Tag Archives: weekly features

Thursday Quotables: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

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!

 

ws-star-wars

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher
(published 2013)

For good, goofy fun, I don’t think I could do any better this week than William Shakespeare’s Star Wars. I’ve been picking it up and reading bits and pieces in between other books – so far, I’ve read acts I and II, and it’s pretty amazing. A love for Shakespeare and a love for Star Wars are both essential, needless to say. Random lines, for your enjoyment:

C-3PO:

I prithee, lockest thou the door anon!

Han:

-Now are we follow’d hard upon
By an Imperi’l cruiser. Verily,
These passengers of great import must be
For they by the th’Empire hotly are pursu’d.
Chewbacca, prithee, swift make our defense
And angle the deflector shield whilst I
Make plan the calculations for light speed.

Vader:

– Distract’d is my mind,
But through its cloudy haze the reason comes:
Unless I am in error, someone here
Has come. I have not felt this presence since
The days that are but dark in memory.
This presence I have known since I was young,
This presence that once call’d me closest friend,
This presence that hath all my hopes betray’d
This presence that hath turn’d my day to night.
This awful presence present here must be,
So shall I to this presence violence
Present.

Leia:

O help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, help.
Thou art mine only hope.

And the classic uncle/nephew dialogue:

Owen:

Luke!
Take thou these droids unto our vast garage.
My wish it is they clean’d be ere we dine.

Luke:

But unto Tosche Station would I go,
And there obtain some pow’r converters. Fie!

I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did! The Shakespeare/Star Wars books would make great stocking stuffers for any of the geeky, hard-to-please folks on your gift list this year.

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!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Thursday Quotables: Howl’s Moving Castle

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

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!

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
(first published 1986)

How is it possible that I’ve never read this middle grade magical tale before now? Howl’s Moving Castle has some very clever, quippy use of words that makes it extra enjoyable, even for an adult reader. Here’s a bit of dialogue that’s given me my favorite new insult:

For a moment it seemed as if he he [Howl] was going to lose his temper too. His strange, pale eyes all but glared at Sophie. But he controlled himself and said, “Now trot along indoors, you overactive old thing, and find something else to play with before I get angry. I hate getting angry.”

Sophie folded her skinny arms. She did not like being glared at by eyes like glass marbles. “Of course you hate getting angry!” she retorted. “You don’t like anything unpleasant, do you? You’re a slitherer-outer, that’s what you are! You slither away from anything you don’t like!”

Ha! Take that, you slitherer-outer!

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!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Thursday Quotables: Poison or Protect

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back 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!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

poison-or-protect

Poison or Protect by Gail Carriger
(published 2016)

A steamy, definitely-for-adults novella from Gail Carriger’s supernatural/steampunk world — great fun!

She was like opiates — expensive, intoxicating, and deadly in large doses.

And another little sample:

She had acquired female friends before, but in the manner by which she acquired pierced ears (necessary for her image and to prove to the world that she could).

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: The Sun Is Also A Star

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back 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!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

sun-is-also-a-star

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
(published 2016)

There was so much lovely writing in this new YA novel. Here’s a little snippet:

“You can’t really be falling for me,” she says, quieter now. Her voice is somewhere between distress and disbelief.

Again I don’t have anything to say. Even I’m surprised by how much I’ve been feeling for her all day. The thing about falling is you don’t have any control on your way down.

Check out my review of this new release!

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Thanksgiving

Posted in Thursday Quotables by
thanksgiving
Welcome back 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!

Reblogging my Thanksgiving Thursday Quotables from last year, since I really don’t think I can do better than celebrating with Buffy!

best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1

 In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d depart book-world for this week’s Thursday Quotables post and turn instead to one of my very favorite Thanksgiving moments, the “Pangs” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

pangs

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death

Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.

