Litsy

#SUNDAYBUDDYREAD DECEMBER
WINTER IN THE BLOOD
A contemporary classic from a major writer of the Native American renaissance - “Brilliant, brutal and, in my opinion, Welch's best work.“ —Tommy Orange, The Washington Post
One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
During his life, James Welch came to be regarded as a master of American prose, and his first novel, Winter in the Blood, is one of his most enduring works.

LitsyEvents All welcome to join via @thebookhippie 8h

15 likes1 comment

BarkingMadRead

Grapes of Wrath 75th Anniversary Edition | John Steinbeck

Ch 29: #wrathsnack #therainscome #illness #flooding #deputies #deaths #staytuned #hashtagbrigade

BarkingMadRead @cuilin @lil1inblue @bookwormjillk @samanne @barbarajean @willaful @lapreader @librarybelle @crinoline_laphroaig @eeclayton @thearomaofbooks @deelew @kao @elizamarie @bklover @lauraisntwilder 8h

Bklover This is a beautiful chapter. For some reason it took me until this chapter to see what an incredible writer JS was. 6h

17 likes2 comments

sarahbarnes

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories | Miranda July

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One more down from my #10BeforeTheEnd list. I definitely did not love all of these stories, but several of them were fantastic, which made reading the collection worthwhile. I have immense respect for her uncompromising creativity.

ChaoticMissAdventures

Ruthiella I also admire her no holds barred approach. 7h

ChaoticMissAdventures ✔️✔️ 7h

24 likes2 comments

Decalino

Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards | Robert Butler

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A real vintage postcard inspired each story in this remarkable collection. Butler uses these brief enigmatic messages to conjure lives at moments of revelation and transition: a father forced to face mortality, a new bride tempted by an alternate path, a formerly enslaved man asserting his dignity, an Alabama spinster seeking adventure abroad, a young South Dakota woman drawn to a stranger. This is masterful craftsmanship, poignant and haunting.

11 likes

Bookwomble

Balladz | Sharon Olds

"...my taxes are spent, by the orange
cockatoo in the White Man House,
on bailing out bankers."

I think Sharon and I will be getting on ok together ?

24 likes

Graywacke

A Backward Glance | Edith Wharton

A Backward Glance - VI-VIII
(Next, Dec 6 IX-XI)
#whartonbuddyread

Wharton‘s early works, through House of Mirth, but more about her “inner group” - with Walter Berry, and a magical section on Henry James:

“these elaborate hesitancies…were like a cobweb bridge flung from his mind to theirs, an invisible passage over which one knew that silver-footed ironies, veiled jokes, tiptoe malices, were stealing to explode a huge laugh at one's feet.”

Graywacke Also, I didn‘t know Emily Bronte wrote poetry! What a gorgeous poem - Remembrance: https://poets.org/poem/remembrance 17h

Graywacke What did you all think? @CarolynM @Currey @IMASLOWREADER @jewright @Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen @TheBookHippie (edited) 17h

Graywacke On Walter Berry: “From my first volume of short stories to “Twilight Sleep”, the novel I published just before his death, nothing in my work escaped him, no detail was too trifling to be examined and discussed, gently ridiculed or quietly praised.” 17h

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Lcsmcat I underlined so many sections! I was particularly amused by her description of New York conversation being like the gossip column of a country newspaper. (My NYC daughter would be incensed!) 17h

Lcsmcat “I remember once saying that I was a failure in Boston. . . because they thought I was too fashionable to be intelligent, and a failure in New York because they were afraid I was too intelligent to be fashionable.” 17h

Lcsmcat “None of my relations ever spoke to me of my books, either to praise or blame-they simply ignored them; and among the immense tribe of my New York cousins, though it included many with whom I was on terms of affectionate intimacy, the subject was avoided as though it were a kind of family disgrace, which might be condoned but could not be forgotten.” 17h

Graywacke @Lcsmcat it‘s a gorgeous section. So inspiring and interesting and amusing. I remember these quotes! 17h

Leftcoastzen I especially love the quote about her family not being interested in her books ! Hilarious they are ! As I think she noted if she was in a British or European family it would be of interest! 15h

Leftcoastzen I like how she discusses her friends and mentors. I read a lot of lost generation writers and in their time they seemed to act like they rose out of the ashes of war fully formed, and owed nothing to the earlier generations of writers. 15h

