Welcome to Litsy!

Loved most of the stories in this brilliant collection about people who choose to leave/or are forced out of their comfort zones.The stories didn't ever go as expected and the slightly unresolved endings hinted at complicated truths. It's been on my #tbr for years. I was finally inspired to read it as @ReadingEnvy gave the collectionna 5 ⭐ rating on Goodreads. She always had excellent taste. ❤️ #rememberingjenny @Centique

Sunny Saturday reading. Just finished the title story and can see why collection was so acclaimed when it first published.

Best collection of short stories I have ever read. The stories and characters made a huge impression on me. Though the stories are short, the characters are very much three dimensional.
I highly recommend ZZ Packer if you like to read short stories.

To those who also get excited when seeing city skylines, Z. Z. Packer sees you: “Her insides jumped when she saw the skyline. She tried to figure out why it hit her so hard. They were just buildings. But in each one, someone worked, someone sang, someone complained... The buildings breathed and exhaled possibilities; that was why a skyline like this one could stop your heart.... as [it] seemed to whisper, ‘You too are possible.‘”

“I knew how one eventually accustoms oneself to the physical world‘s lack of sympathy: the buses that are still running late, the kids who play in the street, the clock that won‘t stop ticking for the person who‘s gone.”

Edit: after the first story, I felt this book had great promise, and I hyped it up in my original review. But it fell so short of expectations—so much so that I had to completely rewrite this. This just called for too much reading between the lines that I wasn‘t willing to do. Also very much disliked how EVERY story ended on a, “... That‘s... it?” note. Probably more my fault than the author‘s writing, though. Just couldn‘t do it.

Day 10 of #12booksof2020

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a wonderful collection of short stories. No spoilers here - just read them.

@Andrew65

☕️ Daily!
☕️ I haven‘t read this book yet, but my mom sent me a while ago.
☕️ @Blackink_WhitePaper @Chelsea.Poole @caffeinated.wayfarer

Love found reading time - waiting for the truck brakes to get done means I can read for a bit extra today guilt free!

1. Greyhound park lead out - putting the little shirts on, walking the dogs to the starting box and bringing them in afterward
2. My fantastic husband who mowed the lawn and made dinner after work so I could catch up on reading consultant proposals.

#ThankfulThursday

My mom sent me this book after she read it years ago! It has been on my TBR shelf forever.
@ShyBookOwl
#BookHunt
#ScavengerSaturday

I have taken to pairing books for reading. Does anyone else do this? I am truly enjoying the contrast between these two authors and styles. #bookpairings

Absolutely loving her short stories!

Added this to my summer TBR pile

Thanks @batsy for the tag!
1. 36
2. One sister
3. No
4. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, A Walk in the Words by Bill Bryson
5. Today? Let's say Pale Fire
6. 😃
7. 'Actually' or 'Although'- I probably qualify half my sentences
8. That I'm neither as nice or boring as I appear - the introvert's dilemma 😁
9. Cats for owning, dogs for visiting
10. Coffee
11. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
12. @BarbaraBB @Izai.Amorim
#hallowhoareyou @Gyldholm

• throwback to when I drank from a coffee swimming pool ☕️ trying to cheer up tonight with old pictures •

#coffee #coffeelover #coffeeaddict #coffeeandbooks

Another day, another volunteering stack! I keep saying I will bring some back to the store, but that haunts really happened yet 🙈 Also mailing a letter to my penpal @ephemeralwaltz today - a 2 week response time this time!

I didn't love it but I didn't dislike it either. Maybe I became too attached to the characters because I wish there was an epilogue for each story especially the stories with young characters. I want to know what they did immediately after each story & who they are/were as adults.

" We had all been taught that adulthood was full of sorrow and pain, taxes and bills, dreaded work and dealings with whites, sickness and death."

From the short story titled Brownies

written in 2003, some of the stories from the 1960s.. yet still current

I'm so utterly and completely stoked right now that I don't even know what to do with myself. Master Class at school tomorrow with the phenomenal ZZ Packer 🤓 📚 💖 😯 😯 🤗 🤗

#ShadesofBlue for Sunday. I didn't realize I had so many blue books!

💙📘💙📘💙📘💙📘💙

#SeptPhotoChallenge #SomethingforSept

This book actually got a lot of hype when it was published back in 2003 but has since faded into the shadows. The storytelling is wonderful. I think ZZ Packer is a treasure and more people need to know about her. Says the woman who allows her cats on the kitchen table 😺#augustphotochallenge #underhypedbooks

Z. Z. Packer presenting some very thorough research for her new project on Buffalo Soldiers, in her studio space at #MacDowell