Welcome to Litsy!

16-9 Aug 24 (audiobook)
I don‘t have much to say about this book and have delayed posting a review. Now, a week after finishing, I barely remember it.
The mother-daughter relationship was strained and uncomfortable, which left me hoping that my relationships with my daughters are not as difficult, although sometimes it can be hard to know.
I do enjoy the Irish voice and so was quite happy to listen along without being overly engaged.

I picked up this book on a whim when I walked by it at the library. It‘s more abstract and stream-of-consciousness than my usual fare. It‘s “about” the daughter and granddaughter of an Irish poet, and what they inherit from him (not in the literal sense). And there are lots of birds throughout. At times it felt profound and at others it felt nonsensical, but I was along for the ride and didn‘t try to force too much linear realism on the language.

I enjoyed this but I don't think it's on the top of my Women's Prize list. Though the writing is quite beautiful.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

4th book read from the Women‘s Prize for fiction long list. Mixed feelings with this one. It was beautifully written but I didn‘t find a well integration in the story, specially the first parts. In some parts I just lost interest because I felt author was jumping from one topic to another🤷🏽‍♀️Let‘s see if it included in the short list. It didn‘t work for me as I expected 3⭐️

Another bail.. I have a hard time concentrating on books (am very busy at work and a bit hyped about that #CampLitsy24 longlist) and this one just didn‘t make sense to me. Great writing, great scenes but they lacked connection I think and I had not really and idea what or whom I was reading about. Maybe I‘ll give it another try when I am a bit more relaxed.

#WomenPrize

I‘m not sure how I feel about this book, soft pick, so-so.

About a mother and daughter, and their relationship to each other and the people around them.

I think this need to sit with me before I know how I feel about. I‘m not sure the author is trying to tell, that we‘re more similar to our parents than we think? What we‘re a product out past?

#MotivationalMonday @Cupcake12

1. Busy week😳I confess, I was like @DebinHawaii and I was working in my taxes 🤦🏽‍♀️All done by now😃The rest of the week I feel like a medical appointment taxi driver, for my mother and other family members🤣Tomorrow, another day of medical appointments Drive
2. Coffee☕️ , tea 🫖 , cookies 🍪 , trail mix, pop corn 🍿
3. Tagged book
Thank you @TheSpineView 🥰♥️

Their mother, Terry, read books all day, even when she was well. She lay in bed in the morning, she came down and propped the book against the teapot, she moved to a deckchair in the garden with her feet akimbo, and one arm flung high. If you spoke to her while she was reading she would look at you from a lovely distance.

You can‘t tell Carmel you have a problem or she‘ll go out and beat someone up for you. My mother is the woman who goes over to the jetski-guy on the beach, when you are five years old, shouting, How dear you frighten my child with that stupid, horrible machine. She is the woman who phones the government when your Irish exam is too hard (no really), she is, bless her, a crusader and a fighter - if you get a grope from some old perv on the bus she

#UnpopularOpinion; but I really didn‘t get on with this book at all. It starts with Nell and her section is so chaotically stream of consciousness that I thought my audiobook was glitching. She also didn‘t seem to have a character arc but rather was an embodiment of “self-destructive young person.” That really made me struggle with the book as a whole, though there were some moments that broke through.

I chose to read this #womensprize nominee next as I didn‘t think I‘d like it, and I‘m saving the ‘better‘ books for later… 🤪

I haven‘t read any of Enright‘s other work, but I understand that women‘s intergenerational trauma is a theme in her writing. This book also includes a male POV as we hear from an impoverished poet who abandons his family, his daughter Carmel, and her daughter Nell.

Won‘t be my fave on the list but better than expected!

Perfect St Patrick‘s Day reading: three generations of an Irish family share a connection but are largely absent from each other. There‘s famous poet Phil, the patriarch who leaves his family, his stalwart daughter Carmel, and her daughter Nell, a twenty-something trying to find herself. Nell feels a deep connection with her grandfather and his work. I started the audio but connected much easier on the page and ended up loving this.

It‘s Friday and these are the books I brought home with me #libraryhaul 📚
The bottom two because I watched a YouTube video about the Carol Shields long list. I cannot be stopped 🤦‍♀️

Generational trauma, daddy issues, unsafe kink exploration and abuse, poetry, birds, flowers, mother-daughter POVs, gorgeous prose, slow, not the most accessible read. Soft pick.

