This is a tale about a church committee in southern California looking for a new pastor. As often happens in real life, when the loudest voices win, everyone loses. 🙃

Wintering was life changing. I‘ve listened to it multiple times. Enchantment? Not so much. But her writing is beautiful. Maybe I wasn‘t in the right frame of mind. May give it another listen as background entertainment when doing chores around the house.

📸 of the stones she mentions in one of her essays

This wasn‘t an entirely flattering portrayal of Hillary, but I feel like I know her better. And respect her for what she has accomplished and where she fell short. I think the author feels the same. Made a great audiobook narrated by Amy!

Another lovely essay collection from Ross Gay. Makes the perfect audiobook with Ross narrating. 🌻 🌿

I‘m pretty chill most of the time but I love Sarah‘s irreverence. 😏

Here is Ann in her very own bookstore. Love that! I really enjoyed these essays. The story of her friend with cancer will stay with me. Sharing that journey created a deep intimacy between Ann and her friend. It was inspiring and heartbreaking. 💕

Great fun to hear how Ruth took on different looks and personalities to dine undercover as a NY Times food critic. Personally, I‘d find it exhausting! Looking forward to trying another of her books.

I enjoyed this 3rd installment of the series. It has some dark plot points. Definitely not a cozy mystery.

I can‘t believe I waited so long to start this series! I love curmudgeonly detectives. 🙂

Pic is how I imagine Three Pines in the winter. ❄️

Hard to describe, but I guess I‘d categorize as magical realism. Really enjoyed getting to know the family. It had a satisfying ending.

Love casual Amy! Highly recommend the audiobook. Sometime when I'm sitting around being lazy as hell, I think of Leslie embroidering pillows of her friends' faces in what seems like an evening. It should be inspiring, but usually it just makes me want to re-watch Parks & Rec. 😉 🌺

Too soon for Halloween but wanted to post my very tardy review. I'll give this a soft pick. I think it was worth reading to fill in what we've all learned about Dracula through pop culture. The middle section of the book really dragged for me, however. Made a great audiobook narrated by Mark Gatiss who I know as BBC Sherlock's brother Mycroft. 💀

This sentence made me LOL. I'm listening to the audiobook, and her delivery is spot on. Really enjoying this one!

Not a fan. I'm about 20% in and have lost interest. The villain is a tiresome mustache twirler. This seems like a pale copy of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons which I loved. On to something else! It's an obnoxiously cold day in Minnesota. Perfect for coffee and books!

I loved this strange and funny book about a twenty-something woman who comes home and finds her family on the edge. Her father is hallucinating animals and it's causing problems for them all. The book name is perfect!

📷 from Bored Panda

I had a few days worth of Litsy to catch up on and ended up adding 13 books to my TBR list (including the tagged)! So many books, so little time. Happy New Year, all! 🍻 📚 💙 🎉

Great book! Can't wait to continue with the series and maybe catch the TV show. The author kept you guessing.

📸 from NorthLink Ferries

Definite pick! Stayed up until 4:00 AM finishing it. Think “Friday Night Lights“ with hockey. But way darker. Looking forward to watching the HBO series soon.

Wonderful translation! It follows the life of a cemetery keeper with a little mystery thrown in.

I really liked this book but agree with other posters that there were repetitive sections that could have been chopped. One recommendation if you do read it -- pay attention to the fables and fairy tales that are interspersed with the main story line as they do have meaning later on in the book!

Much of this book takes place on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. For me, this picture captures the feeling of the book. I'd recommend it.

#wondrouswednesday @eggs

Better late than never!!

(1) Walk in the crunchy leaves and smell the crisp autumn air. Watch Halloween shows on TV. Search for neighborhood homes decorated for Halloween; way more fun than Christmas decorations in my book!
(2) Serene
(3) Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich plus several for buddy reads

Thanks for the tag @eeclayton !

Anyone else want to play? @cseydel @maureenmc @amie

Lots of drama - on stage and off. I was interested enough to finish it but can't really recommend it. If you haven't read anything from the author, I'd start with Matrix. 👍

I didn't care for the back and forth between current day Wyoming and late 1960s Vietnam. It was virtually impossible to detect the shifts in the audio version. Outside of that, this was another enjoyable book in the series. I'll be continuing with the series!

This had lots of unexpected humor. Short but fun read. The pic is what I imagine their home looks like in the summer. 🌷 🌻 🌸

I'm giving this a soft pick. Compared to Book of Delights, I had trouble sticking with this one when listening to it in my car. That being said, I loved the section on grief. And I love Ross! Can't wait to try some of his poetry.

Soft pick for me. I think it's great advice for someone in their 30s. However, as a 51-year old, I've already learned it for myself through experience! 😉

One part that will stay with me is greeting people with gladness. She quotes a statistic of a 20% increase in academic performance in the classroom when a teacher welcomes each child individually in the morning.

