Invisible Cities | 
Work day did finish with too many things not working out so i' m settling in the sofa with a blanket and a book...
pickNo idea how to review this, or who I‘d recommend it to, but I loved it.
Marco Polo & Kublai Khan are talking. In short vignettes Polo describes the myriad of cities he‘s visited. Or does he? Memory, desire, signs and the dead - all touching how we experience a place. Maybe that‘s it. If you have a fascination with sense of place you could do a lot worse than read this.
If you‘d like a bit of plot/character development, give a very wide berth!
so-soThough each vignette is different, by the end of the collection the cities all blur together. This may be the intention, symbolically, but it makes finishing the book a challenge.
Heading home with this little volume, which apparently I‘ve been reading for 2 months.
I love it! It‘s dream-like, interesting, challenging, beautiful, grey-matter-tickling… But a page-turner it is not.
Pic is Hawarden Station earlier. After (another) hairy start to the journey (first connection 8 minutes; first train delayed by 10 minutes), I can relax for a couple of hours - and I think a coffee trolley just got on!
Happy Monday, folks.
Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.
Look, it‘s a book!
Reading at the moment is minimal, writing reviews even more so, and finishing books I‘ve started… Let‘s not!
This fell off a very dusty shelf for #ReadAroundTheWorld #Italy and so far (ok, I‘m at 18 pages in but that‘s how it is right now) I‘m adoring it!
If you need plot, or even characters, avoid! If you have urban geographer tendencies, and enjoy dreamscapes that let your mind wander, give it a go maybe.
#bookreport
#BookMoods Day 15: This would definitely qualify as a #BookYouRegiftOften - beautiful writing, otherworldly musings. Bari coastline, 2022.
#BookMoods Day 13: This is definitely #AFriendsFavorite and after finishing it yesterday on our way back from Naples to UAE, I can see why.
🌸 ✈️🏝🤓
🪷This Is The Canon - but more titles coming from Southeast Asia - maybe I should write this lols
🪺⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tagging anyone who wants to play. :)
pickSix books in May! Not pictured here was Amanda Lovelace‘s ‘To Make Monsters Out Of Girls.‘ I don‘t usually read poetry but the cover convinced me to pick that one up. It was alright, but I recognize I‘m not the target audience.
Read my full reviews at: www.rainyreader.com
so-soItalo Calvino porta agli estremi la logica combinatoria e si perde in un libro giocattolo di descrizioni di numerose città - o forse un'unica città - tra rimandi tematici, sdoppiamenti, punti di vista diversi. Ottime alcune riflessioni, ma nel complesso una lettura poco soddisfacente.
1) Looking through my favorites shelf on GR, I appear to like locations in the UK and Europe, especially historical.
2) No, but the last couple years I have been curious to see how authors do with writing trans* and non-binary characters.
Thanks for the tag @Cuilin - I am still planning on some Dickens reading this summer!
#Two4Tuesday
bailedJohn Lee is a wonderful narrator —I loved his performance of China Mieville‘s The City and the City—but this is not the right audiobook for me right now: it keeps putting me to sleep!
so-soBeautiful imagery, but nothing really happens as Marco Polo describes many cities to Kublai Khan.
panSigh...wasn‘t a fan of this one as it turns out. I should probably seek out some literary critique to understand it a bit better. #lmpbc Will be in the mail to you before end of December @aeeklund . @rachelm @lele1432 @suvata
#holiday #MOvember
A few books I've read while on a holiday. The top three were from this year 📆🕶🎒🛩
@Cinfhen
Excited to add this book to my #TBR stack. I'm anticipating an odd, mystical tale.
I got the suggestion from my current book Emperor of all Maladies.
My friend has been wanting me to try one of his favorite Italian authors, so he sent me some #bookmail to expedite the process. 😄📚
#bookmailisthebestmail
pick#GetOuttheMap #LillithJuly
There are no maps for the cities Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan in this dreamy, unconventional masterpiece. His tales of city after imaginary city are beautifully written, but also feel like philosophical mysteries to solve. Not sure what Calvino had in mind, but it felt like a struggle to grasp all the dichotomies the world gets split into, and what they share in common.
@KarenUK @Cinfhen
I was fortunate to find a bookstore in the Trastevere area of Rome that sold books in English: the Almost Corner Bookshop. So pleased I found a copy of Calvino in Italy! 😃🇮🇹❤️
"You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours."
pickI will begin by saying that a lot of people would HATE this book.
There is no narrative flow, no clear characters or plot or setting.
But, as I wrote earlier today, it is like a series of poems that ebb and flow into each other.
The book is an imagined series of conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan (Genghis‘s grandson - hence the comic) about the nature of cities.
I found it beautiful and awe inspiring, even in its oddness.
Kublai asks Marco, “When you return to the West, will you repeat to your people the same tales you tell me?”
“I speak and speak,” Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting.”
If you can read the pictured page then do.
This book is one long train of strange images, like a constantly shifting, twirling poem.
So far it is wonderfully odd and unlike anything I‘ve ever read before.
Good place to finish one book and begin the next!
“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
A week ago some friends of ours were in a car accident as they were leaving our house. My husband was coming home from church & was first at the scene. He asked a neighbour to come get me to help.
Unfortunately, the neighbour told me this in such a way that I thought my husband was in the accident and was dead. I‘m still reeling.
Hold tight to your loved ones, Littens. Talk about love & light and books with me. These things are healing. ❤️
I forgot to share my London Book Haul!
I had a lovely, quick visit to London lady weekend where I visited my favourite secondhand book shops.
I‘m pretty excited about all of them, but particularly Invisible Cities and The Sellout.
You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.
(Venice, Italy)
Quick audio tonight!
pickI spent my #24in48 Saturday morning finishing up Invisible Cities. It took me a while to get into, but once I got into the language I thought it was really beautiful.
There are altogether not enough people with whom I can endlessly examine the little gems in this beautiful book.
panWell, this is definitely not my cup of tea. The conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan are bearable, but I could make nothing of the descriptions of the various cities (which are supposedly all Venice). I have to admit there are some very beautiful sentences on travelling and how it confronts you with yourself and your past. But still.... #1001books
so-soI hate to admit it but maybe this book went over my head. The prose was fantastic, a stream of incredible metaphors. Dozens of imaginary cities, each carrying some meaning. Some of it I could relate to but some just felt repetitious. A very short book without a plot, it read more like a book of poetry. Probably a book to pick up from time to time rather than to treat like a novel. Very well written but not the type of book that draws you in.
Only issue with library books... They're not always well looked after! Almost didn't notice this but suddenly realised a whole chapter was missing!
#riotgrams Day 5: #bookishtattoos I don't have any tattoos, but I've always thought about getting one to do with Invisible Cities, as a way to express my love of both literature and architecture. This is an illustration I found online of one of the cities described in the book.
[... riconoscere chi e cosa, in mezzo all'inferno, non è inferno, e farlo durare, e dargli spazio.] Le parole in cui mi rifugio quando ho bisogno di sentirmi a casa ❣️
You know you're an adult when your Halloween consists of celebrating finishing writing your students' Midterm with an evening full of reading a new book. Good news is it's my last novel to read before my MA exams next week! Oh how lovely it is to spend your life studying what you love. :) Happy Halloween, Littens! ♡
