I avoided this, worried it was "difficult". I should've known Ishiguro's expert writing would carry me through this deeply surreal story. A pianist has been engaged by a small town as the headliner of an extraordinary evening. His performance is to rejuvenate the stagnant town. But nothing goes to plan-every person he meets has a favor to ask and creates a digression (and anxiety in the teacher) in this detailed narration of dream-logic events.

A novella with layers! It starts with a frame device of sorts--a piece of sensational writing by the titular narrator. Suffering from a debilitating hernia disorder, we see how her inherited wealth allows her to physically exist and allows her curiosity to flourish. Unable to experience "normality" she is drawn to the outer limits of human-ness. But not even the bargain struck with her male, lower-class caregiver can make him see her as a person.

I've got a coffee, a thriller and only 2 hours to wait for my flight to see family in MN.

I've included four books I probably would never have even heard of without this list. Some had amazing, unusual structure that I found fascinating, some where about a time/place with which I was unfamiliar, and some were just a lovely experience.

#ThreeListThursday #TLT @dabbe

I own an edition of this book and have used it as a checklist for more than a decade and i still didn't recognize all the books on the list. 😂

It's not necessarily we're not “well-read“ but rather a specific effort was made to create an international list so, for example, it includes classics from Scandinavian countries that are not well-known elsewhere.

Three books I don't remember reading:
The Roots of Heaven
The Guiltless
Death Sentence

I finally got started on summer with my first #14Books14Weeks and my first visit to the hammock grove on Governors Island!

Although i didn't read as much as I hoped, I did parcel out my books well for #BookSpinBingo. I really loved the beginning of The Other Name and will have to find quiet times to read the rest of the septology.

Considering how many squares I read, i wonder if my subconscious is avoiding bingos; I only got two!

Not a great reading month, no idea why. Favorite was North Woods.

I recommend these three books that I would not have read without this list:

The Bridge on the Drina
Chess Story
The Street of Crocodiles

#ThreeListThursday #TLT @dabbe

link to survey: https://www.listchallenges.com/1001-books-you-must-read-before-you-die-list4

#threelistthursday #tlt @dabbe

Pictured are three books that I resent having read.

I 💜 Zola and also ❤ Gide (not pictured, I couldn't choose)

I may have marked a couple of books that I never quite finished. But so many good-and-long reads on this section of The List.

#ThreeListThursday #TLT @dabbe

I haven't changed this stack for a few days, so this is it, this is my stack for #14Books14Weeks!

A few for pride month, a few for Women in Translation month, half are #1001Books and more than half are for #192025

In the US, summer is bookended by two holiday weekends: Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, and Labor Day, the first Monday in September. 14 weeks.

I challenge you to read 14 books between May 26 and Sep 1, which some of you may remember fondly as #14Books14Weeks.

Show me your stacks!

@Dabbe Finally a #ThreeListThursday that i can do well on! I've only been reading books from this list for ten years 🙄

I'm tagging Gulliver's travels. After buying a FOURTH copy of it, I realized I needed an online record of what books I own and started my book social media journey (godreads-->librarything-->Litsy)

I read Dangerous Liason on the beach, enjoyed it.
I read Tale of Genji on the subway, loved it
And I still haven't read GT 😂

I;m ready for May and another month of #BookSpinBIngo!

@Lcsmcat Are you trying to find something like this? LibraryThing has the best stats/graphs. And they are super-customizable -- you can choose a specific read year or only look at books in a particular collection. On the actual page, I can click on the bar for the 8 books with “no date“ to see which ones they are.

And some more stats!

Not a bad #BookSpinBingo month. I finished the tagged for #FoodandLit, #Rwanda. The Book Censor's Library was my #DoubleSpin and also fits #OffMyShelf - #InvolvesBooks; The Colour and Dance on the Volcano were for #192025; Indigenous Pacific Islander anthology worked for #FictionalTraveler and was my #BookSpin. There are a couple of #1001Books, and several for a global reading project.

Most importantly, I have two bingos!

I only visited one store for Independent Bookstore Day (I always forget it is a week-long crawl in Brooklyn with more than two dozen stores participating).

But I did remember to stop by my favorite bookstore. I picked up Held, which had been on my wishlist thanks to the Litsy love it got during #12Booksof2024, Red Pill from the bargain shelf, and a beautiful copy of A Room of Ones Own.

All together now 🎶🎶🎶

#Ranttime

Now that we're a third through the month, I figured it's time I posted my #BookSpinBingo board. This month I really am going to read the tagged book.

A fair amount of reading was done in March. While many books are in the 3-star range, I did really enjoy The Odyssey (read over two months). I finished ny #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin, read a couple of books for #192025, read two books set in big cities for #FictionalTraveler, a couple of #1001Books, and I even got a Bingo.

None of the books that I read wholly within March were noteworthy, so the tagged book is one of the favorites I finished in March. I need to get a copy so I have a reference of artists that I want to treasure hunt in museums.

I did also greatly enjoy Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey.

And I thought the book tagged in the comments was bleak. This has most of the same plot points – family tragedy, religion, poverty -- mixed with an older protagonist and therefore adds exploitative and unhealthy sexual behavior, all wrapped in a light stream-of-consciousness delivery. And yet, with all these elements that should keep me at a distance, should make it nearly unreadable, I never avoided picking it and cried many times while reading.

