#pop24 is here!!! 🥰🥰🥰

@Megabooks @squirrelbrain @jenniferw88 @Cinfhen @alisiakae @BarbaraBB @KarenUK @Laughterhp @Cortg @IndoorDame @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick @MissHel @AshleyHoss820 @Ruthiella @OriginalCyn620 @BookBelle84 @jlhammar @graciouswarriorprincess

Who is doing the challenge next year? Let me know if you want me to add you or take you off the taglist.

Now to study the prompts...

@Branwen Recommend me a book for prompt #15 😉

*shun*

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

These bookcovers know what they're doing 😄🍜🐈🐈‍⬛📚

Tomorrow I will be a reformed character.

No more shopping.

No more chocolate for breakfast.

Tidy room...

To do list...

💃💃

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView 💕
Thanks for the tags @The_Penniless_Author & @batsy 💕

1) Tagged - despite being bleak with a capital BLEAK, this was a great read

2) I'm looking forward to some festive mysteries!

Bookspin plan for Dec 2023 - @TheAromaofBooks 🎄🎁

I've gone for festive mysteries, translated bookshops, friend recs and a few blind dates...

#bookspinbingo

Black Friday triple stamps at Waterstones!

Have just finished the first of my Litsyversary recs 😊 Thanks for suggesting Last Smile @Booksblanketsandahotbeverage 💕

It wasn't always my cup of tea, but I did enjoy it more as the story went on, and fans of urban fantasy with a noir feel will be entertained!

I didn't like the MC much, and I kept having to re-read large passages because I'd fall asleep and forget what had happened 😅

Still, easy to read and nicely noir.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars

https://youtu.be/xmdhAuIXVCU?feature=shared

Click above for my unboxing video of this month's Illumicrate 💕💕💕

I love getting bookish packages in the post 🥰

This beautifully rendered graphic novel depicting a young girl's struggle with OCD goes someway toward showing what it's like to live with this horrendously debilitating condition.

It does a better job of conveying the acute distress than the chronicity & repetition (i.e days/weeks/months of the same mind-torturing thoughts.)

Despite moments of emotional warmth and poignancy, the story itself is a bit of a mess.

Gorgeous art though.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I may have spent a CRAZY amount of money to acquire this beauty... but how can I regret it? Look how amazing it looks on my shelf 💕💕💕💕

Welcome home, beautiful 🥰

Wow. That was bleak.

This could easily have been a 5 star read, but I feel so empty inside now!

Tudor gives me Harlan-Coben-does-horror vibes, and boy does it make for a page turner. Short, twisty chapters, non-stop action, mystery galore... The Drift was incredible.

But grim.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I HAVE QUESTIONS, FOLKS!

- Magpie Murders, closely followed by 8 detectives. Also loved A Fatal Crossing & The Woman in Cabin 10

- My festive stack 🎄🎁💕

- Locked room - especially a country house, or a secluded island. Also a decent cast of zany characters!

#Ihavequestions

Let me know your answers!

Tagging @The_Penniless_Author @julesG @Ruthiella @ravenlee @dabbe @squirrelbrain @jenniferw88 @Susanita @TheSpineView @Leniverse @Oryx

The moment I sit down to have some food and look who's all up in my plate! 🤣🤣

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

The prompts are so good! I want to do #cloakanddaggerchristmas @Ruthiella 💕 I always enjoy it...

The thing is, can I make it gel with my other December project... reading Christmas mysteries so I can make a review video 🤔

Loving all your suggestions, folks! You're making me feel so festive 🥳🔪🌰🎄🎁✨️🧣🔎📚🔨🩸🎅🏻

Thanks for the #two4tuesday tags @TheSpineView @julesG @The_Penniless_Author 💕

As a UK litten, everything I know about Thanksgiving is from Family Guy and American Dad, so I'm pretty sure any answer I give would be completely inappropriate 😅

So, have a nice, late Autumn picture from this evening instead 😊😁

Currently reading The Drift by C.J. Tudor.

