My January 2018 reading wrap-up! I reread (most of) Harry Potter, borrowed quite a few audiobooks through Libby, and made a pretty damn good start on my main bookish resolutions for the year (125 books, completion of the @bookriot Read Harder challenge). I think 2018 is going to be a great year in my reading life. 🤞 Happy February!

I love listening to memoirs narrated by their authors. I'm a writer at work on a memoir manuscript and I often read aloud to myself as I write to test the sound of passages, so there's something extra satisfying about hearing an author telling her own story in a similar way! Gotta say, I struggled with picking this one up just because I'm terrified of butterflies—this cover truly makes me twitch. 🙅🏻 But the book and narration are great so far!

I'm going on a 3.5 day trip during which I will be near but not actually AT the beach, and will have little to no free time. And of course I'm struggling to decide which 2 books to bring along. (My Kindle and Audible libraries are coming along too, of course!) Ah yes, here is the dangerous intersection between "voracious reader" and "overpacker."

Tana French 🙌 Such a good line!

I might be a liiiiitle obsessed with the Dublin Murder Squad books—I'm on my third within ten days. Tana French is brilliant. Planning to force my dad (he's the son of an Irish immigrant AND he's a longtime murder mystery fan, so I'm sure he'll adore them!) and my husband to read them so I have people to discuss the characters with. 😂 📚 #bookevangelism

This book has a promising premise, but it was super slow (I certainly wouldn't call it a thriller) and required far too much suspension of disbelief for me. Compelling enough (in a few key moments of action and intrigue) that I finished listening, but I had a tough time staying focused on it. I did appreciate the subtle recurring theme of women's experiences of fear (felt accurate to my own experiences), but on the whole this was a disappointment.

I just came across this memoir, which will be released tomorrow, while browsing on PW. I currently live in Providence, RI, so the title caught my eye. A combination of memoir and reportage, this book investigates the deaths of the authors' parents. If you've been listening to Crimetown (a great podcast exploring organized crime in PVD), this might be of interest. Here's hoping my local bookstore will have this on the shelves tomorrow!

This is a brilliant novel. It's obviously relevant and essential, but that description doesn't do the book justice. It's also so insightful, funny (obviously not the whole book, but in exactly the right moments), emotional, and gorgeously written. I am so glad that this book exists. A must-read. ❤📚

A well-written, well-plotted combo of psychological suspense & sci-fi, along with a bit of a love story. Edie is a Body at the Elysian Society, taking pills that allow her to channel clients' dead loved ones. I won't say much more (prob. one of those books that's better when read without knowing too much in advance!), but I will note that the novel also raises interesting questions about bodily autonomy and even reproductive rights, and I ❤ that!

My #BOTM package arrived a couple days ago—I'm so excited to read both of these! ❤📚

Finished this earlier today! Really lovely writing, and Wilson does a great job managing a large cast of complex characters. My only quibble is with the ending, which felt a bit too quick and tidy. (Not a bad ending at all, imo, the writing just seemed a little rushed!) This is definitely one I can see myself re-reading, which is rare for me. Trigger warning for self-harm. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I listened to this on audio and loved it so much that I ordered a physical copy immediately after finishing! So good! Definitely my favorite read so far this year. (I know, I know, it's only February! 😂 But it's so amazing that I'm sure it will be in my top 5 of 2017!) ❤️📚

My little January #TBR! #feistyfeb

Notes of a Native Son is only $1.95 today on Audible! I reread essays from this book regularly. An absolutely essential read!

My January #LitsyAtoZ progress! Books tagged below! 📚

I'm 2/3 through this, and holy shit. I personally already know most of what Harding is writing about, but DAMN this book is galvanizing! She is a brilliant and unexpectedly funny writer. Whether you already understand "rape culture" or the term makes you roll your eyes, this is an essential read. I've had the physical book since it was released, but never got around to it—so glad to be listening now! [TW for intense discussion of rape.]

