“I am writing in order to take charge of the story of my childhood and my childlessness; and in order to locate myself, if not within a body, then in the narrow space between one letter and the next, between the lines where the ghosts of meaning are.”
“You need to find yourself, in the maze of social expectation, the thickets of memory: just which bits of you are left intact?”
“I was (and am) unsure about how I am related to my old self, or to myself from year to year.”
“It was afternoon: that time, around three o‘clock, when a day seems to pause and yawn, before stretching itself and ambling towards teatime.”
“Since then I have always been addicted to something or other, usually something there‘s no support group for. Semicolons, for instance, I can never give up for more than two hundred words at a time.”
pickHave you ever wanted to burst into a round of applause at the end of a book? God, this was so good.
Hilary Mantel‘s memoir isn‘t especially uplifting. Her story is shaped by institutional — specifically, medical — neglect. It makes the pleasure I took from being welcomed inside her brain, where I could luxuriate in the craft of her sentences, feel almost shameful. I‘m choosing to feel wonderstruck (and a bit star-struck), instead.
What a writer!
“It is time for me to take up skipping…I don‘t want to but I have to try. I‘d rather turn the rope and say the rhyme than skip…
[Hopscotch] is better than skipping, but I find that when I try to stand on one leg, the pressure of my thoughts pushes me over.”
Perhaps this explains why I‘ve never had any luck with sports? 😅
We had time to kill between church and a graduation party, so of course we went to a bookstore. @Graywacke I blame you for the tagged book. 😀
pickI was a little worried about listening a bunch of essays I might not be interested in, but this turns out to be good stuff. There are simply some lightning essays in here. Many are about the Tudors and the Wolf Hall trilogy. Some are on overlooked women authors, really great stuff. She was an excellent writer, able to make her essays playful in a writerly way. She loved her sentences. Overall, I loved the collection and its richness.
Not a fan myself but just wanted to let other people who are know about this great #Kindledailydeal in the UK
@trishb @squirrelbrain @Oryx @julesG @Andrew65 @Cathythoughts
pickThis is the memoir Mantel wrote back in 2003. This focuses mainly on her childhood and I loved those parts, learning more about her childhood and family situation. There‘s also some parts about her growing up and her 20s, all her experiences with pain due to endometriosis.
11th book #Spookoween @TheSpineView #Falling4Books @Read4life #RushAthon @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES #2003 #192025 @Librarybelle #BookSpin September @TheAromaofBooks
