Y'all. I just found out they're making a TV series of the All Souls Trilogy and Matthew Goode is starring as Matthew Clairmont. Here. For. It.

Did I miss #blackcatappreciationday?? Better late than never. This little nugget is Charlie, a foster cat I cared for a couple years ago before he found his forever home. He's about 40% panther, 100% lovemuffin. 🖤 #catsoflitsy

I picked this one up after seeing the Netflix trailer. It was a quiet little novella about finding companionship and meaning in old age, after life has run its course, when careers and family are all behind you. The writing style is sparse yet poignant. Very elegant and moving.

Sifting through old books at an antiques stall in Ueno Park, Tokyo. I can't read any of these, but the smell and feel of old books is universally appealing.

Unboxed my #summersolstice package this morning and was blown away! Thank you so much @shawnmooney for these excellent picks!! They couldn't be more perfect. An Oyeyemi novel (love her!), two short story collections (Mavis Gallant sounds totally up my alley), and an epic doorstopper of a novel that I can't wait to dive into. Thrilled! Happy summer solstice, Littens. ☀️📚

And thanks for organizing, @BookishMarginalia !

#summersantagoespostal

Finished The Antiques today. I'm usually 100% here for dysfunctional family drama, but this one was just so-so. I found the characters a little flat and generic. The asshole brother was there just to be the asshole brother, the caring sister was there to do the emotional labor for everyone else... it was basically family drama bingo.

This book was quite an emotional journey. I love Roxane Gay's honesty and her ability to keenly observe how different people move through the world. Definitely recommend.

I received my #summersantagoespostal package!! From my fellow resident of the Land of the Rising Sun, @shawnmooney It's going to take a lot of will power to not open for the next three days.

It's finally here! Started Hunger on audio today. Roxane Gay is everything. ❤️

I love me some dysfunctional family drama. I'm diving into The Antiques tonight.

Dropped my #summersantagoespostal package in the mail today! Look out @funkyfergie - bookish goodies are on their way to you. 😊

Guys! I'm staying in Tokyo tonight and my hostel is literally books from head to toe! I get to SLEEP IN THE BOOKSHELVES. ❤️📚❤️📚#bookandbed #tokyo

I binged the first three episodes of The Handmaid's Tale and was so amped that I had to re-read it. I've heard so many great things about Claire Danes' performance on the audiobook so I decided to give that a go. It did not disappoint! Her narration was excellent. It left me with chills. This book, tho. THIS BOOK! 🖤🖤

Closing out my weekend with this gem. I totally loved this book. What does it mean to be a grown up, anyway? For me, it's a Sunday night dinner of wine and ice cream and books. 😉

This book is fascinating. I want to start a slow-reading bookclub that reads and discusses a different section every month because I am bursting to talk about it. Yuval Harari is a brilliant and interesting thinker. I can't say I agree with all of this predictions about the future of humanity, but I can say I learned A LOT about the social history behind them. Highly recommend.

Went to go see Singing in the Rain in Tokyo tonight! It was so much fun. The ultimate feel-good show. They dumped some 12 tons of water on stage during the titular scene. The people in the front row definitely earned those complimentary ponchos. ☔️☔️ 😂

My new @outofprint tee has arrived! "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" #dontletthebastardsgrindyoudown and have a great weekend, Littens! ?

Everyone should read this book. It's a powerful look at the vast inequality and cycle of poverty in the U.S. Definitely deserving of it's recent Pulitzer.

Today our bookclub meeting was held outside under the sakura (cherry blossoms). We discussed this months excellent pick, The Housekeeper and the Professor, while enjoying a bookclub hanami party. Hanami is a Japanese tradition of welcoming spring by picnicking under the blossoms. We had homemade sweets, local sake and bookish conversation. I am sunburnt and happy. 🌸🍶📚

This month marks my 1 year #listyversary! To celebrate, here's a throwback to my very first post - a quote from Fates and Furies. Thanks for spending this year of books with me, Littens. I love the community we've built around our books. ❤️📚❤️

Preface: Most of this book was nonsense; "creativity" cast as an entity with human-like intentions, "ideas" as sentient beings searching for a host, "big magic"... It's a lot of BS. HOWEVER! It was an interesting perspective, I enjoyed the anecdotes, and it did inspire me to write more... so I say Pick ?. You win again, Gilbert.

You can't beat that timing. I've had this on hold at the library for weeks! Finally came in the day it was announced as a #Pulitzer winner. 🥇

Some of my favorite books about #siblings for #aprilbookshowers day 10. I tend to like books about large families, maybe because I grew up with just one brother. The dynamics between multiple siblings is endlessly fascinating to me.

It's 6:30pm on Sunday, but better late then never! Greetings from my #LitsyPartyofOne 📚🍷🍫 I'm diving into this month's bookclub pick, The Housekeeper and the Professor - a story about a man whose memory only lasts for 80 minutes, and the housekeeper who has to figure out how to care for him.

