Welcome to Litsy!

A short book to finish off my year in reading and I found it to be the most transporting love letter to books and friendship. I feel inspired to read more classics. ❤️

I really liked the way this story is told, like various stories about a particular time that someone would look back on and talk about. It‘s the story of two friends during the Chinese Cultural Revolution that are sent from the city to a rural community to be reeducated and the time spent with the villagers. Different. #Booked2022

Trying to finish this one on my two days off! 📚

A delightful time piece set in China when people were. Punished for the slightest offense against the government. It‘s a story of friendship and love and managing a normal life among it all.

4/5⭐ A thought-provoking, almost understated story set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution dealing with issues of censorship, storytelling, and literacy. It's not a dark book, and the particularly fun/light-hearted moments create a warm, homey reading experience. #bookspinbingo #booked2022

Lucas brought me coffee in bed on this chilly Sunday morning. 💕

Big news! I accepted my dream job of teaching English at a gameful learning private school. To say I'm excited is an understatement. There will be a big move to a new state soon and I'll finally get to set up bookshelves again! My poor books have been in boxes in the garage for the past year. 💔

Weekend read. A quick read but a struggle. I don't know what I was expecting from this but I didn't enjoy it. I might have missed the point but why is this "little Chinese seamstress" going through so much with these 2 young men and they still cannot use her name?

Wow!!! I‘m so in love with this sticker book!! I‘m not sure if I will be able to use it!! It‘s gorgeous ❤️❤️ I wish y‘all could see all of the beautiful stickers! I‘m looking forward to reading one of your favorite books Rachel! Thanks for everything!! ❤️❤️❤️

#LitsyLove

Today I finally managed to withdraw some money from a dormant savings account I haven‘t been able to access for YEARS. Had to spend a fair while at the bank to do it. Most of the money is going in my Covid-Proofing-My-Life fund but... I had to celebrate somehow didn‘t I?

Left me wanting more. 👍🏻👍🏻

Another one from an Ollie‘s book haul. This one was unexpected. I has no idea where this story would end up. I absolutely love when the characters of a novel also love books. The characters in this story go great lengths to read books and share them with others in unique ways. Of course, the Little Chinese Seamstress works her way into this story, again, in unexpected ways.

'By the time I could read the revolution had started, and all the books were burned' - Lou

Well, that went places I really didn‘t expect! But I enjoyed it.

Early 70s, the narrator & his friend Luo are sent for re-education in a mountain village, during Mao‘s cultural revolution. They (& the Little Seamstress from the next village) learn the power of stories & storytellers through films & a cache of forbidden books.

Surprisingly sweet, funny in places, & plenty to think about. And of course the Little Seamstress gets the last word 👍

Started this this evening. So far, it‘s much lighter than I imagined it to be and I‘m loving it. Thank you so much for sending it my way @kaysworld1 😘- and for the prompt to read it for #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks 😊

My #bookspin title for the month is Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which has been on my tbr for years and my physical shelf for a couple of months. If I do #doublespin, it‘ll be Hold Back the Stars - so different to anything else I‘ve read recently.

Both were gifts from lovely #jbuk littens ❤️

Thanks for doing this @TheAromaofBooks - I‘m excited about some sadly neglected titles here!

Thank you so much @kaysworld1 - this has been on my tbr for SUCH a long time, and I‘m really excited to read more Chinese fiction. I loved your teaser emojis as well- I‘ve been trying to guess since you posted 🤣 Hope you enjoyed your day off. 😘

Enigmatic. Interesting but distant storytelling. Two guys, a young woman, the Cultural Revolution, and the ability of literature to transform lives....a lot to cover in 184 pages. The story needed more pages. A weird shift in narrative sent the last third off the rails.

#ChinaGirl #WanderingJune @BarbaraBB @Cinfhen
I recently added this to my #tbr as its featured on a current B&N display for Books about Books....
And for anyone doing the #pop19 challenge, it works for the ‘see someone reading on TV‘ prompt.... (it‘s on the Rory Gilmore Book list) 💕📚📺

Sweet

An engaging, funny, short (4 h) #audiobook performed by BD Wong, #translated from French by Ina Rilke. Surprisingly gentle in light of its setting during Mao‘s brutal Cultural Revolution, it‘s about intellectual freedom & personal independence, told through the escapades of two teenaged sons of doctors who are sent to be “re-educated” through working among former opium farmers in a mountain village in Sichuan in the 1970s.

We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read.

The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers — more's the pity.

Thanks so much for this book @batsy I really enjoyed it! I‘m fascinated by this period but I‘d never read about the re-education process. The descriptions of life in the little mountain village were so vivid. The boys were unlucky but also unsubdued, their small rebellions wonderful, but ... I‘ll say something else marked with a spoiler!

