Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
halfdesertedstreets

halfdesertedstreets

Joined May 2016

book-pusher & educator
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Anne of Green Gables | L M Montgomery
post image
4 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
All of this is True | Lygia Day Peaflor
post image
Pickpick

All of This is True details what unfolds when a group of teens meet their idol, twentysomething author Fatima Ro, and find her everything they'd dreamed her to be and more. The author writes herself into their lives with the intensity of a cult leader. But when Ro's new novel comes out, the teens discover they weren't just the author's friends; they were characters she'd been using to fuel the arc of her narrative.

KateFulfordAuthor If you need another recommendation, may I point you to my People‘s Book Prize nominated debut? Sassy female narrative, laugh out dialogue and a pacy plot. Check the link in the bio for 2 free chapters, reviews and more. 6y
3 likes1 comment
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
What is Art? | graf Leo Tolstoy
post image

🌿

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

Some books use words as bricks, stacked one after the other until the whole beautiful story is built. In other books, the words themselves are marvels, things of loveliness on their own that, even if the story was not there, would be worth reading all the same. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is proving to be just such a book, as glorious within as its cover promises. The story is quiet and vivid (and heartbreaking).

5 likes2 stack adds
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
How Democracies Die | Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt
post image

Here are the books I‘m looking forward to tackling in February. I‘m excited about every single one of these, but the two new Australian offerings — A Free Flame and Tin Heart — are especially appealing. 💕

quote
halfdesertedstreets
Of this and other worlds | Clive Staples Lewis, Walter Hooper
post image

“A book‘s no good to me until I‘ve read it two or three times.” — CS Lewis

quote
halfdesertedstreets
Rainbow Valley | L. M. Montgomery
post image

“Being an old maid does not hurt when you get used to it.”

review
halfdesertedstreets
post image
Pickpick

I don‘t think I‘ll ever stop singing the praises of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. It‘s an incredibly winning and warm wartime memoir-turned-into-fiction by Judith Kerr. There‘s something authentic, innocent, and rare about the voice of its young narrator, Anna; her childlike view of war and life as a political refugee is accessible for young readers yet never loses its pathos and power.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Persuasion | Jane Austen
post image

❤️

quote
halfdesertedstreets
Drawing Sybylla | Odette Kelada
post image

“That‘s what happens when you enter a story. You become it. They are not safe things, stories. They are not for bedtime with a hot cup of milk, like you‘ve been told. They‘re dangerous.”

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

Happy Tuesday night!

1 like1 stack add
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
The Last Hours | Minette Walters
post image

A few of these got tucked away in little public transport hiding spots locally today. Let me know if you found one!! #booksontherail

6 likes1 stack add
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Drawing Sybylla | Odette Kelada
post image

My #currentlyreading pile is big, beautiful, and eclectic. What‘s on yours?

4 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
Untidy Towns | Kate ODonnell
post image
Pickpick

Untidy Towns: genuine, loveable bookish main character ✔️ the uncertainty of year 12 ✔️ blossoming adulthood ✔️ endearing mother-daughter relationship ✔️ incredibly cute little sister ✔️ small town Australia ✔️ a gentle, authentic story arc ✔️ lost friendships reclaimed ✔️ perfect literary references ✔️ a nice boy ✔️ young romance that has realistic expectations ✔️ excellent girl pals ✔️ the complexity of growing up ✔️ humour and quiet bravery ✔️.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

Now.

6 likes1 stack add
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Invictus | Ryan Graudin
post image

EXCITED FOR THIS.

6 likes2 stack adds
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
When Dimple Met Rishi | Sandhya Menon
post image

When Dimple Met Rishi met milkshakes and sushi.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Rain Birds | Harriet McKnight
post image

I'm currently reading, thinking, mulling over this one. Beautiful and unsettling, deeply Australian, brutal and tender, with that brooding atmosphere of eerie calm before a storm.

3 likes2 stack adds
quote
halfdesertedstreets
Real Friends | Shannon Hale
post image

"Please love us!!"
"No way, we're too busy to be lovey."

