Hello, everyone. I'm sorry that I can't individually respond to each and every one of you, but I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your messages. It gives me so much comfort. Thank you so much for your kindness and compassion ❤️ I hope you've all been well and enjoying your reading 📚 I hope to be able to get back to posting here pretty soon.

It's been an incredibly difficult few days for us. My beautiful mum, the constant in all our lives, our rock, passed away early Thursday morning. She's been battling a mystery tumour in her brain since 2021 (biopsies were not viable due to her age, so we've relied on scans) & the doctors concluded in March that it was glioblastoma. Words are so useless in the face of grief. I'm happy we gave her all we had in recent years & she passed on at home.

Objectively speaking, not a very good book (or mystery), but hilariously campy, silly, and hysterically gothic. I had great fun reading #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub reviews prior to starting, and everyone's comments on Cynthia really prepared me for her inability to understand what is happening right in front of her eyes 🙈 One is tempted to give her a copy of Northanger Abbey; better to be a Catherine Morland than a Cynthia! 🤣 Justice for Spot, btw.

A throwback to the 2010s with School of Seven Bells' Ghostory album: an ethereal, shimmering, haunting soundscape. #TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nXD6IAq_MR_y9usZpjKyk2cAINI1-SiyI&si=T...

Tom Gauld's latest ... Straight out of my Litsy bio 😁👻

I didn't quite like this, but it's Wharton—the novel is interesting & unsettling. It seems like it takes the themes that were satirised in Twilight Sleep (irresponsible parents blown about by every wind) & gives it a darker turn. In this one we see the children as fully-fledged characters & the costs of bad parenting hit hard. The other thing is the character of Martin: predatory, genuine, or wayward Peter Pan? All very disturbing to think about.

I wanted to like this! I didn't want to overthink the cheesy teen slasher horror and tried to go with the flow (of gore). Alas! Thoughts invaded. The killer's motive was the most nonsensical thing. I mean? What is even going on there? This makes me sound horrible but the book is best when it's fast-paced and slashy and bloody and at its worst when it spends way too many pages on teen angst and romance. Granted, I'm not the target audience, but.

My expectations were high. I thought I'd be snort-laughing at the wit while also being blown away by how intricate the mystery was. None of that happened. It doesn't make this a bad book; more that as @BarbaraJean notes this type of book works when the tone of the narrator is something that gels with you, & for a good part of the novel Ernest (the narrator) annoyed me. But it all perks up quite nicely towards the end, so it's a 3-star pick!

A feminist gothic horror set in the sweltering island of Sri Lanka in the late 19th-century, during British colonialism. The writing was a tad purple prose-y at times, but the story conjured a spell, & the dark, ominous mood worked well. The clash of ancient religious & spiritual beliefs with modernising "Western" religions made for a tense read. I was fascinated in seeing how Sinhala folk beliefs share similarities with South(East) Asian ones.

I liked this well enough—it's thoughtful with interesting character studies, but not enough to get the total hype that surrounded this book upon its release. I guess my main issue was that it seemed like it was about the power of art, but not enough about that power was conveyed through the narrative, & it seemed to be about the menace of the unexpected end of the world, but not enough menace was conveyed about that. I wanted to be unsettled.

Reached the end & wow, was it a wild ride. I don't read a lot of SF (I should fix that) so I can't compare, but suffice to say this blew my mind (enough that I should do a reread). I love the vastness of the ideas explored here, & the realism & beauty of the human endeavour: we are always both everything & nothing all at once. Also makes you think about bleak stuff like ethnic-cleansing (species-cleansing!) & the inherent violence of the universe.

Loved seeing everyone's nominations for #camplitsy24 and here are mine. Focused on books in translation for my picks. Thanks again for hosting @BarbaraBB @Megabooks @squirrelbrain ! 📚🏕️

This was like a satirical Fitzgerald; depressing & amusing all at once. Characters that needed to be more thoughtful were a tad underdeveloped, as such (Nona). But I felt for her & almost wish there was a sequel where she gets her own version of a "happy ending". A 3-star pick because it didn't quite stick the landing as I expected it to, but it's astutely Whartonian in how it exposes the vacuousness of the capitalist elite. #WhartonBuddyRead

A very cute middle grade mystery about a libraries and the love of reading and sharing knowledge. I enjoyed all of the characters here, but I have to say that this book needed more of Mortimer the orange cat and his smaller non-feline acquaintances, the mice. I do think a sequel is in order for a glimpse of the potentially fruitful (and artistic!) connection between cat and mouse 😺🐭

