Category: bookish things

Teaser Tuesday

We human beings build houses because we’re alive, but we write books because we’re mortal. We live in groups because we’re sociable, but we read because we know we’re alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one’s place, but that no on can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

Through her closed eyelids Olive sees a red light slanting through the windows; she can feel sunlight warming her calves and ankles on the bed, can feel beneath her hand how it warms the soft fabric of her dress, which really did come out nicely. It pleases her to think of the piece of blueberry… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

I have read quite a lot of books lately, and I intend to read many more. And in books I have discovered that there are sometimes lonely patches And scary times Disasters Catastrophes And long paragraphs of no use at all except possibly (says Saffron) to build up your stamina. But there are also jokes… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

There are some types of food that do lend themselves to sophisticated techniques of interrogation. When an Italian restaurant is suggested, for instance, I always say, “Who controls the city around here?” I suppose a good Italian restaurant could exist in a city that doesn’t have enough Italians to constitute at least a powerful minority… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

In the canteen there was a television that was always on. I began to learn more about life in your country. I watched programs called Love Island and Hell’s Kitchen and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and I worked out how I would kill myself on all of those shows. Drowning, knives, and ask… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

Daddy flipped the switch. In the seconds it took to really get going, cake flour blew up from the mixing bowl and swirled around the room, recipes flapped off the counter and caught fire on the stovetop. Constantine snatched the burning roll of parchment paper, quickly dipped it in the bucket of water. There’s still… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. The other was a red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose. From Oliver Twist by… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

When it comes to the ten o’clock news, my father has little interest in the news itself, unless it’s space-related. For the weather he puts down his drink and cups both hands around his ears to better hear the forecast. He also frequently kneels in front of whatever TV he’s watching. He kneels more often… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday

J. D. Salinger

The bright spot in all of the sad news today about the passing of J. D. Salinger is all of the wonderful quotes from his work that people have shared today on Twitter and Facebook. It’s been a lovely tribute to a man whose writing continues to speak to readers of all ages. In Salinger’s… Continue reading J. D. Salinger

Library Loot 1.23.10

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages readers to share the goodies that they picked up at their libraries each week! It’s an appropriate time for me to post my first Library Loot entry, since I’ve been to the library 3 times this week and taken out way more… Continue reading Library Loot 1.23.10

Teaser Tuesdays

After supper, by the fire, we drank hot beer. On a world where a common table implement is a little device with which you crack the ice that has formed on your drink between drafts, hot beer is a thing you come to appreciate. From The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin,… Continue reading Teaser Tuesdays