When I was young, maybe six or seven, I remember one time I was sitting on my dad’s lap, listening to records with him. A song came on that I didn’t recognize, and I asked him what it was. He said, “I Can’t Find the Time to Tell You.” I…
Category: books and reading
All Quiet: the book on war
Our book discussion group selected All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque for our November meeting. Before we started talking about it a few months ago, I didn’t really know more than the title, and hadn’t been interested in finding out more. But now I’ve read it,…
Book 3 of 5: a pleasant change of pace
As with book 1, I was introduced to book 3 at the Attleboro Public Library. I finished my degree at Smith College in December 1995, and moved back to my hometown of Attleboro, Massachusetts, to figure out which route to take next in my life. Probably in March or April…
Book 2 of my most influential five
When I was a teenager – often depressed, no self-esteem, thinking of death and hurting myself – I bought a used paperback anthology of poetry by women. I had heard of Sylvia Plath, and might already have read The Bell Jar, but hadn’t yet been exposed to her poetry. The…
Five books that have influenced me the most: Book 1
A couple months ago, a friend from my book discussion group suggested that members choose the five books that have most influenced / impacted them – not one’s “favorite books” nor necessarily what one considers the “best books” read so far, but books which had some significant, lasting impact on…
Voices in my head, these days
It has been two weeks since Gerald passed away. We are meeting with his doctor later this afternoon to hear more about the results of blood tests taken in the emergency room, and any other information from the hospital records that might help us understand how he became so sick…
The book sale
The following paragraph is taken from the book Biblioholism: the Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe: The book world was also intense in those days [mid-1800s to early 1900s]. Fightsoccasionally broke out in bookstore aisles. When the English translation of The Devil on Two Sticks came out, the books were gobbled…
Life = Multitudes of Poems
I’ve been working on a project for my mother’s birthday – though clearly I haven’t been working hard enough at it, because her birthday is in two days and I’m not even done with it yet, so who knows when it’ll get packed up and into the mail. But it’s…
Finished another excellent book
Today, I finished listening to the audio version of The book thief by Markus Zusak. I just wrote this in my “50 Book Challenge” list on LibraryThing: 30. The book thief – finished listening to it this afternoon, crying near the end, but not quite sobbing, as the boys had…
Coming up for air – finally – maybe
It’s Monday evening. I started reading The glass castle by Jeannette Walls last Thursday evening, and was immediately hooked. I spent as much time reading over the weekend as I could, and finished the book today at the end of my lunch break. For about the last half hour, I’ve…