Welcome to Litsy!

In The Long Take, U.S. cities have no past. Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco are constantly tearing down their histories. The root of a city‘s evolution here is destruction—whether by bulldozer, by law, by violence, by poverty, or by earthquake. Our lives, too, can age like the faded signs of a storefront. Our redemption lies in destroying our foundations and rebuilding again.

3 cities, an ex-soldier. NY to LA & SF, post war America of those cities is seen through the eyes of a WW2 veteran haunted by its past, trying to live in civil society. Powerful imagery of the sordid cities..the isolation & desolation of the homeless, the casualties of war; the evolvement, corruption & brutality of the cities & its people. The flashback of war scenes are vivid. Plenty references to noir films. Beautiful & haunting novel-poem.

He looked up the ceiling.
Laughed out loud:
‘It‘s like someone shook the map of America
and all the crap that wasn‘t bolted down
ended up here, in Los Angeles.‘

Billy‘s (an ex-soldier) unsparing observation.

(Internet photo of a crowd listening to a presidential address in 1950s).

#currentread

‘People come to Los Angeles for refuge, sanctuary, but what they get is this massed, mechanized population moving in a confined space almost without collision or accident. The sounds, the movement of war: a ballet of battle without the guns.‘

(Internet photo of downtown LA in 1950s)

#currentread

...but nothing about ex-servicemen.

Mostly a long narrative poem, interspersed with wonderful photographs. Sad, haunting tale.
@Lindy does the best review - I‘ll borrow her statement - ‘jaw dropping word smithery‘ .
Probably won‘t appeal to you if you don‘t like long poems or just poems in general!
Thanks Caroline 😘

Verse narrative in shifting timelines tells the story of Walker, Canadian soldier, shell shocked after his experiences in France during WWII, who feels unable to return home to his girlfriend: “Her clean eyes could not see this, what he has become.” Instead, he finds fellowship amid homeless veterans in Los Angeles, a city that is continually being torn down & remade. 40s film noir aesthetic; inhumane violence; jaw-dropping word-smithery.

We love nature because it dies and then comes back to life. A resurrection we can believe in.

As he lay in bed, he saw that
trying to forget was the same as trying to remember. A lifetime‘s work, and damn near impossible.
He pulled out a smoke,
swallowed what was left in the heel of a bottle.
In Cape Breton there was just the past.
Here in California, they‘re only thinking about the future—
the past is being torn down every day,
so there‘s no past here to remember.
He stubbed out his cigarette, lay back down in the dark.

It‘s like someone shook the map of America
and all the crap that wasn‘t bolted down
ended up here, in Los Angeles.

That‘s what they do here—demolish houses and build freeways.
It‘s the only city-planning there is—segregation.
And greed, of course.

(Photo of Angels Flight in Los Angeles)

In the last splinter of sunlight allowed between the skyscrapers
an old lady is sitting with a book,
moving her chair every quarter of an hour
a little further down the alleyway.

(Internet photo. I‘m not suggesting Hayden Panettiere is old.)

The German planes came over and the bullets were raking the hull like hail on a tin roof and we took a hit and the boxes in back of the LST broke open, and out came a spill of white wooden crosses. Grim laughs about that from the boys: how the top brass planned for everything.

(Internet photo)

Always closer to the exit than the altar, or so my mother said. And now I have cast myself out: into the wilderness, into this city and its rapids. What enormous energy it takes, to fling yourself out of the nest.

Always such a thrill to get a package sent via Royal Mail! Love Book Depository, and so anticipating a leisurely deep read of this.

Thank you Caroline for the lovely gifts and books ❤️🎁 I LOVE them all, the socks 🧦 are awesome!! And indulging my thing for leather bookmarks!
Have a wonderful Christmas 🎄 here‘s to another year of pen-pals 😁

Wow.Walker makes it through WWII, going back to his small Canadian home town seems impossible.He struggles with PTSD,roams from New York , to LA & San Francisco,horrified by McCarthy witch hunts & haunted by skid row vets not cared for .The author did an incredible job researching places in each city,I knew of most, above postcards of Angels flight & 1 of the Clifton cafeterias ,LA. & Card from SF Chinatown bar Li Po,still in business today.

Walker feels #screwed - screwed by a country that sends its young men off to war, that doesn‘t take care of its weak and wounded, that cares more about its politics than its people.

#NoFemmeber

#octoberwrapup

A big month for me - admittedly I snuck Snap in on the 1st of Nov but that finally allowed me to sign off on my #manbooker2018 reading! That was a long and somewhat painful project:) Slowly chipping away on #Readharder2018 with 5 books to go and two months to do it in.
Stand Out Reads - The Long Take and Milkman ( mainly because I thought I would hate both ...)

Read it this morning in one go. The first of this year‘s Booker shortlist for me. Reminded me of James Elroy in its noir descriptions of 1940s LA... with extra poetry. Unusual, but successful, it‘s dark and it‘s about PTSD post WWII. But it‘s also about creeping fascism and the horror of McCarthyism and it felt urgent and contemporary without laying it on too thick.

Let me know if you want to borrow it @Cinfhen

1. Visit to the lovely Golden Hare Books in Stockbridge
2. Trying to deal with the frustration of work colleagues ignoring telephone calls and emails 😠
3. The brilliant The Long Take
4. A pot of tea
5. There's not much I don't like!
@MinDea #humpdaypost

I should have known that the one book on the Booker shortlist (so far) that had truly moved me is also nominated for the Goldsmiths prize. Robertson's quietly, inescapably devastating poem needles the consequences of WW2, seen the through the eyes of Walker, a Canadian D-Day veteran equally haunted by visions of war and home. His experience in New York, San Francisco and Chicago reveal a world with no place for those who fought ⬇️ #goldsmithsprize

In this poem/novel Robertson shows that just because we win a war, it doesn‘t mean we live like victors. Through the observations and experiences, trauma and struggles of Walker, a D-Day vet, Robertson paints a picture of a “glorious” America, with all its cracks showing and growing larger and larger.