#two4tuesday Thanks for the tag ? @The_Penniless_Author
Great questions @TheSpineView ?

1) I asked a friend. His answers (that weren't insulting) were, "my transcendence of standard book appreciation", "appreciation of artwork on the outer edge of paper", "will turn up to a date in a Doom hoodie", and I "use my own invented language."

2) The Sisters Brothers (DeWitt), Convenience Store Woman (Murata), Bunny (Awad), and Mystery Man (Bateman).

I miss Edinburgh already, but at least I have my Pickle buddy.

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

This had potential: a professional conference goer gets tangled up in a corporate-House-of-Leaves-esque situation. It starts slow, but with hints of the freakiness to come and I got drawn in.

Sadly, I found the final third got dull very quickly despite containing the bulk of the action.

Last night, I fell asleep with about 5 pages remaining.

With its sexist ass of an MC & uninspired ending, I can't go higher than ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars.

When #ownitalreadyoctober goes bad, and #nobuynovember goes worse, it's gotta be #dontdoitdecember

😅

BEHOLD MAI TREASURES!!!!!

Supporting Independent book stores! 🥰🥰

https://youtu.be/DqmG--iLl2M?feature=shared

What's this?

Another YouTube video?

MORE blind dates?!

Feel free to click the link if you want to watch me unwrapping some more beautiful books 🥰

https://youtu.be/BxA0TjCP50Q?feature=shared

Got myself some Blind Dates with books at Golden Hare Books!!!! If you want to watch me unwrap them, click on the link above.

It's my first YouTube video so go easy on me 😅

Edinburgh!!!!! 🥰

Edinburgh! 🥰

Mini-haul, Waterstones Edinburgh 🥰

When you arrive at the hotel with your creepy hotel books 😎

"I needed no one particular woman because there were plenty of other women and they were all basically interchangeable. And seeing them that way didn't make me even slightly guilty, because I am sure they saw me in a similar way."

Ugh. This guy! Amirite?! ??‍♀️??‍♀️??‍♀️

I've just given my thoughts at length on GR... how best to summarise?

Will doesn't make himself look good in this warts-and-all memoir. Although it's obvious that he has a tireless work ethic, determination, commitment and drive, he treats the people around him as accessories to his own success and empire.

Will (the book) is punchy, raw, and full of emotion, but expect shoddy behaviour and CONSTANT bragging.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

@thegirlwiththelibrarybag I'm kinda holding you responsible for these impulse purchases... 😅😉

Look! It's a crystal ball you can live in and a book that takes you under the sea!!!!!!

And if you think this is bad - I've got some keepsake collection Polly Pockets coming for Xmas 🥰🥰🥰

Now to hide these from my Mum who I'm trying to help de-clutter...

Unpopular opinion time.

I was disappointed by this one. It had the potential to be really brilliant, but all the directions it could have taken seemed to fizzle rather than pop.

We have a decent eerie set up, but instead of tension building to a tense climax, it comes in dribs and drabs and then peters out in a rushed ending.

Between mysterious ambiguity and frustrating lack of clarity, we have the latter.

Unsatisfying 😔

⭐️⭐️⭐️

"Well," Luke said after a little silence, "I'm sure we will all be very comfortable here."

Yes, Luke, I'm sure you will ?

In your evil, scary house.

That may be haunted...

Autumnal kitty 🥰🐾

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks 💕

Got some yummy covers in my latest book haul 😍😍😍

(Sushi Pusheen is also excited!)

This book was great, but prepare to do some heavy lifting emotionally and intellectually. Some of the science in here is degree-level stuff.

This is a highly technical rundown of all the factors underpinning the sociobiology and neurobiology of behaviour. It's fascinating stuff & quite an achievement.

I'm not sold on the theory that free will doesn't exist, but otherwise a solid, rational, & cerebral read.

Plus a tasty wagon wheel.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"that we personally can cause change."

But not through any volition of our own?

Make up your mind, Sapolsky. Do we have agency? Can we effect causality? I'm not sure you're as committed to this "no free will" as you make out ?

