining stars in the firmament of novel writing. ;-)

So far, I am loving this. A lot. Thanks to @annebogel for recommending it with a great sales pitch on her most recent "What Should I Read Next" podcast. She made it clear that it was something I would love.

Thanks so much @mgiroir for my Valentine's Day delights for #CupidGoesPostal! I've been dying to read this book before I watch the TV series, and I am putting the socks on right now since I'm wearing a red sweater and...dark green socks. Oh, and pants. Thank you too, @BookishMarginalia for making this happen!!!!

The book itself was hard, bracing, necessary and taught me about much more than the murder of Emmett Till - I had no idea, for instance, how many black leaders in Mississippi were murdered for opposing Jim Crow voting obstruction. Murdered.

But because I love you, I will tell you NOT to listen to this audio version because omg it is so very awful and nothing should come between you and taking in these words. I'm buying it to read again "right."

I wish I'd had this book when it was 13. Or 30. Moran is bright and funny, which I knew going in. What I didn't know was how...just plain RIGHT she is about so many things. Pretty much everything. I laughed a lot, but I also cried when she talked about her love for her daughters, and her decision to terminate her third pregnancy. It was also interesting to catch my husband hanging around to listen, which led to a couple of great discussions.

Lots of books seem to be "about books" or "for book lovers" but they really aren't. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore isn't. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is. This book is itself a modern gothic with secrets, ghosts and the Yorkshire moors, but it's also about books - loving them, reading them and writing them. There are echoes of Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw, as well as a compelling mystery, real sadness and real joy. I loved this so much.

I listened to this because a) Highsmith and b) free from audible. I haven't seen the movie, although now I think I will. I found this to ring true as a love story, and chafed against a society that made the relationship between Carol and Theresa so "immoral" that it was a reason to deny custody. But that's our history, and a bias that still persists.

Oh, and Carol. Mysterious, mercurial, lovely, far from perfect, and very human.

I thought I'd read this.
Turns out I was mistaken.
Oh, the bookish joy!

My re-read for Book Riot's Read Harder challenge. I read it often in high school and college, and was a major Plath worshipper; it should be interesting to see how I feel about it now that I'm old enough to be Esther's mother.

I don't want to say I'm "bailing," but I have been avoiding a return to this book since some time in January. It's actually a really good and interesting book for Jane Austen fans, and I am a Jane Austen fan, but I am trying to take the notion of "duty" out of my reading life. It's a bad sign if the number of remaining pages makes me sad. Maybe I'll finish it some day, but for now...on to something that lights me up.

Stunning. Although the characters in this book are different from me in almost every possible way, there were moments that evoked strong memories of things in my own life - being my mother's beloved daughter, caring for my father, being pregnant, being just out of law school and not ready to take the next steps. I also truly love the unresolved nature of the ending, and the gift of being left, as we are in real life, wondering and projecting.

Delightful. It helps if you've read "Three Men in a Boat" and a little Wodehouse, but it's not necessary. This is an Anglophiles dream of Oxford, butlers, Coventry Cathedral and Victorian mores. Dr. Who meets Jeeves. And jumble sales. There's also time travel, true love, and a very memorable cat and dog. If you need a distraction, I highly recommend this with a proper pot of tea and a dog and at least one cat within petting distance.

So now I've read all of her books and there aren't any more. :-( This one wasn't my favorite, mostly because Antoinette Conway is such a paranoid hardass that I found myself wishing I could tell her off. That, though, is a mark of fiction that works. She was real to me, and I wanted her to shape up. I'm dying to see who gets to star in French's next book. Maybe O'Kelley, The Gaffer? I'd like to know his story.

The best of January 2017. Eighteen books read (including a few comics/graphic novels). A couple of books I really didn't like, but mostly an embarrassment of riches - it would be hard to choose a "best." Also, the most non-fiction I've read in ages, and I hope that's a trend going forward.

Such promise, the idea of a book apothecary who prescribes the book for every ailment of the human spirit. Even better, the book shop is on a barge in the Seine, in Paris.

But there isn't a lot about books or, really, about Paris. Lots of somewhat repetitive philosophical blather about love and death. Confession: I listened to it, and kept falling asleep. I'd like to steal the title and write the novel I thought it was going to be.

So I've read all of her books and enjoyed them (I'd put "the Likeness" in the ❤️ category) and I'm just past the half in this one. It's a good mystery as always, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the protagonist Antoinette Conway. Not because she's a tough female detective, but because she's mean and judgmental in ways I can't chalk up to her rough background or her lack of support from male colleagues. Maybe it's just me.

This book is so good. SO GOOD. I listened to the audio version which is read by the author and some other people you may have heard of, like Stephen King, John Stewart and Daniel Handler. The history she relates is solid, and her quirky (and unabashedly biased) take on things makes the book delightful. Bonus: she's incredibly nerdy, and funny as hell. Good gateway drug for loving history. No matter what they did to you in school.