Weekly stats

#stats #bookly #weeklyreading

12-18 Aug weekly report

#stats #bookly #weeklyreading

I have been in a significant slump since early July, I can mainly consume books in audio format. It is a bit upsetting, but at least I am reading.
I am one chapter into this one and it is an interesting and insightful look into the way we perceive, judge and deal with female celebrities gone off the rails, and what does that say about our society and gender expectations.

#audiobooks #readingslump #feminism #popculture #nonfiction

I love Shafak‘s style and storytelling, but god damn it what‘s with her and similes? Every page there is at least 2 similes!! The damn book editor should be fired! Also Shafak can‘t write children! Her children (6 yrs) are old defeated broken souls and that‘s even before they were hit with tragedy. She misses on how children view the world through “magic goggles.”
Nevertheless, immensely enjoying this journey through Turkey‘s modern history.

As someone who is very uneasy with the topic of death and everything related to it, I am both excited and apprehensive about starting this book.

#currentlyreading #nonfiction #death #deathindustry

This book is laugh-out-funny, heartbreaking, poignant, incisive, and silly in equal measures.

One of the best graphics memoirs I have ever read, and I highly recommend it.

#recommendsday #favourites #graphicmemoirs

Weekend mode

#weekendreads #bookerlonglist #turkishlit #turkish

Mystery series I‘m dying to continue/get to

#mystery #mysteryseries #tbr #classics
#womenwriters

In order to refocus my reading, I've created this reading bingo to make sure that the new hyped books are not distracting me from getting to books and topics I have been meaning to get to for years now.
This is not a year or a season challenge, rather it's a constant point of reference to make sure I get to key books/authors on my TBR
I used the following bingo card generator:
https://osric.com/bingo-card-generator

#readinglife #readingchallenge

I started this book two months ago, and I am just 80 pages in.
What to do when you can‘t get through a book but you can see that it is actually a beautiful and poignant read 🤔

#readerpropblems #currentlyreading

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Ocean Vuong is a talented writer and poet. However, his first genre-pending poetic fictionalised memoir has sadly fallen short at least as a fictional narrative and as a memoir. On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous is beautifully poetic, moving and brilliant at many instances, yet at many others it came across as an overwritten draft or unedited incomplete thoughts from a private diary.

#review #memoir #bookly

Finally getting to this one after procrastinating for almost a year

#weekendreads #nonfiction #audiobook #currentlyreading

1- I am on Goodreads https://bit.ly/331rCKN - Instagram (though not very active)@nisreenzz - Twitter @NisreenAlZaraee
2- No. Though I'd love to try!
3- Reading (obviously!), knitting, embroidery & cooking
4- Learning Turkish & German, watercolour painting, & playing the piano

#hellothursday @wanderinglynn

“The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be adult.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

#quotes #favourites #Bookerprize #Irishlit #Irish

The last of week of July redeemed the whole month. I got my mojo back and finished 3 wonderful books:
They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+
On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Enard ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#stats #weeklyreading #bookly

“Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage”

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a marvellous historical family saga and the best book I have read so far on the experience of immigrants/refugees.

#historicalfiction #Japan #Korea #quote #favourites #refugees #immigration

Heading to 16th century Constantinople for a little break...

#weekendreads #historicalfiction #history #booksintranslation #historicalfic #frenchlit

“The truth is one nation, under drugs, under drones.”
Ocean Vuong

#quotes #weekendreads

1- On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous & How To Be Right in a World Gone Wrong
2- They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
3- Reunion dinner with a group of dear friends

#weekendreads
@rachelsbrittain

Great addition to the time travel/sci-fi genre. Through an almost all female cast, Mascarenhas delivers a brilliant and page turning murder mystery with a squad of female scientists, queer romance, and beautiful tales of ambition, betrayal and love.