Willow: You’re not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.

pangs 2

Giles – “…It’s very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form.”
Buffy – “Yeah, well it’s plenty uncommon for me to freeze up during a fight. I mean, I had the guy, I was ready for the takedown and I stopped. And ‘Native American’.”
Giles – “Sorry?”
Buffy – “We don’t say ‘Indian’.”
Giles – “Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as ‘Bloody Colonials’.”

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, filled with friends, family, laughter… and pie.

pangs3

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Good Morning, Midnight

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back 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!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

good-morning-midnight

Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
(published 2016)

I just finished this unusual book, which tells the story of a lone astromoner at the North Pole and the crew of a spaceship returning from exploring Jupiter, all of whom appear to be the last remaining human beings after an unknown event leaves them unable to communicate with anyone else. I liked this passage about the older man’s view of the world around him:

There was a time when the changes in the sky meant more to him than the ground beneath his feet, but not right then. He had been looking up for long enough; it felt good to think of the dirt instead, to imagine the life that would soon return to the land.

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Happy Election Day!

Posted in Family & Life by

Due to my inability to think about much today except the election, my regular weekly features — Shelf Control and Thursday Quotables — will not be happening this week. If you’re participating in either meme this week, please leave your post link in the comments!

Meanwhile…

hilaryIt’s a day of pride, excitement, anticipation, and anxiety. I don’t remember ever feeling this way on election day before. It’s scary, and exhilarating, and it’s history in the making.

Of course, here in California, there are other issues on the ballot besides our next President, such as school bonds, plastic bags, soda taxes, and…

marijuana-leaf-joint-140423

Still, we all know what’s at stake. I don’t use my blog to get political, but today’s a big day, and I can’t wait to cast my vote for our next President.

hil1

and therefore:

 

hil2

Happy Election Day, all!

Save

Thursday Quotables: Harmony

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back 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!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

harmony

Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst
(published 2016)

I loved this short but powerful novel about family, trust, hope, and love. My review is here… and here are two small samples that show some of the book’s terrific writing:

Happiness, as it exists in the wild — as opposed to those artificially constructed moments like weddings and birthday parties, where it’s gathered into careful piles — is not smooth. Happiness in the real world is mostly just resilience and a willingness to arch oneself toward optimism. To believe that people are more good than bad. To believe that the waves carrying you are neither friendly nor malicious, and to know that you’re less likely to drown if you stop struggling against them.

I liked this reflection on our digital lives:

Look at your Google history, and there it is, your mind, all its secret curves rolled out flat, like a map. Preoccupations and idle curiosities, mottled hopes and scribbled-out fantasies beating wildly on the screen. Everything you were, are, could be.

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back 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!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

hp5

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
(published 2003)

It’s never not a good time to revisit Harry at Hogwarts. I’m having a blast listening to the audiobook of HP5. And sure, Harry spends a lot of time feeling angry and ignored, and some very bad things that I refuse to think about happen later on… but meanwhile, there are also all sorts of gems along the way.

“Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” she asked.

“No,” said Harry and Ron together.

Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.

“Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.”

A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, “One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.”

“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have,” said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.

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!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten creepy, gross, scary horror books for getting in the Halloween mood

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by

halloweentop10

Happy (almost) Halloween!

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a Halloween freebie!

I’ve decided to focus on great books to scare or give the willies. To mix things up, I’m highlighting five books that I’ve read, and five from my TBR list:

Icky, squicky, creepy, scary books that I’ve read (with links to my reviews):

picmonkey-collage2

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (review)

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (review)

The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy (review)

Breed by Chase Novak (review)

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (review)

Creepy, chilling, horrifying-sounding books that I really want to read:

picmonkey-collage3

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Wraith by Joe Hill

A Love Like Blood by Marcus Sedgwick

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire

What scary books do you love to recommend? What’s on your Halloween TTT? Share your link, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider following Bookshelf Fantasies! And don’t forget to check out my regular weekly features, Shelf Control and Thursday Quotables. Happy reading!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save