This is a gem through and through. Thank you times a million, @ohthathayley. ❤️

1 stack add
quote
halfdesertedstreets
The Town | Shaun Prescott
post image

"On a Sunday morning the town seemed lost to the countryside and highways surrounding, and the people there pitiable in their inconsequence. During a lengthy drive from the country to the city, passing through the town could make the world seem larger and more unfathomable, because how did these people get here, and why did they stay."

Oof.

4 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
The Course of Love: A Novel | Alain de Botton
post image
Pickpick

What can I say about this book? I am in raptures. I love it so much that I'm giving it five stars even though I fundamentally disagree with de Botton's stance on sex and fidelity. He'd say that was romanticism; I'd say it was my Judeo-Christian worldview. We'd chuckle and clink our champagne flutes together and agree to disagree in the lightest of ways.

Yes, I love this book and its earthy, funny, warm wisdom.

7 likes1 stack add
quote
halfdesertedstreets
The Course of Love: A Novel | Alain de Botton
post image

"The love of flowers is a consequence of modesty and an accomodation with disappointment. Some things need to go permanently wrong before we can start to admire the stem of a rose or the petals of a bluebell. But once we realise that the larger dreams are always compromised in some way, with what gratitude we may turn to these minuscule islands of serene perfection and delight."

7 likes1 stack add
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Tru and Nelle | Greg Neri
post image

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? A children's mystery inspired by the friendship of Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee.

BooknerdsLife Oh That's really neat! 😃 7y
halfdesertedstreets @BookaddictsLife it's just adorable and such a unique idea! 7y
BooknerdsLife Yes! Its so adorable and sounds very interesting indeed 🙌 7y
MyBookBath Oh, I think I need this in my life! Thanks for posting. 7y
11 likes1 stack add4 comments
review
halfdesertedstreets
In Cold Blood | Truman Capote
post image
Pickpick

It feels odd to say that a book about such an atrocity can be good, but this is a masterpiece. Shocking, compelling, with -brilliant- characterisation.

MyBookBath This is a very cool looking edition! 7y
12 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

A memoir. About food and cooking. I'm there.

thebooksatchel Love books about food 7y
MyBookBath 👱‍♀️🔪🥘🥗🥙 7y
halfdesertedstreets @thebooksatchel I feel sure I'm going to eat way too much while I read this! 7y
halfdesertedstreets @MyBookBag 💪🏼🍜🌮🍩 7y
17 likes1 stack add4 comments
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Begin, End, Begin: a #LoveOzYA Anthology | Amie Kaufman, Gabrielle Tozer, Jaclyn Moriarty, Ellie Marney, Alice Pung, Will Kostakis, Melissa Keil, Michael Pryor, Lili Wilkinson
post image

Left this little collection of Australia's sweethearts at the bus stop for someone to find today. #booksontherail

lucyintheskycreations That's such a wondeful thing you did 🌼💙😊💕 7y
thebooksatchel The cover is so pretty 7y
ohthathayley I have a whole stack of books to do this with, but I don't know where to put them that they won't get ruined by the weather. 7y
16 likes3 stack adds3 comments
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
In Cold Blood | Truman Capote
post image

This is chilling, compelling reading with a lot of literary merit. There's also something very cool about reading true crime from an era which layered a filter of relative wholesomeness over things. It's all of the intensity without the gut-churning detail.

braveliteraryworld This is gorgeous !! 7y
16 likes3 stack adds1 comment
review
halfdesertedstreets
Coraline | Neil Gaiman
post image
Pickpick

Deliciously creepy. And empowering that it was written in tiny pieces, a line at a time, because there was no time for more.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott
post image

Forever fave.

psy_kaoru I've only ever read Little Women. And that was years ago. Definitely due for a reread. 7y
Chachic Those cupcakes! 😋 7y
13 likes2 comments
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott
post image

Was thinking today how remarkable it is that a story about four teenage sisters and their relationships with one another, published in an era when the world of literature was dominated in many ways by male professionals, should be so enduring.

review
halfdesertedstreets
Anne of Green Gables | L. M. Montgomery
post image
Pickpick

I've begun watching the new Anne series in fits and starts, ten minutes here and there. I was hesitant to dive in; the Anne books are so important to me (I'm probably 27% LM Montgomery by this point) and the 80s films became inextricably entwined with my experience of the books. Nothing else could replicate that. But I'm cautiously, wonderingly delighted.

rubyslippersreads Lovely photo! 7y
10 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Once and for All | Sarah Dessen
post image

Sarah Dessen is light reading's happy place.

