Welcome to Litsy!

After I read No One Is Talking, I knew i had to read Priestdaddy. What an absolute hoot. The moment she alluded to Tartt‘s Secret History, I knew I was in for a treat. Parts of this made me laugh out loud, a considerable achievement. Sedaris-style humor combined with a breathtaking command of language. One of my favorite new writers.

1. Wintering by Katherine May
2. Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran
3. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Choosing only 3 was painful!

#TLT #ThreeListThursday

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I bought this for a “Blind Date with a Book” gift swap and decided to #reread. On a technicality, Lockwood‘s father was allowed, with a family, to become a catholic priest. Far more than a clever title. Lockwood is such a gifted storyteller, discussing life and religion in an often funny manner, but also covering very serious issues. Also check out her inventive, incredible novel, No One is Talking About This. She‘s a must-read for me.

Patricia Lockwood is hilarious, irreverent, and a poetic idol of mine.

This memoir about her father had me cackling & highlighting throughout.

Her writing is... *chef's kiss* & I want to read everything she's ever written.

My only criticism is that Priestdaddy has a messy structure that jumps about a lot. It took me a while to settle in & it isn't always clear how old she is at the time of each anecdote timescale-wise.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"When we came home later, my father was wearing his most transparent pair of boxer shorts, to show us he was angry..."

Ah, the old passive aggressive underwear chestnut.

💯 points for the lunch, and the book. The book is something else…it makes you laugh, think and sometimes squirm. I love the narration. Hoping to finish it this weekend. 🩵 #currentread #lunchtimereading

17th March 2023

Alternate title: my amusingly dysfunctional family is weirder than your family aka my Dad's kind of crappy but in a funny way.
A good portion of this is hilarious in that WTF?! Jenny Lawson way, slightly more literary in expression, perhaps. HOWEVER, while I was prepared for regular references to religion, maybe I should have taken it as writ that there would also be conservative/right wing BS from this flawed father figure as well? 1/?

Favourite sentence now in contention. Sharp and sparkly ✨

Today's phrase I am in love with...
Can't you just picture the landscape, wild and scraggly plants and forests?

If anybody needs me I will be Muttley-snickering in a fetal position. 🤣

Had to send this one to my ex-Catholic father. Will have to see if there's a response. 😆

🫣 I have no words.

Holy crap. Literally. 😆 Five pages in and I'm already in love with the writing, or should that be 'non-fiction recounting'? Still grappling with the fact that this is a memoir. 😮

Lockwood has a completely unique voice and this memoir crackles with her slightly nutty, bizarre, creative style. This focuses on a 9 month period when she and her husband moved in with her parents. Her father is a Catholic priest. (Yes, with a wife and five children. That gets explained.) A lot of it is hysterically funny, but also delves into some of the darker memories of her complicated family dynamics. Really enjoyed it.

This memoir started out really strong, but the last 1/3 didn‘t really hold up(for me). Patricia Lockwood has such a unique voice and her use of language and observations are original and odd ( that‘s meant with love & praise)!! Her family is SO offbeat but that‘s what made this memoir delightful. I found the content really important for a deeper appreciation of Lockwood‘s current auto-fiction No one is Talking About This. Satisfying read.

Although it went on a bit too long to my taste I was utterly charmed by the Lockwood‘s. What a family! That father! I laughed out loud about the Catholic craziness, yet Patricia Lockwood writes so lovingly about all of them! Quite special! Thanks for the recommendation Cindy!

#52BooksIn52weeks #JobInTitle #pop22 #DifferentBookByAnAuthorIReadIn2021 #Booked2022 #AboutReligion

I think I‘ll join you @BarbaraBB it‘s my IRL March bookclub pick so no reason not to get an early start 🎉❤️😄

Such a crazy family, how could she _not_ write a memoir! The poet‘s grasp of language shines through and the humor is irresistible (you WILL laugh out loud) but she touches on serious subjects too. Highly recommended.

“Lutherans have a passion for banners that approaches the erotic. They are never happier than when they are scissoring big purple grapes out of felt and gluing them onto other felt.”
I laughed so hard when I read this. After years of teaching in Lutheran schools, I found it so true!

Day one of staying with my mother to help her post-surgery (hip replacement) and somehow this appeals.

Lockwood certainly has a unique voice - I‘ve never read anyone like her before. This book is a memoir of when she moves back in with her bonkers father, who is the priest of the title.

The style is very much like the first half of No-one Is Talking About This, but more of it and on a wider range of topics so, if you liked that, you‘ll love this.

Mad, slightly disturbing, cover too!

Thanks for this one Emma @Oryx 😘

#wondrouswednesday Thanks for the tag @robinb ! 😘

1. I haven‘t read much HF recently, but a lot of NF. I‘m reading the tagged and also recently read The Girl With 7 Names, amongst many others.

2. 👍

3. Hmmm…I would say literary fiction.

Do you want to play? @Caroline2 @jenniferw88

Very good and very weird!

