Welcome to Litsy!

Very informative read.

A historical fiction set in Stalinist Russia in the absolute winter that results in plummeting rations and desperation to the point of boiling shoe leather and nettles for food.

A shocking read, ending on a hopeful note.

'Poetry doesn't exist to make life beautiful, poetry is life itself.'

'You don't value yourself, and that belittles everyone who loves you.'

'War is the dream from which we could wake, if we made enough effort.'

'But there's something deep within me that says: Write, whatever happens.'

'That's what war means: blunders and muddle and doing things without understanding why you're doing them. A long time later, if you're lucky, someone comes along and writes things down do that they make sense, and calls his story history.'

'But spring hurts. If spring can come, if things can be different, how can you bear what your existence has been?'

#7favesin7days 📚5/7

Piercing writing. I am embarrassed to acknowledge I knew little about the siege of Leningrad before I read this novel and did some web reading.

It‘s so true how abstract concepts are until lived.

My thoughts about the prairie and front range. 😊

I loved this story of Anna‘s attempts to keep her family alive during the siege of Leningrad. It‘s a beautifully written but sometimes harrowing account of the ravages of starvation, and the bitter cold of the Russian winter ...

The personification of General Hunger & General Winter is one of the more terrifying passages I‘ve ever read in a book, knowing what‘s in store for Leningrad.

“Let‘s join forces!” he said. “What one of us misses, the other can take of. Together, we will be invincible.”

“Anna pictured the seeds beginning to stir. Plump nubs of green feeling their way up through the earth, unfolding, fattening, changing hydrogen and oxygen and all the rest of it into solid, succulent food.”

Helen Dunmore‘s The Betrayal is my next RL book club choice, so being a completist I have to read The Siege first.
(I‘m new to Litsy so hope I‘m doing this right)!

Today‘s charity shop purchases. The embroidered picture cost Q9, and the greens and purples are my favourite colours.

Should I feel #Blushful that I‘ve succumbed yet again to the sweet siren song of the secondhand?

Forsooth I shall not.

#YESvember17

Packing to go home after a great getaway is always bittersweet (aka how do I squish the 9 books I bought into my suitcase?)

When the mothership calls you home - at Russell Books, Victoria, BC

Whenever someone asks me for a recommendation for a good novel about World War II, this is the first one I mention. So much strength and beauty in such a slender novel.

Interesting read focusing on siege of Leningrad during WWII. Well written. Recommend.