Welcome to Litsy!

I enjoyed this. A literary character driven story. I have a fear of mice so the book really got under my skin in a creepy crawly way. But I enjoyed the slow contemplating writing and liked the MC. Living in a religious order when you are not religious is a draw for me. As a non believer myself I have stayed in nunneries but always go short periods while traveling this idea of escaping the world by doing that really drew me in.

Current and up next reads.

My goal each year is to read less than half American stories, so this week is great with Australia, Czech (could technically be considered French), and Malaysia.

I am finishing SYD today and hoping to also finish Ignorance if I can squeeze it in then the others this weekend.

As I was putting this together, I realized that May 11-17 was a really good reading week...I listed my favorite, but there were a few other contenders, which is a lovely problem to have.

Farewell, May 2025! You were a good reading month.

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

I own this one in print, but I wanted to do housework today, so I opted for the audiobook. The contemplative pace is great for listening while doing chores. Everything in this novel means more than one thing, which I find comforting. There's also a comfort in the slow pace and the feeling that there's always time to reflect and improve. I feel like reading this on paper now, too.

Arrive finally at about three.
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

I was engrossed by this quiet story of a woman who sets aside her career to join a religious community, less for spiritual reasons than for reasons she can‘t quite explain. I enjoyed its descriptions of community and religious life, and loved the quiet pace of the story and its meditations on memory, grief, and loss. It‘s thoughtful and reflective ⤵️

Outstanding read. It's one of my few 5-star books so far this year. There is such ease to the writing. This is a very internal novel, and I loved it. I loved this far more than the Booker winner last year.

This is what you expect a booker shortlist book to be. It's well written but I already forgot the plot. Was there a plot? The mice were creepy af.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

This was a lovely, quiet and thoughtful book. Reading it felt like a meditation on grief and human connection. Beautifully written and very atmospheric.
Photo is a bunch of miniature roses from a friend 😍

The mice did freak me out a bit…..otherwise, a quiet novel packing a punch about life.
Don‘t we all wish we could disengage sometimes. And that we knew how to handle grief and dying. And that we‘d always done the right thing at the right time.
But my bookmark is perfect ❤️

This is a book you could read seven times and get something new each time. A woman leaves her life behind to live a quiet life at a priory, although she herself doesn't share the nuns' religious beliefs. The beauty and solitude of her daily life are haunted by her past and her grief. The creeping, claustrophobic feelings presented by an infestation of mice on the property play with these themes and keep the reader as unsettled as the narrator.

"A heavy spring frost this morning. Crossing the grass I made a clean track of footprints, deep green on the white spread of the lawn. It returned me to my childhood, to the sense of secret authority, imprinting one's presence into a place with those clear, sharp prints. I exist. The private, pleasurable sound of the finest layer of ice breaking beneath the weight of each step."

I waited so long for this book from the library and it was definitely worth it. Such a beautiful book about coming to terms with loss and grief and finding some sort of peace. The sparse writing matched the feeling of the setting and the narrator‘s sense of having been stripped down to her core well. Our Kelpie mix like the one featured in the story pictured here.

It‘s amazing sometimes how a passage will suddenly hit so close to home. As I am coming up on the two year anniversary of finishing cancer treatment, this passage hit hard.

Beautiful narrative of grief and meditation and faith. How we live on this earth and spend our lives. Unsettling undercurrent which sits perfectly with the surface.

This meditative book turned out to be the perfect fiction companion for the NF Raising Hare. Both are quiet and contemplative with a focus on life‘s true priorities and nature. I enjoyed this.

Enjoyed this one.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful books I have recently read. The narrator, a woman in the middle of her life, removes herself from this world of greed&destruction. In a convent she finds time to reflect&we have the privilege to accompany her on her contemplative journey into memory,remorse &grief. There‘s so much to unpack in this book:spirituality& the meaning of religion&community, the plague &the nemesis who are also a symbol for the

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This book was the opposite of Betty and I am grateful for that. I needed to quiet my brain. I loved all the small stories of the narrators life. All those thoughts you have that you file away, that then pop up later. Some are profound, enlightening and instrumental to your past, while others are just bits of fluff, insignificant observations. #Ozfiction

#bookerprizeshortlist
I have yet to read Safekeep (my next-up) and Creation Lake but, as it stands, for me it's a contest between this and James.

