Welcome to Litsy!

Hi Friends- Anyone interested in a mini Hygge event to Welcome Spring? Join us for a week this month- just let @AllDebooks know you want to be tagged and added to the participation list!

#LitSolace

Hi all, I'm checking in to see how you've been since our #Midwintersolace event ended. Are you ready for a mini Spring event? More hygge based fun to celebrate the return of Spring.

Please let me know if you wish to be added/removed from the taglist. All are welcome to join us.

Buddy reads post - https://litsy.com/p/RDl5Q2Z2UUxS

@LitsyEvents @TheBookHippie @Chrissyreadit

I love this series. Her writing is honest and beautiful and hopeful on these difficult times. I love every word.

First book finished for #Scarathlon2022! I finished off Spring today before I get started with more spooky themed books and it was v good. This is my first Ali Smith & I'll definitely be reading more - I found her style so refreshing! #TeamMonsterMash

And this was the 2nd book I was MEANT to finish in September for #BFC22 but alas I did not make it😂 I did do a whole lot of reading and working out there though - met loadsa goals😊 @wanderinglynn

Night everyone😴🌻💓

Spending my Sunday evening reading (alongside my flatmate who is also reading from the other sofa - it's a very lovely vibe), and I adored this part of Ali Smith's 'Spring' so much that I had to share it💓

Have you read any Ali Smith? Which book is your favourite?✨️

I liked the previous two books in this series, but this one just didn‘t quite work for me. I appreciate the themes and Smith‘s anger, but I felt like I couldn‘t quite grab onto it. Not sure if it was me or the book. I will say I absolutely love the US covers of this series—they‘re gorgeous!

The 3rd book in Smith‘s Seasonal Quartet.

Richard is making some big life decisions and grieving a good friend.

Brit is following Florence on her quest to find a place on a photo.

A book about the important decisions on life, immigration and as usual there‘s focus on culture. This time especially the authors Katherine Mansfield and Rilke.

5th book finished for #MarvellousMarch
@Andrew65

Scotland any minute, Brit says
But I don‘t have a passport, the girl said.
You don‘t need one, Brit says. Not for this border. Not yet, anyway.
How do you mean not yet? the girl says.
Well, Scotland and England, Brit says. Goes without saying.
What does? the girl says.
Different countries, Brit says.
Will we be able to see it? the girl says.
Scotland? Brit says.
The difference, the girl says.
She jams herself against the window.
Actually I think

What‘s your first name? Brit said
F, the girl said.
That made Brit laugh out loud.
What‘s it really, she said.
Florence, the girl said.
Well, if you‘re Florence, does that make me the machine? Brit said.
The girl looked delighted. Brit felt weirdly elated to have delighted anyone.
Come on. People must make that joke at you all the time with a name like Florence, Brit said.
They do. But usually they say, where‘s your machine, Florence, or

Now what we don‘t want is Facts.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

Ali Smith is seething with righteous anger at the state of our nation and in the 3rd of the seasonal novels her target is our treatment of immigrants as well as a lyrical attack about social media + the hate it creates. The story itself is abt a TV director who loses his close friend/confidant as he embarks on a new project + somehow finds himself stranded in Scotland where he chances on 3 unique women incl a magical teenager. Brilliant writing.

Spring...

Spring - Ali Smith (Dutch translation: Lente)

I read Winter recently and if you heard me talking about it you know how I'm feeling about the seasonal quartet. Still loving it!

I'm really craving some 'appropriate' weather right about now! All we're getting is rain and more rain. This pic was taken on a rare dry and sunny day and I'm living vicariously through it.

#newhere #litsyreads #readingbuddy #tuesdaytidbits #DogsOfLitsy

Richard, an aging director, grieving the loss of his friend and collaborator, throws over a project for a spontaneous trip north. Brittany, a bright young woman unable to attend university, now working at an Immigration Removal Center, is compelled to accompany a fey child north. The narrative skips between the two narrators, between Autumn and Spring. Each section is prefaced with experimental passages which are either off-putting or brilliant.

@The AromaofBooks I finally took a few moments to create my April #BookSpinBingo board. #BookSpin is Spring (so appropriate!) and #DoubleSpin is Khirbet Khizeh, my pick for #FoodandLit #Israel.

Well I didn‘t get to my #bookspin choice 🤨 (tagged) but I did read the #doublebookspin as well as a few others... I had a hard time concentrating this month 😣 but going to try again for April!
#bookspinbingo

Got this in the mail today #bookmail

March Bingo card ready to go! Really excited to read the tagged book for #bookspin 🌷 as well as #doublebookspin , Breasts and Eggs, once it arrives from book depository 😅 And I‘ve finished one very strategically placed book yesterday 😉

I'm happy with getting 5 of my #bookspin books ticked off for February, as I didn't feel like I was getting much reading done. My partner assembled some new bookcases and tidied up all our books which seems to have resulted in me losing my doublespin book, which wasn't quite the idea behind squeezing in new bookcases! It'll turn up at some point I'm sure, but for now it is quite firmly AWOL.

Finished up my February #bookspin book. My favourite of the quartet so far. I love the total loopiness of Ali Smith, but this actually felt like I was beginning to see a picture emerging from all the jigsaw pieces that were laid out in Autumn and Winter. Of course my mind might just be making that up! I‘ll see what happens when I get into Summer in a couple of months time.

This is my February #bookspin book! I love the David Hockney‘s on the covers of this series.

Looking for a good series, but aren‘t sure where to start? There are some interesting ones on the list in several genres, including mystery, romance, and fantasy. The tagged book is also on the list. I‘ve read the ones from Armstrong, Locke, Wells, Arden, and Cole.

https://www.bookbub.com/blog/good-book-series?position=0&source=multicontent&tar...

