Welcome to Litsy!

And now, after all this time, we're home together again. And all that staying away, I can't say it was worth it. I can't really name precisely what I was staying away from. It feels like a loss.

I‘m currently 35% of the way through this and I‘m really enjoying it!

#Bread #HumbleHarvest

@Eggs
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Lovely #Nigerian pepper soup made using this recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/nigerian-pepper-soup-5323040 with added chili pepper and plantain. Surprisingly I had most of the ingredients on hand, although I did have to substitute a couple. I hope it's reasonably authentic and not too much like the Jonny Oliver's Jollof Rice sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLHikpIVNCw
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Delicious black-eyed pea akara bought at a Senegalese food truck, hoping they're not too different from the Nigerian version...
I gave up on the tagged book, unfortunately, but I did make pepper soup (pictured in my next post).

#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

I've started Butter Honey Pig Bread for #Nigeria
So far so good! There is so much food in this book... One of the characters makes a salted caramel chocolate cake (we basically get the whole recipe, including oven temp). It's making me very hungry...

#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

I have some issues and I think this would have had to have been a much longer book to resolve them. But i liked it. It‘s very sad.

https://youtu.be/5PMuEsiS0mw

#dewithon22
#dewithon
#theirishreadathon #irishreadathon2022
#BookTubeSpin6
#asianreadathon

Intro

Creed by Margiad Evans

Clarissa: or The History of a Young Lady, Volume 2 by Samuel Richardson

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

https://youtu.be/mULKXa2rnr8

Books mentioned:

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

A Concise History of Wales by Geraint H. Jenkins

The White Bathing Hut by Thorvald Steen
James Anderson (Translation)

O Beautiful by Jung Yun

Shelter - Jung Yun

A beautifully written generational saga dealing with pain, love, forgiveness, family and food. How she wrote three such deep characters, that go through so much, that felt so real is mindblowing! So well written, Ekwuyasi offers such a wonderfully moving and beautiful story, about trauma, spiritualism, food, mothering, sisterhood, queerness and love. The prose are vivid and strong. I loved it so much! Can't reccomend it enought! #canlit

3 out of 5

#foodandlit

Gorgeous. This is a book that should be savored slowly, not devoured quickly.

#12Booksof2021 #February @Andrew65

February was a great reading month for me, and this one was an absolute stand out. Family, magic, food, hearts broken and mending. All the feels and all the love.

I finished the bingo board yesterday.

Tagged is my favorite of the 25 listed (somehow also read 10 extra books).

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

And can I just be a total rando and complain that those stupid smiley face stickers keep falling off? I've been gluing them back on all month which is why they're going every which way. I still have another sheet of them. They may end up in my niece's xmas card.

“Our mother is not well. I can scarcely remember a time when she was. She is a vast garden of water-hungry flowers in a land of perpetual drought. Our father, I imagine, wanted to have something he could save every day, so he married her, narrow-waisted and massive-eyed. She was beautiful in an impossible way, a delicate thing. Too soft for this world, too soft for Lagos and the madness that is it‘s throbbing motor. Too soft for London…”

This #audiobook is truly lovely. The story is awesome but the descriptions of food take this to the next level.

#BookSpinBingo free space
@TheAromaofBooks

Thank you Cathy, Victoria and Michele.
Cathy- that card is so cool and I can‘t wait to listen to your hubby‘s music 😁♥️
Victoria - thank you for the cool bag too!

My September wrap up, and I enjoyed every one of these.
Butter Honey Pig Blood was definitely my favorite. But they were all 4-5 stars! Great month.

I have to thank Laura, my book guru from myTBR.co for recommending this book. It was a perfect read for me. Family drama, deep characters, multiple POV, a queer MC, heavy on the emotions. I loved everything about it. I hope Francesca Ekwuyasi will write more books.

@CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian your goodreads review was perfect.

Lots of CW here! See spoiler comment.

I‘m about 30 pages from the end and it‘s one of those reading experiences where I can‘t wait to see how it wraps up but I also never want it to end. You know the feeling friends. I also expect this last section is going to gut me. I‘m not sure I‘m ready to cry for an hour, so I‘m taking a short break.

“I devoured these books; every single one of them drew me in with its words until I was so deep in each world that any ending seemed too abrupt, and I would just sit with the closed book on my lap, the characters like old friends to whom I had just said goodnight. I would have to wait a while for the lingering aroma of one story to fade from my mind before diving into another.”

Art- Irina Sztukowski

Loving this book y‘all!

I decided to try Tailored Book Recommendations, just to see how they‘d do for me. I have to say, I think they may have nailed my preferences. I can‘t wait to try these! I did the recommendation only option, but if these are as perfect as they sound I‘m probably going to change to the option where they send 3 hardcovers every 3 months. Wish me luck!

Link: https://mytbr.co

OH MY GOD this was the closest thing to a perfect book I‘ve ever read. Twins, ghosts / spirits, multiple perspectives, rich scenery, PLOT! Oh how I loved it.

This book made me hungry for everything....slow cooked food, sensual sex, reconciliation with family, desire, music in queer night clubs, baking, a sequel. I sobbed through the last several chapters, in part because I couldn't handle that the end was approaching. Butter Honey Pig Bread is a delicious and devestating read that might require me to cook one of the recipes contained within to get some closure.

This book keeps popping up on lists of must read books so I'm going for it. Got home from working at the library and immediately got into my adult sized kiddy pool to read in the garden.

