Started this book last night & am utterly hooked! How does she do it, indeed! Reminds me a bit of reading Lauren Groff's Matrix -- an intense character study of someone from a different time & place. In this case the German Romantic poet Novalis. The fact that I know nothing & care little about 18th century German Romanticism means squat. The story, the writing, the everything is so powerful! I get it @Graywacke !!

Was fun to escape to Corfu with the Durrell family for a while. Was surprised at how often I chuckled aloud while reading, also how well the TV miniseries (which I watched a few years ago) adapted it.
And ticked off another prompt for the #192025 challenge. @Librarybelle
Meanwhile more snow in the forecast for tomorrow. 😑

When the state of the world is brutal and winter is relentless, I buy books. And read fairy tales.

#currentread That cover is the energy I want to bring in 2025. 😆

A reading memoir that doesn't talk about novels in terms of plot, character or setting but instead spends time on how they evoke plants, painting, darkness, and so on. And how her reading experiences then shape her own writing. I found it quirky and thought-provoking. It helped that many of the works she discusses are by novelists I also like. (Claire-Louise Bennett, Rachel Cusk, Elena Ferrante, Virginia Woolf).

She was born Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she did not open her eyes for three days.
#firstlineFriday
@ShyBookOwl

Oh @LeahBergen what a wonderful parcel! Well worth the wait! 😉 Thank you so much! Thrilled with the books! (So pleased to have a Handheld Books edition as I eyed them for years but never purchased one!) Love the card, the post card, the bookmark, the whole kit'n'caboodle. ☺️ And curious if you would recommend visiting Mankato?

What a delightful #jolabokaflod package! Thank you so much Danielle!! I am so pleased to have the Hardwick collection (love a NYRB edition) and Toffifees are a favourite! Also loved the card & paper.
It is a very snowy Christmas eve day in my part of the world (40+ cms expected ❄️❄️❄️❄️). Guess I'll have to stay at home and read. 😀
@StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego @MaleficentBookDragon

Always exciting when my #jolabokaflod package arrives! 🎅❄️⛄🎄
@StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego @MaleficentBookDragon

Next up...no way I will finish by Dec 21st.

This mystery has been on my ebook shelf for a while. It's set on BC's Sunshine Coast where my sister-in-law lives. The first time we went I thought, this would be the perfect setting for a murder mystery. Turned out I was not the first to have that idea. 😉
A solid mystery, the killer is revealed on page 1. As the story unfolds, you follow RCMP staff sergeant Karl Alberg put it together. Good characters, good setting, good pace. Author was 👇

A collection of Santas to confirm that I have shipped off my #Jolabokaflod gifts. Unfortunately because Canada Post is on strike, I had to resort to Amazon and UPS to deliver them. (No pretty card or wrapping paper 😕). Thanks for understanding @curiousg

And thanks as always for organizing Michelle!! @maleficentbookdragon

Penelope sits in her role as magistrate while a man is tried for theft. At the same time, she puts her own life on trial as she reflects on her decision to leave her husband for her lover. A taut, well-written account of how we show up in relationships and what it means to be a 'good' person. Maude would approve. 😆
Published in 1976, it means I've completed my first decade for the #192025 challenge! @Librarybelle

Methinks Bea Arthurs as Maude inspired the cover art for this 1970s novel.

Coordinating book and cat on a lazy Saturday morning. This is new novel by Canadian writer who I (kinda) knew in high school. She was cool back then and is cool now. So far, so good.

Former sweethearts Warren and Sarah reconnect in their early 60s and fall in love again. But Warren is still married, and has to choose between Sarah and his family. A soft pick. It treads a very fine line between carefully observed & dull. It also has one of the most annoying characters I've experienced in a while. And having read the reviews on here, I went in prepared for a shocking ending. And actually, the ending worked for me. 👇

Rainy Saturday and managed to finish two books. Even better, they both fulfill a #192025 prompt. And they coordinate. 😀
Anais Nin's diary has been my morning coffee read and I've been making my way through the MacLeod collection for a few weeks. The stories reminded me a lot of his father's (Alistair MacLeod) writing. Quintessential Canlit.
Anyhoo feeling accomplished and grateful for an un-schdeduled Saturday.
@Librarybelle