If he is simply saying that our ability to make decisions and act is organic rather than magical, I wouldn't argue.

I shall have to read his new book "Determined" to explore his thoughts further...

Follow on from previous post.

Maybe a more pertinent question is what is sentience?The difference between the mechanical decision and the less easier to define WILL and IDENTITY behind an action.

Perhaps what neuroscience is yet to discover is the basis of sentience; whereas the field has made enormous leaps in the neurobiology of behaviour, we are yet to uncover the physiological basis of our sense of self or recreate it artificially.

This chapter argues with alarming sense against free will & I am shaken.

I need an equally intelligent person of science to counter Sapolsky's conclusions in this chapter!

The thought that there could be no essence to our personhood beyond predetermined biological mush is terrifying. What about meaning? Identity? Sentience? Morality?

If we are without agency, operating as robotic products of essential biology... what's the point in anything?

Photo of Rae several years ago, pre-Litsy, pre-shelves...

It's bumming me out how few of the books behind me I've read 🙈🙈 TBR from like 2018-ish?

Yes, that monkey is wearing a bikini, and no, I've never been to San Francisco.

Eventually it will get to the stage where this becomes a cosy book nook and set up for video games. It's a work in progress, so have a semi-shelfie!!!!

Or this can be like Where's Wally?

Can you find:

A) 2 dragons and a dinosaur

B) Some cumbersome art books that won't fit on my shelf

C) Illumicrate coasters!

D) A Pokemon terrarium and a Pokemon

E) Some epic tunes

F) LEGO that needs assembling

G) A bunny and an angry adipocyte

Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView & @The_Penniless_Author 😊😁

#two4tuesday

1. I was thinking about pizza earlier and it manifested 🍕

2. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Possibly my least favourite book ever written. (If you're a fan, perhaps don't read my review on GR... it's quite a rant!)

I should give positive thinking more of a chance. My current tactic of wallowing in self pity hasn't exactly been paying off 🤔

Hooman, it is damp outside. Were you aware?

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

Pickles: Now that I have dried off my wet floofs on you, Raehooman, plz re-open door so I can find more soggies...

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView ?
Thanks for the tag @The_Penniless_Author ?

I think this is between ? ? ?
Although I have been known to enjoy a cheeky ?
Non face emojis... ???

Now Mum and I have to do some soul searching as to why "We need to talk about Kevin" was the first thing we both thought of in association with ? emoji...

NOT APPROPRIATE ??

I'm gonna change the subject and say Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie for ?

National Bookshop Day! (Apparently) 🥳

Cat sitting continues...

#catsoflitsy #pebblecat

#ihavequestions

🌒 For me, it would probably be a social horror like The Circle by Dave Eggers

🌒 I like my horror to be more creepy than gory. And I HATE body horror 😅

🌒 Did I write this question to get gothic recommendations? Yes. Yes I did 😉

@The_Penniless_Author @Branwen @DaveGreen7777 @CBee @IndoorDame @dabbe @Caroline2 @julesG @TrishB @Susanita @jenniferw88 @BarbaraBB @Bklover @ravenlee @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick

@ ALL OF YOU 😘

A harrowing examination of the racism underpinning society's notions of beauty. I feel I should say more about it, but the writing is poetry and left me with more feelings than words.

Brutal and devastating.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have 3 beautiful copies of this book, so I really wanted to love it. Sadly, it irritated me.

The MC is wetter than a haddock's underpants & prejudiced & whiny to boot.

Also the BLUSHING, oh my days, if I'd taken a drink every time someone's cheeks got warm, I'd be wrecked!

Hiraeth itself was a triumph. A decaying, waterlogged house on a crumbling hill, oozing atmosphere & mystery. There were things I liked, but disappointing overall.

⭐️⭐️

Cat sitting this week!

Here is my smol buddy Pebble 💕 She is checking out the book loot that I have brought with me!

Plan is to rest and do some reading and (hopefully) some writing 😊

#catsoflitsy #pebblecat