The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
I was disappointed by this novel. I had high hopes and while it was fairly entertaining overall I would not recommend it.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Page Sixty-Three
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver "The Summer Day"
"It was the thing that had compelled them to fight for the trail against all the odds, and it was the thing that drove me and every other long-distance hiker onward on the most miserable days. It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.
It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always let like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way. . . . It was what I knew before I even really did, before I could have known how truly hard and glorious the PCT would be, how profoundly the trail would both shatter and shelter me" (207).
Highly recommended.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver "The Summer Day"
"It was the thing that had compelled them to fight for the trail against all the odds, and it was the thing that drove me and every other long-distance hiker onward on the most miserable days. It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.
It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always let like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way. . . . It was what I knew before I even really did, before I could have known how truly hard and glorious the PCT would be, how profoundly the trail would both shatter and shelter me" (207).
Highly recommended.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Page Sixty-Two
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A troubled girl finds work in a flower shop and thinks back to the events that lead to her present-day life. Victoria uses her gift for flowers and arrangements to battle her inner demons and help others. A good read.
A troubled girl finds work in a flower shop and thinks back to the events that lead to her present-day life. Victoria uses her gift for flowers and arrangements to battle her inner demons and help others. A good read.
Page Sixty-One
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Narrated by Enzo, a dog, this book is sad and heartwarming. A light read.
Narrated by Enzo, a dog, this book is sad and heartwarming. A light read.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Page Sixty
Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay
Excellent.
"Here is the country not in its Sunday best, but in its old clothes, unpaved, unfenced, full of character, ungroomed, unvisited, barely penetrable" (180).
"It seemed to me that going deeper into my mother's past would help me understand all the life that was blocked up inside me, that is blocked up inside each of us" (269).
"I'm reminded of what Michael said about memory: the facts don't matter; everything you learn blurs and merges and contributes to a way of seeing the world" (275).
Page Fifty-Nine
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
This book brings the lives of four individuals together during the conflict in Sarajevo: the cellist, who vows to play every day at 4 o'clock for 22 days for the 22 victims of a bombing while standing in line for bread; Arrow, a sniper who must protect the cellist, Dragan, who is trying to simply cross an intersection, and Kenan, a man who travels to collect water for his family on the other side of town. An excellent novel.
Page Fifty-Eight
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
A young girl with Asperger's struggles to understand empathy and find "Closure" after her older brother is a victim of a school shooting. A great young adult book.
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