Welcome to Litsy!

Eh, alright. I appreciate the look into Iran, especially life after the revolution, from the female perspective. And a female academic who was educated in Europe at that. But the flow of the narrative was confusing at times, and I couldn‘t keep the students straight. Also, the tone felt smug, and for a memoir - left a lot of personal things out.

Up next…I ran out of steam on my Memoir Around The World Challenge last year. I‘m trying to finish it up in 2023. Using this for the Middle East.

#bookspinbingo

“You will not be able to write about Austen without writing about us, about this place where you rediscovered Austen … The Austen you know is so irretrievably linked to this place…”

My latest audiobook is awkwardly terrific. I expected a reading group, but that is just a part of what is really the author‘s full story of being a professor of English literature in this dystopian Islamic republic. The memoir seems to work almost by accident.

My next audiobook and a fun follow up to my 2 years of reading Nabokov. Although, it‘s not short. 17 hrs. But fun so far, read by the author.

Side note: this came out in 2003, and of course was a big deal then and for book people I think comes with a kind of cultural timestamp of an era. 2003 - you know, before these smartphone thingies. My weird mind thinks this is both like yesterday and also like a ancient history. Anyway finally listening.

Same author, but this book isn‘t in the system here. More importantly, I‘m outside, it‘s windy…. And ☀️☀️☀️🖤🖤🖤 four days to read this one. No sweat??????

February #bookspin 💕 unfortunately I couldn‘t get the whole list into one picture 🤷🏻‍♀️

More than 17 years after I first started it, I finished it! I struggle with memoirs, especially when the timeline isn‘t linear, so I don‘t really understand what happened when. I also had difficulty keeping the girls straight (especially because they disappear for most of the section on James). The literature tie-ins weren‘t as much as I expected. Overall, this was a good look at a country I know little about, but I wouldn‘t read again.

“She had not learned from reading it [Gatsby] that adultery was good or that we should all become shysters. Did people all go on strike or head west after reading Steinbeck? Did they go whaling after reading Melville? Are people not a little more complex than that?”

Still a valid argument against censoring books, and still very necessary.

Starting this book (second attempt) has me awash in memories. When it was new, a prof at my school told me about it, having just read a review in the NYT (I think) that reminded him of me. Sounds nice, right? The prompting was the author discussing Anna Karenina and he remembered how much I‘d hated AK in his class the year before, so he was giving me a “so there!” Except I loved AK, and hated (loathed) Madame Bovary, so his memory was off. 👇🏻

That room, for all of us, became a place of transgression. What a wonderland it was!

#currentlyreading #memoir #literature #bookblurbs #nonfiction

I'm already in love with this book!! 😍

#currentlyreading #memoir #literature

For nearly two years, almost every Thursday morning, rain or shine, they came to my house, and almost every time, I could not get over the shock of seeing them shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color. When my students came into that room, they took off more than their scarves and robes. Gradually, each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self. Our world in that living room with its window framing...

"What we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth."

--Azar Nafisi

I didn‘t really enjoy Reading Lolita In Tehran but I don‘t think that‘s the fault of Nafisi or the book. I think I went in with the wrong set of expectations – perhaps the fault of misleading marketing. I thought this memoir would revolve solely around the book club. It‘s much broader in scope than that, and much more focused on Nafisi‘s own experiences. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/reading-lolita-in-tehran-azar-nafisi/

After a bit of a reading hiatus, I am back and enjoying this book!

Started out slow for me. Once she got past her Nabokov obsession, things picked up and became a little less university lesson, more Iranian history. Still a little too lecture-y for me in the end.

The women who get up everyday and live this bullshit, who are trying their best to get by, full of fear of their own governments and still have hope for a better tomorrow, I honestly can not get my head around the depth their inner strength.

This is a book that will stay with me. An emotional read.

I really enjoyed the parts of this book that focused on the women who comprised the book group but I was put off with this book when Azar Nafisi took on her lecture mode. Too much critical analysis of classic literature and too much inner ramblings of her classroom politics. This had real potential but it lost me. This was gifted to me in one of the original Litsy swaps from @TsundokuAleax ♥️

I'm posting one book per day from the ever growing unread stacks in my personal library. No description or explanation, just books I own and plan to read. #tbr

Day 33

This one was hard work - partly a memoir of life in #Iran and partly literary criticism of a number of books, I found it very dense. I did learn about life during the Iran / Iraq war and the strict regime under Khomeini. What irked me most was the author claimed to be all about ‘her girls‘ (those who joined her book club) but it felt very me, me,me.

