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Renate Dulsie

@this_bookish_thing

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A lover of books, mostly by women, often translated.
📍London

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

~s e p t e m b e r~
I was tagged by @melreadsx & @rootsinlibrary in a post to show three books I read in the previous three years.

I’ve tagged some people in case they want to join but no pressure. Also, if you are reading this consider yourself tagged 🫶🏻

Have you read any of these? Or let me know a book or books you were reading 📚

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📚 This time in previous years 📚

I was wondering what I was reading in September in the previous years and these are some books that I was reading in September 2023, 2024 and 2025

September 2023:
🍂 The heart principle - 4.5⭐️ (one of my fav romances! The third one in a series of interconnected standalone romances)
🍂 Breasts and Eggs - 4⭐️ (I felt like I read this at the perfect time. Really loved it)
🍂 The hating game - 3.5⭐️ (I still need the watch the movie, is it good??)

September 2024:
🍂 Through the woods - 3.5⭐️ (a graphic novel with some spooky short stories, very folklore. Great for this time of year)
🍂 Carnality - 4⭐️ (such a wild ride, and very addictive! But strange!)
🍂 Fangs - 3.5⭐️ (another graphic novel. This one is about vampires and I thought it was funnier than I expected)

September 2025:
🍂 Horror movie - 4⭐️ (my first Paul Tremblay and I loved this. Do not pick this up if you are looking for a fast paced slasher, because that's not what it is, but it was still really good)
🍂 The tenant of Wildfell hall - 4.5⭐️ (i fell in love with Helen, the main character, and this was so ahead of its time)
🍂 Kindred - 5⭐️ (The best book on this list and also the best book I read in 2025! This was impossible to put down, so important, so beautiful. I highly recommend)

I tagged a few people, because I love to see what you all were reading this time in previous years 🫶🏼
But if you want to do this too and I didn't tag you, please consider yourself tagged too 🫶🏼

QOTD: What were you reading in September last year?

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inspired by @this_bookish_thing ＼(^^)／

a list of some of my fav authors!!

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~b o o k~h a u l~
Ok so this week has been a busy one & over the last week I’ve been to Manchester & Edinburgh (now convalescing in Wales). The one thing I prioritise is seeking out any indie bookshops. I’ll do separate posts on the bookshops but wanted to share my haul from Manchester @houseofbooksandfriends & Edinburgh @toppingsedin and basically who I’m blaming for my purchases 🤭…

•Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa ~ I didn’t actually buy this, this was a gift from my gal @clareyszabo. She brought it all the way from Canada as this is a local author to where she now lives in Toronto (miss you nana 😢)
• Cosmos by Lucia Odoom ~ I’ve had my eye on this since I saw @canreadwillread review & then @glareusy put it back on my radar.
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang ~ I’m blaming @this_bookish_thing for this one haha. Although, me & @melreadsx are gonna buddy read.
• Things I don’t want to know by Deborah Levy ~ this has been on my tbr for a while but @andreareads100 put it right to the top ‘must buy’.
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout. I’ve not read any Strout but everyone’s been raving about this one. So I blame all that have posted about it.

I also bought Just Kids for my friend Clare because she confessed she’s not read any Patti & that’s a book I love to gift people 🖤

Have you read any of these? 📖

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You don't need to over share every time you need someone

#oversharing #overshare #boundaries #boundariesarehealthy #tarotcommunity

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some armchair travelling for ya 💋

also tagged some people to do their version but i’d love to see everyone’s picks if you feel so inclined!

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“Something is unwinding. I can’t know how things will go in the time I have left. I can’t predict what will happen. My grief won’t end, but it will keep changing. I imagine myself sitting on Paul’s grave looking at his stone. I imagine the early May bloom as it was when we buried him, the cemetery wide-awake with color, and I think of Joyce’s Bloom, and I remember a wedding in Brooklyn on Bloomsday in June when the thunder sounded and the lightning flashed, and I think of Paul’s Anna Blume pushing her cart in the city that’s falling apart and my own Violet Bloom in “What I Loved”, dressed in the clothes of her beloved Bill after he dies. (…) I held Paul’s face when he was dying, and I talked about the fun we had, all the fun, and he heard me. And, after he died, it hailed.”

I remember when Paul Auster’s “New York Trilogy” was first published in France. Its lonely, existentialist voice resonated deeply and Auster was adopted by the French long before he became famous in the U.S.. We do that sometimes.

I remember being knocked out by Siri Hustvedt’s “What I Loved”, living in Montreal and genuinely obsessed with the literary duo living in Brooklyn, the dark-haired Jewish writer and the white blond intellectual beauty posing on their front steps, the epitome of cool.

And now we have this book which takes us right inside the house. A book of light and darkness. A book of ghosts, imagined and real. A book of letters. A book of love, tested and tried and reignited.

What Siri Hustvedt accomplished here is a tour de force. Like Philipe Petit, the French high-wire artist who crossed a tightrope between the Twin Towers in 1974, she tiptoes above the void with her broken heart in one hand and her blazing intellect in the other, and gives us her stories like a most precious offering.

Their two lives entwined like branches, reflected in each other’s works like leitmotifs, creating a third entity as thick and fragile as coastal fog.

Gather your tears. Rejoice in these pages.
I doubt we will ever meet such a fated pair again.

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~s u n d a y~s c e n e s~&~r i t u a l s~
I love a slow Sunday, although today has gone way too fast if I’m honest.

