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🔥 If the Book Was a Song… 🔥

Today at Bookeepers Club, we played a fun game—If the Book Was a Song—with Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse! 🎶📖 This haunting, lyrical novel sparked some fascinating choices from our members. From melancholic instrumental pieces to deep, reflective ballads, everyone had a unique musical take on Fosse’s evocative storytelling.

What song would you pick for Aliss at the Fire? Drop your recommendations in the comments! 🎼👇

#BookeepersClub #JonFosse #AlissAtTheFire #IfTheBookWasASong #LiteraryGames #BookClubFun #NorwegianLiterature #MinimalistFiction

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✨ 2025 Book Club Plans Unveiled! ✨

New year, new reading goals! 📚 For my beloved book club, #bookeepersclub, we're diving into a special 2025 theme: Nobel Laureates 🏆. From the haunting prose of Annie Ernaux 🇫🇷 to the philosophical musings of Kazuo Ishiguro 🇬🇧, this year's lineup promises profound stories, uncharted ideas, and deep discussions.

My Saturdays have become my literary sanctuary—escaping to Readings, where the staff feels like family and the shelves overflow with treasures waiting to be discovered. 🛋️☕ It's the perfect setting to curate our year-long journey through award-winning brilliance!

Why Nobel Laureates?
🌟 Stories that reshape perspectives.
🌟 Writers who’ve made history.
🌟 Perfect for sparking debates in our book club!

🔎 I’d love your suggestions! Which Nobel laureates should make our reading list? Drop your favourites in the comments! Let’s craft a year of unforgettable reads together. 🖋️✨

#NobelReads #BookClub2025 #SaturdayEscape #ReadingsBookstore #BookwormLife #LiteraryJourney

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So here they are, my favourite books of 2024. It's been the most terrible reading year for me since 2016. What's common between 2016 and 2024 is that I spent several months having a mental health meltdown, and not being able to read at all for long stretches. I am still grateful that I have ended up with such gorgeous, memorable books as favourites, some of which will be embedded under my skin forever.

I can't put these in any order, but just mentioning a few stand-outs:

- I began my Kafkaesque journey with The Trial and then 'stalked' Kafka from his childhood to death in Prague in May.

- Fell so so hard in love with Émile Zola (thank you forever @bookblabberer for buddy reading Germinal with me). As true, as brutal as today's world.

- Obsessively reading through James Purdy's short stories - his decaying worlds, and his decaying, fallen outcasts as characters (often queer) will haunt me.

- Reading my 6th and 7th Natalia Ginzburg that further convinced me that she is an author of a lifetime for me.

- Re-discovering my mother within the pages of Forbidden Notebook, and discovering Elsa Morante with one of the most torturous novels I have ever read, full of poison and toxicity and yet, a kind of beauty.

- Reading my seventh Shirley Jackson, and confirming that, yes, Jackson's female characters are indeed queer.

- There were stories in A Sunny Place for Shady People (@marianaenriquez1973) that were so cathartic for me as much as they were painful, reminding me to confront things I have deliberately pushed back.

- Re-reading Close Range and Brokeback Mountain almost exactly a year after I watched the beautiful London Westend adaptation with Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges.

Now that I think of it... It's not been that bad a year after all.

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Some books just resonate. Very subjective, I know. But Biswas was one of those books that conversed audibly, even as until now I fail to adequately articulate what has made it so appealing.

Maybe because it showed the third world, post-colonial experience so accurately. I like that it wasn’t at all preachy—it gave the petty and the grandiose equal screen time. It portrayed indolence; prejudice; indecision; idiosyncrasies; bitterness; high hopes; shattered dreams, and demonstrated that all these amount to nothing and mean the world all at once; Naipaul provided comfort and disdain in equal measure, acutely depicting that remonstrance and resignation take turns in propelling this sentient species of house builders and census-takers towards the inevitable conclusion common to all—death. And death comes whether one has fulfilled all or part of his/her dreams; one inevitably ends up deceased regardless if in the course of a lifetime, they obtained a title in fee simple in one’s name over a parcel of land, with our without improvements, mortgaged, indentured, collateralized or not.

For most people the world over, owning property is a lifelong struggle. How many people can say, after all, that they’ve always belonged to the caste of the well to do, separated from the have nots, entitled to draw from generational wealth, heirs to a fortune amassed by their forbears. The vast majority of us have to take out loans, pay amortization, work our assess of until we vanquish the mortgage. And in doing so, do we preserve our youth, do we flaunt flawless skin, do we retain our figure, do we maintain a consistently pleasant demeanor?

