This month flew. Three books; no quotes.
Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman. I really loved this story. It took me two tries to get into it, but the second time it struck me right and I couldn't put it down. The characters moved me.
Then there was Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen. I read one of his books before and had a lot of fun with it. He does unpredictable sassy plot twists with complex and imperfect characters. I couldn't decide who was the sickest puppy.
Eleanor Kuhns' A Simple Murder was light for a murder mystery. Crafted well enough, it kept my attention. I was entertained.
Quotes will return.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
The Turnaround
George Pelecanos wrote an excellent novel called The Turnaround. I didn't save any quotes, probably because it was written so cleanly and directly, nothing fancy, just good story telling. It reminded me some of Bonfire of the Vanities, with the gritty happenstance of life and those moments that mark turning points.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Saving Fish from Drowning
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.
And I didn't keep a single quote! I think that's because I was too busy reading.
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.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The Cupcake Queen
My daughter told me to read this one. My expectations were not too high for The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler, but I found it to be a surprisingly well crafted, well written and entertaining young adult novel.
Page 28: I kept speeding up and then slowing down during the walk to school. I didn't want to be late, but I really didn't want to be too early, standing around and staring at my shoes while everyone else talks to one another and pretends not to see the new girl staring at her shoes.
Page 28: I kept speeding up and then slowing down during the walk to school. I didn't want to be late, but I really didn't want to be too early, standing around and staring at my shoes while everyone else talks to one another and pretends not to see the new girl staring at her shoes.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Wicked Autumn
Wicked Autumn is a quiet mystery story by G. M. Malliet.
Page 44: Thea, poised for her usual rapturous leap at the sight of the visitor, remembered her training just in time: she sat hard, tail wagging so thunderously that its hip-shaking momentum threatened to topple her over.
Page 112: They suddenly became to him what they were -- fallible, ordinary people all carrying stories to tell that they dared not tell anyone.
Page 191: He saw that she had missed a button on her cardigan, or perhaps a button was missing altogether. In anyone else, this would be a sign of mild forgetfulness. In the fastidious Miss Pitchford, it was a clear measure of her distress, bordering on incipient madness.
Page 237: Wanda's sense of her place in the village was her prize psychological possession.
Entertaining, though not overly captivating.
Page 44: Thea, poised for her usual rapturous leap at the sight of the visitor, remembered her training just in time: she sat hard, tail wagging so thunderously that its hip-shaking momentum threatened to topple her over.
Page 112: They suddenly became to him what they were -- fallible, ordinary people all carrying stories to tell that they dared not tell anyone.
Page 191: He saw that she had missed a button on her cardigan, or perhaps a button was missing altogether. In anyone else, this would be a sign of mild forgetfulness. In the fastidious Miss Pitchford, it was a clear measure of her distress, bordering on incipient madness.
Page 237: Wanda's sense of her place in the village was her prize psychological possession.
Entertaining, though not overly captivating.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant
Each book in Veronica Roth's series, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant, is spellbinding. I read all three in five days. I enjoyed the complexity of the social and political systems - also the complexity of the characters. No one was pure good-guy or fully bad-guy.
Reading so fast, I only managed one quote on page 100 in Allegiant:
Take a person's memories, and you change who they are.
There were lots of interesting treatments on so many real world and complex issues. I wonder if my attention on memories is due somewhat to the last book I read.
Having the last book alternate in Tris' and Tobias' point of view through me at first, since it was different from the first two books. There had to be a reason. I sure was unhappy about that reason, but it made the author's decision make sense in the end.
I haven't seen the movie yet. How does it compare to the book?
Reading so fast, I only managed one quote on page 100 in Allegiant:
Take a person's memories, and you change who they are.
There were lots of interesting treatments on so many real world and complex issues. I wonder if my attention on memories is due somewhat to the last book I read.
Having the last book alternate in Tris' and Tobias' point of view through me at first, since it was different from the first two books. There had to be a reason. I sure was unhappy about that reason, but it made the author's decision make sense in the end.
I haven't seen the movie yet. How does it compare to the book?
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