My brain after seeing this headline: 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
Thoughts? Link to story here:
http://www.theloop.ca/margaret-atwood-just-secretly-announce-handmaids-tale-sequ...

To better express myself, I'll write this review in the form of haiku:

Love love love love love,
Love love love love love love love.
Love love love love love.

Ages ago, I read a poem that's been haunting me ever since. I couldn't remember where I read it or who wrote it, but it floated in the back of my mind for years. Recently, I was listening to Will Schwalbe's Books for Living and he talked about a collection of poems by Marie Howe and the title was pulling at me... Sure enough, I dug up the collection at the library and the second to last poem was THE POEM I'd been ruminating on for years. 📝❤️

I saw this on @LittleBrownBooks Instagram account. Accurate meme is accurate 😂 https://instagram.com/p/BSZ7xQTFccc/

Signed up for my first ever Litsy book exchange, #summersantagoespostal.
So excited! Go to @BookishMarginalia for deets! 📦

Apologies in advance to whoever gets me and has to ship a box all the way to Japan. 💁🏻 ごめんね！

Reading about the making of one of my all time fave movies in preparation for seeing the stage play in Tokyo this month! ☔️🎶 Am I the only one who prefers Donald O'Connor to Gene Kelly? Those dance moves! Those blue eyes! Adorbs. #TeamCosmoBrown all the way.

Real talk.

For #Marchintoreading day 29, here is my #bookbag! My partner made it for me for my 28th birthday because he knows I worship Didion. It's perfection. ❤️?
"That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it."
Sing to me, Joan!

I just downloaded this 100% necessary app where you can #poeyourself. 💀🖤

I really enjoyed this book. It's like candy for book lovers. Musings on why we read, through the lense of a few formative books that meant a lot to the author at various times in his life.

Truer words, Will Schwalbe. Truer words.

This is Jimbocho - the book district of Tokyo. The streets are lined with bookshops and the stacks spill out onto the sidewalks and down alleyways. It's a book lover's dream. ?? Fun fact: almost all of the bookshops are located on the south side of the street. Supposedly, it's better to protect the books from sun exposure, but I think it's more superstition than anything else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When people boast about how much they dislike a popular book or genre. ?

I hate the term "guilty pleasure." Like what you like, and don't let people shame you. I have nothing but love for my fellow readers and Littens. ❤️?

A little Strayedian wisdom for your evening. 🙌🙌🙌

Some of the most #awesomeaudiobooks I've listened to in the last couple of years. I tend towards nonfiction in audio. Lab Girl is number 1 in my heart (Seriously. If you haven't listened to it, run, do not walk, to this audiobook). Runners up include The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, and Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari.

"Dear Catastrophe..." I posted this poem a couple months ago and mistakenly attributed it to Claudia Rankine (???), but this beauty is Tender by CAMILLE Rankine, and I'm absolutely in love with it, so it's definitely worth sharing with you all twice. Happy belated #worldpoetryday !

This is a difficult review. I absolutely love Roxane Gay, so I had high expectations for this story collection. The subject matter was incredibly - for lack of a better word - difficult. (All the trigger warnings for sexual violence, domestic abuse, loss of children/babies.) Beyond being shockingly sad, the titular women of these stories weren't terribly nuanced. Many of the stories were the same pain being expressed in slightly different ways.

I know I'm a couple years late to the party, but y'all, I just read The Girl on the Train and it was so much fun! I listened to the audiobook and it was super well done.

"Dissents speak to a future age." ⚖️

Happy 84th birthday to the notorious RBG! ??Thank you for your nearly 60 year career fighting for equality and human dignity.

The most interesting part of the book was the last chapter or so, which talked about how hygge relates to happiness, and how happiness is measured. The rest was a little lackluster. I liked learning about the concept of hygge, but a lot of the book was spent repeating the same information in slightly different ways.

The second book I've finished at my desk this week. I absolutely looooooooved it.
Rich people problems: ☑️
Dysfunctional family drama: ☑️
General east coast discontentment: ☑️
I ate it up like dark chocolate and red wine.

It's sprig break here in Japan (but teachers still have to come to work every day 😩) so I've been getting a lot of extra reading time at my desk. This morning I finished off this Agatha Christie gem. These never fail to entertain.

Getting super hyggelig with The Little Book of Hygge. Slid open the shoji screen to listen to the spring rain. ☔️🌸

I bailed on this audiobook, but only because of the narration. The accents the narrator put on for various characters were terrible. It sounded like a bad SNL sketch. I was really interested the story though, so I'll try it again in print.

A hilarious memoir about life as a young, black woman in America. Full of pop references and anecdotes relatable to those in their 20's/30's. The audiobook had me in stitches.

There were some hard truths in this book. An important read for anybody. I highly recommend the audiobook, which is read by the author.