7 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
post image
Mehso-so

Noir and filmic and genre-typifying -- but I just couldn't get past the latent skeeviness. That, and my fingers kept itching to go at the descriptive passages with a judicious red pen. Two stars for this one.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

So far, so wonderful.

6 likes1 stack add
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
The Years | Virginia Woolf
post image

Currently reading.

6 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
Blood for Blood | Ryan Graudin
post image
Pickpick

Well, that broke my heart.

6 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott
post image
Pickpick

Forever fave.

blurb
halfdesertedstreets
post image

My first Hardy!

review
halfdesertedstreets
The Road to Winter | Mark Smith
post image
Pickpick

A clean and spare near-future dystopia, set in the desolation following a plague which wiped out much of the population. It details sixteen year old Finn's attempts to stay alive and stay ahead of the Wilders, mobs who rule the land by force. Finn's isolation is shattered by the arrival of Rose, a young woman running for her life. Rose's arrival draws from Finn an even deeper measure of responsibility and courage -- as well as danger.

3 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
Caramel Hearts | Elizabeth Murray
post image
Pickpick

"Hope is our one true weapon. I didn‘t want to shy away from the darkness – we all experience darkness in our lives – but I also didn‘t want the story to be bleak."

My interview with author ER Murray is up on my blog now! http://bookityboo.blogspot.com

@Bloomsbury_Publishing

review
halfdesertedstreets
Becoming Aurora | Elizabeth Kasmer
post image
Pickpick

Queensland summers, year's end, scapegoats, racism, maturity, the gap between childhood and adulthood, boxing, Persian tea houses, the elderly, coming of age, family, grief, first love.

MrBook That's it 😆😜? 8y
halfdesertedstreets @MrBook you'll have to read it for yourself and find out the rest. 😉😊 8y
MrBook Ohhh, alriiigghht. You make me sound like I'm a reader or something 😎👌🏻. 8y
4 likes1 stack add3 comments
review
halfdesertedstreets
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bront
post image
Pickpick

The end left me in tears. Jane, you're my favourite, a heroine for the ages.

Libretto_Reviews I don't read much classics but I have to say that I loved this one to tears 😭 8y
SusanInTiburon What a cool photo! 8y
CynthiasBiblioFiles Love Jane Eyre! Almost finished CB's biography. Even sadder.😢 8y
MrBook Love this picture! 8y
10 likes1 stack add4 comments
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck
post image

This cover is the bomb.

4 likes2 stack adds
review
halfdesertedstreets
post image
Pickpick

Honestly, it makes me cry laughing.

Linsy Great pic! 💕 6y
3 likes1 comment
quote
halfdesertedstreets
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bront
post image

"Be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."

MrBook Mmmmmm 😋👍🏻 8y
5 likes1 comment
review
halfdesertedstreets
post image
Pickpick

One Would Think the Deep is a gloriously-written, uncompromising addition to Australia‘s beautiful YA fiction tradition. At its heart, it‘s about grief. But it‘s also a story of young adults growing up into who they are meant to be, and its ending offers a satisfying hint at a new beginning. (Full review at http://bookityboo.blogspot.com)

4 likes1 stack add
review
halfdesertedstreets
Alice in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll
post image
Pickpick

When a student turns up dressed as Alice... 👌🏼

MrBook Nice! That is so cool! 8y
5 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bront
post image

Jane Eyre is herself a tiny, beautiful succulent. She doesn't just survive; she thrives in spite of inhospitable and harsh surrounds.
#janeeyre #charlottebronte #currentlyreading

13 likes2 stack adds
blurb
halfdesertedstreets
1Q84 | Haruki Murakami
post image

I'm so pumped to be starting in on this.

7 likes1 stack add
quote
halfdesertedstreets
post image

"Baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is."

7 likes2 stack adds