Thursday Quotables: Stardust

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman
(published 1999 )

I’m listening to the audiobook of Stardust, narrated by Neil Himself, and it’s just a delight. It’s been many years since I first read Stardust, and I’d forgotten how sweet and funny and sly it can be — and also eerie and moody and dangerous. Here are but a few little selections that either gave me the chills or made me chuckle. And they all just sound so good when read out loud:

He summoned his children to his bedside and they came, the living and the dead of them, and they shivered in the cold granite halls. They gathered about his bed and waited respectfully, the living to his right side, the dead on his left.

Or for a lighter mood:

“I knowed a man in Paphlagonia who’d swallow a live snake every morning, when he got up. He used to say, he was certain of one thing, that nothing worse would happen to him all day. ‘Course they made him eat a bowlful of hairy centipedes before they hung him, so maybe that claim was a bit presumptive.”

One more bit of conversation:

Tristran thought for some moments, and then he said, “I come from the village of Wall, where there lives a young lady named Victoria Forester, who is without peer among women, and it is to her, and to her alone, that I have given my heart. Her face is– ”

“Usual complement of bits?” asked the little creature. “Eyes? Nose? Teeth? All the usual?”

“Of course.”

“Well then, you can skip that stuff,” said the little hairy man.

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!

26Aug2015

Thursday Quotables: Secondhand Souls

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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.

Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore
(published August 25, 2015 )

This is a little bit of a cheat for me, as I haven’t quite started this book! My shiny new copy arrived this week, right on release date, but I’m trying to be a responsible adult and finish the book I’m already reading before diving in. Couldn’t resist reading the first couple of pages, though — and I was immediately plunged back into the insane but delightful world first encountered in A Dirty Job.

Sigh. This looks awesome, and I desperately need some FUN in my reading!

It was a cool, quiet November day in San Francisco and Alphonse Rivera, a lean, dark man of fifty, sat behind the counter of his bookstore flipping through the Great Big Book of Death. The old-fashioned bell over the door rang and Rivera looked up as the Emperor of San Francisco, a great woolly storm cloud of a fellow, tumbled into the store followed by his faithful dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, who ruffed and frisked with urgent intensity, then darted around the store like canine Secret Service agents, clearing the site in case a sly assassin or meaty pizza lurked among the stacks.

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!

20Aug2015

Thursday Quotables: The Invention of Wings

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
(published 2014 )

I have about 1/4 of this powerful, beautiful book left to go, but I’ve been loving it so far. Here are two brief passages that give a little taste. The first is a young slave girl’s impression of words on a page, from the point of view of someone who’s never been taught to read:

I shut the door and opened Miss Sarah’s books. I sat at her desk and turned one page after another, staring at what looked like bits and pieces of black lace laid cross the paper. The marks had a beauty to them, but I didn’t see how they could do anything but confuddle a person.

I love the “black lace” description. Can you remember what it was like to look at a book before learning to read?

The story revolves around two characters: Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy, slave-owning family in Charleston, and Handful, the young girl given as a present to Sarah for her 11th birthday. Sarah is aghast at the idea of owning another person, and the two develop a close but complicated relationship. Again from Handful’s point of view:

She laid the book down and came where I was standing by the chimney place and put her arms round me. It was hard to know where things stood. People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn’t know for sure whether Miss Sarah’s feelings came from love or guilt. I didn’t know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. That day, our hearts were pure as they ever would get.

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!

12Aug2015

Thursday Quotables: In the Unlikely Event

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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.

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
(published 2015 )

Holiday season, New Jersey, circa 1951:

Miri Ammerman and her best friend, Natalie Osner, were sprawled on their bellies on the thick, tweedy wall-to-wall carpet of Natalie’s den, waiting for the first-ever televised lighting of the famous Christmas tree. The den was Miri’s favorite room in Natalie’s house, not least because of the seventeen-inch Zenith, inside a pale wood cabinet, the biggest television Miri had ever seen.

One of the things I’m really enjoying about this book is the amount of detail the author uses to bring that particular time to life — all the clothes, the brand names, the cars, the foods. Even little things like a girl taking the phone into the bathroom with her for privacy, the long cord stretched down the hallway!

On a more serious note, here’s the stark scene of a plane crash a few days later:

He’d had to elbow his way through the crowd to where the plane lay on its back in the Elizabeth River, belly ripped open, rubble spilling into the frozen stream and onto the banks. The river was a mass of roaring flames shooting a hundred feet into the air and surrounding the mangled wreckage, one wing pointing straight up.

Firemen, policemen and other rescue workers swarmed to the scene, armed with cutting torches, grappling hooks, blankets, stretchers and bags. A white-clad intern, stethoscope around his neck, went with them, but he didn’t stay long — just long enough to know he wasn’t needed.

