bailedFound this hard to follow so gave up. Might come back to it one day.
17 likes
The End of Days | 
bailedFound this hard to follow so gave up. Might come back to it one day.
I decided, I need to pause this. I just can‘t go back to it at the moment because I can feel a knot building up in my guts if I only just think about continuing it.
So I definitely need to lay some personal distance between the issues the book deals with and the experiences my own life recently presented to me.
I didn‘t get far, p. 25 or so. An 8 months old baby that died made me put it away for now.
Some of you might recall that earlier this month a close friend of mine died, which came by surprise for me.
We are a close community here, so I was asked to write a kind of obituary about him. I am procrastinating this but forced me to do so today, and I realised quickly that I can‘t do both, fight with my words and feelings _and_ read this book.
📸 https://bit.ly/3eF2nEb
My parents‘ neighbours have exactly those tulips 💐 in their front garden. I _love_ them❣️Whenever I see them I smile from the bottom of my heart and think of #BloomingLitsy. Since I have no special talent with my mobile camera I “lent” photos from the Internet. 😊
I want to give a wave at @Come-read-with-me who I recall to always have such lovely flowers.
Here, bookstores will re-open tomorrow, April, 20th, so I decided to support my local shop.
I browsed my virtual SUB here on Litsy and picked 4 potential candidates:
Jennifer Niven‘s „??Stell dir vor, dass ich dich liebe“ = „??Holding up the Universe“
Jana Seelig‘s „Minusgefühle“
Bill Clegg‘s „??Fast eine Familie“
= “??Did you ever have a Family”
Cecilia Vinesse „??Sieben Nächte in Tokio“ = “??Seven days of You”
Help me decide.
Look, @AnneCecilie what I quickly snatched from my library after I was afraid that it wouldn‘t be wise to start “Oathbringer” today without having read the other related volumes. This Jenny Erpenbeck has been on my wish list since we have talked lately. It was available, so I quickly took it home.
Nevertheless, I will start with the other one because I imagine it‘s the lighter read. 😊
pick⭐️ New Episode! ⭐️ Alternate title: We Are Not Historians. But Jenny Erpenbeck‘s THE END OF DAYS did blow us away with it‘s masterful ability to tie everything together. We might have had an existential crisis, but we recommend this history of the 20th century as told though what might have been in one woman‘s life. Check out our discussion wherever you get your podcasts!
Hey littens. Been going through a lot lately. Just wanted to say I love the mental escape of this platform. Going to try to read a bit more of this book. To be honest I'm not loving it, but will give it a bit more.
pickThe End of Days is similar in style to Kate Atkinson's excellent book Life After Life, although I would rank Kate's book higher.
The novel is broken out in to five "books", each one ending with the death of the main character. In between each book there is an "intermezzo" which addresses the circumstances of her death and then asks "what if an event or two changed and the main character survived?” This is a dark, poignant, and unusual novel.
pickErpenbeck's book explores alternative life scenarios based on the survival and death of the main character. Four times she lets her die and three times the author retraces her steps and has her survive for a little while longer.
The author's use of language was hypnotic to me. She uses some phrases and metaphors over and over again and they connect the present with the past and sometimes connect one scenario with the other.
pickWhat a book! Following a woman as an infant in 1902, then later as a teen and during different stages as a grown-up. It really asks the important question: What if? What if this happened instead of that, what would the result be?
If you loved "Life after Life" by Kate Atkinson, this is definitely the book for you
Next up. Based on the synopsis, this book is giving me all the "Life after Life" feelings. So my expectations are high, very high. "Life after Life" is one of my favorite books ?
This is becoming a new routine. Put the kids to bed, start some laundry, and while I wait for it to finish, finish my day with a book, a drink, and sleeping dogs by the fire. #dogsoflitsy
Or perhaps that all of them together are dreaming a nightmare from which there will never be an awakening, and in this nightmare Stalin, the good father, creeps into the rooms where his children are sleeping with a knife in his hands.
Visited the bookstore today and came home with beauties.
One of my goals in January was to not buy any books and I actually made it *pat on the shoulder*
So naturally I had to visit the store the first day in a new month 😍
So, there's a slight possibility that I may die before I actually get to read all of the books on my TBR pile.................... that's what I'm thinking about today at work.....while I'm supposed to be working 😊😁😋
#fridaymusings #happyfriday #books #tbrpile
pickQuite a book! Loved the writing/translation of this talented author and translator. I got a little confused about 2/3 of the way through but the end tied it together in a beautiful way. Some of the passages were exquisite enough to re read three times.
pickJeepers! Bleak, beautifully written story of a family in Germany, then onto hungry years in Vienna and revolutionary Russia (comrades denouncing each other) & to Berlin. There are multiple outcomes, circling around the idea that the day one's life ends is not the end of days. So the family moves through phases of history but death is ever-present. Exquisitely written, it is lyrical & uses intimate scenes to illuminate history. Too sad for me.
This is stunning but sad so far. I'm going to need wine... 😬🍷
My daughter and I went to Waterstones today and ... #bookhaul part 1. 🙈 Some Spanish picks for our upcoming trip to Barcelona ... End of Days is for #LondonBookClub
I don't own any books that aren't in English, as English is my only language. But this book is originally published not in English! Haven't read it yet. #seasonsreadings2016 @RealLifeReading
I am so ashamed of my country today. Words can't even begin to describe how devastated I feel. May our children and the world forgive us
"Many mornings...he will weep bitterly as he never has before, and still, as his nose runs and he swallows his own tears, he will ask himself whether these strange sounds and spasms are really all that humankind has been given to mourn with."
"A day on which a life comes to an end is still far from being the end of days."
