• A.Word.A.Day

    Check out my favorite daily treat, A.Word.A.Day : The magic and music of words.

great beer quotations in literature: Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant

Posted on November 21, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Friends, I proudly come from a family of beer lovers, and have my eyes peeled not only for bicycle quotations in the books I read, but for those concerned with beer as well. I dipped into my very first de Maupassant the other day, and he satisfied.


He had his own fashion of uncorking the bottle and making the beer foam, gazing at it as he inclined his glass and then raised it to a position between the lamp and his eye that he might judge of its color. When he drank, his great beard, which matched the color of his favorite beverage, seemed to tremble with affection; his eyes positively squinted in the endeavor not to lose sight of the beloved glass, and he looked for all the world as if he were fulfilling the only function for which he was born. He seemed to have established in his mind an affinity between the two great passions of his life–pale ale and revolution–and assuredly he could not taste the one without dreaming of the other.

This evocation of trembling beer appreciation captivated me entirely. I am easily charmed.

It’s a great short story, too. Review to come.

Filed under: miscellaneous | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

selected quotations from Walden, with a qualification

Posted on November 12, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a highly quotable and oft-quoted book. I found myself marking passages rather more often than usual, sometimes because I was charmed and wanted to share a line with you later, and sometimes because I noted the origin of a maxim I was familiar with, whose author I hadn’t known before. I’ve already reviewed Walden, and now I want to share a selection of quotations with you too. But first, a qualification.

A friend & coworker sent me this article, which chiefly makes the point that Thoreau was a very complicated man who wore many hats (figuratively. who knows, maybe literally as well). The author notes the danger of quoting Thoreau: so many people know him through his reputation and these handpicked quotations, while rather few have read his work; and his work being so many things at once, so contradictory, handpicked quotations can be a dangerous tool. In other words, many of us may be thrown off by the quotations alone without reading the work. I’ve now read Walden, but the man was so terrifically prolific that I am hardly any closer to knowing Thoreau than I was before! So, fair warning. But I will now share my quotations just the same.

In order of their appearance (page numbers come from my pocket-sized red Barnes & Noble Collector’s Library edition). The book opens:

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbour, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labour of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilised life again. (7)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. (12)

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. (28)

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. (42)

…a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (88)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, adn see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (98)

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. (98)

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. (98)

My house never pleased my eye so much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it was more comfortable. (256)

The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. (269)

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness – to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. (334)

I will not try to improve upon this. Good day.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Posted on November 5, 2012 by pagesofjulia

my charming little copy of Walden


I have been thinking this review over carefully. Walden is an “important” book. I had some troubles with it, particularly about midway through, when I stalled for several days and was sure I was going to give up. This was while visiting Concord and Walden Pond, no less! I think I owe my father credit: he recommended that I just read it through, with less attention to note-taking and interpretation at every page along the way. And on my long travel day home, I got back into it.

What is it that made this book a little difficult for me? Well, the language is somewhat dated, and the sentences tend to be long and rambling. Picture several long clauses strung together, and then having to look back up half a page to see what the subject was that this verb, finally, is acting upon. That will slow a person down. And the subject matter, the thoughts being communicated, are often quite dense. When Thoreau writes descriptions of his natural surroundings, I can settle into the imagery and the poetry, and float along pleasantly. But when he philosophizes, I am often in trouble. Large ideas are presented here, regarding our relationship with the natural world, politics, and religion. Thoreau jumps around between these subjects. Perhaps this begins to help you understand my trouble.

The first chapter, “Economy,” is lengthy. In my edition it occupies 80 pages, of 350. And no later chapter runs longer than 20 pages. I enjoyed “Economy”: I sympathize with the points Thoreau makes therein. But maybe I was wearied by it. It wasn’t until 200+ pages that I stalled badly. And once I got back into it, I enjoyed it again. I can’t entirely explain that pattern, and I’m sure yours was/will be different. I think the biggest help I got was visiting Walden Pond. This is obvious, no? When my mother and I toured The Wayside, our park ranger/tour guide quoted Nathaniel Hawthorne (and I wish I could find the quotation) on visiting authors’ homes. The gist was that visiting the home of an author is the best way to better understand his or her work, and my (limited) experience visiting authors’ homes certainly backs this up. In this way, walking around Walden Pond enriched my appreciation of Walden and renewed my interest in it.

Walden is a memoir; a political tract; a geographical study; a fine piece of nature writing; and a poetic rambling by a unique sort of Renaissance man. I found it rather effortful reading, but worth it in the end. For those who enjoy thought-provoking, challenging, lyrical writings (and longish sentences), it should be a big hit. For those who find these characteristics a little daunting, but are interested in the legacy of Henry David Thoreau, I recommend giving it a go just the same. I’m glad I did. And go see the place in question if you can, too!