#favourite #scifi #timetravel #fiction

Just started this one. I really do hope it lives up to the hype

#reading #fiction

The worst sickening Islamophobic racist and sexist garbage I've ever read. It does not even redeem itself with a good plot and proper characterisation.
This kind of books being published and actually celebrated is a sad statement at the time we live in.
There is not enough space here to express my disgust, so plz check Emily May's excellent review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1639142185?book_show_action=false

“If only human beings were not masks behind masks behind masks. If only this world was a clean board of lines and intersections. If only time was a sequence of considered moves and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.”

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
David Mitchell

#quote #favourites

so July ended up my worst reading month in two years, but then again I guess I needed the break.
#weeklystats #bookly #stats

The Booker longlist is here!!
So far I have read Lanny (SUPERB), The Wall (brilliant & poignant dystopian on the aftermath of a climate-crisis), and My Sister, The Serial Killer (entertaining but MEDIOCRE on every level).
On my TBR:
Ducks, Newburyport
Lost Children Archive
10 Minutes, 30 Seconds in This Strange World
Fran Kiss Stein
The Testaments (waiting for reviews as I'm hesitant to read anything that might undermine the Handmaid's Tale)

So I got this discount code today from #Bookly. I have a premium subscription and have already paid for it, so basically no gains whatsoever for me. I just love this app and appreciate how much it helped and improved my reading life and want others to enjoy it.

Code: Use this link https://bookly.app.link/xks7RTPVvY to install Bookly - Read More and get 30% OFF on Bookly PRO

Started #24in48 Readathon 45 mins ago (00:00 BST) with Matthew Walker‘ Why We Sleep. Considering the author strong stance against caffeine and the horrific consequences for not getting enough sleep, I think I‘ll read another chapter of Dorothy Whipple‘s We Were Sisters and then get me my 8 hours of sleep 💤

Came across this fabulous quote while reading Utopia for Realists by the brilliant Rutger Bergman.

Do you believe in equality, human dignity and rights? Or do you believe in the almighty free market and fundamentalist capitalism, and that the poor, the homeless and people with disability are a burden on economy and need to be ignored and left to die silently on the margins of society?
Either Way, read this book!
#nonfiction #enlightenment

Last week stats, and the great slump of 2019 continues 😓😓

#Bookly #readingstats

I loved this moving, insightful & poignant Kindle Single.
“Sooner or later, war and exile will shatter your expectations of your place in the world, your understanding of your own life. Refugees no longer recognize their society, their neighbors — themselves. Perhaps this is the real source of the refugee‘s constant refrain: “It is better to die at home than to die here.” At home, we knew who we were.“ A Syrian Wedding - Nicholas Seeley

Another brilliant book from Amos OZ oeuvre. An intellectually and emotionally scintillating novel set in 1950s Jerusalem weaving stories of coming-of-age, love, heartbreak, hope and hopelessness with a thought-provoking study of betrayal.

Another casualty of the “feminist dystopian” publishing/marketing trend. It‘s about 3 girls living on an island with their parents, following a dystopian/pollution/men-related catastrophe?? Though supposed to be about men abusing women, the abuse is alluded to but never shown/explained. In fact, the Mother is the most abusive/unredeemable character in this unresolved narrative with numerous loose ends & threads.

2nd book in Maisie Dobbs series, and like 1st one I found it both interesting and boring.
Interesting as historical fiction in its depiction of post-WWI Britain, reeling from the trauma of war and moving forward slowly yet surly. The details and the research are rather impressive. However, as mysteries the books are BORING. The characters are flat lacking depth and individuality esp Maisie who is more of good-girl-robot with a 6th sense. #review

6-In addition to the blatant biases, the lack of chronological and thematic coherence, the flowery language, the random quotes, the over-reliance on Nancy Mitford's fiction - presented by the author as the definitive source of the Mitford‘s history, all contribute to making this book nothing more than rambling and un-qualified personal views of a Diana Mitford hardcore fan girl, with no political or social insight.