I’m about a third of the way into this book, and I’m really getting swept up in the drama as well as the period detail. Such fun to be reading a Judy Blume novel again after so many years!

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!

10Aug2015

The Monday Check-In ~ 8/10/2015

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.

What did I read last week?

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett: This novella is such a treat for bookworms! It’s a sweet, funny, charming piece of short fiction about what might happen if the Queen of England suddenly became an obsessive reader. The writing itself is such fun, as well as the storyline. I featured a few passages from this book for my Thursday Quotables post last week — check it out here.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters: Done! Watch for my blog tour post and review, coming up on Thursday. Want a hint ahead of time? This one is getting high marks!

And in graphic novels:

After watching the movie Kingsman a couple of weeks ago, I thought I should check out the comic it was based on. The movie is over-the-top violent, but worth it to see Colin Firth kicking major butt (while impeccably dressed, of course.) The comic was originally issued as The Secret Service, and this paperback volume collects the whole story in one edition. It’s a fun, goofy way to spend an afternoon.

And if you haven’t seen the movie and want a little taste:

Fresh Catch:

New goodies this week!

Okay, I got a little silly playing with images… Here, with colorful critters, are my new arrivals — including three bought, one ARC courtesy of Goodreads FirstReads (yippee!), and a library book.

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

I’ve just started In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume, which jumps to the top of my priority list since it’s a non-renewable library book. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Judy Blume book — I still have fond/embarrassing memories of how into Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Deenie, and Forever we all were back in the day.

I’m behind on my ARCS. Still. Again. Forever. But in any case, I’m very determined to read What You Left Behind by Jessica Verdi this week.

Now playing via audiobook:

Just finished Mansfield Park! I could have sworn that I’d read Mansfield Park before, but the further I went in the audiobook, the more I realized that it was all pretty new to me. I’m glad to have filled in the gap in my Austen reading! Little, meek Fanny Price definitely grew on me, and despite shipping the wrong couple for a while, I was overall pretty charmed by this book.

So what’s next? I think it’s about time to shake things up and listen to something very different from all the Austens I’ve been spending time with lately… so, to get as un-Austen as might be possible, my next audiobook will be a collection of Dresden shorts by Jim Butcher:

Ongoing reads:

Two chapters per week for each of these, for my online book group discussions. Both books should be done by December!

So many book, so little time…

6Aug2015

Thursday Quotables: The Uncommon Reader

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
(published 2007 )

This slim novella is such a delight for a bookworm like me! What would happen if the Queen of England suddenly become an avid reader? In this fictional account of the Queen’s love of books, it’s all-consuming, highly inspirational (to her), and highly annoying (to everyone else). Here are a few snippets that I found so amusing:

1 – From a conversation with a servant about the Queen’s first book borrowed from the bookmobile near the palace grounds:

“How far did your Majesty get?”

“Oh, to the end. Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato — one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.”

2 – On why she’s so hooked:

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. […] … and this took her back to the beginning of her life. As a girl, one of her greatest thrills had been on VE night when she and her sister had slipped out of the gates and mingled unrecognised with the crowds. There was something of that, she felt, to reading. It was anonymous; it was shared; it was common. And she who had led a life apart now found that she craved it. Here in these pages and between these covers she could go unrecognised.

3 – On how irritating her Majesty’s reading is to her usual companions:

This dislike of the Queen’s reading was not confined to the household. Whereas in the past walkies had meant a noisy and restrained romp in the grounds, these days, once she was out of sight of her house, Her Majesty sank onto the nearest seat and took out her book. Occasionally she threw a bored biscuit in the direction of the dogs, but there was none of that ball-throwing, stick-fetching and orchestrated frenzy that used to enliven their perambulations. Indulged and bad-tempered though they were, the dogs were not unintelligent, so it was not surprising that in a short space of time they came to hate books as the spoilsports they were (and always have been).

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!

3Aug2015

The Monday Check-In ~ 8/3/2015

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

What did I read last week?

Wow, this has been a really slow reading week. Somehow, the time just slid away, and there was just too much else going on. I hate when that happens.

But I did manage to finish:

Demelza by Winston Graham, book 2 in the Poldark series. And if you want to hear more about the books or PBS’s Masterpiece production of Poldark, check out my very enthusiastic post, here. There’s even some delicious eye candy…

Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid: This was my weekend read, and I ended up really enjoying it. My review is here.

Fresh Catch:

Heartbreak! The very last volume in the wonderful Fables series arrived this week… and I’m holding off on reading it for a few more days until I feel really ready to see how it all works out.

Sharing the big version of the cover image — because it’s the last volume of Fables and it deserves all the love!

What will I be reading during the coming week?