I wouldn‘t mind if this wins the #ManBooker prize, because it is a powerful epic that still feels relevant in spite of it being set 70 years ago

Saturday morning reading in bed 👌

I‘m home alone until tomorrow afternoon, and I plan on reading all day, and maybe a bit into the night as well 📖

#currentlyreading

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️

A stunning bit of work and especially so as it is a kind of narrative poem and that is not normally my jam. This book is so many things - a primer on late 1940s early 50s noir film and a beautiful evocation of cities in a state of flux. It‘s about one man‘s descent into post war despair. It is melancholy and achingly sad with a great line in describing shadows.
I would be happy to see this one take out the Man Booker.

#bookmail 👏👏👏 I‘m so excited for both of these, and I‘m pretty sure the tagged book will be my next read once I finish Les Mis. I also got the books for #MyFavoritePoetSwap and will be sending my package out next week 👍

@Cinfhen I‘m all set for the #HELLoween party 👻

Books read in September. I just managed to do a #BookAWeek, so I‘m happy about that.

I‘m happy about reading 4 books while at the same time reading Les Miserables. This book will show up on my statistics for October.

September was another weird reading month for me. It was slow and arduous and much of my reading was distracted. That being said, I read two books from the Man Booker Longlist, both of which I enjoyed, got back on the #readharder2018 buzz which I‘ve neglected recently, and read an interesting crime novel. It wasn‘t all together bad, but I‘m heading into October hoping to get back in the zone.

This novel/ prose poetry is about Walker, a former D-day veteran. He has escaped to the big America cities after the war, NYC, LA and San Fran. Even if Walker moves around the focus is the same: the treatment of veterans, the demolition of the inner city, society‘s focus on making money.

There is a lot of references to movies and Walker stumbling of film sets, and I loved those parts.

This is my 3rd book finished for #BookAWeekChallenge

Isn‘t this what we all want to do? Discover favorites in an others book shelf

Ready to start my first book from this year‘s Man Booker list.

This will also be my third book for the #BookAWeekChallenge

The Long Take is so deserving of its place on the 2018 Man Booker Shortlist.
This book is about many things: post-war America, the veteran experience, isolation, poverty, and most interestingly to me, the life of cities. It was the analysis of the cities which spoke to me most. This is a story about how crumbling and failure. But in spite of this, in the end I was reminded that it is in being broken and failing the we truly know ourselves.

Cities, my love.

The meditations on the lives of cities are 🔥

❤️ 🌊

The Man Booker shortlist. Disappointing.... two I read and liked, two I didn‘t like and two I didn‘t read yet and that don‘t appeal to me at all.

However my favorite is among them and I really hope it will win this year‘s #ManBooker2018 price!

Told in 200 pgs of poetry we follow Walker a ww2 veteran over 12 yrs as he moves between NY, LA, + san fr, whilst working as a journalist + reporting the homelessness of fellow vets. The writing is stunning, as he poetically describes the city, its people, and the horror of war. It is the loneliness of a man haunted by things he has seen and done, & his lost life in Canada which dominates this incredible bk and i will definitely buy it to reread

When the realities of 1948 ring true

This is so astute

Already stunning p.9

After Eugene onegin i wasn't sure if i wanted to read another novel in poetic format but this is so good. So far each stanza is evocative of place and memory.
So my third read from the booker longlist is going well.

Long list reading to break up the exam grading

I thought I‘d hate it but I loved it. Beautifully writing, dazzlingly original, and haunting. A dark book but one worth reading. One of my favorites so far #manbooker2018

Our full reviews are here: https://thereadersroom.org/2018/09/13/2018-man-booker-longlist-the-long-take/

I thought I‘d hate it but I loved it. Beautifully writing, dazzlingly original, and haunting. A dark book but one worth reading. One of my favorites so far #manbokker2018

Our full reviews are here: https://thereadersroom.org/2018/09/13/2018-man-booker-longlist-the-long-take/

These books arrived in the mail last week.

The top two are long listed for the Man Booker Prize and I‘ve seen some great reviews for these.

Unni Lindell is my favorite crime writer, and I‘m really looking forward to her latest

I‘ve an other book order coming in this week, hopefully

10/13 for #manbookerlonglist #manbooker2018

I didn‘t know how much I‘d like this one but I absolutely adored it, a clear favourite for me alongside The Overstory and Milkman. The form never felt weird or tiring, the character was so subtle and believable. The discussion of the war was affective but never too in your face or overpowering, it didn‘t disrupt the serene melancholy mood. The cities were flawlessly drawn, felt like dream landscapes.

Building and demolition seem to happen here within the span of a human life - so citizens can either watch their own mortal decline, or see themselves outliving their cities.

This is why I miss the island. Nature. We love nature because it dies, and then comes back to life. A resurrection we can believe in.

Thank you so much for everyone‘s good wishes for the interview!! I think I did well, despite being nervous, and I really really want the job so fingers crossed! I did dribble some water down myself cause I was so nervous I forgot to swallow but don‘t think they noticed 😭

Taking myself out to lunch to celebrate surviving. Never been to a restaurant on my own before but feels good and self-care-y to try!

On to number 10/14 for #manbookerlonglist #manbooker2018

I‘ve only seen brilliant reviews for this one! So excited. Only read a page so far as I must go to bed but I‘ve got high hopes. I‘ve also got high hopes for managing to get through the longlist before the shortlist comes out, which I should be able to do if I can get my hands on normal people soon.