Thursday Quotables: Final Girls

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Final Girls by Mira Grant
(published 2017)

This novella is so scary and wonderful — it starts with what seems to be a straight-up, old-fashioned, horror story set-up, then morphs into something completely different, with devastatingly invasive technology and sociopathic corporate assassins. I’m in awe of Mira Grant!

Here are a few key selections:

On a horror note — the opening lines:

The wood is dark and the wood is deep and the trees claw at the sky with branches like bones, ripping holes in the canopy of clouds, revealing glimpses of a distant, rotting moon the color of dead flesh.

A mother’s love is infinite. Shouldn’t her blood, unfairly spilled, be the same?

And later, on a much different note:

From there, it was a simple matter to roll the chair into the corner and replace it with a fresh one, unburdened by inconvenient corpses.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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12Apr2017

Thursday Quotables: The (unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

The (unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah by Moshe Rosenberg
(published 2017)

I admit, this is an unusual choice for a Thursday Quotables post! I bought a copy of the Hogwarts Haggadah before Passover this year, and while my family didn’t use it during our Seder, we did think it was quite cute and entertaining. Here are a few choice bits:

From a section called Destroying or Defanging the Wicked?:

Ron could not understand why Harry, after rescuing the diadem of Ravenclaw and escaping the trap set by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, would risk his life to go back and rescue Draco from the fiendfyre let loose by Crabbe in the Room of Requirement. But Harry, like Dumbledore the year before, saw more than a Death Eater-in-Training in Draco Malfoy. He believed that there was good in Malfoy that was worth saving, if only one could get past the threatening exterior.

The same attitude characterizes the treatment of the Wicked Son by some commentators on the Haggadah… [some technical numerology stuff goes here]… Take away the threatening but superficial fangs of the Wicked Son and you will see his true righteous potential beneath them.

Slavery Foretold – Prophecy and Choice:

At the end of Book Five, when he finally reveals to Harry the existence of the prophecy that Voldemort sought, Dumbledore makes clear to Harry that he need not fight Voldemort simply because the prophecy declared that “Neither can live while the other survives.” Harry still had a choice and, to him, that made all the difference. The very same point is made by Biblical commentators who ask why Pharaoh deserved to be punished if his enslavement of the Hebrews was foretold to Abraham. The Rambam (Maimonides) replies that Pharaoh was not bound to fulfill the prophecy, God could see to its fulfillment one way or another. Pharaoh had total freedom in choosing his path.

Bitterness: Where Do You Put It?:

Harry had much bitterness in his life. Deprived of his parents as a young child, his life at the Dursleys was misery. At Hogwarts, he was the target of both students and teachers through no fault of his own. And, of course, he was in constant life-threatening peril from the man who had killed his parents. If anyone had the right to feel embittered, it was Harry. And yet he showed that you can experience bitterness without becoming embittered. You can take the lessons of your suffering and use them to appreciate your blessings and spare others suffering. Voldemort and Snape would have done well to learn this lesson from Harry.

This could be a fun and cute way to share Passover with the young’uns, especially (obviously) if they’re HP fans.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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5Apr2017

Thursday Quotables: Caliban’s War

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey
(published 2012)

This is book #2 in the amazing Expanse series, and I’m loving it. The characters, the plot, the technology, the drama… all make for a fantastic sci-fi read. It’s actually a little challenging pulling out quotes that will make any sort of sense without context.

This piece make me chuckle while reading my current chapter:

“Well, if it’s talk to some little gramma from the UN or get my ass shot off by six destroyers, I’m thinkin’ we can break out the cookies and tea, right?”

Fun dialogue abounds, even in serious moments:

“Okay, I could be hearing you wrong, but did you just say that the thing that ripped its way into my ship, threw a five-hundred-kilo storage pallet at me, and almost chewed a path straight to the reactor core is more delicate than a four-year-old girl with no immune system?”

And then there’s the top-notch political gamesmanship:

They’d made a fool of her. She should have been humiliated. Instead, she felt alive. This was her game, and if she was behind at halftime, it only meant they expected her to lose. There was nothing better than being underestimated.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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22Mar2017

Thursday Quotables: West With the Night

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

West With the Night by Beryl Markham
(published 1942)

I’ve listened to the first few chapters of this audiobook so far, but because my listening time has been very choppy this week, I may switch over to the print edition. West With the Night, the memoir by famed aviator Beryl Markham, is a book I’ve meant to read for years. The writing is just gorgeous. From the very chapter, here’s a lovely passage:

Three hundred and fifty miles can be no distance in a plane, or it can be from where you are to the end of the earth. It depends on so many things. If it is night, it depends on the depth of the darkness and the height of the clouds, the speed of the wind, the stars, the fullness of the moon. It depends on you, if you fly alone — not only on your ability to steer your course or to keep your altitude, but upon the things that live in your mind while you swing suspended between the earth and the silent sky. Some of those things take root and are with you long after the flight itself is a memory, but, if your course was over any part of Africa, even the memory will remain strong.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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15Mar2017

Thursday Quotables: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
(published 1971)

I’ve been meaning to read more Elizabeth Taylor novels ever since I read her earliest book, At Mrs. Lippincote’s, several years ago.

