Welcome to Litsy!

I worked on this tapestry for my aunt while I finished rereading DAYS BY MOONLIGHT. It‘s such a gloriously weird, philosophical book, and I‘m glad I returned to it in its quincunx order (5) instead of its publication order (4) so I can reflect on how it serves as a capstone for (and/or argument with) many of the issues raised in the other books. #audiostitching

#Junereads Tagged book is one of the best of the lot #weekendreads

Early morning reading view #EarlGrey #catsofLitsy

Evening reading view slightly more distracting than I‘d like given how much I‘m enjoying this quirky odd road trip into the supernatural / the Canadian psyche. I‘d like to hear Alexis‘ elevator pitch for this one.

Saturday morning reading view

“Leaving the room with the dioramas, I followed a wall-painted arrow that pointed to my left. Above this arrow were the words ‘The Instruments/Les Instruments.”

(Sometimes bilingual signs are hilarious. The art in my photo is by Gregory Hardy.)

Alfred Homer & Professor Bruno on a weeklong bizarre odyssey across an alternate southern Ontario in search of a poet. Readers, this Danté-esque travelogue is all about the philosophical journey, not the destination. Satirical humour addresses love, grief, & social commentary about racism & Canadian identity. I read it in print first, then got even more out of the writing by listening to Alexis read his own #audiobook. #Black #CanadianAuthor

For nearly forty pages, I thought DAYS BY MOONLIGHT was the sort of FMALF I simply can‘t connect with: distanced, abstract, dispassionate. Then, all at once, it opened itself up to me and I fell in love on every level with this delightful, horrifying dive into the riches (and poverties) of the human spirit.

The LAYERS here, y‘all! Alexis delves into complex relationships, between individuals and between concepts. He considers key issues like ⬇️

It hit 25 here today! I did basically everything outside, including read more of this strange and wonderful book while I ate a tasty Kind bar Shoppers was clearing out.

Now I‘ll see if I can sink into DAYS BY MOONLIGHT, with some help from my red shadow. #caseyplusbooks

We went back and forth like this, each of us expressing our side of the matter, and to my surprise, I was suddenly engaged in a pitched battle of politeness, those kindly but ferocious skirmishes that are so common in our country, each side trying to polite the other into submission. I prefer these sorties to the open arguments that happen in the United States.

(Posing: Ryan, my friend who‘s trans, and Travis, in his Cree dance regalia.)

“My faith doesn‘t always help me,” said the reverend, “but my reason sometimes does. I think of us as creatures who are fated to interpret. We question everything. I believe it‘s our fundamental nature to question. As such, how could our Lord be anything but unknowable?”

Some poets, like Eliot or Pound, took enormous pride in belonging to a noble tradition. Take the glorious past away from Eliot and you‘d have poems too dry to read. The same if you took God from Blake, Nature from Wordsworth, or Death from Emily Dickinson. Every poet has a fount from which their work springs.

No book is entirely true or entirely false. That‘s why I prefer fiction. It‘s open about being mixed. It encourages you to use your instincts and find your own way. So, let‘s say that anything that makes it into a book—any kind of book—is speculation. Some of it‘s useful. Some of it‘s entertaining. And some of it‘s too drab to be either.

“I‘ve always thought thistles wonderful for the come-hither / go-away-ness of them, furiously flirting with bees while daring anyone else to touch them.”

[Illustrations scattered throughout this novel are by Linda Watson. You can also see the texture of the paper stock: Coach House makes lovely books.]

She herself did not like the idea of people trampling on sacred ground looking for God to solve their problems, as if the Lord were a garage for the soul.

It‘s with plants like this that I feel the land‘s desire for joy, its willingness to play with us, to frustrate, to fool, to delight, to leave perplexed.

Naturally, my parents had told me that people in Schomberg ‘spoke‘ with their whole bodies, but I discovered there were also times when heads and hands moved without signifying. And I found it embarrassing not to know when a movement meant something and when it did not. For years after my first visit, I had bad dreams in which trembling willows and billowing drapes said nasty things to me.

His hair was neatly combed but he‘d parted it down the middle and it made him look like a muskox.

There were lineups to use the public washrooms. And stores sold out of Coulson‘s Hill memorabilia—in particular, a t-shirt with a picture of a highway intersection in the middle of nowhere, beneath which were the words ‘Coulson‘s Hill, the Possibilities Are Endless.‘

From a glass-fronted credenza, he took a bottle of greenish liquor. To me, he said
—It‘s asparagus wine. My own invention. Something to drink when academics come by.
—Don‘t drink it, said Ms Flynn. It‘s foul.
—Foul but bracing, said her father.
It was both of those things. It tasted as if asparagus had been recovered from a septic tank and soaked in grape juice.

@merelybookish Yep, I like reading on stairs too.
@batsy

“Okay,” I said. “I‘ll go to the library for my holds and a print copy and of my next short fiction collection from La TBR.”

Then I found a tasty-looking cookbook. (The pictures are PRETTY, and Paleo food doesn‘t prohibit mangos. Mangos are NECESSARY.) And one of the few X-Men titles I haven‘t read. (It was an OGN so Marvel Unlimited didn‘t have it.) And the first three vols of TITANS. (@TobeyTheScavengerMonk talked up Wally West recently.)

Sigh.

It‘s the weekend! 🎉 My reading nest is built and stocked with things to eat. (Not the kittens...although they are on my nerves this morning...) Among my picks, I‘m going to check out Ursula K. LeGuin‘s last interview, revisit work reading, and check out AS MEAT LOVES SALT because Marlon James mentioned it in the NYT. I‘ve also been rereading GIDEON THE NINTH. I love it with the heat of a thousand suns. What are you reading this weekend? 📚❤️📚

Very unusual book! Funny and smart.
A road trip through some small Canadian towns - full of mythology, folklore, and satire. Lots of philosophical ideas about unrequited love.

Would recommend for readers who like Madeline Miller, or Patrick DeWitt, or books like We, the Drowned. 👍

Look what came in the mail today!! I need to start working on my advanced reading copies tbr pile.

Hmmm...visit my parents this weekend or devout it to reading?

A tale of a roadtrip through southern Ontario (or possibly the underworld), with magical realism and Canadian satire.
I loved Fifteen Dogs and can‘t wait to start this one!

Apparently this is #4 in a quincunx of interrelated novels.
Thanks, LibraryThing!

OH HELL YES. 📚🤘🏻❤️