Great news! Mona‘s eyes is shortlisted for the 2025 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year!!
#EuropaCollective

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/2025-book-of-the-year-finalists/

I‘m back in medieval times!
Figeac, France 🇫🇷
Today my sister & I will go to a museum regarding hieroglyphics, the history of writing, & the breaking of the code of the Rosetta Stone by Champollion

How apropo!
Victor Hugo Market in Toulouse
#ReadLesMis 💙🤍❤️🇫🇷

In Toulouse with my sister! So close to Carcassonne, yet far away! Soon off to Figeac, then Béduer to a Women‘s Camp
# BooksWithSenseOfPlace

This may be my most controversial post.
I prayed to the book gods with the upmost of respect while making my Travel Les Mis book.
I don‘t want to get behind further, & just can‘t carry the full book on vacation.
This book was waiting in the wild to be used & loved.
With an X-Acto blade I cut the cover, several of the pages, & the appendix in the back. Now Les MIs can return to France, but in the beautiful countryside
#ReadLesMis

Our kind of yoga! 😅😂😜 #BookYoga

@TheBookHippie what a coinkydink
Sunflowers 🌻 came up in my reading today. Regarding the Fibonacci Sequence- sunflowers always have 89 seeds!

Plugging along!
July 23 pg 671
The title of the book appears.
“les misérables - the wretched“
That always jumps out at me when I read!
#ReadLesMis

Interesting- in the same day I came upon the same French phrase!
“Entre chien et loup “ - literally between dog and wolf- it means evening.
I‘m reading the Languedoc Trilogy in advance to my trip to SE France ?? (Toulouse, Figeac, & Béduer) since the books are based in that area & Carcassonne.
This phrase is in Book 2- Sepulchre
I‘m lucky to travel, but these travels will make me even further behind on #ReadLesMis

My daughter sent me this photo of her six month old this morning.
“You have to start them young!”
#LittleLitten
#Hazel 🩷🩷🩷

I‘m still terribly behind, but at least I‘m in July and not June.
Love this quote about Monsieur Mabeuf.
“Like everyone else, he had his own - ist ending. … He was neither a royalist, a Bonapartist…..
- he was a book-specialist!
💙🤍❤️
#ReadLesMis

This is an adorable, smart read for older grade schoolers & MS. It‘s about 3 orphaned Pied Piper/ evacuate siblings during World War II.
One of them is named Edmund, as a nod to CS Lewis‘ Narnia evacuee children.
They are hoping to find their forever home in the countryside.

Here‘s a little French History timeline from Khan Academy I just found

https://youtu.be/I4iwhvDhvKE?si=nzP_0JxezBg31XOT

#ReadLesMis

At the Playground/Splash Park 💦 with my 2 oldest grandkids & starting my #LitsyBookclub book.

Enjoying the last days of summer break!

My brain just can‘t concentrate on a book right now. I did just finish alchemy of flowers, which was pretty good but not amazing. I think I‘m going to try Annabelle Monagan‘s it‘s a love story.
I‘ve enjoyed her other romcoms and enjoy her sense of humor.

I don‘t remember these from my childhood, but Beverly Cleary understands kids of all ages #AuthorAMonth #BeverlyClearly

Enjoying this children‘s chapter book about evacuees from England‘s Pied Piper Operation ( such a terrible name!)
Instead of going shopping for innings, Edmund fibs and says they have a school assignment to go to the library!! His sister Anna loves to read.
it‘s also interesting that Edmond is the name of this mischievous evacuee- he carries the same name of the mischievous evacuee Edmund from the Chronicles of Narnia

Yay! I won a copy of #EuropaEditions Mona‘s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser!! There are fold out pages of the artwork mentioned in the book. I can‘t wait until it arrives!!
#EuropaCollective

Illustration of the robbery of Société Générale Bank in Chantilly on 25 March 1912

Picking this book up again. Sad this #EuropaEditions isn‘t as good as I hoped

Interesting trivia about the world‘s 1st motorized bank robberies - by the Bonnet Gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnot_Gang

#EuropaCollective

Such a sweet book!
I loved listening to Julie Andrew‘s read her book. She‘s so comforting!
(It‘s on YouTube in 4 parts)

Thanks @TheBookHippie
#ChildrensClassicRead2025
#DogsOfLitsy

Reading & enjoying Karen White‘s new novel. I love the bird info at the beginning of each chapter. KW has developed a love of birds after her husband gave her a bird feeder. 😂 now she has 15!
This book is also inspired by the recent deaths of both her parents, at least one of whom had rapidly declining dementia.
Depicted here is a Brown- Headed Cowbird.
🩷 🐦 🧠🩷

Finished this book for #Litsybookclub. It‘s about how a current day single mother might navigate her new life. My older sister couldn‘t finish it- she couldn‘t relate to it. I maybe related more since my single mom daughter of 5 yo twins lives with us. I also enjoyed Elle Fanning narrating it. Can‘t wait to discuss with Bookclub

The fog over the river today was pretty. The trout were really biting this morning in the rain! We caught our limit! 🐠 ☔️📗

Sneaking in a little reading time in my #kindle today for #LiteraryCrew #ReadYourKindle

Taking a break from fishing this morning to let my granddaughters sleep in. Reading a light beach read waiting for them to wake up. It‘s 9:07 & they are still asleep. I think we wore them out!
My husband and son are working on catching tonight‘s dinner! 🐠 ⛺️ 📗

Look what I found from the 2018 National Book Festival!
#NatBookFest #NatBookFest2018

Enjoying a beautiful day out fishing at Roaring River and listening to the Almafi Curse. I wish you could hear the waterfall behind me.

