After finishing Parable of the Sower, I bought my friend flowers at a local independent bookstore. I thought I might as well get the sequel for myself while I was there to support the cause. 😅📚

🌱 Yesterday I finished Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. It was good so I will read the sequel, but not for awhile because it was kind of tough to get through mentally.
☑️ But…now I can check off another book from my Free Black Women‘s Library sweatshirt. When I got it a few years ago I had only read 2/7 of the authors and now I‘m up to 5/7.!
🩶 Also it‘s not just inspiration, it‘s one of my favorite hoodies!

I saw a book scavenger hunt on IG. For #internationalwomensday mine is books written by female authors!

🔟 Number in the Title: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
🛶 Setting: The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
🌼 Name: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
💜 Color: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
🦋 Animal: The Butterfly‘s Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe
🐕 One Word Title: Faithful by Alice Hoffman

👉 Your turn!

Getting crazy on a Friday night! After a long week it‘s Parable of the Sower and a dog pile ftw.

#dogsoflitsy

Here is my laughable TBR for March. I finished 1 book last month so let‘s see if I can do better.

🌲The Overstory - #keywordreadingchallenge
🔥 Scorched Grace and 🦴 Nettle & Bone for book club
🌱 Parable of the Sower - currently #withthebanned2025
🍎 Winter and 🌹 Ravish - #serieslove2025 & fairy tale challenge
⭐️ Where the Forest Meets the Stars - for my sister
🐞 Extraordinary Insects - #naturalitsy

Wish me luck! 😅

I felt like I read a lot in February but with all these down arrows looking at me I guess I didn‘t. 😅
Good month of reading anyway.

#bookly #booklyapp

I had fun with my friends at the VNSA Book Sale again this year! My 2025 haul was 21 books for $42! It was worth standing in line at 6:30 am. 😅

Currently reading…
💪🏼 There have been some really good excerpts in Women‘s Lives so I‘m adding more authors like Janet Frame to the wishlist, & moving Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard to the top of my stack.

📕 Here‘s another Phyllis Rose shelfie from when we rented her house 2 summers ago. I recently read the Annie Dillard excerpt and wonder if this is the actual copy of An American Childhood she referenced when editing it? 🤩

Currently reading Heart-Shaped Box, but you don‘t want what‘s inside. 👻

❤️ Happy Valentine‘s Day!

🌯 Taken last weekend at Someburros

This is the book I got when I went to Wijaya House for the first time. My book club is reading it next month!
🌈📚

I read this to my class today - what a sweet story. It made me think of the #naturalitsy group on here because this is like We Are the ARK for kids.

I had an appointment in a different part of town on Friday so I had to stop in at the Half Price Books in the neighborhood. They had a nice Black History Month display at the entrance. (This is the right half of it.)

✔️✔️ I‘ve already read The Color Purple and
The Hate U Give.
🔮 Want to guess which one I bought?

#BlackHistoryMonth

I checked off my first 2 countries in one book for #ReadtheWorld2025 :
Japan and Canada! This book really transported me to both places!

My goal is to get to 10 this year to beat last year.

Thanks for hosting @GatheringBooks !

Here we go…

🌱 Parable of the Sower - #WithTheBanned2025
❤️ Heart-Shaped Box - buddy read on Instagram
🍎 Winter and Ravish - fairy tale challenge on Instagram, and Winter is also for #SeriesLove2025
⭐️ Where the Forest Meets the Stars - my sister just read this and loved it and it‘s been on my shelf for a couple years now

🎉 #JumpStart2025 gave me a good push this year! I read almost 8 more hours and 92 more pages than last January.
⌚️My favorite this month was A Tale for the Time Being, but I liked all my reads this month.
🙌 Thanks for the challenge @Lizpixie !

