Welcome to Litsy!

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the challenges I set for my reading self. This stack of honkers are what I need to read to finish up challenges.
I am not going to make it, and I think that is okay!
I had it in my head I would donate any I didn't finish on challenges but I still very much want to read these, maybe not all just now.
I am 200 pages into Books of Jacob and am really struggling with the writing.

#lifeofareader

December day 1... And we are off
Full of confidence (and delusion) that I can read this in a month!

"On my name day it began to rain, so we moved the chairs into the hall to sit it out until the rain stopped. But it never ended; it came streaming down relentlessly, obscuring the horizon. Not in drops, but in stair rods."

I really loved this musing on rain and I am glad I read this in the fall the perfect time to absorb the beauty of her writing.

While I really enjoyed this I do think it is a bit too long. I really ran out of steam the last 50 pages or something.

Something Tokarczuk does so well is weave stories into one book that make you feel like you are sitting on a porch while neighbors drop by and tell you gossip. You have the story of the villager who walked up the mountain to see his childhood home, the story of a saint - and the monk who wrote her story, the story of the man 👇

Reading the new Tokarczuk and she tells the story of Saint Wilgefortis (aka Kummernis or Solicitous) a 14th century nun whose father tries to force her to marry and she is "given" the face of Jesus to show how virtuous she was and how she was called to religion.

She is considered the Patron Saint of Intersex people specifically and the LGBTQ+ community in general.

I know this book has so many accolades, but if this wasn‘t for Bookclub, I would‘ve tossed it 20 pages in. I‘m not a short story person, but when it‘s this chaotic, it‘s even worse.

#CharacterCharm Day 23: #Maid - even if “old maids.” 😂🤣

#bookspin The Books of Jacob
#doublespin The Other City

The spin of destiny gave me my longest (920) and shortest (163) book of the list!
#BookspinBingo card ready to go!

4⭐️ Some things just don‘t change. The 19th century Warsaw was all about money, women, greed, and racism. It was bad then, it is worse now. I enjoyed Prus‘ humour - I didn‘t know he could be cheeky and funny 😆