Welcome to Litsy!

1. Off the top of my head, I'd say my great-grandmother's cast-iron pot. It was a wedding present, and therefore is at least 120 years old. I still use it.
2. Les misérables. There are lengths and digressions, but the core stories still resonate with people today, and I have no doubt that that will also be the case in the next century.

Thank you for the #Two4Tuesday questions, @TheSpineView
Tagging anyone who wants to play...

It‘s the season for summer beach reads, and my TBR pile is sky high, so what did I do… why I bought the thickest chunkster on my bucket list and ignored everything else! (As one does…) I‘m just 30 pages in (out of 1350) … maybe I‘ll be done by summer‘s end?!

I actually finished it! It took a year & a half of reading on & off & several false starts before that, but while I couldn‘t get it to sustain my attention consistently, I really loved this when I was actually reading it! The French history plot line went over my head & I can‘t seem to follow battle scenes, but I loved how suffused this was with progressive philosophy, raw emotion, & beautiful writing. I‘d totally make this a🏝️📖pick. #doublespin

@Rissreads What a generous and thoughtful #missmydad giveaway. This made me immediately think of reading Les Mis in high school with my best friend who passed away recently. After we read it we had to go see the Broadway show about a dozen times. I can‘t see this book without thinking about him. ❤️

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesday @CBee

adjective FORMAL
adjective: matutinal
of or occurring in the morning

This one is super fun to say! And once I looked it up and found it‘s meaning, and that it was from the Latin, I realized it must be related to matins which I just learned about from Call The Midwife (so I totally defy whoever said TV wasn‘t educational 😆)

One day back into reading Hugo and as usual I need help from my Litsy fam of French speakers or classicists… Google translate says pantoufloche means slipper and white I love the sound of “by the pantoufloche of the pantoufloche” as a swear, the connotation of by the slipper of the slipper is totally lost on me 🤷🏻‍♀️

I bailed on a CAD read of this last spring. I was around 40% which was significantly further than I‘d gotten in any of my previous attempts. You‘d think after 3? tries I‘d just give up, but I‘ve really enjoyed this every time, and right now I‘m actually able to pick up from where I left off instead of starting over, so maybe this is the year I finally finish it?

I‘ve reached the last hundred pages of #LesMisCAD! I‘m excited to check it off my list at the end of the month.

Anyone doing a yearlong read next year? I was considering a series like Throne of Glass or something on those lines.

I just don‘t know if I‘m ready for this…

#LesMisCAD

#LesMisCAD

A little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now…

Today was the day. (I‘ve been reading forever.)

#doublespin #scarathlon #mischifandmayhem It‘s only taken A YEAR but I have finally finished Les Mis after plowing through a chapter a day. I was torn between a pick and so-so - the overarching story is really good, but there‘s so much unnecessary fluff (eg; the section on Waterloo, Paris) that detracts from the main plot. This could have been about half the length and would have been way better IMO.

Do you hear the people sing?
#lesmis

This months #bookspin is a chapter a day of Les Mis - I‘m over 80% through now! I actually read this sentence a few weeks back but it‘s really stuck with me cos it‘s so utterly depressing 🤣

Finally done. This is certainly not my favorite classic, but I‘m glad I‘ve finished it.

It was my Q2 #chunksterchallenge2023 pick.

Looking forward to a more contemporary chunk for Q3.

@Amiable @Kelly326

950 pages in…planning on finishing this #chunksterchallenge2023 pick in June!

@Amiable
#bookspinbingo

A further small digression, you say? Basically foreign to this book, you say?

Victor, I‘m still trying to get the image of women on their knees licking crosses on the floor out of my head. Ready to rejoin our main characters when you are, sir!

#LesMisCAD

Why do I have the nagging sense that I‘ve seen a version of this somewhere? Is it quoted frequently? Did one of the Brontë sisters write a similar scene? Am I just crazy and experiencing deja vu…? #LesMisCAD @dariazeoli @MatchlessMarie

Yesterday was my first missed chapter for #LesMisCAD - I‘m impressed that I kept it up for nearly 4 months! It seems like this weekend‘s chapters were meant to be read together, anyway, so no harm done.

Learning about the nuns and their daily life was truly something. Hugo painted a picture by describing their yellow teeth and their penance while kneeling on the stone floor for hours. Sounds miserable to me!

#LesMisCAD @dariazeoli @MatchlessMarie I‘ve never experienced a chase scene in this fragmented slow motion before. It‘s really odd. I was tempted to just read straight through to the end of this section, but I got worried I‘d lose momentum on our CAD pacing that I‘m actually doing really well with! if I started messing with it. And then I started wondering why the chase is broken up into so many characters in the first place…?

