Welcome to Litsy!

I loved it.Jacaranda,our main character,is a LA girl from birth, lives a loose existence painting surfboards and hanging at parties w/ the pretty people. It‘s a meandering book but the joy is in Eves observations of this world .The 2nd part takes a turn, Jacaranda has written some things that attract an agent in NY, she goes there to see she can turn it into something sustainable. love/hate relationship w/ NY. &One of her LA pals shows up famous!

#readyourkindle I‘m enjoying this mess of a book , about half way through. Babitz really wrote about her life generally in fictional form. I do like those sort of loosely written books that were written mostly in the 60s-70s about party people consuming too much of everything. There is a sadness for me now, Eves stories are very LA and my heart is breaking for all the loss from the fires. Unfortunately, more Santa Ana winds Monday -Wednesday 😞😢

Very silly book about LA and literary New York in the sixties. Thinly veiled autobiography, clearly, by an observant but not terribly thoughtful young woman. The recent reissue of the book was lauded by all the usual suspects, but I really don‘t see what the fuss was about. Skip this and read anything by Raymond Chandler instead.

"It was a dare- he dared you not to laugh with him. He dared you to despair...he dared you to believe you were going to die- when you at that moment knew, just as he did, that you were immortal, you were among the gods."
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-Eve Babitz

My final cottage read. Far less sex and rage than you‘d think. I was more into it for the first half than the second. Definitely not for everyone. I enjoyed but didn‘t love it... I soooo wanted to love it.

Started listening today to this California female coming-of-age novel, originally published in 1979. The cover image that RBdigital has slapped on it seems not the slightest bit apropos for the setting. An enjoyable listen so far.

Currently reading 💅🏻

I adored this novel about a 1970s California girl growing up and into her own. If Joan Didion and Shonda Rimes wrote a book together, you might get something like this. Little sex and little rage are present here in their literal forms (it is extraordinarily clean given the title) - but the California ocean waves, Hollywood soapiness, and drama of publishing and the LA and NY elite abound in dreamy vignettes. Time to read every other Babitz book!

IT'S BEEN A #BOOKHAUL KIND OF WEEK!
On Thursday I went to the ACC tournament in Brooklyn and went to The Strand afterwards to use my gift cards I had hoarded. So far I'm ADORING the Chew-Bose book and the Babitz book. I love how I can always find interesting recommendations for books I've never heard of there. The two books at the bottom were recs from a Bookmarks magazine article about REALLY long books (Shantaram was also on it 😍😍). #thestrand

Jacaranda is truly my word of the year.

Damage Day 1

Day 3 of #riotgrams

This book was good, but I would definitely have to re-read it a few times. I loved how detailed Eve was with detailing how life was back in the 60s and 70s. It definitely showed me that people all struggle with different demons and there is always a story as to why those demons can come around.

Read this in a day! Loved it. Want to read everything she ever wrote. Reminds me of Didion.

She really believed that the great religions of the world had come into being before anyone had grown up by the ocean. She believed in the ocean.

This is just a small sampling of the amazing books coming out on Tuesday (and the only ones I had physical copies of in my office.) But there are TONS more you'll want to check out, particularly WHAT WE LOSE by Zinzi Clemons, TELLING THE MAP by Christopher Rowe, and THE SARAH BOOK by Scott McClanahan. 📚❤️📚

Today's reads are accidentally themed. 📒💛🌕🌼🍋