Been listening to this PJ Harvey album a lot lately. The controlled rage and irony of the line, "What if I take my problem to the United Nations?" in The Words That Maketh Murder is probably the most apt and relevant song for 2024 https://youtu.be/U4E6sbyIee0?si=ZKXA11MiMmj966CF

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

I haven't quite read Heidi before; I think we had an abridged picture version when I was younger but I wasn't moved to seek it out again. Reading it now, I think I know why—Heidi is so impossibly good, & the moral & religious message kind of overtly hammered home. It's a sweet story & I love the descriptions of nature but found it cloying, as well. Reading it in short installments on Serial Reader helped! #ChildrensClassicRead2024 @TheBookHippie

A disturbing & riveting tale of coming-of-age amidst grief, racism, people who are deeply unwell, religious conservatism, & the dangerous ways the delusion & the "madness of crowds" can work, in all stages of life. The narrative & writing brought to the surface all of the subterranean fears & anxieties of childhood, especially the sense that adulthood is not all that it's cracked up to be. A tad overlong but the writing is good & worth the effort.

Devastating, searing, deeply urgent reading. Written with a moral and political clarity that is utterly and absolutely necessary for this present moment. Structured in such a way as to break your heart because it brings the reader close to the texture of everyday life for Palestinians under occupation and leads up to the inevitable aftermath that, as is clear from the title, is a tragedy. I wish this wasn't our world.

What I've been listening to lately: two albums that meld classical sounds with the contemporary.

Susheela Raman, Love Trap (love her voice): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mEJstnS1OP-Q4HcOJW5JJQzBdl_rYwvSI&si=k...

DJ Cheb i Sabbah (who sadly passed away in 2013), Devotion. Electronica, trance, with classical Indian & Arabic influences: https://youtu.be/Ex-Dg_oi8j4?si=o5JSh3fz136GgY3x

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

I'm sorry to be a bit cranky about this #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub but I enjoyed the first half & loved the bits about Jane finding herself & becoming a writer. I also liked her relationship with Mrs Millard & was hoping for more of it. The 2nd half got a bit too silly at points, & maybe sort of escaped reality altogether (though I understand that's the point of a fluffy feel-good book like this one!) I found it pleasant enough but not quite a pick.

A mini #bookhaul from the remainders/discount bookstore. I was super excited to find these as 3 out of 4 were on my wishlist for years.

Clockwise from top L:
1) Stream System - Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane
2) Territory of Light - Yuko Tsushima (I think the cover is pretty but it doesn't show up well in the pic)
3) Looking for Mr Goodbar - Judith Rossner
4) The Fortnight in September - R.C. Sherriff

One of the better books I've read in this genre; a mix of supernatural & crime that's written with skill, with a strong plot that builds up convincingly and doesn't rely on any type of ridiculous big reveal or twist. I thought the tension & mystery were really well done, the horror believable. The dual timelines intersected well & powered the narrative forward. Plus it's well-written with interesting characters. Want to read more by St. James!

Very silly, funny, & OTT. This, about the menace of the quaint English village, is not to be taken seriously at any point. The Gorey-esque illustrations add to the charm. The village police station being described as "just a mug of tea in a cupboard" nearly made me choke on my coffee. Those of us who love our little English village mysteries will enjoy this tongue-in-cheek bit of fluff. Danger lurks everywhere & I failed the Manor Quiz ?

Just finished the 2nd book in Cixin Liu's trilogy & does that dog's expression depict how I feel right now? Yes. Did that get in the way of me enjoying the heck out of whatever this was? No! So much of the science stuff went over my head, but it never bothered me. It's dense, it's wacky, it's got a number of different ideas & concepts rattling around in a way that makes this such a refreshing read from my usual fare. The last third ups the ante

This is the 2nd book in the Lunar Chronicles series, & I enjoyed this more than the first, Cinder. The first one had to set the scene of the futuristic interplanetary realm & dragged a bit, though Cinder herself was an intriguing character. This one was all fast-paced plot plus new characters. I think Scarlet was meant to be tough & feisty, but to me she was kinda bratty (I'm showing my age 👵🏽). But it's a fun concept & a great popcorn read.

