Welcome to Litsy!

Published two #hundred years ago in book form this year. #200pnpcovers @CrowCAH @mabell

A little dry and took a bit to get into, but I actually really enjoyed this audio. Oddly funny at times. As it was alluded to in two of the recent books I‘ve read, I had to check it out. An unpopular opinion on Litsy, I‘m giving this a pick 🤘 I could see this as an interesting movie someday. A coming of age story with its struggles, overcoming and self-experimenting, it is an early first-person account of the experience opium addiction.

I came across this in a used bookshop. The cover is so pretty; it was originally published in 1821. And, it happens to be my #bookspin in May! @TheAromaofBooks #bookspinbingo

My #bookspin and #doublespin picks! I‘ve been reading Roots as part of the #chunksterchallenge2021 and will finish it in May. The other one I picked up at a used bookstore (I mean, how could I not?)

Thanks for hosting, @TheAromaofBooks 📚

I picked up some saucy titles at a used book store! 🤩

Possibly the original drug memoir, this work influenced Burroughs and Ballard. While the biographical sections are engaging, the parts focused on opium are made difficult by the florid, Romantic writing with inscrutable descriptions of being high. At first, I was engaged with the opium essay - comparing to what little I know of opium consumption (a combination of Trainspotting and Cumberbatch‘s Holmes), but I grew tired of the convoluted style.

Providentially, I started reading what turned out to be my #BookSpin yesterday! 😆

Thanks again, @TheAromaofBooks for such a wonderful monthly challenge!

I don‘t even know how to review this one. Strange. Interesting, but not really. I guess what I got out of this, addiction isn‘t a new concept.

"...a station which raises a man too eminently above the level of his fellow-creatures is not the most favourable to moral or to intellectual qualities."

Sorry, but I don‘t have any pics of opium. Here‘s Velvet Elvis instead. She probably gives you the same warm and fuzzy feeling that opium will. Worth a read, but there are better classics drug memoirs. #LitsyAtoZ #Q #catsoflitsy (Yes, “Elvis” is a good girl name. Just ask @anniehartnett or anyone who‘s read Rabbit Cake.)

Bits of brilliance interspersed with long, boring, hard-to-follow prose.

I'm 60 pages in and have no clue what I'm reading. Ugh!

Many of the books that I read on Victorian Murder referenced this work, as De Quincey followed the crimes of his era and often wrote on them. I have realized we don't talk about the 19th century as a time when drug addiction was a problem like it is today; but the powers of opium made its way through the population, affecting some of the great writers we know. I wanted to learn more. I had to pick this up when I came across it-- I'm happy I did!

Man, this looks like a good one...free ebook today.