I love this novel! Amy Tan had me completely enraptured from the "note to the reader" before the book even started. And it turned out completely different than I expected. I highly recommend that everyone/anyone read Saving Fish from Drowning.
And I didn't keep a single quote! I think that's because I was too busy reading.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
The Best American Short Stories 2011
Geraldine Brooks (who is my MIL's favorite author) edited the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories series. I did love her book, People of the Book. What an interesting collection. I didn't collect quotes from every story and although I enjoyed them all, the number of quotes doesn't indicate how much I liked the story. I noticed that several of the stories with no quotes at all were some of my favorites, such as Out of Body, Free Fruit for Young Widows and Escape from Spiderhead.
Cieling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Page 5: Her worldview was a set of conventional options that she mulled over while he did not even consider any of those option; the questions he asked of life were entirely different from hers.
Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Page 16: You can just see the innocence falling off a child's face -- every day.
Page 19: It's hard being a single mom, but it's easier than being a miserable wife.
A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
Page 35: Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the second closed around her ring finger, made her, she realized, unable to remember what being nineteen or twenty had felt like.
Page 49: It was uncanny: every paragraph was filled with information vague enough to be uninteresting and precise enough to be soporific.
Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman
Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
Page 101: Sokolov, old world conqueror, who had held the gae of every woman in his novels class, who had wooed dozens just by a line from Herzen or a pose struck thoughtfully looking out a window, who had slept with half the humanities faculty at Lehman, knew all at once age, irrelevance, invisibility.
Page 102: And since, he had returned daily to verify the sensation, rage, and concede and quietly wonder at the many ways we pass into insubstantiality. An old fool in love.
The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
Foster by Claire Keegan
Page 137: I am used to it, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.
Page 142-3: Neither of of us talks, the way people sometimes don't, when they are happy. As soon as I have this thought, I realize that the opposite is also true.
Page 143: I want to say that I am afraid but am too afraid to say so.
Page 154: "Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing."
The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipstyle
Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkai
Page 192: Or maybe he'd slouched all the way down Adams, his parka blurring him into the frozen crowd, the crowd sweeping him onto the train, the train shooting him up north and off the face of my earth.
Property by Elizabeth McKracken
Page 196: The weight of the bag was like the stones in a suicide's pocket.
Phantoms by Steven Milhauser
Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
ID by Joyce Carol Oates
To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
Page 270: You still read for pleasure: all kinds of things. The hunger remains, but, as with sex, the costumes must grow ever more elaborate to produce the same transport.
Page 273: Overnight, the World Wide Web weaves tightly around you. A novelty at first, then invaluable, then life support, then heroin.
The Call for Blood by Jess Row
Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
The Hare's Mask by Mark Slouka
Page 325: Who knows what somber ancestor had passed on to me this talent, this precocious ear for loss? For a while, because of it, I misheard almost everything.
Cieling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Page 5: Her worldview was a set of conventional options that she mulled over while he did not even consider any of those option; the questions he asked of life were entirely different from hers.
Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Page 16: You can just see the innocence falling off a child's face -- every day.
Page 19: It's hard being a single mom, but it's easier than being a miserable wife.
A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
Page 35: Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the second closed around her ring finger, made her, she realized, unable to remember what being nineteen or twenty had felt like.
Page 49: It was uncanny: every paragraph was filled with information vague enough to be uninteresting and precise enough to be soporific.
Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman
Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
Page 101: Sokolov, old world conqueror, who had held the gae of every woman in his novels class, who had wooed dozens just by a line from Herzen or a pose struck thoughtfully looking out a window, who had slept with half the humanities faculty at Lehman, knew all at once age, irrelevance, invisibility.
Page 102: And since, he had returned daily to verify the sensation, rage, and concede and quietly wonder at the many ways we pass into insubstantiality. An old fool in love.
The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
Foster by Claire Keegan
Page 137: I am used to it, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.
Page 142-3: Neither of of us talks, the way people sometimes don't, when they are happy. As soon as I have this thought, I realize that the opposite is also true.
Page 143: I want to say that I am afraid but am too afraid to say so.
Page 154: "Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing."
The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipstyle
Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkai
Page 192: Or maybe he'd slouched all the way down Adams, his parka blurring him into the frozen crowd, the crowd sweeping him onto the train, the train shooting him up north and off the face of my earth.
Property by Elizabeth McKracken
Page 196: The weight of the bag was like the stones in a suicide's pocket.
Phantoms by Steven Milhauser
Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
ID by Joyce Carol Oates
To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
Page 270: You still read for pleasure: all kinds of things. The hunger remains, but, as with sex, the costumes must grow ever more elaborate to produce the same transport.
Page 273: Overnight, the World Wide Web weaves tightly around you. A novelty at first, then invaluable, then life support, then heroin.
The Call for Blood by Jess Row
Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
The Hare's Mask by Mark Slouka
Page 325: Who knows what somber ancestor had passed on to me this talent, this precocious ear for loss? For a while, because of it, I misheard almost everything.
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