Started Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest in anticipation of finishing the trilogy before The Three-Body Problem airs on Netflix and came across this passage and paused, because I *just* finished Marissa Meyers' Scarlet earlier today, which is a YA alternate reality riff on The Little Red Riding Hood.

Maybe our books do talk to each other? 😅

An almost-perfect novella, really. But it's got a bleakness to it that made me feel like I wanted to take off into the woods & never find civilisation again. It's a pick, if you want to ponder why it is people do the things they do to each other. Was there a time when people were intrinsically valued for just being, instead of whether they were of any use? An objectively good book but now I feel like shit (well, more than usual). Thanks, John 😢

This was a truly eye-opening read; although I was vaguely aware of Rodrigo Duterte's fascist policies & his "war on drugs" & its immense costs, this book put that war into stark context. Grim & utterly brutal. The violence is shocking, but the thing that is most chilling is how people voted for him, & for the most part, took the killings in stride & somehow even lauded it. Evangelista highlights how there was a breaking point for some; but the

I enjoyed this warm, witty, big-hearted novel about Rachel & her best friend James, & how rooted it is in time & place (Cork truly comes alive). The characters are so well-drawn, & the relationships & fuck-ups that happen during the early-20s are realistic while being entertaining enough to power a whole novel that I didn't want to stop turning the pages. Many of the lines made me laugh out loud, especially in the first half. The writing is fab.

These past few days I wanted only sparkly, sugary pop that made me temporarily escape real life. And Carly Rae Jepsen's The Loveliest Time more than delivers on that front 💖 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6n7xOfvov7DwbR4Gm23Pfsf9O9uoMS5w&si=yiM1ke9h...

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

Thank you Michelle for the personalised notebook and memo pads... So very sweet of you! Loved the cards ❤️ Thanks so much for thinking of me and sending this my way. Hope you're doing well. @Mimi28

I've been meaning to read this for years & I'm glad #LiteraryCrew gave me the push I needed. I greatly enjoyed it. Perry's writing is exquisite; loved her eye for detail & the lush, abundant descriptions of nature. I appreciated the complex characters & how invested I was in how things turned out for them. I loved the chilly beauty of Aldwinter & the strange sense of unease that permeates the book. All of it was right up my street. @Librarybelle

The follow up to One of Us Is Lying is the perfect palate cleanser. McManus writes well for young adults, & doesn't attempt to write YA to cater to adult tastes that inadvertently insult both young & adult readers. The characterisation is believable, the pacing is generally good & the mystery is decent. In fact, the two books I've read in this series are stronger than some of the absurd & downright silly thrillers for adults that I've read.

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

Was sad to hear of Damo Suzuki's passing on February 9. He was one of the vocalists for Can, and I've been listening to the Ege Bamyasi album again in particular. The track Vitamin C still rocks so hard and Sing Swan Song is so lovely. Love me some Krautrock 💚 You can hear the influence of this on bands like Pavement, Sonic Youth.

A man goes into the woods on a cold day. Things are strange. Is it a dream or a nightmare? Is it a spiritual awakening or a kind of religious allegory? It's a novella that's easy to mock, & I did roll my eyes at one point, but it also exerts a kind of force. I wanted to laugh it off, but couldn't. It's a tad hackneyed, but also unnerving & mystical. Something compels you to want to linger in these woods, but you also want to get away from it.

Once the book passed over a certain juncture in the narrative, it was hard *not* to keep reading! I just had to see how it was all going to pan out. High drama and psychological acuity—it's what Wharton does best. The ethics of the situation are grey in the sense that Wharton makes you question which outcome is the most just and to whose benefit? Wharton is so good at showing you the costs: both of being in society and out of it. #WhartonBuddyRead

I went into this book not knowing much about it, & learned that Harding took the real life story of the eviction of the Malaga residents & fictionalised it in this story about Apple Island & its people. The result, to me, is a beautiful & grim story about race & eugenics & colonisation, though the story itself isn't "about" those issues. It's a slim book that packs a punch. The POV shifts between individual voices & it gives the residents of the

Everything that happened before happens again. The colonial past is always the present.