Currey @Lcsmcat Yes, you picked the perfect quotes for this section. I loved the part on Henry James, instead of making him appear more stuffy, it made him more vulnerable, more insecure and therefore more powerful to rise out of that to write how he wrote. And how could a family just ignore the very thing that is the core of you. She does not have much good to say about her husband does she? 14h

Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen I liked how she gave her mentors and informal editors credit too. And how she was honest about her early stuff. I don‘t have my copy in front of me now, but there was something about not having a personality of her own until the first collection of short stories was published. 14h

Lcsmcat @Currey Yes, Henry James‘ personality really comes through. 14h

Graywacke @Leftcoastzen well - this lost generation were essentially chanting, “down with Edith Wharton” 🙂 13h

Graywacke @Currey @Lcsmcat Henry James comes out so lovable 12h

Graywacke @Leftcoastzen @Lcsmcat that names were so interesting! The social fabric that she sook out by intent 12h

Lcsmcat @Graywacke @Leftcoastzen And she skewered the lost generation too with “the amusing thing about the turn of the wheel is that we who fought the good fight are now jeered as the prigs and prudes who barred the way to complete expression—as perhaps we should have tried to do, had we known it was to cause creative art to be abandoned for pathology.” 12h

Currey @Lcsmcat Ouch 9h

28 likes17 comments

Bookwomble

Balladz | Sharon Olds

Two books I'm starting today: Symphonies for the Soul is a classical music "pharmacy" linking musical pieces to mental health issues, which will probably be a book I'll slowly consume into next year.
The tagged book is Olds' poetry collection about aging during the COVID era - at least that's what I think it is. I've not previously read her work, so unsure if this is a good introduction.

Bookwomble And, yeah, you love my lamp! ❤️💡🐈‍⬛📚🏵️😄 Impulse buy as Mrs B objected to the one I liked with crows, but cats, books and flowers are inarguably satisfactory 😊 22h

VanessaCW Love the lamp! I like crows. I find them fascinating. I also like cats, flowers and obviously books! 22h

wanderinglynn That lamp! 😍😍😍 22h

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CoffeeNBooks I'll be curious to see what you think of Symphonies for the Soul. I love classical music, and that sounds like a really interesting book! Also, great lamp! 21h

Bookwormjillk @wanderinglynn hey! Good to “see” you 20h

AnnCrystal Lovely Lamp 👏🏼🤩📚🏵️🐈‍⬛💫...Crows would have been lovely too 🤩💫. 14h

jitteryjane724 I'm very interested in what specific pieces will be linked to mental health issues in your reading if certain ones are listed. Will you keep us updated? 7h

Bookwomble @VanessaCW @wanderinglynn @CoffeeNBooks @AnnCrystal Thank you for your appreciation, despite me being a #ShamlessLampPimp 😁 now

Bookwomble @jitteryjane724 I'll post some updates as I go along 😊 The entries are listed alphabetically by emotion, so starting with Abandonment, Condy offers Handel's Messiah, which I've actually never liked. The second offering for Acceptance (lack of) is Holst's Saturn, which I love ❤️🪐❤️ Each entry had a short essay about the music and composer, and the emotions Condy expected it to elicit, and that's interesting regardless the musical piece. now

26 likes9 comments

BarkingMadRead

Grapes of Wrath 75th Anniversary Edition | John Steinbeck

Ch 28: #livinginthetraincar #makinggoodmoney #ruthietellsabouttom #nowtomhastogo #roseissick #algettingmarried #staytuned #hashtagbrigade

Bookwormjillk I love this book but this re-read has been very painful. 1d

Bookwormjillk But I appreciate you @BarkingMadRead 1d

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BarkingMadRead @Bookwormjillk 😘😘 1d

dabbe @Bookwormjillk @BarkingMadRead I couldn't do it. Too heartbreaking. 1d

eeclayton I loved that Ruthie wasn't scolded too harshly. In stressful situations, adults sometimes forget that kids are just kids, and it's nice that the mother here didn't. 1d

TheAromaofBooks @eeclayton - Right? And Tom wasn't mad, either - he literally was just like “kids say stuff when they get mad“ I haven't agreed with everything the Joads have done, but I admire the way that they are loyal to one another. 1d

Bookwormjillk @eeclayton yes that was very enlightened parenting 23h

ElizaMarie I am so nervous about Rose being ill! 23h

37 likes9 comments