@slategreyskies here is an Aurora rainbow for you.

🌈 This was over my house a few weeks ago. I couldn‘t see it with the naked eye, but the colours only became visible when I took the picture. There is more colour and joy and support than we could ever know.

A perfect way to spend an afternoon. ❤️🌈❤️

Guys!

My review made “front page” of the Waterstones website!

I‘m getting back into the swing of things with Litsy now. It has taken me awhile to adjust to being back at work again. I started a job at Waterstones nearly two years ago, and I‘m grateful to be surrounded by the books I love. 😃

If you‘re ever in Northern Ireland, get in touch and I can show you around my shop!

#waterstones
#northernireland

Good morning, Littens!

I‘m revisiting a childhood favourite.

“I‘ll turn you into a bad poet with dreams.” 🤣

Hello!

My name is Katniss.

I am nearly 9 weeks old.

I lick the covers of book and nibble on their pages.

#LittenKittens
#CatsofLitsyConfessions
#CatsofLitsy

This is the second book in the series and I‘m really enjoying it so far. Set in India in 1950, it follows the first female police officer in the newly independent country.

Hello!

I work at my local Waterstones book shop and have the great joy of running our Book Club.

In November our club wants to read a funny book and I‘m at a loss as to what to recommend. I give them a choice of three different books and the group votes for the book.

The books can‘t be too long and preferably not part of a series (unless it‘s maybe the first book?).

I would really appreciate your recommendations in the comments! ❤️

“No one is ever really dead, only dead to certain times and places. To you, the people who lived before you were born are now ‘dead‘, but you‘re also ‘dead‘ to the people born after you.”

Jamie and Lucy have just met their first ghosts in this charming middle grade novel, and things suddenly got very deep!

It‘s 2008, Obama has just been elected for the first time, and the Big Guy is ready to lose his mind. The Big Guy can always buy what he wants, and this changing America is NOT what he wants. Can he create a cabal around him to take the country back?

This satire is devastating, prescient, and often funny. It‘s dialogue-heavy and clunky at times. There were times I loved it and times I wanted to throw it across the room.

An almost perfect book.

It‘s here!!!

Small Things Like These for the win.

I‘m disappointed that The Colony by Audrey Magee missed out, but I‘m delighted for Claire Keegan.

#BookerPrize

The Great Passion is beautifully written historical fiction based on the life of Bach. In this passage Bach is helping a student get through a particularly difficult passage on the organ but I thought he was giving good life advice:

“This is how we master a problem… We run up to it until we find that it is so familiar that it no longer holds its terrors… Then we can continue without anxiety. You could give it a cheery wave as you say goodbye.”

“A new day can always bring you anything if you have no objection to it.”

The Moomins bring such joy!

Hello, Littens!

Have a great day.

I‘m starting mine with The Exploits of Moominpappa before work.

How about you?

“Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honoured in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist‘s business is lying.”

This book is so much fun.

It imagines the Brontë sisters as amateur detectives.

I was won over early on when Anne Brontë was recognised as a warrior.

Go, Anne!

#TeamAnneBronte
#PatientRevolutionary

(Excuse my crappy editing.)

“… but then most plain clothes officers aren‘t called upon to face down unicorns, sentient mould and the occasional carnivorous tree.”

I love the random humour in this series.

Even my cappuccino couldn‘t help but smile at this delightful book cover.

At the start of the book, the artist opines that he can‘t seem to figure out how to use colour in his art.

I think he fixed that!

I love finding unexpected gems like this at the library.

#LitsyLovesLibraries

I have brought a strange combination of books with me this morning! A Children‘s fantasy, Obama‘s autobiography and a book about the menopause. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I wish you were here with me, @Oryx , for one of these fancy scones!

Prince William writes the introduction of this book, where he provides two helpful equations on how we should view environmental challenges.

The first, which I fear I have fallen into all too often, is:

Urgency + Pessimism = Despondency

The second, which I‘m trying to embrace, is:

Urgency + Optimism = Action

I would also replace Optimism in that equation with Hope.

JFK once called for the “Moonshot”: a dedicated, detailed plan to get humans to the Moon. This book is, instead, an “Earthshot”: a dedicated, detailed plan and series of prizes to help arrest the environmental devastation of our planet.

“It is easy to see humans as a problem, even to see ourselves as a burden on the planet. Please avoid that… We can have a good footprint, too.”

Try to read it without singing it in your head.

I dare you.

(Sorry I had to crop out pics of a morose looking Edgar and a jolly Dolly.)

The title of my next chapter. 🤣

I could make a list!

Oh, how I enjoyed Banville‘s writing style.

But then he ruined it with a completely unforgivable section that felt like an assault. All the trigger warnings here. It utterly spoiled the whole work for me. I‘m still recovering.

Thankfully, my trusty cat Scully is here to comfort me. Here she is looking particularly fetching and entirely goofy.

An utterly joyful book about a horse drawn traveling bookshop and the adventures of its human and animal companions (a dog named Bock - short for Boccaccio!).

This book made me smile.

I start a new job at Waterstones book shop this morning! I am absolutely bricking it.

If you‘re the prayerful type I would really appreciate your “thoughts and prayers”!

I‘m half an hour early, so I‘m hoping this cozy mystery and some cinnamon on my cappuccino will help.

Close up of part of my Bookish Cats puzzle.