This is where I am at this month. Not much reading is happening, but I couldn't tell you what is taking up the time instead. I finished The Odyssey. I got The Story of Art Without Men back from the library. I've been slowly making my way through The House in Paris and (not pictured) Apartment in Athens. Whereas is waaaaay out of my comfort zone and I'm not getting much out of it, but I'll keep reading in hopes that a poem will click.

And, finally, my #BookSpinBingo board for March. Hopefully I can get these from the library sometime this month.

#WhereAreYouMonday

Well, this book was ridiculously hard to search for in Litsy. In any case, I am in Suriname.

Not a bad month, two bingos, even! A couple of books for #192025, #Nepal book for #FoodandLit, a couple of books #OffMyShelf, a couple of books for #LGBTQIA2025 Bingo/#TBRTarot, and a #1001Books,. Didn't manage one for #FictionalTraveler, as my book for Ireland was actually set in Copenhagen, oops.

#FoodandLit I love finding these specific cookbooks and testing out all the yummy sounding recipes!

For #Nepal: Sidra ko chutney (dried fish chutney), Tarul ko tarkari (purple Yam Curry), Aloo ra gobi ko tarkari (spiced cauliflower and potatoes) Sandheko bhogare (pomelo and yogurt salad) and Badam ko chutney (cilantro and peanut chutney).

Two bingos, thanks to strategic “Free“ space reading 😉

The library took Hood Feminism before I finished and it'll be weeks to get it again. I enjoyed the tagged enough to finish well-ahead of schedule. Discomfort was the most felt-in-the-body read and Skylark was hopeful-poignant-then sad. The two main characters in Night Boat had a rhythm to their conversation that reminds me of Godot (also because Irish and because waiting)

#BookSpinBingo

Set in a rural farm area amongst a devout religious community it is a searing portrait of grief and the many unhealthy ways it manifests in a family when left alone. Other circumstances conspire to make an unbearable situation even worse, culminating in a final action, final sentence that is a punch in the gut. OOoft.

3.5⭐, #FoodandLit, #Netherlands, #LGBTQIA2025 #SurpriseEnding

This became available Dec 27th just as I wanted something light to read.

It's wartime England and the Redpath's invited their elderly, eccentric rich uncle to spend the holiday in their village, hoping he'll enjoy himself and favor them in his will. Instead he turns up dead the morning after their party. Most of the plot is a mess of confusion as the police try to determine how he died and every Redpath's story is contradictory.

It was fine.

Reading too many books at once so nothing gets finished quickly!

I'm enjoying The Idiot, but the ebook was taken back by the library so now I have to read the paperback, which'll take longer. I'm about halfway through HF for #RiseUpReads I finished TDoE for #Netherlands #FoodandLit. Ooft, what a book, what a surprise ending. I'm working through TSoAwM and forsee a Met Museum hunt in my future. Tagged book was for a global reading goal. #Bolivia

I read quite a few books in December and it's hard to pick. In the end, the tagged was the most most emotionally involving (and harrowing!). The first half is rather slow with so.much.description of poverty and (TW) dog fighting . But the depiction of living through Hurricane Katrina was masterful.

#12Booksof2024 @Andrew65

A collection of short stories by a 19th Century German author. The title story is sort of a ghost story, with much digression into the backstory. It was interesting to see the framing techniques used so that the author could present the end of the tale before proceeding to have a character relate a linear narrative.

#12BooksOf2024 @Andrew65

Set this aside to read to year‘s end/the new year, it should have been the perfect, contemplative book full of descriptions. As mentioned often in the text, the experience of space is both mundane and magnificent and this slim book attempts to convey both. Vignette-style there are glimpses of the six space station astronauts, their thoughts, and even flashes of earth-bound incidents. Best read with a meditative mindset, which I could not obtain.

Virginia Woolf also wrote “normal“ narratives. #12Booksof2024 @Andrew65

The tagged conveniently became available just now a week or so after Christmas...

Hopefully I'll read at least some of the books pictured for #Bookspinbingo.

With over 600 pages of short stories, this was almost the only thing I read in September. Even if I had read more books, this might still be a pick. So many great stories by European & North American authors known (thanks to the 1001-Books list!) and quite a few new to me as well.

#12Booksof2024 @Andrew65

Well that was a several-day pain in the .....

I will never make these ribbon cookies again. The only good thing is several of them were, by default, too ugly to gift so I ate enough of them to feel a little sick.

A tradition that I started in covid times is to spend the afternoon of my birthday visiting Brooklyn bookstores and buying a book or two at each. This year was a little different - I only visited three stores, but still managed to buy almost too many to carry!

This was a two month read, began during my July vacation and finished in August. Written in three sections, some was more interesting than others, but overall an engrossing read. #1001Books

#12booksof2024 @andrew65

July was vacation month and I read a lot of books. There may have been some I gobbled up faster, but this was an excellent read. Just a grounded, very well written story of a family and society in transformation.

#12Booksof2024 @Andrew65

June was not a great reading month, so this is the best of the bunch. Another book I would not have discovered without the #1001books list.

This book was a fascinating, digressive wild ride. If you're able to accept the male chauvinist redneck attitudes, it is quite the slow-moving train wreck.

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

I only read three books in April and this is the one I enjoyed the most.

#12booksof2024
@Andrew65

A good straightforward story and March seems a good month to choose a book set in Ireland.

#12booksof2024
@Andrew65

It's not too late to begin holiday baking is it?

Maybe my best book of the year -- a perfect novella.

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

While “Death in Rome“ might arguably be a “better“ book, thought-provoking and well-written, few books are as much fun as the Murderbot series.

#12Booksof2024 @Andrew65