In chapter 15 of Diana Gabaldon’s Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Jenny says of Jamie,
.
.
This line made me chuckle. My husband is just like this, though he also very frequently explains himself. 😉 Kind of scary how observant he is.
“
Carlos Ruiz Zafón in Shadow of the Wind p. 10
If you are a book lover and you haven’t read Zafón’s beautifully poetic novel Shadow of the Wind, go order it from your local public library! (You’ll probably need to buy it, but I always like to start at the library, to be sure.). The story is set in Barcelona and the power of story is thematic. I read it just after I’d returned from visiting the city, and the images were impressed on my brain. Our apartment was near the key Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and as he describes streets, I could visualize them, having walked them only a few weeks earlier.
Have you read it? What did you think? Can you relate to this quote? Do you still carry your imaginary literary friends in your heart?
Barcelona from Mont Juic.
(Mom taking photo of kids taking photos. lol)
Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are the books…which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.
(John Green, The Fault In Our Stars p. 33)
Obviously for me Outlander is the book series that fills me with evangelical zeal. I’ve been trying to think what the special and rare book is for me, that I’d not want to share with anyone. I can’t think of one. Then again, I’m not a very private person, and as a librarian, I’m kind of into the whole sharing books, though I try to match the book to the right person, of course. How about you? Do you have a rare and special book that you hold close to your heart?
PS. If you haven’t read the amazing book I’m quoting from above, you really should check it out. I think it was one of the best books I’ve read in the last year (and I read over a hundred books in the last year).
Listen
to whispers,
stories in the wall.
Poems found,
Titles titillate,
tease, and
tantalize.
Writing on the wall
whispers
through the room.
.
.
.
Last weekend I started wallpapering my dining room with pages from a book. I was given a copy of Diana Gabaldon’s Drums of Autumn last fall. I already have a copy, and the gift had a broken binding, so I pondered ways to use it for practical purpose. Today I’m putting the finishing touches on. Most of the wall layout is fairly straight-forward, but I had 9 extra inches that I centred, and there I’ve been playing. I’ve included copies of autographs we have in other Diana Gabaldon books (copied onto a blank page of the book to match perfectly). I’ve cut graphic bits from Part divisions and used them decoratively. I’ve taken chapter titles and made them into little poems. I’m really liking my very unique wall!
This is a close up on a ‘poem section’ made with section and chapter titles:
Je t’aime
beaucoup
passionnément
pas de tout.
Blame
Forgiveness
The toss of a coin.
Here are the dedications (John’s is actually in the copy of The Scottish Prisoner and says “For John- No one looks better than a man in a kilt!” Mine is in The Exile and says, “To Shawn, Wonderful to meet you in person!”):
Here’s a step back at the wall. The diamond medallions spaced across the top were from dividing pages:
Here I am again, planning on an early night, and before you know it, it’s midnight. Tyrion Lannister has it right in Clash of Kings. He says,
Sleep is good.
Books are better.
~George R. R. Martin
“So it’s not just stories you want, then” Maggie said, eyeing Cedar keenly. “You want the truth. Well, there is truth to be found in stories, that’s for certain.”
“Not all stories are true,” Eden piped up from her father’s lap.
“They’re always true about something, little one,” Maggie said, passing Eden another cookie. “If not about what actually happened, then maybe about the person telling the story–or about the person hearing it…”
(Jodi McIsaac Into the Fire p. 136)
I particularly like the last sentence there, because half of the story is in the reader, and the connections s/he makes with it. More than that though, is the very fact that the reader picked that story says something, as does that the writer wrote that story. Subconsciously intentional choices are all around us. 😉
“Sometimes,” Jem said, “our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It’s those time, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered–that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can’t imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.” (Clockwork Angel, p. 308)
I remember sitting in the hospital chapel on Easter Sunday just after the birth of my daughter. I sat there, with tears streaming down my face, just absorbing all the change. My life would never be the same again. It wasn’t. I left the hospital and embarked upon a completely different adventure.
What time in your life were you suddenly engulfed and overwhelmed by change?
Will grinned. “Some of these books are dangerous,” he said. “It’s wise to be careful.”
“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us… Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
Cassandra Clare in Clockwork Angel (p. 86)
I’m always so sad when I hear from kids boasting that they’ve never read a book. They miss so much opportunity to learn and grow! Readers live thousands of lives, experience diverse perspectives, and make emotional connections with worlds far apart from their own.
What literature and poetry have influenced you?
They said
short stories were out of fashion
but you wrote them any way
They said
women didn’t make good
subjects for novels
but you wrote them anyway
They said
Canada doesn’t have a literary voice
along with Margaret, Hugh, Leonard, et al
you wrote one anyway.
They said
Alice is Nobel and you said,
‘I forgot that was today.’
.
.
Congratulations to Canada’s Alice Munro who today received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Interviewed this morning on CBC she said that she’d forgotten today was the announcement, and when her daughter woke her at 4:00 to tell her she’d won, she said, “Won what?”
Of course, any way.
Shawn L. Bird 