📷 from Allure

“Italy is heroic, but Greece is god-like or devilish - I am not sure which...“

Socrates isn't sure, either. 😁

Great as an audiobook. I could listen to Nick speak for hours. He's so intelligent, thoughtful and down to earth. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, but it was still a winner. My favorite section was on George Saunders...who is an author I want to try. 🙂

📸 from nightreads.com

This book aged better than I expected. Most of the stories are rather grim yet I didn't feel grim after I finished. Lots of imagery included of dry California cities bordering on deserts. This picture seemed apt. 🔥

📸 Stock photo

I love Parks & Rec, and Retta has some of the best lines. I liked the audiobook. She is a funny, intelligent person. Not sure it would have been as enjoyable in print. Definitely a pick if you're a fan or just enjoy an entertaining memoir. Her essay with the list of examples of her laziness was very relatable...as I sit ignoring my messy house to watch baseball and screw around on my laptop. I accept my failings. 💻 ⚾ 😅

📷 from Tvinsider.com

This is a soft pick. I struggled with the first 1/3 of the book but then engaged when the action picked up. I love Laetitia as a character. We're the same age and very close with our extended family. However, she is known for her discretion. Not sure that applies to me but I'm working on it. 😁

📸 from BritainExpress.com. It's Radcliffe Camera in Oxford.

I stayed up reading way too late a few nights because I could not put this down. It was like the direst of cases from Call The Midwife all happening in one room at the same time. Highly recommend it!

Not my pic but wish it was. 😊

“He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman.“

A young writer finds a publisher for his semi-autobiographical novel...and his editor is Jackie O. The first 1/3 dragged but then the MC's world changed and I was captivated. Part of the appeal is this time period is vivid in my mind as it was just after I graduated from college and spit out in the real world. I recommend this to anyone who wants to get a behind-the-scenes, albeit fictional, glimpse of Jackie O's later life.

📸 New York Post

This is one of my comfort movies when I'm feeling unsettled. Strange...because it's not a feel-good story. I enjoyed my re-read of the novel.

And I'm glad to be back on Litsy after a long break due to a massive project at work. All is better now. Looking forward to a Friday night scroll through Litsy!

This was my first Bardugo. I borrowed Six of Crows from my nephew but haven't been able to commit, so I decided to try her first adult novel. I really enjoyed the story and already have the sequel queued up on my e-reader.

I saw this classified as Dark Academia. Any recommendations on others in this genre?

The story takes place in the 80s when the general population's fear of HIV/AIDS was off the charts. It's heartbreaking to look back and recall how little compassion was shown to those who knew they were fighting a losing battle.

This left me sobbing. I finished it before Christmas and still haven't stopped thinking about it. Highly recommend the audio version!

This is a cute holiday tale. I'm not a short story fan but needed a quick read to meet my 2022 GoodReads challenge! It could have used a copy editor...lots of errors... but it didn't distract from the story.

Grabbed the 📸 from a travel site.

No, no, no. The story turned from slightly amusing to utterly ridiculous. The resolution of the crimes was anti-climactic to say the least. The writing was awful. I still have no idea how to tell the Russian male characters apart...and not sure it even mattered.

The queen would not be pleased with this book. 😉

Ehh…I finished it but wouldn‘t recommend it. I didn‘t mind the stream of conscience writing. What I minded is the odd way the main character infiltrated the family. It was so far fetched. The narrator of the audiobook was great and probably why I stuck with it.

Although the middle part of the book dragged, it was saved by a satisfying wrap-up. There were a few gothic elements thrown in for good measure.

I really enjoyed Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas so I wanted to give the series a try from the beginning. I'll definitely pick up the next one as I've read in Litsy reviews that they get better as the series progresses.

📸 is from Downton Abbey but thought it captured the wintry setting.

This book should have worked for me. Three women lost in their thoughts while attending a play with wildfires raging nearby? Right up my alley. However, it was a bit of a slog to get through. I didn't find the 20- or 70-something characters interesting. I did like Ivy's (40+) storyline particularly her career in philanthropy.

I listened to the audiobook. The narration was great!

“There was a murmur at this from the assembled folk, rising behind us like the first hint of thunder on a warm summer's eve.“

Ahh...I miss summer already.

This mystery is set in a remote village on the New Zealand coast. The author did a great job of weaving the landscape and weather into the story and making almost every character seems like a plausible suspect. It kept me guessing!

These townies drink a lot of coffee.Like a LOT of coffee.☕️🤪

I'm surprised it took them until now to do this! I rarely watch the Simpsons anymore but try to catch the Halloween Treehouse of Horror episodes. This will be fun!

https://lithub.com/this-year-the-simpsons-has-a-halloween-special-devoted-to-ste...

I haven‘t read this book yet, but this story reminded me of it. 🐝 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/world/europe/bees-queen-elizabeth.html.

This book was fascinating. I knew very little about Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf's sister, who was a painter and an on/off caregiver for Virginia. The story focuses on their siblings and friend group. The love between the siblings was apparent. They all had to be careful around Virginia to keep her from going to her dark place. All of them wanted the best for her and each other. ⬇

I purchased this based on an article about fiction and non-fiction books to read if you want to learn more about Ukraine. This is a book of connecting short stories about Ukrainian women which take place before the recent Russian invasion. Part of the country was war-torn at that time, and the stories focused on their experiences living in those conditions. [cont'd]

Try as I might, I could not get into this book. I didn't find the characters interesting, and I could tell we were going to get into child abuse territory. No thanks. And I hated the “smucking“ made-up language. Still love Stephen King but it's hard to top The Stand and 11/22/63.