#bookly #booklyapp

I just finished this and it was so good! Told in 3 timelines by 3 narrators we meet Nao from Japan in the past and Ruth living in Canada in the present. Connected by flotsam their stories come together. I enjoyed both of their voices so much, and the metaphysical aspect.
⌚️⌚️⌚️⌚️⌚️

🎅🏽 My Secret Santa at work picked this for me
📚 Reading for the #keywordreadingchallenge : time
📸 Taken at Ja Ramen with their cool wallpaper
#JumpStart2025

Another picture from my visit to this bookstore last weekend - horses and books - yes please.

I visited a new-to-me bookstore over the weekend. Small but very cute! I will share a few more photos this week. 😍

3 of my students earned lunch with me today as a reward, and one asked if we could read together when we were done. Yes! Maybe he meant read the same book together? In any case, I squeezed in a few extra minutes with my book. 😂

Here‘s a picture my husband took of me taking The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store‘s picture a few weeks ago. I sit in the dirt for my art 😂

📷 Actually could not have gotten the shot without my assistant, Nova! 🐕

#dogsoflitsy

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!
Two great books by a great man.
I‘m challenging myself to read Stride Toward Freedom by his next birthday.

Hey #naturalitsy! There‘s a really good book about today‘s A Tree a Day! I got to meet the author at my public library about 20 years ago, and read this fascinating book as a result.
📸 Taken with my Georgia O‘Keeffe Ponderosa bookmark, “Bear Lake, New Mexico, 1930”

I‘m hoping to have a little extra reading time because of the holiday weekend, but we‘ll see…

Thanks for asking @rachelsbrittain !

#weekendreads #naturalitsy

First book finished of 2025! I read this for book club and loved it. I loved getting to know the beautiful characters, and the story of community and friendship. I have one tiny complaint about the ending, but I also almost cried so it balances out. Read if you like Jewish and Black characters pre WWI.
💧💧💧💧

🌵Photo taken at South Mountain Park

#JumpStart2025 @Lizpixie

I have been loving reading A Tree a Day with #naturalitsy. I took my book with me on our hike today to photograph with our state tree, the Palo Verde. This is not her prettiest time of year (check back in March or April for yellow flowers) but you can still see what makes her unique, a green trunk and green branches.

🌳 Photo taken at South Mountain Park, Arizona

I just realized I never posted my intention to join in the #JumpStart2025 fun again this year.
I read for about 4 hours yesterday and am getting close to finishing The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.
Thank you for jump starting us @Lizpixie !

This week I‘ve been reading this during my lunch break and it‘s been a little balm for me.
My at-home current read is a big hardcover I don‘t feel like hauling every day, but it‘s worked out for the best. A little dose of positivity to replace scrolling through heartbreaking fire videos.

❤️🐻 Sending love to all our Littens affected by the fires in California 💚🤍

Humble brag? 😂🥳

#bookly #booklyapp

I‘m all caught up on my daily trees, and I read December and January from The Wild Remedy.
Hoping to finish Joan Didion in Women‘s Lives tomorrow, and get more into The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

Thanks for asking @rachelsbrittain !
#weekendreads

Funny and thought provoking, a powerful novel of friendship and quantum mechanics.

#12booksof2024
Big thank you to @Andrew65 for hosting again this year!

Great to reread these as illustrated editions now, even if it‘s becoming a workout.

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

This book made me shout multiple times. Love it when a group of women battle the patriarchy and vampires in the same book.

#12booksof24 @Andrew65

Fell behind on my #12booksof2024 !

I read this one with my book club to mixed reviews, but I loved this sister story set in Vietnam.

@Andrew65

#2025ReadingGoals - I want to read 49 books this year!
Hoping #Naturalitsy will help me with one of those goals.

My #HolidayBookDragons #WinterGames2024
first half total: 475
2nd half total: 1,885

TOTAL: 2,360

Thank you @LiseWorks for leading us!

📸 Bookstack of Xmas gifts from my sister & husband and NY sale finds

I also updated my world map for the end of the year. These are all the countries I‘ve visited through books in 2024. I‘m trying to get better at geography - hopefully I‘ve colored all the correct places! 😅

#litsycrafters #Wintergames24 #HolidayBookDragons

Here‘s my #serieslove2024 update!