It's a quiet, pensive, slow-paced book, with themes of grief, remorse, forgiveness. It explores how we go about the task of being able to live with ourselves (never mind others!) and whether "retreat" is a culpable or even possible response to the world. Oh, and there's a plague of mice to keep it real.

My pile of recently read books!! First Slow Horses by Mick Herron…I love a spy thriller. This one..the first in the series introduces us to the spooks from Slough House..I will definitely read the next book! One of my favourites Tokyo Express…A clever twisty Japanese crime novel. The Big Sleep.. my first Raymond Chandler..fab! Stone Yard Devotional..a quiet book that will stick with you and Evie Wyld and Kate Atkinson always worth reading!

4th booker shortlisted book + another excellent read. The narrator is a woman impacted by the death of her parents + after a short 1st visit moves to live in an Australian priory where she recounts life with the nuns but also her memories which are peppered with curious tales. Covid, an infestation of mice, the return of the bones of a murdered nun, + their escort a nun the narrator recalls from school add to the hypnotic fascination of the tale.

It was a very good month.

I so loved this quiet novel. A masterpiece of interiority.

#Booker2024 #NunLit

(A friend just sent me this photo of the Giants Causeway. I‘d say that‘s quite a stone yard!)

A woman leaves her way of living to join a small group of cloistered nuns. We join with her as the group deals with a plague of mice, the return of the bones of a prior member of the group, and the former classmate who returns with the bones. The classmate brings memories and annoyances. I was hooked. #bookerlonglist

#weekendreads

Hope to finish The Flight Portfolio this weekend after falling behind. #SundayBuddyRead

Hope to finish Stone Yard before the 1st and will start the Klune tonight.

What are you reading?

@rachelsbrittain

Glad that this ended up being my final read of the Booker shortlist. Nice to end on such a high note. A woman retreats to a convent after she decides her life is no longer working for her. Her lack of faith isn‘t a hindrance as she finds comfort in the simplicity and meditative repetition of her new life, Things happen in her community like an infestation of mice and a visit by an activist nun, but the plot is not the draw her inner thoughts are.

Who hasn‘t dreamed of walking out on their life and leaving all their responsibilities behind to go and join a nunnery….! I really enjoyed this quiet, thoughtful novel. But it does follow the current trend of stopping rather than ending. #nunlit

A fruitful trip to the post office. My Blackwell‘s order arrived. Yay for having reasonably priced access to books not yet published in the US. More #LitsolaceFallCardSwap arrivals, my #FallingForFallSwap box and not pictured but a #LitsyLove letter from @Blerdgal_Fenix that showered me in Mickey head glitter that made me laugh out loud.

@Avanders @Chrissyreadit @Meshell1313 @TheBookHippie

My 5th and, so far, easily my favorite from the #booker #booker2024 #longlist

This is spare, “stripped to the bedrock”, as our narrator leaves her husband and life and joins a tiny isolated outback monastery as a non-believing nun. It‘s quiet and peaceful, then come the mice, and the past and the outside world in general. This builds up, everything standing out against the blank backdrop. It‘s peaceful, despite the mice. And cathartic.

After visiting her parents grave, a woman makes the impulsive decision to stay at a monastery, and this turns into more than a few days. Escaping her life and failing marriage, she seeks the solitude and repetitiveness among the nuns. In the middle of this the monastery experience a mouse invasion, a person from her past comes back and a sister returns in a coffin.

This book will stay with me.

I‘m late in starting my #Booker reading

I really enjoy this #Booker longlisted book about an Australian woman deciding to abandon everything to live amongst nuns. But even more than wondering why she's there, I've been wondering why does Richard Gittens keep hanging out with them as their self-appointed, unofficial handyman? 😆

#booker #booker2024 #longlist

Up next

#BookReport

I continued with Dark Fire #ShardlakeBR and finished The Voyage Out #VirginiaBloomsberries

I‘ve almost finished A Life‘s Work

I‘m about halfway through Stone Yard Devotional and hope to finish today

Charlotte Wood has a knack for creating novels from really unique situations. In this case, I don‘t think we were ever given enough information about the narrator to understand the dissolution of her marriage and move to the abbey. I felt slightly perplexed the whole time.