Do you, like me, not grow warts, distend your belly, watch as grey hairs multiply while the amount of hair dwindles in general, observe gravity generate jowls, create enemies, piss off some relations, watch savings evaporate, see our children rebel, watch the spouse grow a little bit more disinterested and distant with each passing day?

And yet we persevere. We persist, we subsist. We retreat to our own comforts, nurse our prejudices, harbor our suspicions, maintain our sarcasm, right until the day our hearts stop beating.

That is all.

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#autumntag

although the real tag was autumn in august but I changed it to September because this seems a good month to start talking about autumn. @dragon.lore.library thankyou so much for tagging me in your adorable post.

here’s this:
💌a book with an orange cover
the year of flood (i love this book by Atwood the most from the Maddaddam trilogy)

💌a favourite fantasy book
the ten thousand doors of January (everyone knows how much i adore this book)

💌a cosy read
felicity (recently read it and what a beauty Oliver has written)

💌a book you’re intimidated to start
one hundred years of solitude(after a huge time of having it on tbr i am starting it today, so excited already)

💌a book on your fall tbr
autumn (i think Smith would be more fun to be read in the exact season)

💌 a spooky read
the yellow wallpaper ( it still gives me chills when i think about it)

tagging my favourites to see what they got on their autumn list.
@nooretics

💌 @read.under.the.sky @drownedinbooks. _ @ryajpeg @san_mughal @roshhhnevrything @nimraijaz22 @books.and.bougainvillea @nataliesworldofbooks @bookstagramwithbean @moonlightpages @soulof.aash @_leya_aestheics_ @reesespages @readivine__ @rehareads_ @highlysensitivereader @bibliosophical @pathbetweentrees @oliviasbookishcorner @cathreadsalot @caffeinated__bibliophage @caro.reads.books @the_bookish_doctor_ @ravslibrary_ @bookshelf_of_a_spoonie @zara.is.reading_ @myliteraryworld @diary.ofa.reader @lunarlitarchive @lustforliterature @portraitofaladyinblack @paperbacks_and_priyam @pages_amour @papergirlreads @mockpaperscreens

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to me, LOVE is BOOKS.

💌here’s this #onewordthreebookschallenge challenge. with the word LOVE. thanks @brewing.pagewise for tagging me. it’s such a great thing to explore the whole collection to find the books for a particular challenge. these three books are the best to define LOVE from different perspectives.

💌tagging my favourites but consider yourself tagged if i miss any one due to limit or you are interested to do it.
@nooretics

💌 @dragon.lore.library @htoomanybooks @gemini_pages @bek_thedreamer @pages_amour @coffee.and.tsundoku @the.bookish.epicure @the_bibliocracy @sliceofjaeslife

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#womenoncoverchallenge

💌thanks @sunlitpages_ for tagging me in amazing post of yours.

💌here are my books with women on the cover. it feels unique to have rare editions of The Forty Rules of Love and Norwegian Wood. all thanks to this challenge that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo made its way to my booksta. my forever favourite book The Thousand Splendid Suns has the most beautiful cover. and the rare books; the Marriage Clock & In a Kingdom by The Sea have as gorgeous covers as the stories they tell.

💌excited to see what the tagged ones have in their collection to show us.
@nooretics

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#blueberrybooktag

thanks @moonlightpages for tagging me. this book tag is so cute. it took me a while to think about the answers and finding blue books from shelves. so here’s mine:

💌blueberry — an emotional read
the fault in our starts, i know I will never recover from this

💌blueberry bread — an anticipated read
the midnight watch, it was sent to me as a gift and i want to know what it holds for me.

💌blueberry bangel — a short & sweet read
ikigai, it was so cool to read this book and see where do i stand in positive habits.

💌blueberry pie — your next blue read
Harry Potter 3, i recently read the second book and wanna read all of them for now, it is rare to get into the mood of it but when i feel like reading it, i just get to it ignoring all other things.

💌blueberry muffin — a book with wholesome characters
and the mountain echoed, each and every character from this book made an impact on my mind.

i am tagging my friends, there’s a tag limit so if you wanna do this tag, consider yourself tagged.
@nooretics

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The hour of the Star.

This is my first book by Clarice Lispector ever, and there will be hopefully many more to come. I read this with @book_blabberer which made the book even more special to me.

Post-modern literature is fun. It is plotless , which means the author will derive a structure on her own, in this novel’s case, it was by describing characters so well that the orientation of the story emanates from them.

And oh God, the descriptions. How dedicated you have to be to step in the shoes of the character you are building to know what they would think when they see a rhinoceros in a zoo, what do they do if they are craving for beef but don’t have the money to buy it etc. I was really touched by how deeply Clarice ( disguised behind the voice of narrator) cared about Macaeba. Even the rest of the characters, the boyfriend , fortune teller ( I am sorry I am bad in remembering names) and Gloria , they are all so distinct in my head ( although I can’t recall the names).