No, not that Elizabeth Taylor — Elizabeth Taylor, the English novelist who was born in 1912 and died in 1975. And just to make sure we’re all really on the same page, I’m including a picture.

In Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, an elderly woman moves to a residential hotel to live out the rest of her life. Here’s a description of Mrs Palfrey:

She was a tall woman with big bones and a noble face, dark eyebrows and a neatly folded jowl. She would have made a distinguished-looking man and, sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked like some famous general in drag.

As Mrs Palfrey surveys her new room at the hotel:

When the porter had put down her suitcases and gone, she thought that prisoners must feel as she did now, the first time they are left in their cell, first turning to the window, then facing about to stare at the closed door: after that, counting the paces from wall to wall. She envisaged this briskly.

I’ve only read the first chapter, but so far, I’m very much enjoying the writing and get the sense that this will be a very fun read.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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8Mar2017

Thursday Quotables: Sparrow Hill Road

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire
(published 2014)

Who doesn’t love a good ghost story?

I died on a hot summer night in my junior year of high school, driven off the road by a man who should never have been there. My body was battered almost past recognition by the accident. My spirit fared a little better, sweet sixteen for the rest of time, missing the warm coat of life’s embrace.

I was alive, and then I wasn’t. Someday, they’ll say the same thing about everyone. Someday, they’ll say the same thing about you.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Save

1Mar2017

Thursday Quotables: The Smell of Other People’s Houses

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
(published 2016)

This lovely novel, consisting of interlocking stories, follows several young people in Alaska whose lives intersect in all sorts of intricate ways. I’m about halfway through, and can’t wait to share my thoughts when I’m done. Here’s one example of the lovely, unusual writing in this book:

It’s too hard trying to keep track of brothers who are full of their own ideas. They’re like helium balloons. At some point you just have to let go of the string and say, “Go on, then — good-bye, safe travels,” which has got to be easier than wondering whether you’re going to hold on too tight and pop the damn thing.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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22Feb2017

Thursday Quotables: Dreamers of the Day

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell
(published 2008)

I was feeling a little uninspired regarding this week’s Thursday Quotables post, not because I’m not reading good books, but just because no particular quotes or passages have really jumped out at me in the last few days.

So pardon my break from the usual, but for this week, I thought I’d revisit an old favorite. Mary Doria Russell writes incredibly beautiful and thought-provoking books, whether the subject matter is Jesuits in space (I kid you not) or the larger-than-life historical figures of the Old West. Dreamers of the Day was published in 2008, but I didn’t read it until 2013. It’s a wonderful book set in Egypt after World War I, featuring a lonely midwestern spinster who ends up rubbing shoulders with the political luminaries of the time, including T. E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill.

The book is full of amazing insights, but for some reason, as I was skimming through my newsfeed this week, this book came particularly to mind. There are so many wonderful snippets, but I think I’ll just share this simple closing sentiment, so relevant today (and always):

When it comes down to it, I don’t have much in the way of advice to offer you, but here it is:

Read to children.

Vote.

And never buy anything from a man who’s selling fear.

I really can’t say enough wonderful things about this book. Check out my review from 2013 here, if you want to know more. (And really, read the book!)

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Save

15Feb2017

Thursday Quotables: Devil’s Cub

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer
(published 1932)

I’ve jumped on the Georgette Heyer bandwagon! I finally read one of her books (thank you, awesome book club of mine!), and thoroughly enjoyed it. You can check out my mini-review here, but meanwhile, here’s one of the many amusing little dialogues from the book:

Miss Challoner rose from her chair, and curtsied. “You are extremely obliging, my lord, but I must humbly decline the honour of becoming your wife.”

“You will marry me,” said his lordship, “if I have to force you to the altar.”

She blinked at him. “Are you mad, sir? You cannot possibly wish to marry me.”

“Of course I don’t wish to marry you!” he said impatiently. “I scarcely know you. But I play my cards in accordance with the rules. I have a number of vices, but abducting innocent damsels and casting them adrift on the world is not one of the them. Pray have a little sense, ma’am! You eloped with me, leaving word of it with your mother; if I let you go you could not reach your home again until tomorrow night at the earliest. By that time — if I know your mother and sister at all — the whole of your acquaintance will be apprised of your conduct. Your reputation will be so smirched not a soul will receive you. And this, ma’am, is to go down to my account! I tell you plainly, I’ve no mind to become an object of infamy.’

I find this character’s definition of infamy rather amusing, as earlier in the book he shot a highwayman, and later got drunk and shot a man in a duel over a card game. So shooting folks is okay, but ruining a girl’s reputation isn’t? I guess you had to be there.

(But really, it’s a very enjoyable book!)

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Save

8Feb2017

Thursday Quotables: First Grave on the Right

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
(published 2011)

I’m about a third of the way into this book, and I mostly think it’s weird and silly — but I’ve been assured that the series gets better and better as it goes along. We’ll see. Meanwhile, the main character, Charley Davidson (ha!) is super sarcastic and quippy, which is a big plus.

My stepmother was never big on the whole nurturing thing. I think she used up all the good stuff on my older sister, and by the time she got to me, she was fresh out of nurture. She did, however, give me one pertinent bit of 411. She was the one who informed me that I had the attention span of a gnat; only, she said I had the attention span of a gnat with selective listening. At least I think that’s what she said. I wasn’t listening.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!