Yikes. I had to read this book for school and hated every second of it. This book is set during China‘s cultural revolution, something I had never heard about before, but this author writes as though everyone‘s already knowledgeable about the subject. Also, I didn‘t like ANY of the characters. And the book had no plot. ZERO PLOT. Nil. Nada. Zilch. And the ending sucked too. I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did.

#StackAttack2019 Thought provoking in that it makes me wonder what life would be if books were banned...but overall, meh😐. I like the cover, but it‘s misleading because the shoes look like they belong to a child. No child characters in this book. 1/5⭐️s. A so-so is generous.

Short, humorous pick for our library's book club. It takes place during the Chinese Revolution under Mao, and removes teenagers from families whose parents are doctors or writers and places them under the care of small villages. The process is called re-educating, helping upper society understand the benefits of learning farming and hard labor to provide for a community.

I learned a lot about what the re-reduction program in 1970s China was like. I also liked the crazy situations the boys got into. I didn‘t like how poorly “The Little Seamstress” was treated in the text—how the boys wanted to culture her and how the narrator was only interested once she became more cultured. Also she had no name :( BD Wong read character voices weird, esp. women. Nearly a pan for how much I felt like she was treated like an object

Going to best my last years time of 17:15, but it‘ll be a close call to see if I make it to the full 24. Weird story, but enjoying having the flexibility of the audio book! #24in48

Set during China's infamous Cultural Revolution two city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation where they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. This was just ok and the ending was jarring.
#centuryreadchallenge

Thank you Barbara for surprise❣️ Thanks to you, I feel very privileged, because I‘m a part of this thoughtful, bookish community 🥰

Nice little story. Great understanding of how words and books can change lives. #myreadingbuddy

Reading to see if I want to add it to my curriculum. Has anyone read it?

Two city boys are exiled to a remote village for ‘re-education‘ during China‘s Cultural Revolution. There they are required to perform manual labour until such time the authorities decide. In the village they discover a hidden stash of banned Western classics in Chinese translation and devoured them secretly, finding escape from their bleak surroundings to worlds they‘ve never imagined.
#HeyJune Day 24 #revolution

Apparently 2018 is the year I finally read a serious amount of Chinese literature. So far, everything I've read on this unplanned theme has dealt in some way with survival. Coincidence or national literary preoccupation?

This particular book is a wonder and a delight, what with its focus on the solace two boys take in translated Western literature. It entertained me AND taught me more about 1970s China. Ain't it great when a book does both?

I finished ANOTHER BROOKLYN and started BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS while I took an #audiowalk along the Greenway. #Readathon

I got this for free from a neighbor. Excited to start reading it. 😁

I‘ve been reading this little book during lunch breaks at work. This is a very interesting story of two teenage boys sent to the countryside for re-education. I found this book especially interesting as I roomed with a Chinese exchange student whose health had been ruined by this terrible practice. Her husband had also been sent to the country to raise pigs. They worked extremely hard to pass exams and go to university outside China.

Different types of #shoes for different purposes. Loved Noel Streatfield‘s shoes series when I was young. Piper Keenan‘s book was a so-so read. The tagged book and Joanne Harris‘s books are on my TBR.
#readingresolutions @Jess7

What a lovely little novel. My first of 2018 and I‘m not disappointed at all.

#BooksInTranslation

My granny got me this book the summer I graduated High School, before beginning my English degree. She chose it because it is a book about the power of words and literature, both of my passions. It‘s a beautiful novel, filled with love for books and a desire for something beyond what we are told to wish for, and I could relate to that.
#RoryGilmoresReadingChallenge

Book 10 of #readathon - another book I had started many months ago but didn't get very far. Able to finish it now! Brief and poetic, set amid the awful Cultural Revolution in China and the resulting "reeducation" of young men and women (and the banned books they try to track down).

#TBR with occupations in the titles. #fallintobooks

Catching up on #jubilantjuly : Day 9, shoes on the cover

This one has been chosen by a few Littens for #shoesoncovers . Do boots count?

From the Chinese-French author and filmmaker Dai Sijie, a semi autobiographical novel set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
#shoesoncovers #jubilantjuly @RealLifeReading

I've been wanting to read more fiction about China and, preferably, by Chinese authors. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is the first in this new venture of mine and, while I liked it, I didn't love it. Maybe my expectations were just set too high. All the reviews call it a miracle and a revelation of a book and I just came away a little disappointed.

It's a deft and surprisingly amusing story about reading, books, young love ambition, hope, despair, and the power of stories. I enjoyed it tremendously.

Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1990392913

Nightstand, where on rests but a small portion of my TBRs.