My 2 for 1 sale choices! Both terribly relevant at the moment, I think. I'm particularly interested in Eichmann in Jerusalem, the revised and expanded version of Hannah Arendt's controversial New Yorker reporting on Adolf Eichmann's trial. I somehow managed to graduate from The New School, which took in Arendt and other scholars fleeing fascism during & after WWII (the University in Exile), without reading any of her work. Time to remedy that!

So right now I'm super into Nazis getting sucker punched. (Thanks, masked hero who punched Richard Spencer! This and the Women's March are honestly the main things keeping me going right now.) My husband has recommended that I read Evans's trilogy of histories about the Third Reich, which I will definitely start soon. But I would also love to read shorter tales of resistance against fascism. Fiction or nonfiction! Any recs, good people of Litsy?

I really tried. I tried for a mother-daughter book club in the eighth grade. I tried the summer before my senior year of high school. I tried in college. I tried last year when my husband listened to the audiobook. And...I'm just not that into it. (😱) #DNF

It took me a while to get into this, and reading it was certainly not always an easy or fun experience (there are so many instances of rape throughout the novel, and some of the repeated themes and phrases got a bit tiresome by the end of nearly 500 pages). BUT this really is an incredible novel, chronicling several generations of a family closely connected to politics and social movements. I'm so glad I finally read it!

I might've gone back to the sale for a second round. 🙊📚💸

Snowy day reads. (This book is very, very good.)

That Kindle book sale got me...at least my total was only about $10! 📚

A sampling from my #januarytbr! I don't really like to commit to what I'll be reading in advance (the number one way to guarantee that I won't do something is to tell myself/be told that I have to...😅), but these titles are striking my fancy at the moment—a couple that I neglected to finish in 2016, plus a few I've recently picked up or received as gifts. #readjanuary

My 2017 reading resolutions:
•read at least 125 books (this year I read 75, but before graduate school I was consistently reading 100+, so I'd like to get back into tip-top reading shape)
•at least 75% by authors who are LGBTQ+, POC, and/or women
•finish #LitsyAtoZ
•finish the 2017 #ReadHarder Challenge
•HAVE FUN! 💜📚🎉
#bookishresolutions #readjanuary

Just a few favorite reads of 2016! Happy New Year, everyone!

This was so charming, especially on audio & in Clancy's own voice. (I loved learning that she's a fellow New School alum!) The timeline was occasionally a little difficult to follow (it's mostly chronological, but does skip around in chapters/sections that are focused on particular themes or characters), but Clancy is very good at giving specific, compelling descriptions that make characters easy to recall. So good! Definitely one to listen to.

Thank you so much, @Karkar ! I'm super excited to read both of these! The cassette bookmarks are brilliant, and the pin is going on my tote bag immediately! ❤📚 #secretsantagoespostal

Initial picks for #LitsyAtoZ! Mostly by title, but a few by the author's last name (Doyle, Joyce, Vonnegut, Zelitch). Nearly all of these are books I already own (I haven't read any of them except for Great Expectations, which I only kinda-sorta read in college, so it deserves a focused re-read!), and several are books that I have been meaning to read for years and years (and years). A perfect way to make a dent in that TBR! ❤️📚 #abecedarianTBR

This month's picks are so amazing, and this would have been an impossible choice if I hadn't already read two of the amazing books (Pull Me Under and You Will Know Me). I'm super excited to get these two in the mail, and I'm so impressed that my box has already shipped! ❤️📚📦 #botm

I could not possibly be happier that I was approved for this on NetGalley! I've been looking forward to it since AWP 2015, when I saw Melissa Febos give the most rousing talk on a craft panel about woman writers innovating new/nontraditional forms of creative nonfiction. So yep, I'll be starting to read this immediately. 📖

Today I am so thankful for my awesome progressive parents, for my cute/smart/funny husband, for buttermilk biscuits and lumpy mashed potatoes and my mom's cinnamon-honey carrots, for wine and mulled cider, and for books and wonderful bookish communities like this one! (This photo is actually from last year—this year everyone was too hungry to let me take a good picture. 😄)

My husband has been raving about this since 2015 & finally succeeded in convincing me to read it. It's sometime in the near future and designer smart drugs are everywhere. One drug, developed by the narrator, Lyda, and her defunct pharmaceutical company, makes people believe they have VERY close personal relationships with the divine. Lyda is accompanied by an angel/doctor, the result of an overdose of this drug. Tone is a bit Veronica Mars-esque!