Wallace's face might say otherwise, but I liked this book! Amy Shred is the younger sister. Her big sister Olly is magnetic, beautiful, & talented. She's also erratic, manic, dangerous & mentally ill. Amy grows up in her shadow as Olly appears & disappears from her family's life. Amy enters adulthood & tries to build a her own life & Olly continues to haunt her. Both sisters are frustrating but the story of their sisterhood is moving. #netgalley

An idealistic Ruth Reichl becomes a food critic. The growth of her writing career parallels the emergence of modern American cuisine in CA. (I recognized many of the young chefs she writes about as Top Chef judges.) At the same time as she talks food, Reichl weaves in her personal life: her father's death, extramarital affairs, the demise of her 1st marriage, moves, a failed adoption.
Overall an easy and engaging listen.
#192025 @Librarybelle

A hodge podge of books I bought this past week at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and the Boys and Girls Club book sale.
All for charity folks! For charity!! 😇😁
I absolutely bought the Martha Grimes mystery for the cover. Ditto for The Stone Angel.

My March through the Betsy-Tacy books continues. Enjoying the high school years!

What is the point of being an academic during late stage capitalism? What's the point of teaching classes, working on articles, attending conferences when the dream of life in the ivory tower is long dead? That's what Dorothy is struggling to figure out as she sees two therapists, copes with a unexpected miscarriage, and interacts with friends & colleagues who seem better prepared for life.
As a former academic, this book was HIGHLY relatable👇

Spent my weekend in the vegetable garden (check out my potatoes!! 😁) listening to the tagged book. Lively considers various topics: gardens as metaphor, time and the garden, garden style, etc. I enjoyed some chapters more than others but can agree with her overall premise that a life in the garden does affect how we engage with the world positively.
It also inspired me to grow more flowers and so I ordered a bunch of tulip & daffodils bulbs. 🙈

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel set in the literary salons of 17th century France that fostered fairy tales as we have come to know them. Charles Perrault features as one of the main characters. It's a fun mix of actual fairy tales, profiles of the various tellers of these tales, and the intrigue and politics of Louis XIV's court. When is a story ever just a story?

My stack of books from NYC. Sarah and I had so much fun! ❤️
The top one with faded spine is a collection of short stories by Cora Sandal (not in the database). Especially pleased with the 1st edition Laurie Colwin. (And grateful to @sarahbarnes for climbing the ladder to retrieve it at Westsider Books.)
Proud to report I've already read tagged book courtesy of a prolonged travel day home. So well done me! 😁

Road tripping to NYC, my partner and I listened to the tagged Murakami novel. . . and, we hated it. This is my second attempt at reading him (I bailed on IQ84) and I just do.not.get.it! 😳 Honestly it reminded me why I don't read many male authors. 🤷
But I'm in New York City for 5 days and I get to meet up with @sarahbarnes so life is pretty good. 😁

Maybe some books are better left remembered and not re-read. 😐

First of all, if you read this book for dirt on Tendler's marriage and split from comedian John Mulvaney, you will be be disappointed. While there are oblique references to her marriage & divorce, he is never named & no deets are given. His absence is conspicuous. What Tendler does share is her decision to enter a psychiatric hospital for depression, self harm & suicidal ideation in early 2021. The book flips between her treatment & her history 👇

My book haul from an antiques store that is going out of business. $3.50 for the lot.

Aspirational reading.
The past few weeks have been VERY busy with end of school. My daughter graduated from high school and it was go-go-go.
Needless to say 50 days of solitude sounds pretty good.

Kinda dropped all my other reading when this arrived from #netgalley yesterday. I have followed Tendler on IG for a while and enjoy her art and aesthetics.
Also curious to get the tea on her divorce from John Mulvaney. 👀

Just made the dangerous discovery how easy it is to order books from Blackwell's. 😬 More loopholes might have slowed me down. 😂
Tagged book not available in North America yet. My eldest was recently diagnosed with Autism and so doing some catch-up, and most of the good resources seem to be in the UK.

Listening to A House in Paris on audio.
I have 2 stories left in the Munro collection and started book 4 of Betsy-Tacy series.
All books which knock off prompts for #192025 @Librarybelle
#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

An absolute delight! Loved it.