300 pages in…📚

#chunksterchallenge2023 @Amiable

I couldn‘t find a translation for the little parody included in today‘s chapter online. Are either of you reading an edition that gives the English for this? Or are any Littens fluent in French? #LesMisCAD @dariazeoli @MatchlessMarie

Okay, I‘m super happy to have left Waterloo and be back in the heart of the story, but did we seriously spend a month reading about that battle just for the sake the last line when we get the names Thenardier and Pontmercey? Even supposing one is intended to read this wasaay faster than we are, that seems excessive… 😠 #LesMisCAD @MatchlessMarie @dariazeoli

It took over two years, but I finally finished. Boy do I have lots of thoughts…. I both loved and detested this novel/history lesson/philosophy book. This was my #chunksterchallenge for 2021.

In the end, I am going with a low pick, but there were times that it was a so-so.

Also, my second finish for #20in4

Is anyone else getting sick of Waterloo?! I flipped ahead and we have 10 more days of the battle before we get to the next book and back to our story 😩#LesMisCAD @MatchlessMarie @dariazeoli

Here we go…the 2nd chunkster for @Kelly326 and I in 2023! Our plan is to finish it by the end of June.

@Amiable
#chunksterchallenge2023

If I‘m not mistaken, today‘s chapter is the longest thus far, as Jean Valjean struggles with making a choice between admitting his identity or letting another man go to the gallows in his place. What would you do on his shoes? 🤔

#LesMisCAD

#LesMisCAD @MatchlessMarie @dariazeoli

And so we meet Javert. We‘re told plainly that he is a symbol. His spirit animal is the wolf that the mother would have killed because he would have eaten the rest of the litter. Could Hugo have set up a more unlikable character?!

#LesMisCAD I got a few days behind and realized how unclear it is what chapter I was supposed to read to to catch up, so I found this schedule online… it was made for a 2018 read, but if you ignore that part the rest of it should work for us. I figure all of us will miss days here and there so I wanted to share it with you. http://www.nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Les-Miserab...

#bones #ScaryFebruary #LesMisCAD

#bookspinbingo board! I normally try to get my book spin read done early in the month, but for Feb it‘s my les mis chapter a day so won‘t be done until the very end! This has been a really good way to break this beast down! It‘s pretty heavy going at times and there‘s a lot of unnecessary fluff, but I‘m enjoying it in the main!

Part One of the book is named for Fantine, and we finally meet her just over 100 pages in! It‘s interesting to hear about her before she was Cosette‘s mother.

#LesMisCAD

Wow! What did I just read in today‘s chapter?! That was like 6 pages of names and not a lot else! I recognized 5 or 6 really major ones from history, and 2 or 3 from this novel, but how many of the other 30 odd am I going to need going forward? Do you think I should bookmark this chapter and read it a bunch more times until it starts to make some kind of sense? Or do I just go forward and assume this is background I don‘t actually need? #LesMisCAD

Almost at the end of Book Second. How is your reading going? The end of today‘s chapter surprised me! I remembered the plot twist with the gendarmes, but not what happened after they left. I‘ve never seen an allusion in literature before to anyone except the devil buying souls! #LesMisCAD

If you‘re following along with our Les Mis chapter a day, I know we‘re only just getting to know Jean Valjean. Care for an interlude?

Randy Rainbow had released his first video of 2023, and the clusterfuck that was the Speaker vote(s) was just asking for this!

https://youtu.be/tXoJd4BoZTQ

#LesMisCAD

In the time that I‘ve read the first 50 pages of Les Mis, I‘ve also finished 6 books 😆

The first 14 days of #LesMisCAD acquaints us with the bishop who will play an important role in the life of a convict we haven‘t met yet up till this point!

Anyone who wants to join @MatchlessMarie and I is welcome to crack open a copy of Les Mis on Sunday for #LesMisCAD! We‘ll read a chapter each day in 2023 and finish up at the end of the year. Feel free to post with the hashtag if you‘re taking the plunge with us!

I‘ve been watching this YouTuber react to the 10th Anniversary Dream Concert as a first time watcher and it brings back great memories of my first intro to the story:👇🏻

I‘ve been reading Middlemarch throughout 2022 and will complete it this weekend; it was great to take it on in digestible chapters each week!

For 2023, I‘m considering tackling this beast. 365 chapters means daily reading, so I‘m a little intimidated. For those who have done this before, how did you fare?

#doublespin done! As Les Mis is 786467 pages long I‘ve broken it out into 5 chapter chunks… October‘s portion complete! Although #scarathlon has taught me I can fit in a short burst of reading before I start work, so I may continue reading a chapter of this a day so I don‘t lost momentum..

Had to share this one 😂 I'll never get over the pain that the unabridged version of Les Miserables can bring you xD