The Women‘s Prize for Fiction Shortlist was just announced

I‘ve read 5 out of 6, so I‘m happy about that

Two of my favorites made it: Brotherless Night and Soldier Sailor

I also enjoyed Restless Dolly Maunder, but I haven‘t read anything by her before

I‘ve seen mixed reviews of River East, River West, so I‘m not sure what I‘ll do about that

What do you make of the list?

The Women‘s Prize for Fiction shortlist will be announced tomorrow morning.
I‘ve read 8 of the longlisted books

I would love to see Brotherless Night, Ordinary Human Failings and Soldier Sailor on the shortlist

I‘m not a huge fan of Western Lane, which probably means that it‘ll be shortlisted

Looking forward to the announcement

About two sisters and their relation to each other and their parents. I had some issues with this book. There‘s a lot of sex, nothing graphic, but at times it felt like one of the sisters would have sex with one guy on one page and a different guy on the next. But what really bothered me was that the older sister would send her cast off in her sister‘s direction. And what kind of sisters have this kind of relationship? It‘s just weird.

The second book in the series and it‘s another winner.

As Jonathan‘s cousin, Avery, comes at a surprise visit, the agency gets an urgent summon from the Pirate Queen Nyfe. Flick, Jonathan and Avery travels to the Pirate Queen world only the learn that the world is falling apart. Is it possible for the Stangwolds Travel Agency to save the people in the world, and what about all the ships?

#WeeklyForecast

I want to continue with the listening of How to Say Babylon.

I just read the first story in The Redemption of Galen Pike and it didn‘t go the way I thought, so I‘m looking forward to more stories in this collection

I‘m about halfway into Restless Dolly Maunder and expect to finish it today

Then I want to read A Long Song for Ricki Wilde

And hopefully I also get to start Monstress vol 8

#BookReport

I continued with both Thunderclap and the audio of How to Say Babylon

I finished Enter Ghost
I read The Strangeworlds Travel Agency The Edge of the Ocean and Sweet Desserts

I‘ve started Restless Dolly Maunder

This was the masterpiece that drew Marcel Proust out of his cork-lined room in Paris for the last time. He had seen it once before, in a visit to The Hague in 1902. It was to him ‘the most beautiful painting in the world‘. Almost twenty years later, suffering from lung disease, he made a shorter but more arduous pilgrimage from his apartment in boulevard Malesherbes, near the Madeleine, across four streets to the Jeu de Paume,

#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

As soon as she could walk, she knew she wanted to be outside, moving

#FirstLineFridays

Sonia returns to Haifa, Israel, to visit her sister Haneen. While there she gets pulled into a Palestinian theatre production of Hamlet. As the actors learn their lines and get there feel of the play, we get Sonia and Haneen‘s backstory. We also learn about everyday in this region, how it is to pass through checkpoints and being in the hands of the soldier doing the control, sudden demonstrations and reactions.

On a shopping trip with George & Bess, Nancy visit a perfume place where they‘ve trouble buying a perfume. On the train home Nancy is approached by a man who recognizes the perfume & wants to know if she has a message from the boss. Also on the train they get in contact with Millie. The friends decide to come home with Millie and help get more visitors to the farm she‘s from. While there Nancy learns that part of the land is rented out to a cult

I love this dedication:
“To Molly
and
to all the girls who fell in love with
the pirate king Elizabeth Swann”

This is not a chronological account of the different emperors from Octavian 44 BCE until Alexander Severus death 235 CE. This is a look at what it meant to be an emperor, what where your responsibilities, what recognized a good emperor, how was the household run and all your employees. It also looks at the women close to the emperor like mother and wife. It closes of with a look at how some of the emperors where turned into goods after their death

#WeeklyForecast

Continue with both Thunerclap and the audio How to Say Babylon. Both from The Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction Shortlist

I want to finish Enter Ghost, read The Strangeworlds Travel Agency The Edge of the Ocean and hopefully get a start on Sweet Desserts

A woman is taking care of her baby. In her eyes, her husband is never home, but always in the office. So she is left with “just” taking care of the baby and house 24/7. A grim portrait of the early days of motherhood.

‘I get just two days off, you know?‘ my husband was complaining. ‘I get just two days off a week and I have to waste one of them in IKEA?‘
‘Two whole days? I haven‘t had a day off since he was born. Unless we count the time I was hospitalised with pneumonia. And then you got your mother in.‘

‘Our marriage. Where is it going?‘
‘What do you mean? I just got a promotion.‘
‘How could you not get a promotion?‘
‘You mean congratulations?‘
‘No, I mean, how could you not get a promotion when you‘re always in the office? You‘ve a wife who does all the cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. She pairs your socks, she books your dental appointments . She sorts out all this shit,‘ I said, tapping the tax and insurance discs displayed on the

#BookReport

I had a great reading week probably due to no plans after work and I had yesterday day off work

So I finished Brotherless Night and The Emperor of Rome. Both amazing reads

I read The Wren, the Wren; Soldier Sailor and The Stories at the Red Gate Farm

I continued listening to How to Say Babylon

I‘m currently reading Enter Ghost and Thunderclap

I‘m not sure how I feel about this book, soft pick, so-so.