📖➕🛁➕🍷

I'm really liking Pull Me Under so far, but I've had a busy couple of weeks and haven't read as much of it as I'd like. (A bath and a glass of wine might just fix that!)

Surprise book happy mail—very well-timed, since my birthday is tomorrow! I won this in a Goodreads giveaway that I'd totally forgotten I entered. I don't know much about this, but the premise sounds interesting, it features an effusive blurb by Katherine Heiny, and the cover is gorgeous!

Huge trigger warning for rape, sexual assault, victim blaming, and heinous behavior on the part of several police officers and attorneys. I have tried to read my physical copy of this book several times and only made it about 1/5 of the way through. I am now a little over halfway through the audiobook—I'm not sure why it's easier to handle the material this way, but it is. A really tough read, but a worthwhile one. Written very sensitively, IMO.

This is somewhere between so-so and a pick for me. I found it super creepy (sometimes in a fun way, other times not so much), and the writing is engaging. But the ending was fairly predictable—this isn't always a deal-breaker for me, but since it wrapped up so swiftly I didn't feel like it really paid off, and there were no secondary twists that made things more interesting. Great characters, though!

Next up in my audio queue!

I couldn't read today. I went for a long walk and spoke on the phone with my (totally devastated) dad for hours. And tonight I went to the Rhode Island State House with HUNDREDS (maybe thousands?) of other people. I'm tired. I'm confused and angry and sad. I'll be back to posting about books tomorrow. But damn, today was hard.

So. I sobbed myself to sleep at 3. I woke up this morning at 6:30—heartbroken, furious, and ashamed at my own naïveté in thinking this was an impossible outcome. (Also hungover, to be honest. ?) I don't know how we go on. I don't know how we—women, people of color, religious minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people—keep living in a nation that has shown such disregard for our wellbeing. ? I really don't know. But I am ready to fight.

I voted! Now back to reading.

A really good psychological mystery. I did figure out what was going to happen, but I don't think it was glaringly obvious, so the journey to the ending was still a delight to read. Not too scary, but there's a lot of great tension/suspense built through the switching perspectives (some chapters are in the present, mostly through Melanie's perspective; others are in the past and mostly from her father's perspective). Oh, and Happy Halloween! 🎃

I picked this up a few months ago during a sale on Audible, mostly because Julia Whelan is among my favorite audiobook narrators. I wasn't expecting all that much (other than a bit of mystery/triller candy), but it is SO good so far! If you're looking for a Halloween-appropriate read, this is definitely worth checking out.

Yippee! My little library sale haul! If you happen to be in Providence, RI, the sale at Rochambeau Library is still going on until tomorrow! (Saturday, Oct. 29) 📚😍📚

I really enjoyed this novel! Nice writing, and certainly compelling subject matter. This is a fun fictional twist on the art scene, the Gardner heist, and the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner. You might find yourself screaming "No!" as you read about Claire's increasingly foolish choices, but the story and its twists are worth that frustration. (And Xe Sands is a great narrator for the audiobook!)

The best St. Mary's book yet! These are just so much fun—highly recommended! I've already got the seventh novel in my audiobook library, but since the eighth isn't out yet I'm going to try to hold off for a little while. (That'll be hard though—I only finished this one today, and I'm already desperate to start the next!)

My BOTM has arrived! 😍📚 Can't wait to dig into these two beautiful books! #botm

Another fun St. Mary's novel, and perfect for today's #booktober prompt! #fullofadventure

A selection of bookmarks and "bookmarks" (including a strip of holographic origami paper, a sample of eyeshadow primer, an Ecuadorian bank receipt, and a Red Sox ticket) from books around the house. ?? #bookmarks #booktober

Just a tiny selection of books with #textonlycovers for #booktober (in autumn-appropriate hues!)!