Welcome to Litsy!

You have GOT to read this! It is so sweet and funny! The town of Cranford is basically an Amazonian village if the Amazons had been little old ladies. I freaking loved this story! 236/1,001 #1001Books Double #BookSpin for November: #52BookClub (City Name in the Title)

What a fun series of vignettes in a cozy and comical yet loving and friendly English village. Refreshing that the narrator didn't have a romance plot, too! #classics

I ended up enjoying this little book way more than I had expected after the first few chapters. At first the whole story seemed to be going nowhere, but the characters slowly grew on me, and I started to appreciate Gaskell's observations about ladies' lives in a small community.
The daily discussions with the #pemberlittens and of course @BarkingMadRead 's hashtags also enhanced the enjoyment factor for me, so thank you all!

@BarkingMadRead This Is my copy of Cranford that I ordered from https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and which arrived today. I was reading an ebook from my library but quickly realized I wanted my own copy. The annotations in this Penguin edition are also particularly good. #PemberLittens

Chapter 3: #stillnoveggies but Matty‘s old beau looks like #DonQuixote so we have that going for us 🤷🏻‍♀️ #thereareactualmen #justnogentlemen #animportantdistinction #pemberlittens #hashtagbrigade

Today‘s stack. I finished the tagged, which was a nice set of sort of vignettes from a female-dominated English town. Lots of social commentary about the genteel poor, which was very well done. Still plugging away at Don Quixote (not only is Pickles judging me, my kid keeps reminding me Pickles is judging me) and getting back to 1619 (hope to finish next month).

It‘s got some great things going for it; it‘s a novel mostly of women, small town gossipy feel but 1800s style and the little bits of humour scattered throughout. I listened to the audio and the narrator couldn‘t have been a better choice. Unfortunately I still found it all a bit dull. The characters and their lives became a bit tedious after a while and I found myself drifting. ⭐️⭐️

Women centric filled with humor.

"Cranford is in possession of the Amazons"
This might be the best opening to a book.

I love my e-reader, but I've still got a huge pile of physical books to read and I've been wanting to read this one for ages as it's one of my favourite period dramas. I'm enjoying it so far.

First up for me this Saturday, to work on reading this one. One of my goals for the #CYOReadathon this weekend is to finish two books I‘m currently reading. This is the oldest, from last October! (This copy is a little beat up, but it‘s a 1928 edition that belonged to my grandmother.)

#MarvelousMay @JoScho
#grateful
This is a Mother's day gift from my oldest daughter💖❤💛💙💚

This was a sweet easy to read classic that was a nice escape during a difficult time, and an easy #1001books book to tick off. Very good natured and entertaining. During a different time I might have rated it a so so and said it all felt a little inconsequential but that was a good thing right now! It definitely wasn‘t as good as North and South, the only other Gaskell I‘ve read, but not bad at all and I do recommend

Good morning and happy (British) Mother‘s Day! I‘m drinking coffee and listening to Cranford while I wait for mum to wake up so I can give her tea. We were both meant to be on holiday separately at the moment but Covid19 has brought us back together. Here‘s my record of the books I‘ve read while social distancing so far - starting with Cranford and Parade‘s End I‘m trying to read some #1001books while I‘m at my parents.

Almost 9h #stayhome24in48

Will I ever get my fill of cozy 19th century British novels? Probably not. Gaskell takes us all along on extended visits to Cranford and the quiet lives of its mostly late middle age widowed and spinster residents. It can certainly be a little too sweet and charming, but given how ugly the real world is right now, a little too sweet is pretty easy to forgive.

#ClassicsChallenge2020

Newest addiction: late night Etsy shopping for vintage books 😍 sometimes purchases take place so late at night that I forget I ordered them and a few weeks later, voila!! A lovely surprise! I highly recommend.

My #top6reads of 2019 so far. It's a good mixture, 1 non-fiction, 1 classic, a WW1 novel, the rest fantasy/science fiction. Only one written solely by a man.

@Cinfhen

How did Gaskell go so wrong?

