Welcome to Litsy!

🎧 currently reading 🎧

The ships he sends out into the world - The Eagle, the Calliope, the Lorenzo - cross and re-cross the globe, but Jonah Hancock himself, the stillest of men, falls asleep each night in the room in which he first drew breath.

Less about a mermaid, which features prominently at the beginning & end of the book but virtually disappears in the middle, & more about two lonely people who find each other, this is a languid story which vividly evokes the world of late 18th c. England. The characters are recognizable types & their wants, fears, desires equally familiar but you can‘t help but hope they‘ll find some measure of happiness. An entertaining book.

Friday morning with a book, coffee and a treat. Not a bad way to start the long weekend.

Sunday night reading…

I am reading this one just now, I have had it for ages. #books

A soft pick for this one. Absolutely brilliantly written and interesting premise and characters. There were parts that the plot seemed to pause and I kept waiting for more to happen then it all happened quite suddenly towards the end. I loved the ideas and story, history combined with magic and definitely a moral aspect regarding greed and being grateful for the simple things in life.

Like @Caroline2 I‘m giving this one a soft pick. I quite enjoyed it when I was reading it, but couldn‘t be bothered to actually pick it up.

Mr Hancock obtains a mermaid and at the same time meets Angelica Neal, a courtesan of great beauty. Will the mermaid bring either of them happiness?

It took a long time for not a lot to happen, although beautifully written.

Thanks for the #buddyread! Caroline @julesG 😘

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and I are catching a few early morning rays of sunshine.

I'm determined to finish this today.

#buddyread

@Caroline2 @squirrelbrain

A soft pick. This is a weird one. I‘ve seen it advertised as a Victorian Gothic. It‘s not, it‘s set in the 1780s! It‘s dark at times, like Laura Purcell. Hard to describe without giving it away. Parts I loved, parts were predictable. Fantastic writing tho.

How are you finding this? @Caroline2 @julesG

I‘ve just finished Chapter 13, when Mr Hancock meets Angelica. I find it just mildly interesting when reading it, but can‘t seem to motivate myself to pick it up; other books are calling to me more!

Thank you so much @jhod for gifting this to me! 😃 Such a beautiful cover and it sounds really intriguing! I can‘t wait to read it! 😊 ☕️ 📖 👍

A sweet story, both magical and real.

I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. I‘m glad ‘Game of Thrones‘ has desensitized because, wow 😳🤭 I liked it though, it kept me intrigued all the way to the end 👍🏻

December 2020
Things I Don‘t Want to Know on Writing: Deborah Levy 📖 4.5 🌟
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock: Imogen Hermes Gower 🎧 4.5 🌟
Exhalation: Ted Chiang 🎧 4 🌟
Hot Milk: Deborah Levy 📖 3 🌟
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Anne Bronte 🎧 2

Such a compelling and fast read. The story is gentle and kind, like a quiet friend who tells stories with beautiful detail.

4.5 star read for me. A delightful "Victorian sensation" novel. I listed to the audio narrated by the amazing Juliette Stephenson! Highly recommend.

Wednesday‘s op shopping goodies. I snuck through the doors before the Salvos closed & managed to grab these. I‘m obsessed with Sunday Reed, the philanthropist from Victoria, Australia & her lifestyle mainly because I would love a tonne of money I inherited to spend on my friends & myself having a lovely time at my country house & cooking for them & gardening all day. I got to visit her house a few years ago. It has become an art gallery/museum.

🧜‍♀️ I just finished in time for book club tomorrow morning and I loved it! I‘ve never read another story like this, and that makes me happy. I would categorize it as historical fantasy. Come for the mermaid, but stay for the life lessons.

📚 What are you reading?

🔴 I‘ve filled in another spot on my #BookSpinBingo card but I doubt I‘ll be shouting Bingo! to @TheAromaofBooks before the end of the month. It‘s still fun trying!

I made my goal today for #AwesomeAugust with @Andrew65 !
I finished Hothouse Flower and now I‘m over halfway through this book. Hooray! I‘m on track to be ready for book club next weekend!

Getting this ball rolling, hope you don't mind @Cosmos_Moon.

#ThankfulThursday

My family doesn't give me books. Honestly! But I get gift certificates sometimes.

1) paper girl - not unusual in itself, but in rural Germany in the early 90s it was very unusual.
2) me-time!

Want to play @rockpools (I remembered the new name 🥳), @Hollie, @everlocalwest?

I‘m giving this a pick, but only for the audio version. Juliet Stevenson reads it and she is marvelous! Her ability to voice various characters to differentiate them and give them life is a wonder.
The book itself could have been shorter and meandered a bit, but listening to it, I didn‘t really mind.
#audiobooks

An usual book. The mermaid and her real thinks, her bad soul, her oppressive nature.