About a mother and daughter, and their relationship to each other and the people around them.

I think this need to sit with me before I know how I feel about. I‘m not sure the author is trying to tell, that we‘re more similar to our parents than we think? What we‘re a product out past?

I excepted them to interrogate me at the airport and they did

#FirstLineFridays

This book - I how no words. This was amazing

It‘s the 80s and the Sri Lankan civil war. The Tamil Tigers is fighting for more freedom and independence. The men goes off to fight, but we follow a young girl, Sashi, who remains with her mother and younger brother, trying to live her life. This is war from a woman‘s point of view; how to get food, the insecurities as the military/ Tigers patrol the streets and bombs and the threats of rape.

The city used to be a mining city before it was closed down, and we follow 3 generations in the same family, and how they are living. We‘re also meeting the academics that come in to learn something and make a difference.

Their mother, Terry, read books all day, even when she was well. She lay in bed in the morning, she came down and propped the book against the teapot, she moved to a deckchair in the garden with her feet akimbo, and one arm flung high. If you spoke to her while she was reading she would look at you from a lovely distance.

You can‘t tell Carmel you have a problem or she‘ll go out and beat someone up for you. My mother is the woman who goes over to the jetski-guy on the beach, when you are five years old, shouting, How dear you frighten my child with that stupid, horrible machine. She is the woman who phones the government when your Irish exam is too hard (no really), she is, bless her, a crusader and a fighter - if you get a grope from some old perv on the bus she

The 2nd book in the Gereon Rath series.

Berlin, late February/ early March 1930. The police is called after an actress has died in what appears to be a tragic accident. Then another actress goes missing.

I loved how this book gave insight into the transition from silent movies to talkies, and how as with everything else not everyone likes the new technology and possibilities.

Another winner in the series

#WeeklyForecast

I want to continue reading The Emperor of Rome

Then the rest of my reading is very Women‘s Prize heavy.
I want to finish Brotherless Night
I want to read The Wren, the Wren
I want to hopefully get a start on Soldier Sailor

I also want to listen to How to say Babylon

The 12th book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series. In this one someone close to Hanne is found dead in a container. At the same time Ebba finds out that she‘s pregnant and she doesn‘t know how that could be. Off course Hanne decides that she needs to investigate both. Could these instances be connected? And what is going on?

At home Hanne and her wife is struggling and this ends with Nefis moving out. How will Hanne cope with living on her own?

#BookReport

I finished The Silent Death and read Pity

I continued The Emperor of Rome and I‘ve just started Brotherless Night

I recently sent a letter to a terrorist I used to know.

(What a first line)
#FirsrLineFridays

This month‘s #BookSpinBingo card is ready

#BookSpin is one of the books I bought in NYC arhat I‘m excited about and #DoubleSpin is this month‘s #NancyDrewBR

Here‘s to another great reading month

How can the first quarter of the year already be over and it‘s April?

This is my #Bookspin, #DoubleSpin and BookSpinBingo list

Exited to see what numbers are drawn tomorrow

(Picture used is by Lisa Aisato)

#WeeklyForecast

Continue my audio How to Say Babylon and to continue my reading of Emperor of Rome

I want to finish The Silent Death

I‘m going to an event with Andrew McMillan on Wednesday and hope to get a start on Pity before that, otherwise I‘ll just read it afterwards

I also hope to get back to some Women‘s Prize for Fiction reading again and get a start on Brotherless Night

#BookReport

I‘ve finished Physical, Ordinary Human Failings and Wifedom

I read the latest Markund and Holt

I‘m currently reading The Silent Death and The Emperor of Rome. I also discovered the tagged as an audio at my audiobook service so I‘ve just started listening to it

After reading this, I must admit that I‘m glad I‘ve never read any of Orwell‘s book. There‘s no pedestal to push him down from

He hardly mentions his wife in his correspondence and books, even when she‘s there helping him out. Which makes it easier for his previous biographers to not include her either. He‘s also a cheater and on at least two occasions he‘s trying to force himself on women. And still there‘s more red flags surrounding him.

The Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction Shortlist has just been announced.

No Eve or Wifedom which I read/ almost finished and absolutely loved.

But All That She Carried that I‘ve also read and enjoyed, and Thunderclap which I‘ve bought

I‘ve seen great reviews for the others as well.

What do you make of the shortlist?

