Welcome to Litsy!

My lunch breaks have been pretty busy recently, and I probably went about 2 weeks without reading at home, so I'm pretty happy with what I still got in last month. Lots of graphic novels during down time at work 😁

I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, so it is sometimes jarring to read a book that is so incredibly real and human. Senhor Jose works at the Central Registry, which records citizens birth and death. His side hobby is collecting records of famous people, but one day he finds the record of "an unknown woman" stuck to the back of a famous person's file. And so begins his quest to learn about her and break the mundanity of his bureaucratic existence.

Each year I chose one author to read all year long, this year I am trying to read 12 Jose Saramago books.
Stone Raft is about a group of peoples adventures when they are stuck on the Iberian peninsula when it breaks from Europe and starts floating around the ocean. I love that the car and a dog become characters with real personalities. The rag tag group is interesting and creative, and Spain and Portugal come alive as we travel through them.

#weeklyforecast I can't believe January is ending this week! It was the longest quick month ever.

I am reading 1 Saramago book a month And am not quite finished with the tagged, will finish this week. Am super excited to read the ARC I have "Jacquotte Delahaye" about a Caribbean pirate lady! I am also half into Bright Young Women so hopefully will wrap that up, I have Hunt the Flame on audio to help move this stack along.

While the main story is about the Iberian peninsula breaking off and floating away, it is also about different adventures our characters have. While on a road trip Saramago gives the Deux Chevaux used during a road trip almost an animated quality, he speaks of it occasionally as an autonomous character which is very interesting.
I had never heard of this car so had to Google it, it is so cute!

"It was a clear night, the vast expanse of the sky dotted with stars, so close, it seemed, that they might have been magically suspended motes of glass dust, or a snow-white veil, and the great constellations shone dramatically, the morning star, the two Bears, the Pleiades, a fine shower of tiny crystals of light fell on the two men's upturned faces, got caught in their hair, it was not the first time this phenomenon occurred........"

Saramago is not for the literary faint of heart. His sentences often run for paragraphs and his paragraphs can run for pages. His chapters are long and unnumbered, he doesn't use quotations when the characters speak. Most of the writing is done in a stream of consciousness.
And yet I adore it. He writes like I speak and I find it only takes me a page or 2 to fall into his rhythm.
Saramago is my author of 2024 I will be reading him all year.

November #bookspinbingo

My November #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks
#bookspin All the Names by Jose Saramago
#doublebookspin Being Heumann by Judith Heumann

Repost for @AllDebooks

Phew, done! 😅 Go for it. Please post all your suggestions for our sky themed book below.

Also, please look out for #Naturalitsy for 2nd post re Poseiden's steed and Rachel Carson.

All welcome to join in.