#WeeklyForecast

I want to continue Dark Fire #ShardlakeBR and finish Rhe Voyage Out #VirginaBloomsberries

I‘ve just started A Life‘s Work and want to continue that

I want to get a start on my first read from the Booker Longlist with Stone Yard Devotional

This took me a while to get into but once I did I liked it. A slow paced but interesting story set in an abbey of an order of nuns in rural Australia. The book looks at the nature of faith and women who choose to leave society and devote their lives to god. Forgiveness and grief in the midst of a mice plague makes this a haunting read.

#Booker 7/13

Another winner for me. Nothing much happens in the narrator‘s life, who more or less accidentally ends up living & finding solace in a religious community hidden in the Australian outback, where she grew up. So nothing much happens in the book either. A mouse plague getting out of control, that‘s what mostly happens and it sounds horrible. Yet of course there are reflections on life before. On grief and death and choices made 🤍

14-5 Aug 24 (audiobook)
#Bookerlonglist24
A woman escapes her problems and those of the world by retreating to a convent.
Wood‘s writing is compelling but the protagonist frustrated me. Having such a low tolerance for organised religion did not help. I do not think ‘First do no harm‘ is enough.
I prefer Nick Cave‘s take - grief and loss are our fundamental fabric and bring incredible meaning to who we are.
Not the option to sequester ourselves.

I've managed to slow the influx of non-library books into the house, but I'm skilled at making exceptions. (Not pictured are the journals I also purchased. I'm pretty sure journals don't count.)

Reader, I wanted to love it more than I did. Wood is an interesting author who is able to write compellingly obscure stories. However, the deeply reflective nature of this one didn‘t work with the lack of narrative drive for me. There are some really interesting ideas here, about eschewing capitalism and the modern world for isolated introspection, and the role of ritual in helping us cope with, and/or avoid global and personal issues.

Simone saw me at the tall glass-fronted 'library' in the sitting room, looked at the book in my hand and snorted. 'You know there are good books in those shelves, don't you?' I did know. Dorothy Lee, Edith Stein, Joan Chittister, Simone Weil, Ariel Burger. Arendt, Nussbaum, Hitchens, Robinson, Merton. But Simone had caught me engrossed in Stories of the Saints...

.... at every step of my every attempt I have only worsened the destruction. Every email, meeting, press release, conference, protest. Every minuscule action after waking means slurping up resources, expelling waste, destroying habitat, causing ruptures of some other kind. Whereas staying still, suspended in time like these women, does the opposite. They are doing no harm.
On the other hand, 'evil flourishes...'

I loved this, and it may even make my top picks of the year.

I couldn‘t imagine that a book about a woman giving up life to live in a convent retreat would be very interesting and, really, not much happens but I still adored it and didn‘t want it to end.

This is the first book I‘ve read by this author and I definitely want to read more - luckily the friend that gave me this one also gave me another, although she didn‘t think it was as good.

Just about to start this (it jumped to the top of my pile @Oryx so not next year like I thought!). 🤣

I always like to match my bookmarks to my books, and this one is particularly pleasing so had to post it - it makes me happy! 😜

Two books given to me by a friend / neighbour. Stone Yard is brand new - she loved it but ‘never keeps books‘. Great for me! 😃

That inspired her to get the other book, which she found rather depressing and didn‘t enjoy as much, but it‘s a free book, so….

(We did just give them our barely-used travel crate for their new puppy so a fair exchange I think! ☺️)

Finished just this minute. When I started it I thought this is not as good as her others. However it‘s been amazing for me. I don‘t want to give anything away but I felt like the narrator could have been me. Her mother and her mother‘s experiences so like mine. Her thoughts and actions so like mine. I‘m blown away. Need to go nap and think for a bit.

Atmospheric, quiet and sparse. Charlotte Wood is a must-read Australian author for me. This is her latest offering and my husband grabbed this signed copy for me when he spotted it in our favourite indie bookstore. Not a lot happens plot-wise, but I enjoyed it very much. #ozfiction