This is an intense, violent, and dark novel; the kind of book with scenes that you‘d like to shield your eyes from even as you read. I will say, though, that the shimmers of hope and warmth shine brighter for it. I loved Tracker and the Leopard.

I‘m surprised by the number of critical reviews. I feel like Marlon James has invented a rich, dense universe with characters who struggle to make sense of brutal, unfeeling universe. Well worth my time.

This is a great book! I love anything that delves into how the news gets made. Trish Hall delivers a behind-the-scenes peak into the NYT op ed room, while offering insights into writing and persuasion that are informed by decades of reading the writing of others. Teachers and humans of Litsy: I highly recommend this book.

I don‘t know that this is a fair critique of the book, but I did not love the voice. Enlisting a guardian spirit as a narrator is an idea that I find very cool, but I found that the narrator was too far removed from the decisions that drive plot forward. That said, I think that this book will really work for a lot of readers. I bailed after 50 pages, but I‘d be curious to read reviews from people who make it to the end.

Before I started reading this book I checked and found that most reviews on Litsy were negative... and I though, “I‘ll show you Litsy; I will write the most glowing review EVER!”

And now that I‘ve read it, I‘ve come down off my high horse. This book is not great. I loved Cockroach and De Niro‘s game, which both feature anti-heroes made likeable only to the extent that they are better than the sadists who surround them. This one: swing and a miss.

I‘m closing in on the halfway point of this one and I‘m realizing that I‘m in for a wait before book 3 comes out. I can‘t read GoT because I‘ve already watched the series, and Slow Regard is out because I need to read more Auri like I need a hole in the head. I‘ve really enjoyed reading a fantasy series, though. So, Litsy: What should I read next?

Everything few pages there is something incredible to marvel at. I wish we had spotted flying sharks. 🦈 🦈🦈

Creepy! This is such a great read! I am only about 10 minutes in, and this one throws you right into the middle of things. Also: I do not care for this cat thing. It may haunt my dreams. 😱😱😱

I read that the final third of this book drags on and can confirm. The writing is so evocative though, the descriptions so insightful and irreverent. I laughed uncontrollably. The majority of this book was a great read. When she seems to run out of things to say about her family, though, it reads like a great voice without a story to tell. Still a definite pick.

I really liked this one. It was fascinating to follow the path that led a gloomy, insecure, brilliant young man to one of America‘s most notorious presidencies. I found it easy to feel empathy for his insecurity, revulsion at his key role in prolonging the Vietnam War, and to feel disconcerted by the double standard history has applied to behaviours that were excused for Eisenhower and Kennedy. I listened to this on Audible. Worth your time.

An examination of love, parenthood, and marriage. At turns both very funny and very sad. Read this one for the structure alone; it is told through a series of loosely connected thoughts and vignettes. A solid, rewarding read. #firstread2018

Bring it on 2018! Happy New Year! #bookhaul #onlybooksforchristmas

1. Dark Money by Jane Meyer. It was frightening to read about how big money is disrupting American democracy.
2. Always a tough call, but I have to give it to Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. A definite re-read.
3. Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips. A compelling and haunting read about small town hatred, racism, and rage.
4. Patrick Rothfuss. Thank you to @LA_Mead @MinDea @TricksyTails and #epicbuddyread

@GypsyKat #litsyquestions

This seems like the greatest tradition ever! But @LA_Mead how will we tell the difference between this and every other Tuesday of the year?

Twenty more pages to go for the #epicbuddyread book talk tomorrow! I‘ve been thinking about reading a fantasy book for a while now; it‘s been 15 years since I last read one in high school. So excited!

Thank you so much for the great #bookhaul @xicanti ! I‘m especially looking forward to Into the Beautiful North :)

This is one of those rich novels that I always regret finishing; turning the last page felt like leaving home. Every detail in this novel becomes significant during its climax. I‘m tempted to turn back to page one to admire the writing as everything comes together again. This is a novel that is definitely worth your time.

This was on my doorstep when I came home from work today! Thank you @xicanti !!! I can‘t wait for December 21st :) #secretsantagoespostal

1. I like Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan and Margaret Atwood. I like my fiction literary, my journalism investigative, and my nonfiction narrative.
2. Favourite author of the year: Ibram X. Kendi.
3. Thrillers. I keep wanting to like them, but I think maybe I just don‘t like the edge of my seat reading experience.
4. I thought I‘d maybe give fantasy another try.
5. Yann Martel, the M. Night Shyamalan of books.
6. @LA_Mead @teebe #Giftswapsurvey

I really liked the first act of this book: great set up for the detective. I found the later flashbacks to be underwhelming, however, and the mystery in the end seemed unsurprising. It was okay.

Met Jennifer Egan at a book signing. She is so cool and smart! While she was signing my copy of Manhattan Beach I told her how much I loved this one, and she said that this is her favourite also. And then I stood like a gap-mouthed fool. #starstruck

Loved this book. It was a clever, insightful peek into the world of politics and the chasm that exists between public persona and the politician.

Mind blown. The ability of billionaires to anonymously endorse politically extreme candidates is laid out detail by disturbing detail. Really glad Ontario has capped campaign contributions.

1. Green... and red... also blue, orange, pink. Colours are pretty great. Although some suck: I'm looking at you taupe and fuchsia. I don't even like your names.
2. All things book related.
3. Today: The Blind Assassin.
4. I like contemporary, fiction, investigative journalism, Margaret Atwood.
5. Sentences that span pages. Punctuation is free, jackass.
6. Flannel bed sheets are the fourth greatest experience in life.
7. Am on Litsy.
8. @LA_Mead

I just signed up for my first book exchange! My wife, @LA_Mead told me how much fun she had at the last one :) Thanks to @MrBook @BookBabe and @Avanders for setting up this year's #SecretSantaGoesPostal !