Rating: 6 fallen leaves.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Posted on October 16, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

As I’ll be in Concord, Mass. in just a few days to visit the very place (!), I am reading Walden this week. It shouldn’t have taken me this long! There is no shortage of quotable moments in this American classic, many of which you would recognize even if you never knew their provenance; but I chose one I thought especially clever, and a little humorous as well:

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Here, here, Mr. Thoreau. One of many gems.

For any Walden fans out there (like my friend I got to visit with this past weekend), I have a recommendation for further reading: I really enjoyed Edward Abbey’s short piece entitled “Down the River with Henry Thoreau.” I read it in the Abbey collection, Down the River, but you can also read it online here.

And what are YOU reading?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Posted on August 27, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Moll Flanders is our first-person narrator, presented in the Author’s Preface by Defoe as a real person whose story he has ostensibly edited; but don’t be fooled. It is a novel.

Moll begins with her birth and infancy as she understands it: she was born to a convicted thief in Newgate Prison, who “bled her belly” and was allowed to live until her baby (our titular character) was born. This is the story of Moll’s life, from gypsy infant to favorite child of a widow running a school for small girls, to the charity case in a rich family’s house where she is the elder brother’s mistress and then the younger brother’s wife. This first husband dies young and she leaves the family, starting afresh with a new husband who flees bankruptcy and debtor’s prison, telling her to make her own way and feel free to remarry. This leads her to a third husband, and now it begins to get really juicy: after traveling to Virginia together to farm a plantation, Moll gets to know her mother-in-law and discovers in horror that she is… her own mother. Moll has married her brother, and born him three children. At this point (after some drama) she returns alone to England.

Moll is befriended at Bath by a man who becomes her lover, and she his kept woman, until his near death causes him to repent his adultery and leaves her again shifting for herself. She is courted by an eligible banker – well, he will be eligible as soon as his divorce comes through… but in the meantime, marries a handsome man named Jemmy for his fortune as well as for the affection she feels for him. But she’s not yet to be happy: theirs is a union of double trickery, in which everyone loses, for he has married her for her (nonexistent) fortune as well, and gone into debt courting her, to boot. They part, and Jemmy, like husband number two, releases her to remarry if she finds a good option; but they share some loving moments, and he says he hopes to find her again one day when he’s made a (real) fortune.

At this point Moll intends to return to her banker, now divorced, but finds she is pregnant with Jemmy’s baby, so she takes a quick respite at the house of a woman she calls Mother Midnight. This woman is competent and caring, but criminal in her business of birthing unwanted and illegitimate babies and then disposing of them. After Moll has seen her child into adoption, she does marry the banker, and gets five years or so out of him before he dies. At this point I count five husbands, three of whom are still living, and my entirely casual count gives her something like 10 or 12 children, none of whom she has maintained a relationship with (the latest, the banker’s, she has Mother Midnight pass on). She is, again, destitute, and turns to petty theft and finally back to her friend Mother Midnight for help. This matron takes pleasure in training Moll in the fine arts of pickpocketing and conning, and the two become fast friends and make a fine living together; for the longest period yet, Moll is without male companionship and seems perfectly satisfied, indicating that her liaisons were more for the sake of financial security than anything else, although she has certainly enjoyed herself sexually as well. (There is a brief interlude of prostitution, in the most respectable manner, with a solitary high-class client.)

Moll’s criminal career goes smoothly; she is very good and very lucky. But her name (that is, her alias, “Moll Flanders” – we never know her real name) becomes well-known, and Newgate Prison, place of her birth, looms. Eventually, of course, she is captured, tried, and given a life sentence. During her time in Newgate, which she describes as the hellish place I have no doubt it was, she repents her life of sin (“a horrid complication of wickedness, whoredom, adultery, incest, lying, theft; and, in a word, everything but murder and treason”) and finds God. Eventually, with the ongoing friendship of Mother Midnight on the outside, Moll’s sentence is commuted to transportation, meaning she will be sent overseas into the New World, as was her mother. As a final coincidence, she is reunited with Jemmy, husband number four and rather a true love, who is imprisoned and also facing death for highway robbery. Things are worked out so that they travel together into the New World, where they start fresh with Moll’s still-considerable criminal savings. She meets the son of her incestuous brother-marriage, inherits a plantation from her mother, and continues to repent her days of wickedness. She and Jemmy, at the time of her supposed writing of these memoirs, have resettled in England with great fortune and happiness in their old age.