Chapter 10: Hot Eyes by Francis Picabia

🤣 Will I ever finish this book??
We finally meet Marcel Duchamp
The Love Triangle begins 🔺🔺🔺
#EuropaEditions #EuropaCollective

#LiteraryCrew #AuthorAMonth #April

Here‘s a link to a cookbook to go with the book

I‘m sure everyone will want to make ARLENE'S CANDLE SALAD 🕯️ 🍍 😝 - maybe I should have posted THAT photo! 😝

https://www.katequinnauthor.com/uncategorized/the-briar-club-cookbook-recipes-fr...

#EuropaEditions is celebrating their 20th anniversary.
I‘m glad that we are going to continue #EuropaCollective
To celebrate their books!

The Days of Abandonment was the first book published

#EuropaCollective

Chapter 9: The Double World -
An enamel and oil on cardboard painting by the French painter Francis Picabia, created in December 1919.
#EuropaCollective #EuropaEditions

A great historical fiction novel about the author‘s female relatives spanning before and after the 2 World Wars.

? much better ancestors than in Gabriële!!

June 25,2025 Paris had a severe thunderstorm, and people were comparing the flooding to Venice.

January 1910 Paris had a severe thunderstorm and people were comparing the flooding to Venice !

History repeats itself
#EuropaEditions #EuropaCollective

Reading this backlist book waiting for her newest. I like supporting independent bookstores by ordering from bookshop.org. , but I hate that it takes a week after the book has been released before I receive the book. Waiting for #TheStolenLifeOfColletteMarceau. is like #WaitingForGodot
#DogsofLitsy

Chapter 8: The Shadow Is More Beautiful Than The Academy
🎈For the 1st time, a painter has painted something that doesn‘t represent ANYTHING. Before Picasso. Before Kandinsky.
In which Francis starts losing his vision & and seems to spend all this time in opium dens…

Rubber: by Francis Picabia

#EuropaCollective #EuropaEditions

June 4: Part Three Marius Chapter X Ecce Paris, Ecce Homo:
Thank goodness, I have a nice view or I would‘ve never survived all the flipping back & forth to the notes in back associated with this chapter!
Maybe someday I‘ll catch up with our readings !
This was more painful for me than Waterloo!

48 notes
Pg 530 1 note
Pg 531 22 notes
Pg 532 16 notes
pg 533 9 notes

Plus 6 footnotes

#READLESMIS

Gabriële‘s mAunt Alphonsine Jussieu de Challié

https://www.catherinelarosepoesiaearte.com/2022/12/alphonsine-de-challie-1858-19...

It‘s things like this that keep me going - rabbit holes
? ?️

#EuropaCollective #EuropaEditions

Chapter 7: A Little solitude in the midst of Suns

I drag on

#EuropaCollective #EuropaEditions

Chapter 6 left me even more totally disgusted with both Francis and Gabriële.
while looking for his paintings mentioned at the end of the chapter, I did find one of his last impressionist inspired paintings, which was rather lovely

https://youtube.com/shorts/DNHPbaYak9U?si=rnOuHwICdFmpNutl

#EuropaCollective #EuropaEditions

I am slow going on this challenge because I‘m also reading other books not on the list ( Bookclubs, buddy reads, sister said I had to drop everything and read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans), but I did finish the first of my #14BooksIn14Weeks
This is a lovely debut novel about a midwife & herbalist in Avignon, France during the 1300s black plague.
I‘m finding myself drawn to midwives and herbalists …

I‘m excited to read this book. I could not wait for my book mail so I bought it on Audible.
Kristin Harmel is a great storyteller 🩷 💎 🩷

#lego for Jane Austen fans!
#JaneAusten

https://jaysbrickblog.com/news/lego-40766-tribute-to-jane-austens-books-gwp-reve...

😝 Bandette is really enjoying reading Les MIs with me!

#ReadLesMis #DogsOfLitsy #Chunkster
#AllergicToChunksters #colossalchunkster #ChunksterChallenge2025

Chapter 6: The Procession, Seville 1912 Francis Picabia

#EuropaEditions #EuropaCollective #14BooksIn14Weeks

They are married!

While reading The Tale of The Firebird for #ChildrensClassicRead2025 , I came across the Russian fairytale that one of my favorite books, The Snowchild is based upon!
I love a literary surprise!
What Serendipity! 🇷🇺🤍💙❤️ 🇷🇺

This is interesting!
The illustrator is a master of Russian decorative art, one of the last most impressive artists in the great Russian tradition of book illustration. He left Russia after the Revolution & settled in Paris. He translated 4 Russian fairytales into French, writing them out in beautiful calligraphy & illustrating them on heavy vellum pages
👇
#ChildrensClassicRead2025

After cleaning the house I‘m going to settle down a bit and read June‘s #ChildrensClassicRead2025
I have 2 physical books & one ebook.
I also am going to read about Baba Yaga that‘s included in the ebook.

Chapter 5: Man And Woman By The Sea

I find the book well written & interesting but Francis Picabia & Gabriële Buffett are not very likable.
I find interesting what authors think of them.
At the end of Chapter 4, one relates responsibility for them & the other seeks their approval.

#EuropaCollective
#EuropaEditions

Chapter 4: Francis Picabia by Francis Picabia

He made a few self portraits over the years.

#EuropaCollective
#EuropaEditions

Chapter 3: Composition by Francis Picabia

Adventures in Berlin!

#EuropaCollective
#EuropaEditions

#LittensLoveBooks