Currently reading. #memoir

DNF - almost half through. It‘s just not the season for this one. I may look into her poetry at some point. #dnf

I loved loved loved the imagery and descriptive in this book. It was laugh-out-loud funny on top of being poignant and unsettling on a number of issues. Lockwood is incredibly unique and this was a special read.

Discovered her latest is Not. For. Me. So I'm reading this instead. Thanks for the warning, @bookriot 😊

As late as I am to the party on reading Patricia Lockwood, I will say that this book was very much what I needed right now. I will now proceed to read everything else she has written.

A friend suggested I read this after I asked for book recs that wouldn‘t make me sad, and this delivered—Lockwood is really funny! But what I like about her so much more than most other comedy writers is that she feels like a real person, and she says flat out, “I cannot describe these people in my life to you as they are, and my efforts will fall flat.” I loved it.

This memoir is a great mix: Patricia‘s unconventional upbringing as a the daughter of a Catholic priest (you read right) and her time moving back in her parents after her husband has a health crisis. Her family has the kind of wacky characters that populate David Sedaris‘ books, but she also peppers her memoir with some more serious thoughts on religion, too. Her narration is delightful and reminds of my friend Jenny when she‘s tipsy. ⬇️ Def pick!

I've had this on my shelf for a while. 📚
Digging in while waiting for my next library holds.

This book was not what I expected, in a good way. Something about the cover and the title maybe. But I really loved it and came away in awe of Lockwood‘s writing prowess. She found such perfect ways of describing her family members and her relationship with religion and the experience of being a writer. There were so many places I would have marked had it not been a library book! If you like well written slice of life memoirs, go for it!

Next up... been on my tbr for quite some time.

Loved this memoir. Lockwood is a really keen observer and her family life is interesting to say the least. Lots really resonated and you can tell she is a poet as the prose is really lovely!

Patricia Lockwood and her husband move in with her parents due to financial woes. What sets this apart from the usual story of a grown up child returning to the nest is the fact that her dad is a married Catholic priest due to a loophole in the church rules. I found this book to be both poignant and hilarious at times and was actually glad I was wearing a mask in the doctor‘s waiting room while I read this as it made me laugh out loud at times.

Starting this today...still unsure how a Catholic priest has a family, but I guess I‘ll find out!

The child is up in the middle of the night, so I had a chance to finish this one. I must say, I liked the first half better than the second, it got a little navel gaze-y. Lockwood is a poet and it definitely shows (I‘m not a poetry person). But this also made me cackle with laughter more than once and confirmed my firmly held Virginian belief that the Midwest is full of weirdos. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼1/2

Finished this up on an #audiorun today! Excellent as an audiobook (read by the author). Very entertaining, weird, funny, and can I say weird again? 😂 Beautiful writing that grows on you, and tenderness that creeps up on you. I thought it was just entertaining for the first couple hours and then it grew on me in a weird way and by the end I found it far more poignant, funny, and beautiful than I thought I would. Worth a listen, ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Here's another #BookReport and #WeeklyForecast rolled into one! I finished The Amber Spyglass and Lab Girl as planned ✅ and also finished one of the few textbooks that we were assigned to read in order and in its entirety ✅. I also started Priestdaddy, to which I'll continue listening this week, and my hold on Inland came in, which I may or may not start this week. Final week of the semester! 🎉🎉🎉
@Cinfhen

I only got rained on a little on my gorgeous 8 mile #audiorun today through Berkeley, the Aquatic Park, and the Bay Trail! Longest run ever. 💕🎉🏃‍♀️😁💪 Made a solid start on this audiobook, and so far it's quite entertaining for running, but not amazing. @Emilymdxn

I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing train journey, but forgot it was Friday night, so it's delayed, hot and jammed. But I have my book and some chocolate, so I'm going to try to zone out the world.

1. Tagged, it is so good I can‘t imagine living without it for the 2 years since it was published.
2. If I had a few dollars, I would get a baguette and a cup of coffee and ride the ferry back and forth just like Edna St. Vincent Millay, and then walk home after a while in a cloud of no-see-ems and contemplation—not sweating exactly, but working up a higher shine.
3. Cafe au lait au lait au lait (very milky coffee)
#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

To the question of what of Catholics believe, the author, in part, says about jesus. "He is so gentle that sheep seem like demented murderers in his presence, but also rays of sunlight shoot out of his face so hard they can kill people." This gal can stretch a description past ridiculous. Hysterical.

Gonna see how week I do at predicting what I want to read in November—these from off the shelf. No telling what will jump into a shopping cart during a big shopping month!
Also want to get some targets for the #nonfictionnovember
#yeahright

I am finally reading this book and it is not a disappointment! Lockwood's writing is saturated with weird and funny. (Personally I think cats are monarchists 👑)

A terrific vacation read whilst we were in NYC.

Not for me. After many sections I found myself asking, “What was that all about?”