Welcome to Litsy!

📕 The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
🖊 O‘Connor, Flannery
📺 The OA (Netflix series)
🎹 Ólafsson, Vikingur
🎶 One Day - Sharon Van Etten

#ManicMonday #LetterO
@CBee

#SetInAnotherCentury #Bookmoods
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

15/2021

Some of my farorite reads (and one not😆) from Canadian authors.

#CanadaDay #JulyJourneys
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

#CuriousCovers
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

2nd day of Christmas.
#12booksof2020 @Andrew65

Told from 3 powerful viewpoints: a French Catholic missionary, a Huron elder, and his adopted daughter in the 1600's. 5 stars.

I‘m being kind and giving this a so-so. I kept waiting for SOMETHING to happen, but when something did, it was just meh. It felt emotionally flat, and definitely didn‘t move me. Also, I‘m baffled by the need to use sexual violence as a plot filler. It had NO meaning, it wasn‘t “needed” to move the story forward, and it wasn‘t dealt with in a thoughtful or caring way. I don‘t know why I finished it, really... and I‘ve talked myself into a pan 😅

I have made a reading nook on my balcony, and I‘m ready to get this weekend started 🙌

#currentlyreading

Boyden's prose is beautiful, plot good, characters well-drawn-but the controversy over his claim to Metis heritage, and thus the foundation on which this novel rests, left me unsettled. It's a very dark story, by its very nature; I am not delicate but the detailed descriptions of torture were unnecessary after the first couple. Still, I recommend it as one way to understand the complicated relationships between 1st Nations people & Europeans.

#ReindeerReads #TBR
#DecinBooks17 #AnticipatedDecemberRead

This is the first time since l joined Litsy that l'm not sure what l want to read this month. But l think Murder in the Links needs to be read and go back to the library. And l want to read Weimar Germany because l feel l need to read something different.
And The Orenda and The Vanishing for which l have to #ThankYou @TheKidUpstairs and @CoffeeCatsBooks 😘
#DecDays

On this rainy day, look what reached my door @TheKidUpstairs 😍😍

I'm so grateful for this gift.

Some very pretty #birds on some very pretty covers 😍🕊🦅

#NoteworthyNovember

Came home to this kinda surprise #bookmail - I had almost forgotten about this sweet package making its way to me from Canada and @TheKidUpstairs 📦

Thank you Megan! I can't wait to read it. And that bookmark is adorable 👌

#riotgrams day 9! #NativeandIndigenousReads I haven‘t read this one yet, but I‘m very excited for it 😊

So, I came across another copy of The Orenda today for only $1.25. Which means I can have two winners! So.... @Kalalalatja and @JazzFeathers congrats! I'll be sending you both copies of this book 😁 Send me your mailing info to megansbrady@gmail.com

Thanks for playing!

Just because it's Monday, I feel like doing a couple giveaways! Here's #1:

I have found myself with two copies of The Orenda on my shelf, so I'd like to share with one lucky Litten. Here's how to win: make a post about your favourite book by an indigenous author (or one from your TBR) and include the hashtag #DiscoverIndigenousAuthors

Open worldwide, post by Tues Sept 12 9am EST and don't forget to tag me in your post!

I finished this on Saturday but I'm reviewing now b/c I needed time to let it sink in. This was a well-written story that made me think and gave me chills all at the same time. I'm glad I read it with you, @Leniverse or I may never have gotten through it! The ending almost destroyed me (I cried & I don't often cry with books) but ultimately filled me with hope. Not an easy read, & there were challenging sections, but it was well worth it. 5/5⭐️

@PurpleyPumpkin how are you doing with this? I just finished it. It gets brutal. Horrifically so. 😟🤢😢 I need to process the ending a bit. I also find that I wish we had an additional parallel narrative from a Haudenosaunee POV.

Using tobacco to stop bleeding? Is that a thing? Also... nicotine directly into the bloodstream? 😯😐At least 17th century tobacco probably didn't contain a fraction of the toxins of today's tobacco.

I just never know when something is melodramatic zeal and when it is horrible foreshadowing in this book. 😬

I don't want this to go on for long either. Not looking forward to what I think is coming.

Father Christophe, you just lost ALL your brownie points. The first Christian "improvement" you wish to instil in people is to make them beat their children. ?