Here is a pocket of time from my Sunday. My current read, YotM. As it’s the start of the month I get to read @thisispattismith Book of Days🖤 My original intention was to read a page a day, like a Patti advent but I felt I was always left wanting more. So now I read a whole month at the start of each month. It’s something to look forward to. I also LOVE that as I read through April there was a few things that coincided with stories in YotM 🖤

I remember a story & posts the lovely Renate @this_bookish_thing did about reading rituals. They really resonated with me as I too have very similar rituals: My current read, some hand cream, a spritz or three of scent & some lip balm/lip oil (not in photo). Not forgetting my beverage (and usually a snack of choice) & always a cozy blanket 🖤

I hope everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weekend. It’s been a bit rainy here but that’s to be expected… it is England after all.

What book(s) did everyone start the month on? 🤍

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“Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall…”

Some stories don’t just stay on the page…
they stay inside you.

This book isn’t loud.
It doesn’t try to shock you.
But slowly, quietly—it breaks something in you.

Toni Morrison tells the story of a girl who believes she has to change the way she looks… just to be loved.

And the uncomfortable part?

That idea doesn’t feel unfamiliar.

Because we don’t just see ourselves—
we learn how to see ourselves.

From people.
From culture.
From everything around us.

And sometimes…
we carry those ideas for years without questioning them.

This isn’t just a book review.
It’s a question.

When did you first become aware of how you looked?

And more importantly—
who made you feel that way?

⸻

💬 Tell me in the comments—
Do you think beauty is natural… or something we’re taught?

📌 Save this if it made you think
📤 Share this with someone who needs to hear it

#bookstagram #booktok #bookreels #readersofinstagram #literature classicliterature tonimorrison thebluesteye darkacademia philosophy psychology selfimage identity thoughtprovoking deepreads bookcommunity readmorebooks literaryfiction explorepage reelitfeelit booksbooksbooks viralreels mindsetshift aestheticreels intellectualcontent

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A little moment to celebrate The Duke! 👏

THE DUKE making the longlist of the International Booker Prize has been an amazing experience all around. As Matteo Melchiorre’s first novel, Antonella Lettieri’s third literary translation and Foundry Edition’s tenth book published, we were all very new to this and didn’t expect it at all. We are so delighted to be among such auspicious company in the Booker fold, and couldn’t be happier that it has made more people aware of this extraordinary work that we love so much.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out and for all the support we have had through this, especially to the booksellers, reviewers and of course to the wonderful team at the Booker Prize. We wish all the best luck to the shortlisted titles.

We also wanted to share some of our favourite reviews and photos with you! 💙

If you loved reading The Duke, the best way to support us it to share your love of the book with a friend, or leave a review on your book platform of choice.

“The Duke has a little bit of everything alongside the intriguing village politics, a love story, espionage, a family curse, a biblical storm and generational secrets which all come to a head in a satisfying way.” @sammys.book.nook

“this is a novel about mad obsession, about losing oneself to fury and revenge. on the surface, it’s a small town drama that becomes incredibly addictive. who knew you could become so invested in a man’s fight for his land??? but beneath the surface, melchiorre interrogates man’s obsession with the past, ancestry, nobility, heritage, and ownership.” @amuchneededbreak

“This is the kind of book that you’ll want to sink into for long stretches on a weekend to luxuriate in its unhurried storytelling. From the first pages, it reads as if there’s a great mystery afoot, and part of the pleasure is figuring out what that mystery even is. “ @ktlee.writes

“This novel reminded me of the sheer beauty of getting lost in a bigger novel that is all-consuming […] I underlined many a passage. I absolutely loved my time with the Duke.” @This_bookish_thing

#internationalbookerlonglist #theduke #translatedfiction #italianliterature

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“Anything you want to forget will come back to you, it will haunt you so vividly that it feel as if you’re going through it all over again, often causing you the same overwhelming and unmanageable feelings as it did the first time; you fear the intensity might kill you and so you fight its return, you resist, but you can’t prevent or shield yourself from the pain that follows and so you are forced to relive it. However, when it has been re-experienced and relived yet again, when the paralyzing pain subsides, you will often find that you have gained a fresh insight into the significance of that particular memory; it was the reason it came back, in order to tell you something.
Why do I write you when I mean me?”

The Norwegians strike again.

This was my first foray into the world of Vigdis Hjorth and I was held captive from these stark opening lines, blurring author and narrator with one swipe of the brush, like the falling snow blurring the forest outside of her small cabin.

This intentional and incredibly powerful muddling of real life and “fiction” is at the center of the debate that took place recently in Norway around the ethics and morality of “virkelighetslitteratur”, or “reality literature”, where the word “novel” is nothing but the thinnest of veils thrown over actual facts and real-life people.

“Repetition” is thus a different interpretation of the musical sheet that depicts the real trauma at the heart of Hjorth’s life, and around which her entire oeuvre spins like a mad satellite moon. It is unapologetic in essence, eagle-eyed, almost clinical in its portrayal of the anguish and yearning of adolescence, of the way teenage bodies awaken to sexual desire.

And this is where the book’s heartbreaking genius lies.
By jumbling the excitement of new physical feelings with the repeated (and unconscious) echoes of past trauma, Hjorth creates an astounding psychological thriller filled with both anxious tension and electric self-determination.

Parents fail. Children push on. And our bodies, eternal, cyclical, fragile and miraculous, keep the score.

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There are books you seek out because something in their premise, their author, or their reputation simply needs to be read. This stack was assembled slowly, over months of reading prize lists, small press catalogues, and the recommendations of readers whose taste I trust completely. Here are my predictions for five-star reads.

Which of these have you already loved?

I’ll Tell You When I’m Home by Hala Alyan
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog
A Sister’s Story by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
The Singularity by Balsam Karam
Katalin Street by Magda Szabó
The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel
Tinkers by Paul Harding

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