My #bookreport.
📗 Winter Rose by Patricia A McKillip. A Tam Lin retelling. Agree with reviews that say language is beautiful and story is confusing.
🎧 Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark - a series of personal essays using fairy tales to explore motherhood, writing, race, grief, etc. Some are brilliant.

#Weeklyforecast - a break from fairy tales. 😉
📗 some Alice Munro ❤️
🎧 Finally getting to Cold Comfort Farm

#Caturday on the catio . 🐱 I'm into another Tam Lin retelling, unseasonally set in winter.

After @Aims42 excellent reviews reminded me how much I wanted to read this series, I was excited to find it on Libby. I binged the audiobook over the long weekend while gardening and chauffeuring kids. The plot is a bit of a convoluted mess but who cares when you have phlegmatic Oxford scholar/sleuth Hilary narrating events. The humour is very wry and very British. Pity the poor fool who has to go Cambridge. A delight indeed!

Taking #landback protests to a new level, two Metis youth move a herd of bison into a downtown Edmonton park. Activist Grey is determined to make a real difference while Ezzy, whose been in & out of institutions, his whole life, just wants to support Grey. Their plan works, sort of. But if course there are no easy fixes to colonialism or its impact on generations. Helping the bison doesn't save Grey or Ezzy from having to find their own path.

One of my literary lodestars. 😔💔 Maybe more than any other writer, she's helped me make sense of myself and the world.

My library holds came in and so my weekend is set. A bit of a contrast between Carter's fairy tales and Betsy-Tacy's small town Minnesota.

The book is a pick. The audio is a pan. So that landed me on a so-so.
Via an American journalist fascinated by Fevers, a part woman/bird aerialist, Carter introduces the many characters of a 19th century travelling circus: the lion tamer, strongman, clown, ringmaster and more all get extensive back stories. The circus world - and Carter's prose - is lavish & chaotic & strange. It's a bit like a Victorian novel on crack. And I'm sure I would 👇

I remember when this book was published in 1999 & how it was hyped as the next Bridget Jones's Diary.
I'm glad I waited till 2024 to read it.
It's not like BJD beyond having a young, single woman narrator. Jane is witty, smart, & uncertain, dating & working in NYC. It's more Sex & the City ➖ the fabulous wardrobe ➕ a bit more depth. Reading the stories while visiting Halifax, the city where I spent my early 20s, probably enhanced my enjoyment.

Packing for a quick weekend getaway. Four books seems reasonable right? 😁

I did not get on well with Angela Carter when I read her in my early 20s. We shall see if I'm ready for her in my early 50s.

How to account for bookish moods & whims? This does not seem like a book I'd want to read -- a twin biography of cousins, two mid 19th-century monarchs, King Ludwig of Bavaria, Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I didn't know a thing about them. I don't like historical fiction. And yet, and yet. I did like it. And it is just that, twin portraits from childhood to death of two people who suffered in their roles. Tons of privilege & perpetual misery. 👇

Big into rereads and comfort reads right now. Just revisited this delight and wish ALL the Betsy-Tacy books were available on audio. (They're not.)

Current reading mood. Bright 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 covers.
These books are VERY different but enjoying both so far.

Sonia, a London-based actress of Palestinian descent goes to Israel to visit her sister. While there's she agrees to participate in a West Bank production of Hamlet. The result is a complex novel about how art can be both a personal and political force. I found it slow but gripping.
Reading this now, it provides insight into the plight and mistreatment of the Palestinian people by Israel since 1948. And now things are so much worse. 😔🍉

It comes as no surprise to me that I loved this book! Especially since @leahbergen @vivastory @sarahbarnes @Centique @Cathythoughts all love it too. 😃
Brookner creates an uncomfortable, close world at an off-season Swiss hotel that caters to the just-so. It takes a while to understand why Edith has gone there to get away, and for her to figure out how she can leave with dignity. As in the best novels, nothing happens, everything happens. ❤️

Monday morning. Would love to stay here with my cat and my book. (Which is so good so far!!)
Also, rarely do I read a book and feel my vocabulary is lacking. But Brookner! She has me looking up words constantly! 😅