I like how Clarice used self-reflexive feature of post-modern literature to describe the agony of writing something. Pretty cool.

It rarely happens to me that I want to read more by the author just after completing a book by them. Clarice Lispector inspires me and I can’t wait to read more by her.

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#bookishobsessions

thankyou so much @pathbetweentrees for creating this wonderful challenge and tagging me. also @lunarlitarchive thank you so much for sharing your thoughtful points and tagging me too.

here are mine:

💌staring at the book cover before starting it to guess what it holds for me
💌carrying my books with me everywhere
💌talking about my current read with my non-bookish friends when they ask
💌spending the entire evening sinking in a chair watching the sunset and thinking about a certain book while having it in my lap
💌reading annotations made by other readers who borrowed my books
💌rearranging my bookshelf without any reason
💌using my books to place in nooks of the room instead of decorative things
💌capturing golden hour with my books
💌feeling giddy with happiness when someone presents me a book
💌seeing someone’s book collection and finding some common ones
💌placing leaves in books
💌writing a note to self while reading a book to revisit it someday
💌gifting books to my friends who share the love of reading
💌spending more than the usual time to finish a book so i can cherish its companionship for a bit longer

i would love to see what everyone else has to say on this so tagging them. the tagging limit has obstructed me from tagging many of my favourites but if you see this and wanna join, jump over to this!!
@nooretics

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🐎 🫏🐄 🐖 🐂 🦬 🦌🦫🐍 🦗

🏜️ There are good reads and there are disappointments. But for the vast majority of novels we encounter, even as to the happy ones and the ones we deem worth re-reading, we generally retain only a vague sense of the theme; the plot in broad strokes; or one larger than life character. Some do genuinely standout, sure; a select few linger and leave a lasting impression. In my case, the few memorable ones are those that have resonated on a personal level, as I may have found some parallels between my experiences and the plots of the ones I end up cherishing. But hell, I don’t care for horses much, I’ll never be a cowboy, I ain’t even American; and The Wild West is as remote to me as Siberia. But dern it, Lonesome Dove, it just hit different. It’s as good a story as any other. And more.

It had everything—death, battle, courtship, evil, iniquity, justice, companionship, survival. Everything. (Except deities, but that’s no deal breaker.)

I won’t cheapen the score by giving a rundown. That’s for the best, I think; I myself came in blind. Had little to no expectations. But boy did it deliver: perfect as advertised. Too short a thrill despite its 850 pages. I can read about Gus and Call and Lorena and Clara and Newt and Josh Deets for forever. I wished it would never end.

It helps that McMurtry, to my surprise, could be one of the most readable literary writers ever. Careful, thoughtful writing. No bluster, no big words. Just plain sincere and focused storytelling. Characters you could sympathize with. Villains and obstacles that were not contrived; motivations that were believable, twists that were entirely plausible. There is dignity here. Most important: I feel it was written with love.

This is an utterly good read. Can’t say that for many best-selling or award-winning others. Most other happy reads, they have their moments. But Lonesome Dove, hell, I appreciated every single paragraph. I savored every single page.

So allow me to thank you, dear fellow booklovers here, for recommending this to me. I can’t thank you enough. I never could.

Am lucky to have been touched by this masterpiece. 🏞️

🐻 🐺 🐴 🐷 🐮 🫎

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MY GRANDFATHER WAS A TERRORIST
By Mosab Abu Toha

My grandfather was a terrorist -
He tended to the fields,
watered the roses in the courtyard,
smoked cigarettes with grandmother
on the yellow beach, lying there
like a prayer rug.

My grandfather was a terrorist -
He picked oranges and lemons,
went fishing with brothers until noon,
sang a comfort song en route
to the farrier's with his piebald horse.

My grandfather was a terrorist -
He made a cup of tea with milk,
sat on his verdant land, as soft as silk,

My grandfather was a terrorist -
He departed his house, leaving it for the
coming guests,
left some water on the table, his best,
lest the guests die of thirst after their
conquest.

My grandfather was a terrorist -
He walked to the closest safest town,
empty as the sullen sky,
vacant as a desserted tent,
dark as a starless night.

My grandfather was a terrorist -
My grandfather was a man,
a breadwinner for ten,
whose luxury was to have a tent,
with a blue UN flag set on the rusting pole,
on the beach next to a cemetery.

******************************************
Dedicated to @the.lemon.resistance 🍋

#thingsyoumayfindhiddeninmyears #palestinianpoetry #palestinianwriters #readpalestine #mosababutoha

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