"I cannot get enough Dutch art. You can turn to this other world - and it is a picture world as no other, a whole society visualized through time and place, seasons and generations, moment by moment - and live inside it in your thoughts."

The painting that starts the book.

"We see pictures in time and place. We cannot see them otherwise. They are fragments of our lives, moments of existence that may be as unremarkable as rain or as startling as a clap of thunder."

#weeklyforecast
I have the tagged on audio for this week,
I am already a few pages into each of these. I wasn't too interested in Uncommon Stars beginning then 20 pages in we meet donut shop aliens and now I am all in 😍
Thunderclap is a Women's Prize long list for non-fiction I am struggling with it, but the book is very pretty great quality pages and photos of the paintings she talks about - recommend the physical book if it is on your list.

Finished while waiting for my niece to get out of gymnastics class! I really want to love Stephen Graham Jones but I think I am not enough of a cult horror fan. The book is good but I was forcing myself through the second half. I was very confused at the first part - if it was a dream, a fantasy, or real.
I did like the main characters, and the setting was perfect for the story. The writing is solid but the story was just not for me.
3⭐

#bookspin#bookedintime #YearOfSaramago
Continuing my Saramago reads with this biblical tale. A satire that follows Cain after his fall from grace. I think it is helpful to know the old testament to understand the story here and see the critique he is making, but if you are just looking for a romp through that time this is also a good one for that. Cain is an interesting character to follow and the book is darkly humourous and thought provoking

I think this might be a timing issue for me. I love the cover and the idea. There are too many characters and I cannot find it in me to care about them or the story. This lovely edition is signed, I am going to keep it and maybe try again later.

This is one for the people who enjoyed Eleanor Catton's Birnam Woods. It has the same vibe, and the writing is similar.

#weeklyforecast
I am about half into Cain and I Was A Teenage Slasher, both quick reads. At 1/3 on The Future which is also a lot about religion which I wasn't prepared for, that is going a bit slower. Hoping to wrap a couple up and start on Light From Uncommon Stars in a couple of days.

I have found myself to be a Keegan outlier. This is my second of her books, this on a small short story collection, and I am always left a bit meh about them. I want so much more than she is willing to give us. I guess I am just not suited for a well written slice of life story? I need more to grab into to keep me invested. I have one more that I bought that I will try later hopefully that one will hit the mark for me.

An incredible book. So glad it was on the Women's Prize long list for non-fiction. It wasn't on my radar before it was listed. I learned not only a lot about Duterte and his murder squads, but also about the Philippines as a country.
Evangelista is a bad ass. Most reporters in the Philippines are women, covering horrific stories and keeping the public aware. I am in awe of her.
The book itself is not only well written but also well laid out.

“In the aftermath of the Edsa Revolution, Thai protesters filled the streets of Bangkok. Another man stood before another tank at Tiananmen Square. The Berlin Wall fell, with Germany thanking the Philippines for showing them the way. Once upon a time, we were heroes.”

I had never heard of Edsa before this book. I am very impressed with the Women's Prize Non-fiction list this year, I am learnig so much.

“Dead is a good word for a journalist in the age of Duterte. Dead doesn‘t negotiate, requires little verification. Dead is a sure thing, has bones, skin, and flesh, can be touched and seen and photographed and blurred for broadcast. Dead, whether it‘s 44 or 58 or 27,000 or 1, is dead.”

“Slaughter dressed up in bureaucratese dulls the senses, and over time can anesthetize an entire population to the horror happening right where they live. Objective reality is winnowed away by each succeeding government report. The dead perish again, into nonexistence.”

This book has been extremely enlightening, especially around langauge and the Phillipeans. They were colonized by the Spanish and the US which has created a unique use of words

Alex Hall's books are my book candy. They are always things that should not work for me - 1 character is always an a-hole that I wouldn't tolerate in other books. The plot holes are gapping, literally having me say "But why?"
But. I absolutely devour these books!! I love how Hall writes. I find everyone charming and I stay up way too late reading. This one reminds me of 10 Things but is different enough to be enjoyable

Let's Go!!

May #BookspinBingo

I can feel a book slump coming on so I hope I can turn the tide with some books I am excited about after a fairly disappointing Women's Prize Longlist.

#Bookspin #DoubleSpin

Classics! I wanted to re-read 1984 before I tackle Julia, so getting it for Bookspin is great! #BookedInTime for May is Biblical Fiction, which is also great because I have fallen off my author of the year books reading Jose Saramago's Cain this month - and probably a couple of others by him as they are past BookSpins I didn't get to.

Excited to knock these books out!

I took the afternoon off for a haircut, getting some cafe reading time in with Stephen Graham Jones newest!