Having said all that this is available for #swapme if you‘re not completely put off! ⬇️

Thanks for the tag @robinb 😘

1. Do people just have one to-do list?! I have several - all very long and very unachievable.....
2. I had a wonderful Zoom call with some lovely Littens... supposedly to talk about a book but that took all of 15 minutes... the rest of the time we put the world to rights, and then planned what book we would attempt to discuss next time! @julesG @scripturient @Oryx @Caroline2

Do all of you want to play along? 😘

Santa came!!! Thank you Soubhi!! I love the art piece! It‘s so beautiful! The flower seeds give me inspiration for the spring! I didn‘t plant anything this year... These books look awesome! Thank you so very much!! 🎉🎊🎁🎈 🎅

#LitsyLove

An interesting narrative of revolutionary Iran narrated by the author, an English literature professor. Perhaps at times Nafisi focuses on other literature too much, rather than narrating the altogether more compelling lives of "her girls" from her book club. Nevertheless, by the end the story finally centres more around the girls and therefore satisfies the reader.

Been reading and side by side I have started colouring, it‘s suppose to help with stress management! So far it‘s been really therapeutic! Alsooo I‘m really enjoying this read! 🤗

Reading something a little different! Heard great things about it, lets seeeee! 😬

Got these 2 for a discount. Fun Saturday! 😀
#bookhaul

i‘ve copied @vivastory cos I think you‘re ever so clever and gone with #Iran rather than #iRan... 😁

Haven‘t read this yet....

#redroseseptember

This is good but too long winded for what I‘m wanting to read at the minute so bailing for now but will come back to it at some point.

#colormepretty #white

Well. I finished it.
Maybe I had different expectations about it. I thought it'd be an exploration of literature through a reading group in Tehran.
A librarian friend felt similar to me... she commented that it was a vehicle for the author's thesis...
But interesting account of Iran in the eighties and nineties.

Still struggling through...
Whilst it's interesting, I don't feel a depth for the narrator and therefore it's not making me feel for it.
Page 200...

Indeed. Empathy is the key to keeping reading.
But I'm struggling with this one. Again 😏😐

So I chose this for July book club as I've started it twice but never read more than the first 50 pages.
I'm hoping that the group will motivate me!
It's frustrating as it has all the elements that appeal to me... just hasn't done it for me in the past.

Yeah, I have to bail on this. I returned it to the library a long time ago and haven't even thought about it since.

After being somewhat dissatisfied with my most recent fantasy novel, I made a snap decision to read something totally different. Azar Nafisi paints a haunting picture of the strength, resilience, uncertainty and desire for more of a group of women daring to study western writing in Iran. There is a sorrowful and hopeful beauty in her writing and her story.

I started this book as part of my Read Harder challenge journal. I frequently try to expand my literary horizons, but more often than not, I can hardly get into the challenge books. I have been reading this for maybe a week now and haven't gotten much further than 30 pages.

I like that it is about a group of women basically rebelling to pursue knowledge through literature, but man... I just want to read something where someone dies. 🤣⚰️☠️

Whoever we were - and it was not really important what religion we belonged to, whether we wished to wear the veil or not, whether we observed certain religious norms or not- we had become the figment of someone else's dreams.

It had a very slow start, it takes time to fall in love with this book‘s characters. I was in love by the end, but it was sometimes hard to follow and that is why is not a 100% pick for me. You have to be in the right mood, needs focus. But if you get used to the slowness than it is a book that gets to your heart

My #weneeddiversebooks ... On our shelves entry to #24in48. I dont make notes in my books very often, but this book touched me to my core. I learned a lot about Iran and Tehran, and that the city is a literary and cultural hub that i never imagined it to be by listening to the news. I learned about the fragility of our own freedoms but also how these women will fight for themselves. All these ladies had very different beliefs, but...

This book needs an editor.
It was obviously an excuse for the author to publish her thesis on Nabokov and essays on literary criticism.
I would have bailed if I didn‘t have to read this for book club.

#2018Book139
#LitsyAtoZ Part 3: Books from birth by author
#BookN (2003, age 12)

Jinn is helping me to keep warm while reading. I have to read this one in little bits, not only because I have a concussion, but there is a lot to think about in here.

I‘m recommending this book knowing it will not be right for every reader. The women‘s trials and tribulations were terrible and brought me to tears. However, Nafisi counterbalances that with the hope and escape she finds in literature. She waxes on quite academically about the great literature, which I think would be a turn off for most readers. For me though, this book will never leave my shelves.

This book has been on my shelves for years and has made it through many moves. I pulled the title out of my TBR jar. I am actually glad that I waited this long to read it. I‘m a more mature reader now, and I think I can appreciate it in a way I wouldn‘t have been able to before.

"We were unhappy. We compared our situation to our own potentials, to what we could have had, and somehow there was little consolation in the fact that millions of people were unhappier than we were. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?"

Another great one of the #kindledailydeals
I keep meaning to read this for quote a while.

A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals and prevents you from self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.