Welcome to Litsy!

A late #FridayHappyReadingHour with Marquez in the camper. Too dark and chilly to be outside. 🌚 Sad for the rapidly diminishing daylight.

A soft pick. The premise is good - a jaded author who, worried she will become haunted by the book ideas she hasn‘t felt able to complete, decides to build a cemetery and bury the stories - but I‘m not sure it was fully explored, it feels more like a tool to deliver multiple story arcs. But it was an enjoyable, thoughtful read nevertheless.

Book 87 #Read2025 @DieAReader

Free-spirited Birdie is struggling as a single mother and waitress at a backwoods lodge in Alaska when she meets Arthur, a mysterious and reclusive man with unfathomable secrets. When Birdie and her 6-year-old daughter Emaleen move to Arthur's remote cabin, their idyllic wilderness existence comes face to face with the most dangerous thing in the woods. An atmospheric fantasy vividly and realistically told.

#FridayHappyReadingHour - belated edition.

I for one am not complaining about the last gasp of summer temps! What I will complain about is the wind making skeletons of so many trees by Monday. 🥲

Reading outside makes me happy. 😎

I went to a tiny bookstore in the bottom part of the state and they had so many books, new and very old, that I‘ve read and loved. It felt like my own personal library. After talking with the bookseller, she suggested I might like this one and considering we seem to have the same taste I purchased it. I loved it. Magical realism is not generally my jam, but this involved a mute boy and his loving mother and grandmother who have suffered losses. 🔽

Repost for @Librarybelle

The #LiteraryCrew #BuddyRead discussion title for Oct features magical realism with a bit of thriller elements.

Read at your own pace throughout the month. I‘ll post periodic check-ins; discussion on Oct 31st.

All are welcome! Please let me know if you wish to be added/removed from the tag list.

The form is now open to make suggestions for titles for 2026! Link in comments below. I cannot wait to see your suggestions!

I wasn‘t a Swamplandia fan and thus initially passed this one up, so I‘m glad the #NBAlonglist for fiction got me to read it. I found this unique Dust Bowl historical fiction with some fantastical components to be fully engrossing. The characters are great and I like that we hear rotating perspectives from them, which helps keep the book moving. I really liked it!

Up past my bedtime…and also hit my GR reading challenge. This book was fun…but why “hate” on Mindhunter, Lauren?! A phenomenal show…and I‘m Team Season 3! 😉🙏🏻

The Antidote is so different: it‘s historical fiction but felt fresh. The point of view is constantly changing so the action is slow and even feels a bit repetitive but I think that is actually a good thing for this novel. There‘s also Wizard of Oz vibes, weirdly. I hadn‘t encountered that in other reviews I‘ve read, but the town is Uz, and there‘s a scarecrow. Stolen lands, a collective misremembering & willful ignorance, it‘s America!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lauren‘s attic keeps delivering her new husbands, and lives to go with them. She has to decide whether and how long to keep them and when and how to finally stop the cycle. Interesting to think about how to approach deciding whether to keep a fully formed life when you know all you have to do to reset it is send your partner into the attic and get a new one.