Soooo, I might just be a sucker for punishment. I seem to read about 5 books a month. And yet, here's the #tbr I've set for July. Crazy, right? In my defence, there's too many great challenges on Litsy to pass up, #TheSatanicVersesBuddyRead & #agathachristieclub. & 2 of these I couldn't get to in June. & one is for #postalbookclub! With all this reading that's supposedly going to get done, why not throw in 2 photo challenges? #day1

Waste not want not! But then... I guess that part of the anatomy does contain a bone! 😆

So true!

Moving on in the #LitsyPartyOfOne. It's time to finish part 1 of the Orenda!
My partner is snoring on the sofa (we'll be celebrating his birthday tomorrow anyway), so I have taken to the gaming beanbag. The tiny mason jar in the top right corner contains Glenlivet. (My mother is appalled that I drink single malt (or indeed anything) from such a jar, but she's not Scottish, nor present, so I feel free to ignore her censure.)

It's a big decision, isn't it? I can hear your voice asking it, Father. Do I grow up to become a deer? Or do I grow up to become a wolf?

My hubby & I went to the Tears for Fears/Hall & Oates concert last & got our 80s on. We had a fabulous time & I took today off for recovery. Yup, I'm getting old! I'm spending some of today continuing this #buddyread, a story of early encounters between indigenous peoples & Europeans. It's very interesting, by turns thoughtful, poignant, & brutal. Love seeing the story told from such different POVs (3 of them). How are you liking it @Leniverse ?

After the downpour we had this morning, I was able to take advantage of this narrow window of opportunity in the weather and started reading this book while outdoors. #buddyread

#bookshelftourism Cottage friend edition. Can't keep my eyes off of #alltheshelves

@PurpleyPumpkin Are we ready for this? I see the book has three parts, so maybe reading it over three weeks would be better. But we want it done this month, don't we. 😂 So how do we do this? Check in at intervals? Post some thoughts after each part? #buddyread

This 5 book set of what Chapters has narrowed down to what we should read to celebrate Canada's 150th has only 1 I haven't read yet ( it's a great deal if you are looking for some #canlit with fiction and non-fiction in the mix) Barney's Version, Anne of Green Gables and The Inconvenient Indian are some of my top reads in my whole life

What a lovey parcel of CanLit goodies arrived yesterday in the mail, thanks to @LeahBergen ! The Boyden novel is signed and inscribed to me! I won't divulge what I was wearing but I do admit to dancing around the apartment for a long while after opening the parcel!

Thanks girlfriend! 😘😘😘😍😍😍

We spent the week in Niagara Falls celebrating our 25th anniversary. Discovered the Old Niagara Bookshop in Niagara-on-the-Lake and picked up The Orenda.

Laura: "My grandmother was African and from Mali. She moved to Switzerland when she was four, and then went to Paris to study. War erupted back home, so she could never go back. This book is part of a saga that takes place in the 17th century and is about the colonization of Canada. My Dad gave it to me and I am loving the story, because it reminds me of the fight for freedom that my grandmother passed on to me." #london

I really wanted to like this book, in part because he is Canadian and also because I don't care for the way that the internet has been scrambling to arbitrate Boyden's identity: that's for him and the people who claim him. The book, however, was not great. I can definitely see where the APTN found the book's politics unsettling. Also: the first person narration gets really flat about a hundred pages in.

I can read all of this before summer, right?

🙌🏼 The best thing to come from this controversy, besides the public discussion regarding Aboriginal identity and appropriation, is the added attention to indigenous authors. I mean, read Joseph Boyden if you want to, he's a talented writer, but he isn't an indigenous author. http://bzfd.it/2jc07rl

Do yourself a favor and read any one (or, better yet, ALL) of the books from this stack! #weneeddiversebooks #seasonsreadings2016

This is one of my #favouritefirstlines from one of my favourite authors. #booktober #greatfirstlines

My bookish soul sister @Hemlyn is on Litsy now, thanks to the Android incarnation. Follow her, friends. She's the reason I got to shake Joseph Boyden's hand. 😍 And she's wildly awesome. 😘

My #libraryhaul from yesterday. I put in requests for all of these when I was a few bourbons in... Now I can't decide what to read first! Several of these will check off my outstanding #readharder challenges

My pick for #FunPhotoFriday. Missionaries and Indigenous peoples collide in 17th century Ontario. ❄️

Fun Photo Friday. These aren't all Canadian books but so many of them are I thought I'd just take a shot of the shelf instead of dismantling it. I'm Canadian, I read a lot of Canadian authors. @Liberty