#book #litsy #litsybook #goodreads #bookly #toread #bookworm #leggere #lettura #readingchallenge2020 #imogenhermesgowar #themermaidandmrshancock #fromAtoZ

13/15 #jumpstart2020 @Clwojick @Lizpixie

I was hoping for a lot more mermaid and a lot less Mrs Hancock. Maybe I had the wrong expectations but I wanted magic realism and got what felt like fairly standard historical fiction for 95% of it. Maybe fans of historical novels will like it more than me but it wasn‘t very me, if I wanted Victorian melodrama I‘d read an actual Victorian melodrama. I liked the ending and the mermaidy bits in general.

Loved this, brilliant writing, fantastic period picture of London and memorable characters. A little floppy at the end but not too disappointing. Best book of the year so far! 😉

#audiowalking on the Northwestern University campus. Lake Michigan can kind of almost be seen in the distance.

Juliet Stevenson can read all the books, as far as I‘m concerned.

#newyearsday #2020

For much of this long, leisurely novel I felt I was watching a slow-motion train wreck. I was horrified by what I thought was going to happen. And then suddenly I realized that it wasn't a train wreck at all, but a story that made me feel that all was right with the world. Gowar won me over by art and a bit of magic, and I am so very glad I read this. The language is dazzling and the audiobook, narrated by Juliet Stephenson is superb. I loved it!

Thank you so much Misty! You really brightened my day and I have been such a bad friend lately! I am so behind on all of my correspondence but please know how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness and overall awesomeness. Really looking forward to reading this!

This one was slow to get into but overall enjoyable. Definitely one of those books you're supposed to savor and digest rather than flip through quickly.

This book meanders a bit in some places, but overall I enjoyed the story. Angelica‘s evolution is the best part.

Borrowing this from my #library for my #bookclub. Mermaids and courtesans—need I say more?

I'm a bit perplexed by how to describe Imogen Hermes Gowar's The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock. Told in a sort of Victorian style, it focuses on protagonist Mr. Hancock, the unwilling recipient of a dead, stuffed mermaid creature. Through his ownership of this curiosity, he comes into contact with an array of people his middle-class life had formerly made out of reach. Included in this new crowd is Angelica Neal, (continued in comments)

I'm a bit perplexed by how to describe Imogen Hermes Gowar's The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock. Told in a sort of Victorian style, it focuses on protagonist Mr. Hancock, the unwilling recipient of a dead, stuffed mermaid creature. Through his ownership of this curiosity, he comes into contact with an array of people his middle-class life had formerly made out of reach. Included in this new crowd is Angelica Neal, (continued in comments)

I loved the writing itself in this book, and the descriptions of things like clothes and scenery were evocative and lush. I also really liked Angelica for the first third or so of the book. But she changed so suddenly and in ways that felt odd, and Jonah overall was kind of empty. The story takes a turn toward fantasy-ish at the end that I just didn‘t get and felt off key to me. Liked it, didn‘t love, but would read more from the author. 3/5 ⭐️

A loss is not a void. A loss is a presence all its own; a loss takes up space; a loss is born just as any other thing that lives.

“One thing,” she says.

“Anything.”

“This one,” she gestures to the cat, who has tucked her nose under her tail, “goes out. She‘s no place in the bed.”

[Angelica has just become the villain in this story for me. I hope the cat poops in her shoes.]

“We are all in dispute amongst one another as to who will have you first. [...] Now, I believe I was the first to talk to you...”

“Sir,” she smiles. “There is no first. There are no turns; I am not a toy to be passed about. I am an item of great value and rarity which few men are fortunate enough to ever possess. If you want me, you will earn me.”

Sukie‘s secret ambition is to marry a gentleman in possession of a good trade but poor health, who will die very shortly after the children are born and leave her be. In such circumstances nobody could blame her for entering into business herself, and thus thriving.

This #nowreading is brought to you by @SavidgeReads who gushed about this book on YouTube enough to get me to pick it up even though the synopsis didn‘t originally grab me. But now that I‘m finally getting around to reading it nine months later, it actually sounds a lot more intriguing!

It's a travesty that I've left this book on my shelf for so long. The premise seemed a little dull, but the window into 18th century life is fascinating. I can hardly put it down! #currentread

The Mermaid and Mrs.Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar is a five star 1780s time machine of ornate storytelling.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Whimsy and wonder with every flip of a page. I was fully immersed within a world the author built. Each character is as colorful as the story they live in. Readable Art. An enchanting journey to the very end. 💃🏼✨

“I like mermaids and I like parties. For a Mermaid party I‘ll tolerate much greater hardships than that.”

#unpopularopinion Sorry, guys! I‘m 267 pages into this book, and I don‘t care anymore. I don‘t care about the characters or what happens to them. There is nothing happening here. I‘m done. I‘ll choose another book with a beautiful cover for #mmdchallenge. #modernmrsdarcy

Next up for the #mmdchallenge: a book I chose for the cover. It‘s not impressive on my Kindle, but it‘s gorgeous in the Kindle app on my phone!

Wrapped up my summer quadrant for #booked2019. My favorite of the reads what‘s the tagged book, which surprised me a few time.

I don‘t usually do fiction as audiobooks, but I really enjoyed this one. I liked how quickly the book moved. The plot kept me into it and the characters were not tropes.