Sometimes this kind of story turns out to be something more, some glimpse of life that expands like those Japanese paper balls you drop in water and then after a moment they bloom into flowers, and the flower is so marvelous that you can't believe there was a time when all you saw in front of you was a paper ball and a glass of water.
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
I‘m here with my daughter, who‘s four.
Who, because no one gives princess lessons,
has opted for dancing. She likes the tutus, the tap shoes,
the tights. The teachers are kind.
They‘re graceful as egrets, strong in the thighs.
“On impulse, she felt in her bag for a pen. She always had a pen. She bought stationery the way other women bought lipsticks.”
In my kitchen counter—because you never know what you might need, right? 😄
pickSweet and entertaining, this was a perfect listen for a drive to see my mom. Now I want to move to rural Scotland though. Also contains helpful reading hints like how to turn the page on your Kindle using your nose.
Wrapping up a weekend working on the slowest renovation project in the history of houses with a plate of cheese and some seriously peppery salami. And wine. Cheers
"If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant."
"Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don't have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life."
??
"I don't think that most women have to prove that they're real women. You live long enough, you graduate to being real."
"Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity."
Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.
At the hour when our imagination and our ability to associate are at their height, we really no longer read what is printed on the paper but swim in a stream of impulses and inspirations that reach us from what we are reading.
"I am a nerd, and I'm proud of it."
What a great way to start a cookbook!
To the owl who cries at dawn: I ask you why—why now—when night is surrendering to light. Why not sound your haunting call as the Sun begins to set? When we are wrapped in shawls of shadows, expecting to disappear into darkness.
pickSexy introverts! The audio got me through the first round of cooking and wrapping randily—I mean handily. 😉
“unconditional love asks nothing, not even that it be returned.”
And that's it for #ChistmasCooking. For today.
Cookie time ?
" Another Protector, wearing latex gloves, carefully pull old–looking books out of a big wood box and place them on the table. When one of his brothers try to touch a book, he slap hands or punched stomachs and told them, "Until the Crow says you can touch, you don't touch."
"I just want to look."
"No."
"But–"
"I will kill you!" the Protector bellowed.
Still not the weirdest part. "
pickA hen party goes horribly awry with murder, mayhem and…NO. COFFEE.
Adding myself to the didn't read a lot in November group; for both good and bad reasons. Bad: the world is insane. Enough said. Good: my best friend was visiting from the other side of the world and I'm finishing up editing a novella (unexpected length may have edged it into novel length). But I did do some rereading. Anne Lamott can always lift my spirits. #bestofnovember
So excited about reading the story that The Arrival is based on! #readinginbed (except it's the chaise lounge 😉)
Cranberry sauce is on. Onion and celery is sautéing. Two more cake layers are about to go in the oven. Smells pretty good in here ? #onewordtitle #thanksgiving
#bookpyramid of short stories and novellas (including two of my own because #ShamelessSelfPromotion 😉)
#childprotagonist One of my favorite reads of this year 😊
pick" 'Used books,' as if someone else has had the best of them and get the sere husk, or the lees, as if a book isn't the one thing, the one product, that is for ever new. There's no such thing as a used book. Or there's no such thing as a book if it's not being used."
" 'It's one of the greatest survival stories of all time,' he says, 'Enjoy.' It is very like George to think that a book about Antarctic exploration will sort out the stresses of being single, impoverished, and pregnant, with a job and a PhD to do."
"Everyone is lonely in Hopper. Everyone is sad. Everyone is waiting."
“Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.”
“If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over, it becomes normal.”
pickThis audio-only novella is free at Audible until November 2nd. It's a satisfyingly twisty noir SFF and reminded me a lot of Alex Hughes' Mind Space series with a little of Jim Butcher's Dresden thrown in. Works for me.
AND Zachary Quinto narrates—probably should have led with that 😄
"Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive."
“The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question,
nor is it bought with going to amazing places.
Until you‘ve kept your eyes
and your wanting still for fifty years,
you don‘t begin to cross over from confusion.”
“I really, really wanted to lose awareness of the here and now. The best way for me to do that was bury myself in a book.”
"She swallowed. The room was warm, and something was melting inside of her—it felt like her bones."
"She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water."
“I've always liked libraries. They're quiet and full of books and full of knowledge.”
"We're talking about poems, words on a page," fox said tapping his knee, "and what those words turn into when they slip inside your brain." He tapped his head. "It's magic; and magic disappears if you Try to hard to pin it down."
"Patricia felt jittery about throwing her first ever dinner party, because part of her clung to the fantasy of being someone who gathered cool people around her. A doyenne, someone who held witty salons. She cleaned the apartment for hours, made a playlist, and baked bread and Bundt cake. Her roommates DeeDee and Racheline made their famous 'passive-aggressive lasagna."
"The desert wasn't as she'd imagined it at all: a Sahara landscape of sand and dunes. Rather, it was a Japanese garden made of stone, a sage-green land of low, gnarled trees, creosote bushes and cactus."
