#Charlotte McConaghy

[riemmetric]

free by florence and the machine // helen keller // crooked kingdom by leigh bardugo // once we were wolves by charlotte mcconaghy

[whilereadingandwalking]

I wanted to reread Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy earlier this year, but then I discovered that she was Australian, and so I saved it until my trip, buying a new copy with a gorgeous ocean-rooted paperback cover from Better Read Than Dead, a bookstore in the Sydney suburbs. I didn't get to it while still down under, but I decided to start my reread earlier today, still infected with a drive for conservation that the reefs, rainforest, and zoos instilled in me.

On reread, the book made me cry several times over. When I was first assigned the list "Books that Break Your Heart and Put It Back Together Again" for Book Riot, this novel was the first I thought of. The swings of despair and hope in a world where nearly all animals have gone extinct, in a world where our unreliable anti-heroine is herself swinging between purpose and delusional loss, makes for an unforgettable novel. I am still so, so in love with this book on reread, enough so that I couldn't help but stay up well into the night to finish it, and loving it the 2nd time around means it officially passes into my favorites list.

Content warnings for suicidal ideation/suicide, violence, mental illness, sexual assault attempt, violence.

[rains-of-words]

simply remembering what it feels like to love creatures that aren’t human. A nameless sadness, the fading away of the birds. The fading away of the animals. How lonely it will be here, when it’s just us.

Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

[aquotecollection]

We are, all of us, given such a brief moment of time together, it hardly seems fair. But it’s precious, and maybe it’s enough, and maybe it’s right that our bodies dissolve into the earth, giving our energy back to it, feeding the little creatures in the ground and giving nutrients to the soil, and maybe it’s right that our consciousness rests. The thought is peaceful.

Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy

[contremineur]

Today there is a huge landmass to our left, and it surprises me because there is no land on the chart I’ve been studying. As we draw close enough to see, I realise that it’s an enormous island of plastic, and there are fish and seabirds and seals dead upon its shore.

Charlotte McConaghy, from Migrations (Flatiron Books, 2020)

Woodcut from The voyage of Saint Brendan (1499)

[drakvuf]

Loot

[brucklethings]

“When you open your heart to rewilding a landscape, the truth is, you’re opening your heart to rewilding yourself.”

— Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

[jennamacaroni]

I asked Niall once what he thought happened to us after we die, and he said nothing, only decomposition, only evaporation.  I asked him what he thought it meant for our lives, for how we spend them, for what they mean.  He said our lives mean nothing except as a cycle of regeneration, that we are incomprehensibly brief sparks, just as the animals are, that we are no more important than they are, no more worthy of life than any living creature.  That in our self-importance, in our search for meaning, we have forgotten how to share the planet that gave us life.

Charlotte McConaghy, “Migrations”

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

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[prairielights]

Once There Were Wolves

Charlotte McConaghy

Migrations author Charlotte McConaghy has written another gorgeous book -  Once There Were Wolves, involving the reintroduction of a pack of endangered wolves into the Scottish wilderness by wolf biologists. Conflicts ensue between wolves, biologists, and local farmers, and female protagonist Inti Flynn narrates the tale from her passionate environmentally focused perspective. Add a mysterious trauma from the past, a love story, and McConaghy’s lush and reverential descriptions of the natural world, and you have this massive literary achievement, in a modest 272 pages.

- Kathleen

[freshlybrewedbookreviews]

It doesn’t feel like a trick; the distance between our bodies feels like the trick because we share the same skin, the same muscles, the same bones and their marrow. I could be swept away so easily; there is a tide wanting to take me.

Charlotte McConaghy (Once There Were Wolves)

[blograridades]

" - Quanto mais forte você é, mais perigoso é o mundo."

- Migrações

[thecolorsinouruniverse]

there is too much love for it to ever be easy. forgive yourself for that.

charlotte mcconaghy, once there were wolves

[contremineur]

Maybe I thought I'd discover whatever cruel thing drove me to leave people and places and everything, always. Or maybe I was just hoping the bird's final migration would show me a place to belong.

Charlotte McConaghy, from Migrations (Flatiron Books, 2020)

[oiforfoxsake]

Books to Read This Summer

1. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

3. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

4. You Make Me a Fool With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi 

5. Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

6. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

7. Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson

8. Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

9. The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

10. Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

11. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

[mayokasolivagant]

"Je cesse d'être une femme, un être humain, un animal, que sais-je encore. Je suis la fureur vêtue de chair."

- Je Pleure Encore la Beauté du Monde Charlotte McConaghy