It's already Wednesday here, but I love @TieDyeDude 's idea for #TuesdayTunes & seeing everyone's picks. Tori's Under the Pink turned 30 this year; I've been feeling old & rediscovering my obsession with this album 💙

Two songs I've been listening to nonstop because of True Detective: https://youtu.be/SM8PU-mTSaI?si=0XLikNInh5ikaak4 (Seven Devils, Florence+the Machine) & https://youtu.be/04J0ihSeIuI?si=X9MMc04PCih6mb2h (Into Dust, Mazzy Star)

Bleak, grim, & all too real. Butler was prescient in how dystopia comes to be; it's emerging in pockets of societies all over the world as a culmination of fascism & the capitalist climate crisis. Reading this was hard & it gave me nightmares. Reading it right now is too much. Butler's writing is both beautiful & matter-of-fact. I found myself wanting to debate Earthseed with Lauren. I find myself wanting to ask Butler how to get out of this mess.

Having read all of Kawakami's novels translated into English (just the novella, Ms. Ice Sandwich, to go), I can say that I'm a big fan. I was surprised by the depth of Breasts and Eggs, the level of scrutiny it employs in dissecting age-old norms taken as human truths. But I shouldn't have been surprised; she does the same in Heaven & All the Lovers in the Night. A book that I'll be thinking about for a long time. Brilliant & uncompromising.

I sense that maybe this shouldn't have been my first Lucy Foley—the previous two sound like it's more my speed. This felt way too long; protracted & melodramatic to the point of tedium. Multiple POVs can work so well in a thriller but you have to pull it off. All of these characters were incredibly irritating people. I love "unlikeable characters" but they must have some sort of depth or charm to pull you in. The resolution is pure fairy tale ?

"There was emergency and difficulty everywhere, and he was no doubt terrorised by it, but with emergency and terror comes a test. He wondered could he pass it?" This strange, shapeshifting novel, that puts us directly in the mind of one aging police officer Tom Kettle, seems particularly apt for our present moment. A novel about memory & time, not just on an individual level but collective. A dark, bleak novel shot through with macabre humour—

I studied John Donne in college & was unprepared for how his poems surprised & delighted me. It's been years since I've read him but Rundell's lovely biography has given me the itch to rediscover him. Just like Donne's subject matter was perfect for him, the way in which he transformed feeling & bodily experience to thought, so is Donne the perfect material for Rundell. Her style is playful, fluid, thoughtful, always compelling. This was a treat!

This was such an adorable story! #ChildrensClassicRead2024 I can't believe I haven't read this before or watched the Disney animation. I found it very witty and charming, and just an all-round delight. It's always a good time when animals get existential 😆 Loved the illustrations by Garth Williams. I should check out more of her adult novels, as well—I enjoyed Four Gardens, which we read for #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub @TheBookHippie

This was hypnotic & quietly compelling. A speculative dystopian novel about a woman who tells us her story of having grown up in captivity in a group of 40 women. I found the images of the barren inner & outer landscape quite surreal, like a Dali painting that was transforming in front of our eyes. Through the young narrator's circumstances the novel asks deep questions about the purpose of personhood, womanhood, existence. Are we always waiting?

Yet another quiet, tender novel by Donoghue that I loved & found very affecting. It tells the story of Anne Lister ("the first modern lesbian", as she has been called) & her friend & lover Eliza Raine as they room together in a girls' school in their teens. The detailed author's note at the end made me feel especially sad for Eliza, who was Anglo-Indian & wholly in love with Lister. Donoghue depicted Eliza's inner life with sensitivity & care.

This isn't a murder mystery, but a Susan Scarlett romance with a heaping dash of Celia Fremlin-esque domestic peril. It starts off cute then escalates fast 💀 Like @CarolynM says it made me feel sad about the conditions of life for vulnerable older people; it felt contemporary in that it reminded me of pandemic lockdowns & post-pandemic life in terms of isolation & abuse in the home. Quite dark compared to the usual #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub fare!

I admit that I'm probably the ideal reader for this book; I was absolutely willing to fall under its spell. It's the time of excess, moral lassitude, lasciviousness, masks, & debauchery in 18th-century Venice, & also the time of art, beauty, music, & Vivaldi. Set at the Ospedale della Pietà, it has queer undertones, & sets the friendship of two young girls against the patriarchal norms of Venetian society as well as the deep & dark mysteries

After seeing Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron I wanted to prolong the feeling I had while watching it, & I found it in this novel translated from the Japanese by Avery Fischer Udagawa. Like the film, the book stages the aftermath of a disaster (the 2011 earthquake & tsunami in Japan) as a time where boundaries blur between this realm & other realms, where folklore & magic mingle with daily life to help people find support & persevere.