Some of the other squares had Romeow and Juliet and Charlie and the Catnip Factory. 😻

This cute little Cyclops was my favourite.

My husband has been begging me for YEARS to read The Silmarillon. He has this beautiful and expensive edition that makes it impossible for me to say no.

So far, I‘ve been taking notes to try to keep the characters straight! Some of the writing and ideas are absolutely splendid (Niessa, anyone?), but it is certainly challenging to read.

Any other Silmarillion fans out there?

I was disappointed with this book. There were some intriguing characters, (especially Irene and Laura), but I think they book eventually fell flat. I loved Into the Water and enjoyed Girl on the Train, but there were too many story lines that weren‘t properly developed.

I could list many trigger warnings, but in particular there‘s a completely unnecessary scene of extreme animal cruelty.

Essentially, I think it‘s a sadly forgettable book.

Apologies if this has been posted, but I think this is hilarious!

What is it about bad parents in Victorian literature?

Poor, put upon Margaret Hale does everything for her weakling of a mother and dithering father.

What are your nominations for bad parents in literature?

I‘m still trying to teach Scully cat not to chew on my books.

#CatsOfLitsy

SING FOR ME!!!

I feel like the Phantom of the Opera shouting at Christine when he‘s taken her to his underground lair.

Good morning, Littens!

I have found an oasis of calm this morning to try to power through the behemoth that is Dombey and Son.

I hope you all have a great day! ❤️📚❤️

Ben Aaronovitch!

Please please please write a spin-off series focusing on Elsie Winstanley and Dr. Postmartin.

Please please pretty please!!!

Each September I read a Dickens novel, and this year‘s selection is Dombey and Son. I was surprised to realise that I only have one more novel left to read after this, so it‘ll be Martin Chuzzlewit next year!

I love how this coffee shop honours those clever goats and that even cleverer Ethiopian goatherd, Kaldi, who discovered coffee.

Thank you, Goats! ❤️🐐❤️☕️❤️

🤣🤣🤣

From the For Reading Addicts Facebook page.

I hit the Alexander McCall Smith jackpot at the library today!

I lost my job last week and am about to begin my penultimate shift (final shift tomorrow), so I‘m grateful I‘ll have something joyous to read.

I‘m OK, as we‘re not in desperate straits, but it is disappointing that I risk that I took to put myself forward for the job isn‘t working out.

Here‘s to Failing Forward and finding the next adventure! 🥳

Very good indeed.

This book would be an excellent tool for classrooms of middle grade students and teens. By discussing displacement the book gives a greater understanding to the reader of the reasons why people must flee, which I hope would invoke compassion and a sense of identification with people in this position.

The book is well written and thoughtful.

Totally nonsensical, this book is impossible to rate, or even to understand in any coherent way. However, dipping in and out of the nonsense evokes a strange joy.

I‘ll leave you with the book‘s final thought, and if you figure out what this means you are a genius:

“The care with which there is an incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.”

Thanks, @SerialReader !

#MagnificentAsparagus

A New Yorker article from 1934 describing Gertrude Stein‘s driving ability, (or lack of it!) and comparing it with her writing style.

This gave me a chuckle as these poems are a HOT MESS.

Sorry.

I couldn‘t resist. 🤣💀

(From the For Reading Addicts Facebook page.)

My goal for the #20in4 Readathon is 20 half hours, totalling ten hours! At the end of Day 3 I‘m nearly there.

My time was supplemented today by listening to the audiobook of the excellent Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. What a book!

Thanks again, @Andrew65 for organising the Readathon. I hope everyone else is enjoying it as much as I am!

This quiet, understated book brims over with rich descriptions of the landscapes and wildlife of 1950s Australia, as seen through the eyes of two recent immigrants. This was a gentle, thoughtful, kind love story that made me feel wistful.

Shute‘s writing is a dream, but his portrayal of post-war England was definitely more of a nightmare, which he oddly blamed on the National Health Service. I‘ll overlook that weird anomaly!

#20in4
@Andrew65

I‘ve made a good start with the #20in4 Readathon!

I‘m hoping to read for 20 half hours, totalling 10 hours.

I‘m really enjoying this book set in Australia and England, as well as an audiobook by British astronaut Tim Peake.

Thanks for the encouragement, @Andrew65 ! I hope everyone taking part in the Readathon has had a great day!

This book is STRANGE.

I think I should wander about and randomly spout off lines like,

“The sudden spoon is the wound in the decision.”

🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄

This was absolutely excellent. I learned so much, and have so much left to learn.

I will keep learning, and keep trying to “love fully”, as Jason Reynolds wrote in the Afterword.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I had a little moment when reading this when I read the word “lifeline” as li-FELINE.

#CatsOnTheBrain

As ever with this author, this book was a gentle, charming read.

Paul and his cousin Chloe are staying in a rural French village with the unlikely distinction of being the home of the second worst restaurant in France. Can Paul become a culinary hero? Can such simple things be considered heroic?

Alexander McCall Smith always paints kindness as a heroic endeavour.

Underdogs is an engaging early teen dystopia where the heroes are all neurodivergent kids. Written by a neurodivergent author, Bonnello also leads the excellent Facebook group Autistic Not Weird.

I really liked this book. It had some typical first novel issues (the start was jittery), but it was great to read a book where neurodivergent people are the heroes!

And it had a villain with the unlikely name of Keith.

#OwnVoices
#Neorodivergent