Whew.

It is a heck of a narrative: entertaining, spicy, lusty, juicy, well-told. There are interjected moral moments: I am amused to note that I’m that audience member Moll worries about, more tickled by her transgressions than moved by her repentance. As a story of her life, I find it diverting, and an interesting look into 17th century England, particularly the difficulties of being a woman without substantial fortune and male relatives to look after her – which good luck would have come with its own tribulations. As my edition’s notes repeatedly explained, Defoe himself spent a few years in Newgate Prison, and could write both passionately and accurately about the horrors of that place.

I read a “Barnes and Noble Classics” paperback, and found it, if anything, over-notated. Some of the helpful hints seemed aimed at a reader who had never ventured out of 20th and 21st century literature before; it was elementary for me, but no harm done. If you’re comfortable reading 18th century writings, I see no need for this edition, but it has something to offer if you’re less comfortable with some of the usages of that time. The introduction makes a case for Defoe writing possibly the first English novel – that was definitely a point of interest.

I enjoyed this book, and think it has an important place in classic lit: it both moralizes and sensationalizes, and entertains to boot. Moll is a rather outrageous character and I like her very much. Her spunk and determination to take care of herself presage Scarlett O’Hara, and her freedom with her own sexuality recalls Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley somewhat. Yet another banned book, of course, if you’re looking for a read for upcoming Banned Books Week! (That’s Sept. 30 – Oct. 6.)

Rating: 7 illicit relations.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Ajax by Sophocles

Posted on May 21, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I read Ajax from my copy of Electra and Other Plays after being reminded of his tragic story by Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. It is a short play, an easy read, but like so many of the greatest ancient Greek works, very sad.

Ajax was one of the great Greek heroes of the Trojan War. Indeed, Miller says several times in her book (in the voice of Patroclus) that he would have been The Greatest if it weren’t for Achilles – kind of a poignant thought. He’s like the Jan Ullrich of the Trojan War. This play by Sophocles dramatizes the action following Achilles’s death, as known to myth. The background: Achilles quarrels with Agamemnon and boycotts the war; Greeks are dying; Patroclus goes to battle disguised as Achilles to get everybody going again; Hector (the great Trojan hero) kills Patroclus. Achilles is enraged, takes the battlefield, and in turn kills Hector, thus putting into action the prophecy that Achilles himself will die shortly thereafter. He does: killed by an arrow fired by Paris, who started all this nonsense in the first place.

With the Greeks’ hero Achilles dead, it is time for Ajax to shine. But Agamemnon chooses to award Achilles’s trophies of war, not to Ajax, but to Odysseus. Ajax is furious. And now begins the play…

Ajax has determined to kills the sons of Atreus (Agamemnon and Menelaus), Odysseus, and all the Greeks who have failed to honor him as he feels he deserves. He goes on a killing spree overnight. But Athena, good friend especially to Odysseus, tricks his eyes so that he ends up killing a bunch of livestock and no human Greeks. As the play begins, she is explaining this to Odysseus, offering him the view of Ajax, mad, blind, confused, killing sheep and calling them Greek names. Odysseus balks, but we end up seeing the scene. Ajax comes to his senses, sees how he has been shamed, and immediately begins planning his suicide. The Chorus (that tool of Greek drama, the group of citizens that comments on the action) and Ajax’s wife Tecmessa try to talk him out of it, reminding him of the pain his parents would feel, and the dubious fate of Tecmessa and their son if left without husband/father. He seems to change his mind, and goes offstage. But then his brother shows up, distraught, citing a prophecy that Ajax will die today. The scene shifts to watch Ajax bury the hilt of his sword, make a short speech, and throw himself upon it.

Tecmessa and the Chorus mourn; Ajax’s brother, Teucer, mourns, and plans to bury the body. Agamemnon shows up and makes disparaging remarks, commanding that the body of Ajax not be buried at all. Now, I’ve read these things before, and (ahem Antigone) you’d think these characters would have learned by now: you have to bury the dead! The gods are mightily displeased if you do not. This is an important tenet of custom and piety. Luckily, Odysseus next arrives on the scene. He had been insulting Ajax earlier, declared him an enemy, but here he lives up to his reputation for wisdom: Odysseus talks Agamemnon into allowing a reverent burial, and the grief-stricken family of Ajax carries on with their ritual. It seems that Teucer will take care of Tecmessa and her son.