A poetry collection that according to the blurb “are hymns to the male body - to male friendship and male love - muscular, sometimes shocking, but always deeply moving.”

Poetry is not really my thing, so this collection is somewhere between a pick and a so-so rating, but I am going to an event with him right after Easter and I wanted to read some of his poetry before that.

2nd book for #MarvellousMarch
@Andrew65

A body‘s found in the swamp, investigation shows it‘s a man. He‘s been there for some time. This man is closer to Police Inspector Wiking Stormberg‘s family than he think. Wiking looks into his family history and find a lot he didn‘t know before. A reminder that our parents have lived lives before we are born and that we don‘t know everything about their past

This is the last in a trilogy, but I still hope for another book based on the ending

1990, a 3 yr old girl is found dead. The suspicion falls on a 10 yr old girl. A journalist that‘s in the area when it happens, decides to take advantage of this and puts the family in a hotel to get exclusive access to them. His talks with the grandfather, uncle and mother uncovers a divided family with alcohol problems and neglect. Prejudice and assumptions also play a role in the society‘s allegations.

I feel like I raced through this one

Our protagonist gets a call that he need to go home and that‘s what he does. We follow him on the plane ride and his other transportations, and while he travels people he meet will tell him his story, both strangers and extended family.

That ending caught me completely by surprise but at the same time it explains something that happens during the novel.

#WeeklyForecast

I‘m currently reading three books; the poetry collection Physical which I hope to finish, Wifedom that I want to continue reading and Marklund‘s latest crime novel. The only thing with the Marklund is that is thought it was translated into Norwegian and it‘s the Swedish edition and I wasn‘t quite present for that.

I also want to read the latest crime novel from Bolt and start The Silent Death

#BookReport

A late report since I‘ve spent the day with my nieces shopping

Finished Evelina #RandomClassics, Erasure and Eve

I read Hangman

I‘m currently reading Physical, Ordinary Human Failings and Wifedom

I‘ll just leave that there

Every once in a while, I read a book that changes how I see the world. This is one of those books. Working her way the the body, Bohannon shows that the stereotypes we are thought is not the truth. This book will stay with me. I hope it gets translated into Norwegian so I can read it again and get all the nuances.

And with Bohannon‘s finishing words:
“as I will tell my own children someday, that every power men have ever had over women is

Thelonius “Monk” Ellison is a black American writing intricate and philosophical novels, and not fitting the themes for a black person to write about. For fun and as a parody he writes the ultimate black novel under a pseudonym and everyone loves it. What is a man to do when everyone wants to meet him?

At the same time his mother‘s memory is fading fast. His brother has his own issues. And has his deceased father hidden something from everyone?

I read the novel through the Gutenberg project so while I was looking for a cover, I came across this one that seemed to fit the novel.

17 yr Evelina doesn‘t know much about the world, when friends take her to London for a few weeks. During her first dance she manages to break a lot of the rules. At time Evelina‘s naïveté is a little annoying, but it does much all the other annoying characters, mostly men who can‘t take a hint

So instead of going home I pulled In around the corner at a second-hand bookshop, Sappho.
[…]
Sappho is the opposite of a mall: no one is trying to sell you anything. In fact, the tattooed woman at the till sighs ruefully when you buy one of their books, as if money couldn‘t, possibly, make up the loss. This place is entirely soul.

(Picture found online when searching Sappho bookstore, not sure it‘s the right one, but gave the right feeling)

This book was a treat

Eloise is a self proclaimed hermit that has to plan every human interaction because they drain her. George is a would be poet who has worked as a professor

Every once in a while this book would have me wonder what was real and what wasn‘t

It‘s hard to explain, but there‘s just something in Ellmann‘s writing that I love. I will definitely read more by her.

The third bookstore we visited was Three Lives and Company in Greenwich Village

Several BookTubers have stated that The Redemption of Galen Pike is the best short story collection they‘ve ever read

Lauren over on Lauren and the Books had Dominoes in her prediction video for the Women‘s Prize for Fiction Longlist and the blurb sound intriguing

The same goes for Martyr which also has an interesting blurb

The second bookish place we visited was Bibliotheque in SoHo

This is a bookstore, cafe and wine bar. It was very dark inside so hard to get a look at the titles, but probably perfect if you‘re there to sit down

I ended up with this one. Simon Savidge over on SavidgeReads on YouTube has been raving about this series

The first bookstore we visited was McNally Jackson in Midtown - we loved this one when we visited last time

Both Daddy‘s Gone A-Hunting and The Postcard is #BlameLitsy buys, and Jen Campbell recommended Daddy on her channel as well

So it seemed only appropriate that I bought her book as well

I loved Tia Williams Seven Days In June so when I saw that she had a new book out, I had to have it

I also got this cute tote bag