Some really great books this month.

I think the In Memoriam is pretty much perfection, I checked it out from the library originally, but have ordered a copy from Blackwells (I like the UK cover better than the US one)

Ordinary Human Failings, In Defence of the Act, and And Then She Fell were some of my top Women's Prize for Fiction books this year (along with Brotherless Night from last month)

I also really enjoyed How To Say Babylon.

For some reason the list itself didn't post when I tried to post this a couple of days ago.

Really looking forward to getting some back list off my TBR now that I am almost done with Women's Prize 2024. I still have 2 fiction and 3 Nonfiction I am wanting to read, but now that the short lists are out I am sailing to those.

#bookspin #bookspinbingo

2 #bookspinbingo
Read #bookspin
but didn't get to my #doublespin

I was trying to get through the #WomensPrizeLongList before the short list came put didn't quite make it, have 2 books from there to read next month.

Overall an okay month. 13 books read.

#weeklyforecast
We are going red and orange this week.
Listening to the tagged on audio.

May #bookspin is here already!

I cannot believe we are a third of the way through 2024!

Women's Prize For Nonfiction long listed 2024

3.5⭐ This is good. I do not recommend it on audio - too much jumping timelines, too many Marys and (K) Catherines. It is much easier to understand in physical form.
While I thought it was interesting and well written it was a bit hard to keep track of everything, I fully understand that Nancy Goldstone has ruined me for these sorts of books all Empress books I compare to hers. Good not great.

5⭐ for the devastation.
I knew about 10 pages in that this book was going to wreck me. A beautiful but brutal book about war and love. Winn's writing and storytelling is so gorgeous there were multiple times I read a sentence that stopped me in my tracks due to how heartbreakingly it was.
This will be a top book of the year I loved everything about it.

Low pick. 3.5⭐. I was a bit disappointed in this. I love Groffs writing but my brain while reading this kept comparing it to a very lyrical survivor type show. I think it wasn't given justice b/c I was also reading In Memoria at the same time. Overall this was fine. I am glad it was short I don't know if I could handle much more of the girls struggles. It is a gorgeous and harrowing book just maybe not for me.

Good timing for this quote as the Internet also debates what is scarier a man or a bear?

"She would leave this place as soon as she could; she would put as much land as it was possible between herself and the men or the bear; she did not know which to fear more, man or bear or perhaps her own small starved feverish self."

*mug does not represent my feelings for this book.
I really enjoyed this. I didn't find any of the revolutions surprising but did have a warm cuddly feeling throughout. Thought there was a good balance what could have been a too sweet story has a couple scenes of spice and excitement. The actions of the characters throughout made a lot of sense and I enjoyed spending time with all the characters.

Gaunt hears Ellwood quoting poetry to a boy in his room. The boy does not even know what the words are from.
"He [Gaunt] knew the lines Ellwood had quoted. They were from Shakespeare's Sonnet 20. Ellwood had written them in pencil on the wall above Gaunt's bed, and Gaunt had hoped they meant something."

40 pages in and I can tell this book is going to destroy me.

One of my top picks for the Women's Prize For Fiction 2024. I really enjoyed this. It gripped me right from the jump, and I sped through it, engrossed with Alice and her journey.
I don't normally gravitate to books about motherhood, but this is woven with cultural, and mental health topics and heavy on the magical realism. Alice is a sympathetic character (I didn't like the husband from the jump, it gave Yellow Wallpaper vibes)

@bookmarktavern #SundayFunday
I used to work for Barnes and Noble, I also am lucky to live by the largest indie bookstore in the country, so have been to many, many signings. So I have “=met probably a hundred authors or more. Some of the nicest - Rene Denfeild, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman, Aiden Thomas, Jodi Picoult, Brandon Taylorm Curtis Sittenfield (terrible would be a shorter list)
RIP to my favorite Carlos Ruiz Zafon he was an angel

The Short List announcement is in 3 days!
(April 25 - 6 books will be chosen)

What are your Top Picks for it?

I still need to read 4 books (will not get Soldier Sailor from the library until the SL is announced) but I have a rough list of what I think I would like to see on it.

This was great. One of the better Women Prize books this year. The story of a troubled family slowly unravels. Each person is interesting and tortured in their own way. At the heart of the story is a horrible something, and a terrible reporter. The writing is solid and the book is heavy but intriguing.

One week until the announcement of the short list!!

Making my way through, I am starting A Trace of Sun and And Then She Fell next.

I have decided that I am not going to read The Blue, Beautiful World since it is in a series and I have not read the others.

I am shying away from Nightbloom also - I am really really tired of rape being a plot device. So unless it is on the short list I am skipping it. That leaves 4 for me to get through...

