Welcome to Litsy!

I struggle to describe this book in a way that won‘t put you off from reading it. It can be dark (Proulx has the most creative ways to kill and maim her characters!) but it‘s also humorous. Each section has an illustration of a type of accordion, but this is the one the book follows through years and miles, as it is owned by successive players from various immigrant communities. #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

To be read....

I enjoyed this book, but I‘d be hesitant to recommend it to people. I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to read it. 90% of the characters are unlikable and there are plenty of horrible deaths (including the strangest suicide scene I‘ve ever read). So it‘s not a book to bring a smile to your face! But I enjoyed the way the accordion joined these stories together and I feel that overall it‘s a clever piece of writing.

The research that went into this book must have been immense. While all these details are of historical interest, I find myself on the brink of bailing on this book because I am not drawn into the story or characters. Perhaps it's just that my purpose in reading German novels is to keep up with the language in a painless, engaging way. This feels more like work than play. #seasonsreadings2016 #notinenglish

Continuing to work through a backlog of acclaimed 90s fiction... I'm not sure what to make of this yet. I want the stories to spool out more, but the encyclopedic nature of the book seems to preclude that.