#womensprize #longlist #womensprize2024

Bali was ahead. Nell would not ring today. She was lying in the future darkness, sleeping through a night that was moving slowly towards Dublin, that was yet to arrive. Nell had been overtaken by the planet's turning, and Carmel wanted to reach through time itself, to pull her daughter home.

3⭐

I loved the writing but I can tell this is not a book that will stick with me. A character centric book looking at a mom, daughter, grandfather. But I would have a hard time telling you what exactly this was about. Possible that audio was not the way to go but all of the narrators had pleasant voices and I enjoyed them. But I am not going to remember I read this in 6 months.

"Men turn up on time because it's not that complicated, like fascism or the train."

Listening to this, one possible for the Women's Prize long list on my neighborhood walk.

She‘s great. And this book was too. I liked the women - each creating their own path and identity. Family problems aren‘t sugar coated. But the importance of family is very clear

We don‘t walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can look at the world in a new way. We can meet.

It is a quiet story of three generations of an Irish family. Love the writing. The plot was ok. Great to hear the author narrate part of the book. This will be my last read of 2023. Book # 87. Far less than the 100 book goal, but there is always next year. 3 🌟

Thank you Liz! I‘m a fan of Anne Enright, this one sounds good! And I know that chocolate is delicious! Merry Christmas dear friend😘💕

Thanks for organising once again, Chelle😘

#Jolabokaflodswap

I was fussy about audiobooks during the most stressful part of moving house & almost abandoned this because of characters being self-destructive. The 4 audio narrators are excellent, however, and so is Enright‘s prose. That was enough for me to stick with it & I truly warmed to it by the end. Family trauma affecting subsequent generations of Irish women. Mother–daughter relationships. Alternating POV. All in all quite lovely.

Even the name—bullfinch—seems a form of littering, like a sticky label fixed to his feathers. One sunny Sunday in my mother‘s garden the bird looked at me, and I saw the bird, and I wanted to undo language and let him be. The bird just was.

Only one of these covers appeals to me. How about you?

Every Friday, I was to call to the parish house, go to his study, take a book from his desk and lay the book from the previous week down. If the room was empty, which it rarely was, it meant a parishioner was dying and he had been called to administer the last rites. So to my many other sins was now added the hope that some poor soul would make an exit on a Friday afternoon...

Their mother, Terry, read books all day, even when she was well. She lay in bed in the morning, she came down and propped the book against the teapot, she moved to a deck- chair in the garden with her feet akimbo, and one arm flung high. If you spoke to her while she was reading she would look at you from a lovely distance.

I have started a book of wonders, starling murmurations, a mountain hovering over the sea. People find a cellar under their floor, an extra, derelict room behind a mirror on the bathroom wall. A man discovers a dishwasher in his flat, that he thought was a fake cupboard.

Photo by Caroline Legg (Flickr CC)
Cropped.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128941223@N02/49980199147

You can't tell Carmel you have a problem or she'll and beat someone up for you. My mother is the woman who goes over to jetski-guy on the beach, when you are five years old, shouting, How dare you frighten my child with that stupid, horrible machine. She is the woman who phones the government when your Irish exam is too hard (no really), she is, bless her, a crusader and a fighter...

Anne Enright has produced yet another magnificent story, of intergenerational women in Ireland. We see altering perspectives from Nell, the daughter, and Carmel, her mother, their lives entwined by echoes of their famous poet grandfather (Father). The language is poetic and moving at times, as Enright uses the plot to discover the meaning of our relationships with ourselves, relatives and others.

I didn‘t understand this book until I read the author‘s note at the end. It made sense that she developed these characters separately because they never felt linked by the familial bonds she wrote for them. Still a low pick.

An acclaimed Irish poet leaves his ill wife and runs to the arms of an American coed, leaving his two daughters to pick up the pieces. Later, his granddaughter reckons with his legacy while starting her own writing career.

#RecentAcquistions I had a couple of big library trips recently!! 👍🏻 I was reading the two on top at the time I took this, but I just finished Evil Eye. Just started the tagged book in its place. I‘m excited to reread Swimming Lessons since I‘m doing Fuller‘s full catalog this year. I also picked up a St James for next month‘s #AuthorAMonth. Otherwise, we‘ll see what my mood reader self actually gets to! 😂