December 2010
87 posts
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 17
Day 17: Favourite quote
Right now, this is it:
It’s a mistake to think it’s the small things we control and not the large; it’s the other way around. We can’t stop the small accident, the tiny detail that conspires into fate, the extra moment you run back for something forgotten, a moment that saves you from an accident - or causes one. But we can assert the largest ones,...
jerzee55-deactivated20120427 asked: Invasive species... What would you say beneath the tree, If you happened to find yourself talking with me?
““Tell me right away if I’m disturbing you,”
he said as he...”
– The Butterfly Above The Road by Eeva Kilpi
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 16
Day 16 - Favorite female character
Stargirl, the main character in Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.
She was elusive She was today She was tomorrow She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 15
Day 15 - Favorite male character
My favourite male character, though obscure, is Amit Chatterji from Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Although he is not as dazzling or conspicuous as other male characters in more famous books (Holden Caulfield, Mr Darcy etc) he possesses something I find integral to my most beloved characters: a contemplative nature and an extreme intensity. Even his slight...
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 14
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (already discussed)
And, because I didn’t have space to add Haruki Murakami in the previous post:
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Classified as contemporary magical realism, this book follows the events following the disappearance of a cat belonging to Toru Okada, a young,...
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 13
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
This one is pretty tough. So much so that I actually can’t narrow it down to one. So here are three:
Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson’s writing captured me at a time where I was really grappling with power relations between socially constructed sexes. Her work is significant to me because it explores sex and romantic love outside of the usual...
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 12
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don’t anymore
There are very few books I feel this way about, and the ones where my opinion has changed for the worse is usually as a result of consciousness about the representation of people and situations. An example of this is Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. I loved all the Poirot novels I read when I was younger (I started reading them when I was...
“I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies ...”
– W.B. Yeats
On Virginity
pete-andre:
“I think virginity is the most over-hyped, illogical concept I’ve ever heard of, let alone one of the largest double-standards in history. I have no idea why people over-hype the fact that someone hasn’t had sex, or why they equate it to “innocence”, “virtue”, or “honor”. It simply means you haven’t had sex, it doesn’t say anything about your character.”
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 11
Day 11 - A book you hated
I tried very hard to like this book. But:
Heathcliff, bleugh.
Storyline, bleugh.
Characterisation, bleugh.
Writing style, bleugh.
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 10
Day 10 - Favorite classic book
This is pretty tough. I don’t think I can narrow it down to one, so I present two:
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: I love this book because of Dumas’ writing style, the gripping narration and Edmond Dantès’ inner turmoil.
Middlemarch - George Eliot
This book, more than anything by Henry James or Jane Austen, is a seminal work...
30 Day Book Meme: Day 09
Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Okay, this is an easy one. I avoided reading Pride and Prejudice until I was 14 because I was convinced I was going to dislike everything about it. I read it in my first year of high school and really loved it. Since then, I’ve read it many times (although that is partly because it was a prescribed book in my Grade 11...
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“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail”
– Abraham Maslow (via zero1infinity)
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 08
Day 8 - Most overrated book
I realise this probably is not technically a book, but:
Not saying his work isn’t good. Just that I find it vastly, vastly overrated.
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 07
Day 07 - Most underrated book
My literary tastes are generally eclectic, so it’s hard for me to speak for what the vox populi should and should not rate, but there are a few books that I have read and wondered “Why the hell aren’t these more popular?” One of these is Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson.
There are lots of things I could say about this book, but...
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 06
Day 6 - A book that makes you sad
Okay, this is an easy one.
For a book with the word “splendid” in the title, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a pretty sad book. Following Mariam, a woman growing up on the outskirts of Herat and eventually sent to Kabul for an arranged marriage, the book draws an interesting parallel between the discursive space of Mariam’s...
30 Day Book Meme: Day 05
Day 05 - A book that makes you happy
Okay, I’m definitely not a reader of happy books. Comedy, romance, all the usual cheerful literature - you won’t find it on my bookshelf. But when I think about a book that makes me happy, the first thing that comes to mind is PopCo by Scarlett Thomas.
The one thing that makes me happy about the book is the design of the edition I own. The pages...
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30 Day Book Meme: Day 04
Day 04 - Favorite book of your favorite series
A Wild Sheep Chase Haruki Murakami
The final book in the Trilogy of the Rat. I’ve already spoken about it a bit, so I’ll just leave this post with a quote:
“One of these days they’ll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end. “