4⭐ #WomensPrizeFictionLongList

Another good but not great read for this years prize. I think at this point it is just my attitude that is the problem. This book has all the right things - lots about language, social, financial diversity and analysis. A girl half American, half Chinese trying to figure out the world as she is raised in China by her American single mom. Something just fell flat for me, I struggled to care about picking the book up

I read both the physical and audio of this because of the use of language through.

I really like when books talk about language, how it is formed, the origin and meanings of words. All things Lexicology, Etymology and Linguistics especially when it crosses and compares languages.

4⭐ I enjoyed this. Makes total sense why the Women's Prize put this on the long list, it looks at the Australian life in the turn of into 1900s and through WWII. Dolly is somehow an unlikable but relatable character. She wants so much more than she was born into and being a woman severely limits how far she can climb.
I liked that she was a complex character, she is a terrible mother, but she is ambitious and I still was rooting for her.

3.5 ⭐

The narrator for this was a bit too much for me. He leaned heavily into a 1950s characterization of a NY report voice and it got a bit grating. But the book itself was good. I was pulling for Nick and Andy from the jump. The situations are believable and I liked the authors afterwards that explained the climate at the time.
Both characters are lovable and the writing is solid.

Hallelujah I found it!! I have been tearing my house, car, office apart for 2 weeks now trying to find my ereader. I finally found it wedged between the nightstand and mattress on my partners side of the bed. Why was it even near there? I have zero clue. But this does reaffirm my belief that owning many physical books is better.
I am glad to have it back, it is easier on the eyes at night before bed, and I get to read the fun tagged book now.

#WeeklyForecast
I am half into River East and Ordinary Human, I am not going to get through the Long list before the shortlist is announced, many of these picks this year have been underwhelming and it has slowed me down. So far I am enjoying OHF but it is a bit heavy.
I also have the tagged on audio to liven things up. With the state of the world I might be bailing on these heavy WPF books and reading lighter happier books.

#CampLitsy24 @Megabooks, @squirrelbrain @BarbaraBB

4 Nominations
Published January 1 to June 15 2024

I know Ours is a Chunkster, but I am hearing such great things and I think it is one I would like to discuss with others.

I tried to pick books that spanned lots of topics, I am so excited to see others picks to add to my unmanagable TBR!

This book is the fictionalized life of the authors grandmother.
A photo of the real Dolly is in the back of the book.

These endpapers are so gorgeous, it makes picking up the book delightful. I wish more publishers would do this. It would cause me to buy and keep a lot more books.

"And she always came back to the same thing: she'd rather go on being a married woman, no matter how hollow the marriage was.
She was forty -five. The prime of life for a man, but on the downhill slope for a woman."

Yikes! As a happily divorced woman edging 45 this is harsh ? Picture with Serene because what would Dolly think with me and my cats! ?
#WomensPrizeForFiction
#WPFLL

Movie/Book news!!

"But a girl was stuck on the flypaper of being dependent on a man unless she can support herself. And there was something else too, something beyond the nuts-and-bolts: it was about not being trapped in a world of small thinking that was all most women had access to."

I see why this is in the women's Prize long list, such a reflection on women's rights and the limitations of being a woman in the early 1900s of Australia.

We are 2 weeks away from the announcement of the short list.

I am currently half into Restless dolly Maunder

Overall I am a bit underwhelmed with the selections this year. Broltherless Night is staying as my top pick so far. I did enjoy In Defence and I think if I was not judging books by past years The Maiden and 8 Lives would have been more enjoyable. I just don't think they held up against what I was expecting from this prize's long list.

4⭐
I found this to be fairly powerful in topic and writing. Jess was a relatable and realistic main character. The story is multi-layered and heartfelt. This is one of the better Women's Prize Fiction long list books this year.

#WomensPrizeFiction #Longlist

4⭐
This was interesting. I spent much of the time wondering why the book was organized the way it was. It didn't make a lot of sense to me how the story was told. I am not sure if this story will really stick with me. I wonder if I put too much pressure on WPF long list books to really blow me away. But overall I liked the story and the writing.

"I forgot to bring my book today, so instead I pick up one of the magazines the carer tends to leave lying around. I rarely read women's magazines anymore, and I'm surprised anew by the number of ways it is possible for a woman's body to be wrong."

4.5⭐
Safiya is gorgeous - her name, her face, her writing. I learned so much from her biography. Rastafari is not a well known culture in my area. It makes sense that it was created in the 1930s, I just didn't realize how frowned upon it is in Jamaica. Reggae gives us such a different view outside of the area. An intense patriarchy religion with a lot of isolation. Safiya gives her story of breaking free. Fantastically written I enjoyed this.