#series #bookseries #seriesbooks #seriesbinge

Word genius! Ali Smith is seriously talented!

This was a huge let down for me. I had to read it for the Booktube Prize, since Wi was judging Round 1 Group C. Deals with interesting themes but the experimental lifeless writing left me behind. I wouldn‘t recommend it unless you like that d‘import of thing. The whole thing felt very gimmicky to me.

1. Spring by Ali Smith (there's my literal mind again)
2. Haigh's chocolate Easter Bilby
3. Roses, especially the strongly perfumed ones
4. Lemons in the fruit bowl

#friyayintro

A slightly obvious choice for #Spring

#MarchMadness @Eggs

Obvious choice for #setduringspring #magnificentmarch @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

March TBR:
GR-Spring,I Married a Communist,Joseph,1Q84
IRL-Little Fires Everywhere
MiddleGradeMarch-Free Lunch,Ghost Boys,Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler
BookSpin-HalfBroke Horses
LMPBC-Across the Universe
NordicNoir-Conspiracy of Faith, The Stonecutter, The Fire Witness
ChildrensBookChallenge-The Doll's House
LittenWriters-Secrets of Eden, The Missing, Front Steps of Harlem Avenue
NWC-Fantastic Mr. Fox

I wasn't really feeling this installment in the Seasonal Quartet, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It didn't bring me as much joy as Autumn and Winter. I didn't wonder over Smith's way with words like I did the first two.

Oh well, still looking forward to Summer (the book, not the season - I hate the season).

December 4th - #Adventrecommends day 4

This year, the third book in the seasonal quartet came out, Spring. This was just as good as the previous two. Spring is about present day Britain, the refugee crisis and asks “Who is it a crisis for?”

I‘m counting down for the fourth and last book.

I've reached the conclusion that I admire Ali Smith's ability to write her Seasons quartet more than I enjoy the actual books. She does catch the mood of the times! Or *a* mood of the times: believe it or not there's more than just hate and Brexit happening here, though not deemed headline-worthy.
I'm surely missing many artistic references and their significance.
I came away feeling not trust in the changing seasons so much as bashed by polemic.

I liked winter better, but the writing is lovely

Snuck this one in over a weekend two weeks ago without even a note here. I adore Ali Smith, and I liked this a lot. But I noticed this one is a lot thinner than the first two seasons, and the most plainly political - she interviewed UK IRC employees and refugees. Our prophet buried herself in the present. The first two left me with more to think about. Still, this is a nice addition to our times. What will Summer bring?

I compiled brief comments about some of my June reading highlights on my blog: https://lindypratch.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-reading-round-up.html

Lots of travel this month! Read one of the best books of the year as well as completed several reading challenge books:
Spring: Ali Smith 📖 5 🌟
The Hearts Invisible Furies: John Boyne 🎧 3 🌟
An American Marriage: Tayari Jones 🎧 4 🌟
Late in the Day: Tessa Hadley 📖 3.5 🌟
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl: Andrea Lawlor love 📖 2 🌟
Currently reading David Copperfield, Circe and I am not your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Somehow this one did not make any connection with me, maybe it is my mood or my expectations were too high. I have enjoyed the previous books of the quartet but this was just too fragmentary for me. Just when I thought I had hold of a story strand we would digress into some other topic. It is like the reading equivalent of staring at imagery that is far too busy, there is no where for the eyes to rest and it starts to give you a headache

Today I finally spent my birthday book vouchers! My birthday was earlier this year so I‘ve had them a while! I got Spring by Ali Smith, The Girl Aquarium by Jen Campbell and S by J. J. Abrams! I‘m so excited to read all these books! #BookHaul #amreading

Brilliant! Her quartet of books based on the seasons are a commentary of our current times. A must read and one of Ali Smith's best. This will be one of the top books that I read this year. All the 🌟's

What if, the girl says. Instead of saying, this border divides these places. We said, this border unites these places. This border holds together these two really interesting different places. What if we declared border crossings places where, listen, when you crossed them, you yourself became doubly possible.

Ali Smith is keeping it surreal, which is her special way of keeping it real. Her prose sings a song that offers us hopeless hope: that we can change; that art somehow makes space for us to breathe; that we can stop being afraid of other people who are different in some ways from ourselves. Heartbreaking beauty that resonates with the truth of our times.

What do you do there? her mother said when she‘d been a fortnight into the job.

I‘m a DCO at one of the IRCs employed by the private security firm SA4A who on behalf of the HO run the Spring, the Field, the Worth, the Valley, the Oak, the Berry, the Garland, the Grove, the Meander, the Wood and one or two others too, she said.

Brittany, her mother said. What language are you speaking?

(Internet photo)

War won‘t stop, the story says. But enmity can. Things can change over time, what looks fixed and pinned and closed in a life can change and open, and what‘s unthinkable and impossible at one time will be easily possible in another.

Don‘t be calling it a migrant crisis, Paddy said. I‘ve told you a million times. It‘s people. It‘s an individual person crossing the world against the odds. Multiplied by 60 million, all individual people, all crossing the world, against odds that worsen every day. Migrant crisis. And you the son of a migrant.
(Internet photo)

I read the 1st two in her seasonal series,I like this one the best so far .How do you combine Rilke,Katherine Mansfield,the zeitgeist,xenophobia,& characters you care about in one book?Poetic , smart, & wise is Ali Smith.I want to use for #Booked2019 challenge #NewIn2019 I am falling behind on Spring,trying to read older books this year,could not resist this when my library hold came in.Seems the worlds a bit mad, have you heard?