Welcome to Litsy!

Scores from my building‘s book exchange a little while ago.

👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏼

So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.

(p379)

#TLT #ThreeListThursday @dabbe

1. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
2. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell

Thanks for the tag, @Cuilin ! This is #MotivationalMonday Not Spotted Until Tuesday. 😬😀
1. Work, yoga, reading, TV. My typical winter-blah-month activities here in New England.
2. Re-reading the tagged book, plus “Breathless” by David Quammen
3. Inquisitive and skeptical

@Cupcake12

I am sitting here in awe of what I just read. I was given this book in a swap years ago and it‘s been sitting on my shelf ever since because I never really felt excited to read it. Once I finally started however I fell in love with the narrator Calliope Stephanides immediately. The story that he weaved from his grandparents in Greece to his parents in Detroit to his transformation into Cal was epic, heartbreaking and gorgeous.

Recessive genes meet in a Greek family which emigrated to the US in the 1920s and produce an intersex child.

Interesting enough while I was actually reading it but I had very little urge to pick it up again after interruptions for food, sleep, family, etc. so it took a long time to get through.

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

---

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

An incredible generational novel! I loved the narration by Cal and his story.

Chunkster of a book! This is the second or third book this year that's over 500 pages for me.

I can see how this book won a Pulitzer Prize. It was so good! Thank you, MBC ON FACEBOOK, for making it this months read! The life lessons contained this story were numerous. The protagonist was such a strong person! The ending didn‘t disappoint. After reading this, the only thing the leaves me scratching my head is why did they name their son “chapter 11”? Did anyone who read this get that? I highly recommend this book!!

#Besomeone who avoids her responsibilities to read on a beach all day 😌 #julyjam @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

Being on hold for a gazillion years has one upside I suppose 📞💁‍♀️

A great novel about youth, identity, meaning of sex and family. Just wanted more and to know what actually happens to adult callie

An engrossing read about a young girl who becomes a young man. Calliope Stephanides is born into a Greek Orthodox family in 1960s Detroit. Her immigrant grandparents, fleeing their Anatolian village after Ataturk's rise to power, and hiding a secret, are the start of an epic story that Calliope (now Cal) narrates, musing over the numerous factors (is it nature? is it environment?) that has shaped a very misunderstood aspect of human heredity.

Am surprised/disappointed that I don't love this. Can appreciate writing is quality, it just doesn't speak to me. Structure-wise, I enjoyed the first half (the grandparents' journey from Turkey to US, experiences as immigrants) but then as the narrative turned to Cal the whole thing flagged & dragged & I was losing interest. Then, for a novel that went on for soooo long, the ending seemed rushed & left me unsatisfied. More in comments ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Just getting into this one after a slow start. Was wondering how long it had been on my TBR list ... er, quite a while!!!

Starting this one today. Lots of cover art variations for this one - I particularly like this one, the US first edition.

Middlesex is much more than a gender novel. Adam Begley described it as “a hybrid form, epic crossed with history, romance, comedy, tragedy” in his review for the New York Observer, and that‘s spot on. It‘s a big book, in length, depth, and breadth, and yet it‘s compelling and thoroughly readable. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/middlesex-jeffrey-eugenides/

Delightful

Here is my January #bookspin list! A few are missing because they are ebooks and one is jammed in the back of my bookshelf and I didn‘t want to take it out. 🤣

What a crazy book. And to think I thought this story about a hermaphrodite with Turkish roots was about a boring town in New jersey or something. Certainly deserves its Pulitzer Prize.

Happy for two reasons:
1. I finished this book in time for Book Club.
2. I read another book from my TBR shelves.

Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, it is a family saga of an immigrant Greek family. My expectations were high. The buzz for this book was about the narrator,Calliope who is a hermaphrodite.
The majority of the book follows the story of Calliope‘s grandparents, and parents. I found that part the most interesting. ⬇️

Book Club read. Using a combination of audio and printed book to expedite my read. This strategy is more enjoyable(when it is possible) than reading a book on audio and a different printed book. I am always using both formats. Also thrilled because this has been on my shelves for way too long! #mttbr

This was on by TBR pile for over a decade!🤗It took me a while to get into this tale, but each successive generation of the Stephanides clan pulled me deeper into the story. I would have loved less time being spent in the early days with Lefty and Desdemona and more time with Cal as a teen and young adult. The performance by Kristoffer Tabori in the audiobook edition was fantastic and helped keep me engaged especially in the early stages. 4/5

DNF-ing. I know so many people love it, but I'm just not feeling it. Maybe another time.

February #DoubleSpin @TheAromaofBooks

3-3-21: My 23rd finished book of 2021! This is my second time reading this epic tale. This is the story of Calliope Stephanides and the 3 generations of her Greek-American family. The story travels from 1922 in Mount Olympus through the 60s in Detroit and finally the 70s in Grosse Point, Michigan. It‘s also a story about how Calliope becomes Cal. Lyrical and moving. Winner of the Pulitzer. I‘m so glad I re-read it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👍🏼📖#️⃣2️⃣3️⃣

Can‘t put this one down. #sogood

It‘s New Year‘s Day, the exciting day where I set reading goals for the whole year!🤓 I learned a long time ago that if I don‘t make lists, I end up reading a lot of crappy books over the course of a year. I‘m not saying these are all great titles, they‘re just the ones I hope to read. This may finally be the year I get around to Middlesex after a decade of procrastination!😂

Narrated by Calliope /Cal, born intersex (a genetic anomaly, for which dark family secrets are revealed to be responsible), this is one of those generation-spanning epics which in tone reminded me somewhat of the Bellow of Augie March, or John Irving. Packed with memorable characters (dope-smoking grandfather Lefty was a particular favourite), funny, engrossing and moving.

There was almost a point in this book where I bailed, but something kept drawing me back. The first and last thirds are fantastic. I would have preferred more of a focus on cal and his growing sense of self, closing the gap between the end of the book and present day, but the family saga was super interesting, just not what I was really expecting or signed up for.

I feel like the first sentence in this book says it all as to why I picked it for the hermit card of tarot takeover. Even though this book is as much a story about a Greek family and spans over a century (at least pretty close to it if I recall correctly) - it is as much a story about Cal and personal discovery.

#Tarottakeover #TheHermit

@ErinSueMreads @Meaw_catlady

1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
2. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
3. “I‘m the final clause in a periodic sentence and that sentence begins a long time ago, in another language, and you have to read it from the beginning to get to the end, which is my arrival.” -Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

This is the first Eugenides book I‘ve read. I am way late to the party, it seems. I really enjoyed this book. More a sprawling family saga than anything, I really enjoyed the depth of this complicated narrative. I will certainly look for his other work.

7/23 - grandma

#quotsyjuly20 @TK-421

7/14 - humid

#quotsyjuly20 @TK-421

7/13 - announce

#quotsyjuly20 @TK-421

#QuotsyJuly20 Day 14: #Humid

#ManicMonday

📖 Middlesex by Eugenides
🖊 Madeline Miller & Kate Morton
🎥 Moulin Rouge
📺 Monty Python
🎤 Midland & My Chemical Romance
🎶 Mr. Brightside (The Killers) & Mess is Mine (Vance Joy)

#QuotsyJun20 Day 19: #Martini

Thanks @MrsMalaprop for this recommendation.
I loved this family saga of three generations of Greeks and of Cal who started life as a girl but became a boy at 14yrs. Fantastic writing. I only wish it was longer as I would have loved to keep reading about Cal‘s life as a man.