Welcome to Litsy!

Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner (2021)

Premise: An isolated boy has his eyes opened to whole new worlds when a rag-and-bone man appears on his doorstep

Review: This was a surprise short-list pick for the 2022 Booker Prize and it definitely has that high literary flair to it. It‘s well-written, well-conceived, and well-executed. I just didn‘t find it all that interesting. It‘s a dull success.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Random book from our home library:

📖 The Quest for Merlin by Nikolai Tolstoy

This very simple and charming story is about a girl who is sent back to the islands of her birth to live with her grandparents. She has vague memories of her time there, but one very strong one: her baby brother being swept out to see in his boat-like cradle. She is determined to find out what became of him.

Lisa Schneidau is an ecologist, conservationist and storyteller, knowledge and passion that she combines in these faithful retellings of British and Irish folktales.
Each story has a short introduction in which Lisa gives some ecological, historical and/or folkloric details, and she chooses a reasonable geographic spread of stories from across the Isles. I liked her inclusion of a couple of Romany stories, Appy and the Eel being one of the ⬇️

I don't know mythology very well and all I knew about Hippolyta and the Amazonians was from Wonder Woman. This novelization was good - lots of drama and action.

"One morning, not so very long ago, I visited a stretch of the upper River Torridge in North Devon." - Introduction ?

"Have you ever wondered where all that river water comes from, flowing through seasons and years and ages, and how many people have stopped and wondered at the same thing? - Chapter 1: Sacred Beginnings ?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Earlier this year I listened to the author‘s 2 hour abridged presentation of this book but I had to own an unabridged copy. I am only 16 pages in but feel confident in saying every woman should own, read and gift this book. I‘m soaking up every word. It‘s just what I needed on the tail end of a year and a half depression. I know I will be gifting this to both my daughters.

I was supposed to be reading women's prize nominees, but instead I fell into this beautiful story about loss, minority communities - and mythical fox-people.

And I loved the footnotes. (Sidenotes?)