I finished 3 series, added 1 more series, read 2 books in other series.

#wintergames24 #litsycrafters #HolidayBookDragons

For the #WinterGames2024 #PhotoChallenge - my stocking!

#HolidayBookDragons #shelfie

Trying to post everything I can think of for #HolidayBookDragons #WinterGames24 before midnight!

Today I went to my local bookstore for their New Year‘s Day sale! It‘s tradition! This year I got a tote bag I‘ve had my eye on, a Georgia O‘Keeffe calendar, some stickers, a candle, an ornament, and 2 books I want to read this year: The Light Eaters with #naturalitsy, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I even saw a friend! Good times!

My #JanuaryTBR

🍎 Winter for #SeriesLove2025 with @Andrew65
📔 A Tale for the Time Being for the #keywordreadingchallenge
💪🏼 The Norton Book of Women‘s Lives -200 pages for a buddy read
🛒 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - for book club

To be fair, this is the only book I read in August, but it made it to the year end favorites list so it qualifies. 😅

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

I read 42 books and my goal was 48 so I‘m pretty happy.
- 5 of those books were over 500 pages
- Only 3 rated 3 or below
- 2 DNFs and I never DNF!
- 5 buddy read with my sister
- 9 read with my book club
- 22 female authors
- 9 BIPOC authors
- 1 translated novel
+ another fun year on Litsy!

2024 was a fabulous reading year. My 2025 goal is 49!

#wintergames24 #holidaybookdragons

I read 42 books in 2024 and these 15 you should read for sure. 😊

🔪 Gangsters Don‘t Die
🧛🏻‍♂️ The Southern Book Club‘s Guide to Slaying Vampires
👰🏼‍♀️ The Guest List
🦮 Fairy Tale
🐪 Cress

☕️ Something I Might Say
🇵🇸 Power Born of Dreams
🐈 The Cat Who Saved Books
🌴 Maybe in Another Life
🪆 A Council of Dolls

🐇 The Magician‘s Assistant
🇻🇳 Dust Child
🍆 Dial A for Aunties
🐉 The Essex Serpent
📝 Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

Full disclosure - My July favorite was written by my friend, but it was well written and it made me cry. And also I‘m in the acknowledgments at the end (by name, not just “Constant Reader”), and this is the only book I can say that about.

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

I read my June book with my book club. We all liked this book and that doesn‘t happen often.

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

This was an enjoyable collection of science fiction short stories. There are a lot of classic tropes, computers becoming sentient, time travel, alien invaders, BUT written by an aboriginal man from Canada these tropes take on a new twist.
Entertaining and educational, quotable and memorable, short and sweet!

🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖

Used for my #WIAN2024 challenge: book with an NFL team in the title

#HolidayBookDragons #wintergames2024 #wintergames24

Catching up on reviews!
This was a fun Xmastime PG-13 romance story. The main character owns a used bookstore in London but heads to her hometown for a week to stay in a castle for a friend‘s wedding. Romance blossoms in the castle garden with the head gardener!
Just what I hoped it would be for this type of book at this time of year!
Read if you like interracial couples, upper class/lower class battles, or plants.
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

#HolidayBookDragons

Charles Hatfield traveled the country in the early 1900s promising to make it rain, taking $1000s from farmers & others. When he promised San Diego to fill their reservoirs for $10k, a burst dam nearly destroyed the entire city. The city then balked at paying the sum, suggesting god did it.
🌦️ Pseudo science, scam, or “the butterfly effect” - in any case an entertaining novelistic piece of history!
🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️
📸 Taken at South Mountain Park

My favorite book of May! Read if you love stories within stories!

#12booksof2024 @Andrew65

Count me in for #YearEnd #20in4 #OutWithThedInWithTheNew Readathon with @Andrew65 !

My goal is to finish 2 books: The Wizard of Sun City and Island Wisdom. I read 96 pages today!