My great-great-grandad was from the Philippines, and in researching our family history, my brother found that there's a concentration of his surname (Ungui) in Mactan, so I like to say that my ancestors killed Magellan. So Andy got me this for my birthday. 🇵🇭

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This was really good fun. You won't agree with Miriam Margolyes about everything, but you have to admire her forthright honesty, and she has a lifetime of brilliant stories to tell. And she is absolutely world class at swearing. I'm not sure anyone gives as good 'c**tface' as her.

This is a hell of an intense book. The protagonist, Nila - as she likes to be known, not by her full first name, Nilab - is grieving her mother and uncomfortable with her Afghan identity in a city where racist attacks and neo-Nazis are on the rise, and she seeks solace/oblivion in the hedonism of the Berlin techno scene.

#BooksAndBrews

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I loved this book. It's a brilliant, vivid insight into the rigorous, exhausting training to be a doctor, and a revealing insight into the realities of the healthcare system in Nigeria - I can't imagine having to arrange for relatives to give blood before being able to have an operation, or having to pay before being seen in A&E.

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Ah, such happy memories. A great account of a phenomenal player's career. God, Celtic were so lucky to have him.

Library reservation came in early

This is a fascinating collection of photographs of Liverpool landmarks that illustrate how much the city has changed over the last century. I'd have like a bit more specific information about the locations, as I struggled to place some of them, but the photographs are excellent quality and it's a great way to explore the city's history through a series of snapshots.

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First new book of the year

This was a great read, and a brilliant insight into the real lives and challenges during the terrifying and confusing period of lockdown, and how it affected ordinary people in different ways. I'd have liked to have heard more from people working in retail, delivery drivers and the NHS/care sector, but I guess most were too stressed and knackered to write diaries. I loved the illustrations.

Ahhhhhhh this is lovely. A sweet, moving, funny and daft festive story. It's also perfect for kids (and big kids) dealing with grief.

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This is a really enjoyable book and a great insight into Ryan and Jenna's journey as a couple and a family, and how - in both good and bad ways - their business success changed their lives. It's often moving - the heartbreak of losing Ryan's mum and nan, and the joy of becoming parents are both described beautifully - but it's also very funny.

Starting one of the books Andy got me while he makes the Christmas dinner. I'm very lucky. All the best everyone xxx

Next up. I suspect that Ryan's story about how he made a load of money from posting funny stuff on the Internet is just going to make me angry.

Ohhhh what a lovely, adorable, charming book this is. The Hundred and One Dalmatians is a great heartwarming festive read, and The Starlight Barking is just absolutely mad. Very enjoyable.

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This is a lovely, sweet book. I found it slightly twee in places, but that's just me being a cold hearted cynic. It paints a great, vivid picture of how wartime evacuation felt for all involved, and it's a great festive ending.

My reading game has been way off form this year, for Reasons (my target was 60 books). Goodreads have gone too early with this, though. There's 12 days left, I can read another 4 books in that time.

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This is a suitably tumultuous, eventful, and often brutal and heartbreaking conclusion to the quartet. The unresolved mysteries are in a way frustrating, but they also make the story more real and relatable. It's quite the journey.

"Libraries across Oldham will light up tonight in support of our colleagues and the community in Liverpool, who are re opening Spellow Library following damage caused by the violent disorder in the summer. The community in Spellow have pulled together to help the much loved venue to re open and we'll be lighting up to celebrate their achievements and the role of libraries as safe, welcoming community spaces for everyone to enjoy."

It's my friend Anna's birthday today (she isn't on Litsy), can everyone please take a moment to admire how cool her new book bag is. (I haven't seen her to give her the book I got her yet!)

Christmas shopping done. Time for #BooksAndBooze. Earned it.

Christmas read.

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This is a really lovely, enjoyable book. Books about books are catnip to bookworms, and Cathy Rentzenbrink conveys the joy and restorative healing power of reading beautifully. She writes movingly about her family - losing her brother, her parents' illnesses, her father learning to read and developing a love of books late in life, becoming a mother - and gives an insight into her various book-related jobs.

This is a brilliant book, I really enjoyed it. A collection of essays by nineteen trans, non-binary, agender, gender-fluid and intersex writers, describing the multi-faceted ways they find joy in simply being themselves.

This is a remarkable book and incredibly well researched. The author vividly describes centuries of Naples' tumultuous history of art, mythology, social and political upheaval, and violent revolution, interspersed with his own anecdotes of living in the city.

Now more than ever, read more books.

This is a tough, but excellent and important, read. Chimene Suleyman writes brilliantly about her awful experience with a manipulative abusive ex-partner, who disappeared while she was in a clinic having a termination, the trauma of coming to terms with his abuse, and the strength she drew from finding other women who had suffered similar abuse from him.

Cool book art. Not at the tagged library, at a trattoria called I Gerolomini nearby.

Monday afternoon #BooksAndBooze. Cannot beat it.

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Another brilliant, gripping novel in the Neapolitan quartet. Elena and Lila are now young adults with children in the 1960s, and their personal lives and relationships are as turbulent as the social and political landscape. No spoilers, but Elena, what the hell are you doing, girl?

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This is an excellent collection of intertwined short stories about a Palestinian community in Baltimore. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it in print, as it was a bit difficult to keep up with who was related to who on audiobook, but I found the family dynamics really interesting.

Aw. RIP Tony Soper.

Booked a holiday. Bought a book. Having an absolutely banging Sunday.

This is an odd book, and I really wanted to like it more than I did, but the experimental, stream of consciousness style, and the tough subject matter made it a difficult read. Still, we shouldn't shy away from talking and reading about injustice and violence and death, and Wolf and Mrs Death are strangely likeable characters. This is really well written, I just didn't quite get it.

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This is a really lovely, funny, charming, moving book. It conveys the messiness and overwhelming stress of grief so well. The bit where he talks about getting inexplicably angry at, and stressed out by, apparently minor things, and people thinking you're just being cranky and unreasonable, felt particularly relatable. And his description of the last text message his dad sent him is, however inappropriately, hilarious.

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Oof, there is so much going on here, and so much of it is pretty disturbing. What an utter mess Lila is in. The violence, misogyny and lack of hope and opportunity in the neighbourhood becomes even more clear as the girls become women, and it‘s no wonder Lenu wants to escape, but her path out is far from smooth. Another brilliant, vividly written book in the series.

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This is a brilliant memoir. It centres around Eddie's experience at Oxford University, which should have been a fantastic opportunity but became an ordeal, when the 'full scholarship' he won won't cover the essential care he needs, and he's expected to fundraise this himself. It's a great insight into the realities of living in a world that excludes disabled people, and challenges 'uprights' to reconsider what we mean by 'reasonable adjustments'.