Welcome to Litsy!

#thinklocalgiveaway
@BarbaraBB
Happy Litsy anniversary! 🎉🎉
So since there are a million books that take place in NYC , I narrowed it down to Queens and this book takes place in the town (Woodside) that my husband grew up about 15 minutes from where I grew up (Whitestone). The author went to the same grammar school as my husbands cousin. It‘s a great story but is sad and moving. It does have a good sense of place and a feel the neighborhood.

Roadtrip reading. Title of this section seems appropriate 😉

"So much of life was the peeling away of illusions."

Really enjoyed this epic, family observing novel. I think at the heart of this is that the new house, good jobs and being socially acceptable are not what is important in times of real hardship and struggle. Sometimes we do questionable things, for no good reason and that‘s life too.
Not a happy read, but an engrossing, life affirming one. Accept life ,try and be happy - you never know what‘s around the corner.

Hoping for some good reading time to get through this today 😁

Thank you Caroline and Helen. Your Litsy love came at a good time. Work woes are not to be laughed at!! 😘❤️

It became clear almost immediately that this is a beautifully written book and that while at times it reads a little dry and the pace flags frustratingly it is very much more than the sum of its parts. It is a dense, slow and demanding book, sometimes hard to stick with but ultimately so worth it. The scenes of Ed's succumbing to Alzheimer's are brutal & shocking with a power that's like a physical slap & so exquisitely heart rending... cont.⬇️⬇️

Finally getting to the end of this one - hopefully will finish later on this evening....if I can read through the tears!

Dilemma: catch up on all my household chores that got neglected yesterday because my daughter was off school sick

OR

Start this brick of a book.

Not really much of a dilemma, is it? 😉😂

Sprawling novel about the life of Eileen Tumulty, born to Irish immigrants in Queens, New York. Her childhood is less than ideal as she is forced to grow up the caretaker of her alcoholic mother. When she meets Ed Leary, a mild-mannered scientist, she decides to marry him in the hopes that he will provide her with the stability and economic prestige she craves. But then her "American dream" crumbles as the years go by.

Sounds like me when I was a kid.

This one received terrific reviews. It‘s making me pretty sad. The content and the length. Anyone else forge through? Should I keep pressing on?

This book scored my first 5 star this year. A story about a family, told in a profound way.

Been absolutely freezing all day at work so been looking forward to this!! #bathandbook

Started this one last night, it‘s the book I‘ve had on my kindle the longest that hasn‘t been read so thought I‘d give it a go. Can‘t remember what it‘s about or why I bought it mind 😂

I'm not feeling very #wonderfultonight after catching some kind of stomach bug 😷 Nothing worse than feeling too sick to read.

So in lieu of a picture from tonight, I'm throwing it back to a year ago - my first litsy post!! What a fun year it has been meeting all of you littens ✨

#decdays

This is an epic family saga. The writing is beautiful. At 640 pages (20 hours and 51 minutes), it's a bit long. There are gorgeously detailed snippets of everyday life.

Getting over the last of this cold I have by “working” from home. 🤷🏼‍♀️

A blast from the past! This is a fantastic and memorable historical fiction if you haven't read it! #book #books #memory #litsy

This book is breaking my heart. 💔

Cat snuggles, reading and football...love this time of year ❤️#catsoflitsy #penny

#earthtones I loved We Are Not Ourselves #aprilbookshowers @RealLifeReading

This is one of the most astonishing books I've read, just craft wise.

This book just broke my heart. I finally finished this book and once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. A family saga is not typically one of my go to books, but I'm really glad I read this one.

Finally a nice day, when the sun is shining and it's over 60 degrees out! I love reading outside and can't wait for the weather to continually be nice out so I can do this all the time! 📚☀️

My weekend read. This isn't my typical book genre that I read, but I'm about halfway through and thoroughly enjoying it. It's also the longest book I've tried to tackle in a long time!

Early Friday night in bed with this heart-wrenching saga, coincidentally about an Irish family 🍀

Some of my #greencovers. When I start looking for a specific color I always find more 📚 than I thought I had in that color. #marchintoreading

Snow days are the best days! 🌨☃️😻

At 820 pages, this book more than qualifies as my "more than 400 pages" read ???

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." -HDT

This quote kept coming to my mind as I read this book.

This isn't a book I would recommend for any mood. This is a long book, and often painful to read.

On the other hand it is beautifully written, poignant, and left me highlighting quite a bit and reflecting on my own life.

I'd recommend, but prepare for some serious quiet desperation.

If to taste forgotten foods was to reanimate the past, then a different kind of reminder, a reminder of future possibility, waited in unfamiliar flavors.

I have not given you a lifetime of riches, but I have faith I have given you a father you can be proud of.

Life, she thought, was like that sometimes; for years, things were a certain way, and then in an instant, almost without conscious thought, they weren't that way any longer, as if all the hidden pressure on their having been that way they'd been has found release through a necessary valve.

It's outrageous how true this is...

...but they gave out no manual when you got married, no emergency kit with a flashlight for when the power went out. You had to feel your way around in the dark for a box of matches.

The world was changing fast. It was hard to fit her son's America into her memory of how the world had been ordered when she was a child. She felt like a member of an in-between generation, straddling sides in a clash of history. Her life was as remote and ancient to (her son's) as the stories of pilgrim settlers has been to her when she was his age.

#SpinePoetry for the #24in48 #Readathon!

The ego and his own
Never let you go.
We are not ourselves.
Today will be different...
Am I alone here?

Puddle. Of. Tears.

This one will stay with you, folks. A family, described over decades, and everything those dynamics include - accomplishments and failures, hopes and regrets, disappointment and joy - the entire landscape across generations. At times I wanted to throttle the characters and at times I wanted to celebrate with them. But at various times throughout the story, I so clearly identified with each one. Beautiful narration as well.

Starting this audiobook today. Has anyone read it?

#currentlyreading #audiobook

So so good in a slow, window to someone's life kind of way. Just what I needed at the time. ❤️

Really loving this book so far. So close to being finished with it but I have adored every page.

Goodreads Year in Books. But wait, I have two more weeks.

Finally sitting down with a moment to myself after a busy holiday weekend. It was busy but full of family and love and I couldn't be happier. ❤️