#nonfiction #biography #history

5-Thompson excuses Diana‘s & Unity‘s politics, yet blames Jessica for USSR crimes even though she left the communist party in 1958, disillusioned following the revelations of Stalin crimes; something neither Diana nor Unity did (Diana insisted to her last days that the Holocaust was manufactured propaganda). When Nancy informs the authorities of Diana's insidious support to the Nazis, it's due to jealousy of Diana‘s happy marriage and fertility.

4-Thompson downplays Diana's role in introducing her sister Unity to fascism, Nazism and Hitler himself, insisting Unity's downfall was due to her unbridled passion and the Mitford sisters‘ rivalry. Further, while Diana stated that she was anti-Semitic, Thompson insists that did not mean anything since Diana had “Jewish friends.” Thus, uncoupling the individual, their political choices and activism from politics and its real-life consequences.

3- A more insidious problem is that despite focusing on the political views and activities of the Mitford sisters, Thomson insists on depoliticising the choices of her hero, Diana, wife and life-time supporter of Oswald Mosley, founder of the UK fascist movement. Thompson downplays the consequences of Diana political choices and views, and blames them on Mosley.

2- Why pan:
In addition to the main characters, the Mitford sisters, the author attempts to cover the lives and views of their parents, their brother, their spouses, and several of their friends. Yet, she opts to jump from one POV to the other and one character to the other without a clear chronological or thematic order, which makes it almost impossible to actually understand and appreciate the characters and their ideologies and choices.

1- This Book is a biography of the intriguing Mitford sisters, British socialites who were active participants in many social and political movements (including socialism, communis, fascism and Nazism) that shaped the UK, Europe and world.
This is a long review in Litsy standards, therefore, I am going to divide it over 6 posts.

#review #nonfiction #history #politics

For fans of the horror genre

#politics #nonfiction

I love Dorothy Whipple💞💞
Her books are warm and cosy. Her plotting is flawless and her characters are well formed and human in their flawed naive goodness, weakness, and wickedness.Immenselyly grateful for Persephone books for introducing me to her brilliant books.
#cosyreads #classics #modernclassics #dorothywhipple #persephone

A superb work of investigative journalism on how a crafty extremely privileged white blonde girl/psychopath scammed and handled some of the world most powerful policy and business elite (mostly a punch of old white men thinking with their dicks) and the dreadful ramifications on the health and welfare of millions if it wasn‘t for the bravery and commitment of a whistleblower and a journalist.

Highly recommended
#nonfiction #favourites #bookly

“Standing there on the embankment, staring into the current, I realized that—in spite of all the risks involved—a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

#quote #favourite #literaryfiction #womenintranslation

Worst. Reading. Week. EVER ☹️

#bookly #stats

One of my favourite things is stepping into a bookshop and leaving with an interesting book I‘ve never heard of before.

#newbuys #haul #history #nonfiction

To do list:
✔reading
✔bookish podcast
✔booktube
✔more reading

#diariesofabooknerd #WSIRN

Another book on the beating-the-reading-slump detour

#middlegrade #audiobooks

😔 😔following a brilliant reading month, I am in a reading slump 😔I have read only 12 pages over the past 4 days (thanks to Bookly, otherwise I wouldn't have read at all). Therefore, I am going to put the books I am currently reading on hold to get me some of my beloved Agatha Christie.

#agathachristie #readingslump #mystery

Brilliant heartbreaking saga of familial strife, love, music and revolution in China.
It is a complex but immensely rewarding reading experience, and I hope more people will get to enjoy it as much as I did.

#greatbooks #historicalfiction #china #culturalrevolution #classicalmusic #favourites

Here's my #top6reads list:
In no particular order, the top books of 2019 so far:
The Talented Mr Ripley
The Shock Doctrine
A Horse Walks into a Bar
Fun Home
Flights
The Monk of Mokha

With the exception of June, 2019 hasn't been a spectacular reading book so far. But I am looking forward to more great and enjoyable books over the coming months.