Really intriguing and well-written narrative of the intertwined lives of a Nigerian mother, who struggles with the belief that she is living under a curse, and her twin daughters. The story flows between their childhoods, the girls‘ estranged adulthood‘s in Canada and London, and their present reunion in Nigeria, where some hard truths come out. Longlisted for Canada‘s top fiction honours.
My May #Bookspin.
#Booked2021 #CharactersAreFrenemies

I can‘t imagine doing #BookspinBingo when my #Booked2021 list is so behind, but...

1. Girl, Woman, Other
2. Lion‘s Gaze
3. Lost Children Archive
4. Highway of Tears
5. Timbuktu
6. Talk about Race
7. The Salt Path
8. Hidden Life of Trees
9. Africville
10. Chop Suey Nation
11. Bush Runner
12. Homegoing
13. No Friend
14. Great Cities
15. The Innocents
16. How to Pronounce Knife
17. Unsettling Canada
18. New Jim Crow
19. Swing
20. Seven

I‘m so grateful my local indie picked this for book club this month, otherwise it would have escaped my notice. I need to start paying more attention to my Canadian friends because you all have excellent taste! ☺️ This a story about mothers and daughters and sisters that is rich and vibrant and gorgeously written. Will easily be one of my favorites this year.

We are kin. Here at the in-between place we are one being, eternal, moving in rotation to the flesh realm, only because we must...”I” is only a temporary and necessary aberration. “I,” “me,” such a lonely journey. We separate, single out to “I”s and “me”s and only when we traverse between realms, only when we take breath and body, only because we must. But we always return to “we,” you see? Because we must.

My #Bookspin for May: a novel of a twin Nigerian sisters go to Toronto and London as soon as they‘re old enough to leave home. It was long listed for the Giller prize and was on Canada‘s national radio book competition, so I‘ve been looking forward to reading it.

Impressive debut novel! Loved the writing and the story line. One of my best books of this year.

Beautiful, sensual prose that explores relationship to spirit, to self and to family.

I'm posting one book per day from the ever growing unread stacks in my personal library. No description or explanation, just books I own and plan to read. #tbr

Day 50

🧈🍯🐖🍞❤❤❤❤❤

Outdoors when I can!

I'm co-hosting #OppositeDay with @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks and I dip into the other photo challenges, see previous posts for details! I am also trying to catch up to the #NarniaReadalong, it's a new season for #Booked2021, and #ReadCanada

@MoonWitch94

Aw yeah, let the debates begin! #CanadaReads sets out to choose "the one book that will transport us" Anyone else excited for the debates this week?

Currently reading. I like it more as I get further in.
#CanadaReads2021

This year‘s Canada Reads debates aim to find One Book To Transport Us, and I think BUTTER HONEY PIG BREAD could be it. Ekwuyasi takes readers deep into her characters‘ complicated family dynamics, extra-familial relationships, cross-border moves, and hard-won emotional healing, with tons of glorious food descriptions for seasoning. I loved the hell out it. 4.5 stars.

TW for child rape.

#CanadaReads2021

It‘s #20in4 time! This weekend I want to:

• finish the excellent BUTTER HONEY PIG BREAD. Even though I still love THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN best of the Canada Reads titles I‘ve read so far, I also love this one and would be happy to see it win.

• continue my SKIP BEAT! reread

• read (or bail on) OSAMA by Lavie Tidhar from La TBR

• read (or bail on, though it seems unlikely) PASTORAL by André Alexis from my library stack

#canadareads2021

I can see why celebrity chef Roger Mooking chose to champion BUTTER HONEY PIG BREAD for Canada Reads. It‘s such a foodie book! And it‘s possibly a coincidence, but I‘ve made and eaten a ton of great stuff since I started it, including this soft flatbread stuffed with feta & olives. (It was my first non-tangzhong bread! I‘m branching out, baby!)

I started BUTTER HONEY PIG BREAD over breakfast and it feels like a book I could love. Hurray!

This book was beautiful. A story of life, love, family, choice, and the pleasure and potential for deep pain within. It is also about healing, together and apart. Throw in some magical realism, tinged with both traditional Nigerian and Catholic mythologies. And food, glorious, luxurious food. I loved it. I loved both Kehinde and Taiye. It is so worth a read.

#CanadaReads

Goal Two completed for #FabulousFebruary Readathon with @Andrew65

"He was from the US, but in order to avoid having to defend his country's sociopolitical decisions, he traveled with a red maple leaf patch pinned to his backpack."

This made me LOL. Fake Canadians are pretty common when backpacking. I met quite a few Traveling Aus/NZ post-Uni. The really baffling ones were those who tried to convince us they were really from Toronto.

Reading the tagged and came across a reference to a "Ghana must go" which sent me on a research rabbit whole learning about the history of Ghanaian-Nigerian relations and the xenophobic history of these bags. http://atavist.mg.co.za/ghana-must-go-the-ugly-history-of-africas-most-famous-ba...

Loved the characters and the author's way of storytelling. It took me bit to get into because I found it confusing at first,but once I sorted out what was going on, it was fascinating. It is short listed for the CBC Canada Reads 2021 award.

Delicious. Beautiful. Three Nigerian women, a mother and twin daughters, have drifted apart as adults as a result of childhood sexual assault. Heartbreaking but not dark at all, full of life and hope. The characters are wonderful, fleshed out; the writing gorgeous. Taiye, a messy hedonistic lesbian, stunned me in her authenticity and heart. The mom Kambi is a spirit not meant to linger as a human but she falls in love with being alive. Plus, food!