I‘m on day 3 of my #staycation and day 2 of what I‘m calling Stormageddon Lite. My original plans for this week have been waylaid, but I‘m not too cross. This is ideal reading weather. Also, I can get some #audiochores in without feeling like I‘m missing out on getting out and about. 😂⛈🌧🌩☔️🙂

delightful book, cutecompany — It‘s a cuddlesome #caturday evening 😻 #catsoflitsy

I watched the BBC series a few years ago and now read the book for the first time. The inhabitants of the little town Cranford are mostly women: widows and old spinsters. There is no big story arc, it's like a collection of vignettes about the women's lives. That may sound dull, but I found it charming, touching, sometimes sad and sometimes funny. I enjoyed it very much.

Is there a more perfectly poignant book than Cranford? In my current mood, happy to be back in Edinburgh but a little sad to leave my family after a lovely Christmas, the warmth, tenderness and gentle humour was perfect. It also has the dubious honour of being the only book that has made me cry in each of the first several chapters. Don't let that put you off, it's wonderful. And how could I resist this cover?

4th book for #bookaweekchallenge completed @TheReadingMermaid

Lacock was also Cranford in the BBC tv series...

This is happening. I absolutely adored Wives and Daughters earlier this year so I felt I needed a little more Gaskell in my life. #litsy #elizabethgaskell #cranford #book

“Ever since that day there has been the old friendly sociability in Cranford society; which I am thankful for, because of my dear Miss Matty‘s love of peace and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us.”

The chronicles & perspective of these women was entertaining.

Like a very cheeky Jane Austen 💃

Merry Christmas to me! 🎅🏼🎄 #noselfcontrol #blameitonlitsy #juniperbooks

@Kalalalatja reminded me that I sadly neglected my Penguin hardcovers when thinking of patterned spines for the #bookcolortag. This morning they were looking at me with such disgust at my ineptitude, I had to give them a feature...
#colorstacking #patterns

I have so many good reads waiting for me on my #ClassicsTBR but I'm "feeling" these ones coming up soon.
#JuneBookBugs

A disproportionate number of the wonderful ladies of Cranford are in their #goldenyears. A lovelier, funnier, more heartwarming (and heartbreaking) book you could hardly wish for #JuneTunz

Cranford is about a group of women in their #goldenyears living in a small town. It a book about female friendships as tragedies are faced and times change. #junetunes

I really wanted to love this one, but it just wasn't my favorite. It read more like interlocking short stories, rather than a novel (that's not necessarily a bad thing, but was different than what I was expecting). Not much plot to speak of. It does give a great peek into English village life at the time, in a place made up mostly of women, so it's not all about finding a husband. And the cover is beautiful!

Finished! It started out slow and a bit depressing in the beginning - a couple of times I wondered about the point of some of the events. I still wonder, but it did pick up and And overall it was a pretty good read. Not jump up and down with excitement, but good. I'm really liking the serial app - I've been using the freebie version and wondering if it's worth going for the upgrade?

Day 25 #SlowRead #ReadJanuary Here's one of my slow reads. I'm also trying to get through some of the books in the Outlander series, but they're soooo long!

"...God forbid!' Said she, in a low voice, 'that I should grieve any young hearts.''

Awwww, that means Martha gets to have a nice young man look in on her :) cute!

Do any #audiobook fans out there use #librivox? Trying it out for the first time and finding the narration stilted. Wondering if all books are read by amateurs. I like that they are putting more books from the common domain on audio. But it's also making me appreciate how difficult it is to read aloud in an engaging way. 🙄

"In The first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women."

#shortstories #racconti #classics #classici #opening #inizio #books #libri #openinglines #quote #citazione

Delightful book by one of my fave English ladies. Historically, this book is a bold statement on women's abilities to live w/o men as the centerpiece & have friendships amongst themselves when they were believed to have "separate spheres." But it's also like looking into a quaint, lace-trimmed window on 19th cent English country life. The characters are charming & witty as they tell anecdotes about their lives. No definitive plot, but very fun. ?

Relaxing Wednesday morning. 🌄📖🕯☕️

I'm flying through this book because I'm enjoying it so much. Elizabeth Gaskell's characters are...eccentric. Let's put it that way. 😂

Curling up with a feminist classic for a while before dinner time. ??

I've never read this one before but love Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm really excited by its premise of a female-only society to combat the misconstrued "separate sphere" concept of 1800s England where women were believed incapable of creating and maintaining female friendships. Gaskell's like NOPE, y'all are wrong. ??

#feministbooks #readwomen