Welcome to Litsy!

Last year, for my birthday, I got my 4th round of chemo 😔. Needless to say, my birthday was a bust. This year, to make up for it, my husband took me on a bookstore tour in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. We hit 5 bookstores, including this gem: Story Line Books, housed in St. Paul's Union Depot. With a subtle train theme, the charm of the historic train station, and a wonderfully curated selection, this was a great stop! #supportindiebookstores

Update on reading own books:

Took two books to the charity shop. Success!
Bought two books.
Net result 0. 🙃

Wigtown book haul!
Bythell wrote the tagged based on his experience running The Bookshop, where I bought this copy. It's a signed edition & we actually briefly said hello to him as he was taking his recycling out 😅
At the children's bookstore, I found this cute locally written & published picture book for my niece who is obsessed with cows & cowgirls right now
And I'd been looking for a good folklore book - this one has beautiful illustrations

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a place you have never been and for people you have never known?

EXCITING NEWS!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Stay tuned for more details on location! It‘s going to be epic and I‘m so pumped for her 🥰🥰🥰@LiteraryinLawrence

Right?🤷🏻‍♀️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ruth Shaw has led one incredible and adventurous life. Although her journey was filled with much pain and heartbreak, she looks back upon her life with tenderness. Throughout most of her memoir, my thoughts were, "How did she do all this? How would one even begin? I could never!"

This is more than the story of a bookseller in New Zealand. It's the story of a daughter, mother, sailor (extraordinaire!), lover, survivor, and fierce friend.

I like to dive into books without much checking them out beforehand. But sometimes it‘s better to read some trigger warnings. This was this month‘s pick for #foodandlit. It started lovely but then got very dark very fast. And then even darker. It‘s a fascinating autobiography, I read it till the end. But for you so you don‘t make the same mistake: trigger warnings are in the comments.

Book mail!

A bookshop? Tuscany? How could it be bad, right? 😁

Ruth owns a bookshop in the very south of the South Island of #newzealand and has also had a very varied life.

I struggled to connect at first, as Ruth had a tough life, and keeps running away from her grief, but tells her story in a very matter-of- fact way, which gave her story quite a distant feel. However, later in the book, it is easier to feel closer to her and I loved her ‘Tales from the Bookshop‘ inserts.

#readingoceania24