Imagine a version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime where the main character is an adult and a serial sex-offender. What makes this book so challenging is that while it examines violence against women through a character with a mental disability, it forces you to generalize Martin John's self-rationalizations onto all men who commit sexual violence. If you liked reading Eileen for its creepiness and insight, then read this next.

I was digging this book until Loo's mother started appearing in the back story. As a character, she was a flat note in a story that was really moving along. Like she was intruding on this great father-daughter story. The book was alright.

This book shines a spotlight on the intersection of racism and organized violence. The descriptions of white men roaming the Forsyth County at night are terrifying. This is an important read because it puts names and narrative to a kind of evil that is difficult to imagine, but that is perpetrated by ordinary people. I read it in two days.

Some creative, interesting theories of time travel. I felt that the main character was a self-involved asshole, though. His self-awareness and meta-tomfoolery did not make him likeable. They just make him a smug, self-involved asshole.

This is the first book I have loved in 2017. "Jon" and "The Red Bow" will floor you; "Commcomm" is ferociously compassionate. How can writing be so hilarious and terribly sad and uplifting at the same time? I was nonplussed by Tenth of December a few years ago, but I may need to give it another try. George Saunders is incredible!

I really wanted to like this book, in part because he is Canadian and also because I don't care for the way that the internet has been scrambling to arbitrate Boyden's identity: that's for him and the people who claim him. The book, however, was not great. I can definitely see where the APTN found the book's politics unsettling. Also: the first person narration gets really flat about a hundred pages in.

I can read all of this before summer, right?

Overt, segregationist racism is easy to recognize and reject. I was dismayed by how many assimilationist racist ideas I was led to recognize in my own thinking. Several times I had to stop and think: "Shit. That is a racist idea. I can't think that anymore."

I appreciated Ibram Kendi's candour in the introduction: researching this book forced him to recognize his own racist ideas. This prepared me to lower my defences and hear him out.

Today I installed a floating headboard using a French cleat #readinginbed

Woo-hoo! This is my first litsy-inspired book purchase. It's a collection of essays on what Nick Hornby's been reading and it spans a decade. I read the essay from September 2003 this afternoon... SO GOOD! It's like listening to a friend talk about their book finds, and what they've liked about what they've been reading, and about what they think about reading in general. Thank you Litsy people for an excellent recommendation :)

I read this book for the first time two years ago and loved it. It's a send up of literary prizes --the Elysian is a thinly veiled Booker prize--featuring self-interested and incompetent judges. St Aubyn made it to the short list at some point, but the prose seems more amused than bitter. Holds up well to multiple reads. Pairs well with the Man Booker long list. Happy #recommendsday!

Only time for one more big summer book before school starts: it is time!

"The rain outside hammered against my thoughts. Down the windowpane, it changed and slipped, and all those rivulets of water, growing large and small, joining and shivering, began to confuse and mesmerize me"

I love these words. They makes me feel like I'm outside looking in on this character, and the image is blurred--and of course it is; this is page 24.

That moment when you're reading the epigraph of a book that you've been looking forward to and you suddenly have two new books on your TBR list.

I might need to try this one again as an audiobook. I really like listening to Orenstein in interviews, but I'm having a hard time getting into this one.

This novel had a chilling last thirty pages. Moshfegh builds tension in the first couple hundred--lots of creepy atmosphere--and then delivers a staggering punch to the gut. I'm amazed by the way that the 70-year-old narrator ultimately reverses many of my early perceptions of Eileen. An incredible novel.

Egan vividly imagines the interior lives of the cast of characters in her novel. While the point of view chapters are sometimes inconclusive, Egan hides clues throughout the novel that completes each character's story arc. The shifts backwards and forward in time are just fun: to see how time and circumstance shape identity. The last chapter--set in our future--is disturbingly plausible. A satisfying, thought-provoking and compelling read.

A great read! So funny and observant: "She was 'clean': no piercings tattoos or scarifications. All the kids were now. And who could blame them, Alex thought, after watching three generations of flaccid tattoos droop like moth-eaten upholstery over poorly stuffed biceps and saggy asses?"

Ransacked the library after checking the Man Booker longlist this morning. There were only two left and they are mine! Mwahahah!

I think that I came into this one with the wrong idea. Loved the concept of multiple Londons and got really excited about inter-London smuggling: how does it work? who's getting a cut? how do the fences go about shifting product? Instead, Kell smuggles music boxes... It was okay.

Up next: Summerland. I love this cover. I'm anticipating Moonrise Kingdom, but with werefoxes.

The characters in this novel are fully realized, likeable even when despicable, and constantly surprising. James tells human stories complicated by the drug economy; loved the use of a dozen narrators, each with a distinct voice. Great mystery elements. Wish I could read it for the first time again.

Reading this because I have a son. Thank you, library!

This novel had flashes of brilliance--loved Rose's narration--but in general the style seemed overwrought. The long-winded speculation of the anthropologists really sunk the pace. Also, why mention inter-dimensional travel and demon hordes AND THEN NOT DELIVER??? Instead we get Stockholm RoboCop.

This was an excellent read; the narrator is compelling, the characters vivid, and the tragedy blended with humour. A powerful story of self-discovery. And although Cal's view of the 20th century is largely bleak, it is ultimately a narrative filled with hope for the future.

I cannot believe what an amazing read this became. Cal's journey to accepting himself as an intersex man in heart-rending and beautiful. A call to empathy to a culture that is often preoccupied with gender binaries.