Welcome to Litsy!

#WeeklyForecast 14/25

I am about to start Somewhere Else of the #WP25 longlist. After that, I‘ll wait what books will be shortlisted and decide which ones to read. So far I am preferring the #InternationalBooker longlist over the #WP25 so I am having two more of that list lined up for this week!

VanderMeer and his Southern Reach series is a study in the surreal. This installment is the ‘prequel‘. We start a point that still has anchor between Area X and the ‘lost coast‘ (Florida area, I think). We start with spies and gators and the creeping distortions of another universe. We are then transitioned into the spear provoking the events of Annihilation and beyond. Excellent. Must read other books before to fully enjoy this one.

It's the zombie apocalypse, but it's also a poetic allegory of grief, loss, depression, issues of memory, consumerism, probably a few things I missed. Somehow it works.
Passed it on to the Spouse and he loved it so much he already wants to read it again (and he almost never re-reads). Once I return it to the library I'm going to have to buy a copy to keep.

Tara Selter is stuck in November 18. That is every day when she wakes up its 11/18 (or 18/11 🇬🇧) , and everything repeats itself - the rainy weather near Lille, France, the sky, and people who wake fresh to their first 11/18, with no memory of the previous 11/18s.

It‘s a very curious book, with terrific atmosphere and yet many unanswered questions. It‘s the kind of book that makes me want to try writing.

#booker #IB2025

My picks to read from the International Booker Prize 2025: the Dutch one: On a Woman‘s Madness by Astrid Roemer, and the Danish one: On the Calculation of Volume I.

#astridroemer #solvejballe #internationalbookerprize

This is the only book, so far, off the Booker International Longlist at my library. It was lyrical and propulsive although I‘m not sure I totally understand what was really going on. Even with the ambiguous ending I enjoyed it and am looking forward to Volume 2.

Reading the 2024 winner of the Ursula K Le Guin Prize. That's a strong opening!

Care of my library, I started this today (amongst everything else I‘m reading)

My book haul just came in the mail! I think I'm going to read this new translation of The Iliad next. 🤔

Halfway through this very slim book I had to call it. It‘s such a short book I kept pushing myself to make it to the end but I have absolutely no connection to anything in it. Post apocalyptic, dead but undead, a crow stuffed into her body, hungry….What? So confused. I‘m usually good with fiction that‘s hard to stay with, but I quit. I‘m annoyed about quitting and I‘m annoyed with this book.