I find this to be a moving story, despite the removal of centuries and the difference of cultures… I guess I’ve read enough related myth that I have learned to identify with it. I love the stories of gods and heroes, how they’re all interrelated and how the actions of one generation can effect so many generations to come. (See the above reference to the House of Atreus. That man’s impious mistake will continue to cost his offspring – just watch what happens to Agamemnon when he gets home from war.) And I mainly read Sophocles (et al) for the stories… so I had to remind myself to slow down and appreciate the language, too. I think I prefer the poetry of Homer, but I can just imagine actually seeing this performed… that would be a treat.

Rating: 6 dramatic gasps.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Posted on May 17, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I read this book in a day, rapt and tearful and awed. Madeline Miller, I love you. Write more, please.

I expect that most people are at least vaguely familiar with the story of the Trojan War, even if you never read the Iliad, yes? The Greeks sail to Troy in pursuit of Helen, “the face that launched a thousand ships” (that’s these ships!), the most beautiful woman in the world, stolen from her king-husband Menelaus by the Trojan prince Paris. They fight at the gates of Troy for ten years before Odysseus’s characteristically clever notion of the big wooden horse (the Trojan horse of idiom) wins the war for the Greeks. Achilles is a hero of the war, on the Greeks’ side. He had been sitting the war out in protest against an offense to his pride when his close friend (and, most scholars agree, lover) Patroclus goes into battle and is killed. In the opening scene of the Iliad, Achilles is mad with grief and rage, about to rush into battle, kill Hector, and be killed by Paris.

That’s the background. Miller, a scholar of ancient languages (including Greek) and theatre has written a novel from Patroclus’s point of view. This gave her quite a bit of leeway, since Patroclus is not given much coverage in Homer or in ancient myth generally; she got to do what she wanted with him. Here, we see him grow up from a boy: he was a disappointment to his father, then was exiled in dishonor and sent away to be fostered in another kingdom, where Achilles is the prince and heir. The two boys form a decidedly unlikely friendship, with Patroclus the dishonored and weak following in the footsteps of Achilles, whose future is prophesied to be something enormous: he will be Aristos Achaion, the greatest of the Greeks.

Patroclus joins Achilles in his studies and their bond grows closer until they become lovers. They are not eager to join the Greeks and sail to Troy to fight for another king’s wife, but circumstances (and Odysseus, the crafty one) conspire to see them off. From there, you can revisit my synopsis of the Iliad, above – except that we keep Patroclus’s perspective, which actually made the Trojan War that I thought I knew so well spring fresh from the page.

And that is one of the several strengths of this book: that an ancient myth that is familiar to many readers, like me, becomes so real, new, crisp & juicy in Miller’s hands. It definitely made me want to go back and reread the Iliad, as well as other cited works. (Check out the Character Glossary, whether you think you need it or not, for background as well as mentions of other books you’ll want to go find.) The myth of the Trojan War comes alive with Patroclus as it hasn’t before.

Another great strength is the emotional impact Miller achieves. This book is moving, sweet, heartfelt, powerful, in its tragedies as in its loving moments – and the tragedies are plentiful. There is visceral wrath in Achilles’s mother Thetis and her hatred of all mortals and Patroclus in particular; that emotion comes through just as strongly as the love that makes Patroclus put aside jealousy and envy, makes him put Achilles’s needs before his own. I noticed that the first-person voice of Patroclus rarely uses the name Achilles, but just refers to his lover as “he” – thus emphasizing the extent to which Achilles is the center of his world.

As I said at the start of this review, I want more of this! It’s so well done. If you’re taking requests, Ms. Miller, I would like to read a book about what happened to the happy family of Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus following the conclusion of the Odyssey: how does Odysseus manage to gracefully step down from power and transfer to Telemachus without sacrificing any of his machismo? Reading The Song of Achilles raised this question for me – how a king could step down and preserve his dignity and quality of life. I wonder, too, whether Penelope ever gets grumpy about all the philandering Odysseus did along his homeward journey, while she was standing strong against the suitors.

In a nutshell, this retelling of the Trojan War and the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is lovely, loving, sweet and deeply emotional; it preserves the grand, sweeping scale and feeling of humanity and drama in the original, but brings it freshly alive in an appealingly different format. The Song of Achilles made me sigh and think and cry, and I wanted more when it was all gone. This may very well be the best book I’ve read in 2012.

Rating: a rare 10 loving caresses.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Posted on May 15, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

Head’s up, friends: expect a wildly raving review of The Song of Achilles in the next few days. I am mad for this book. I’ve chosen a teaser for you today that I especially enjoyed.

This was no slouchy prince of wine halls and debauchery, as Easterners were said to be. This was a man who moved like the gods were watching; every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector.

I reread this passage a few times, it made me so happy. Run out and get you a copy.

What are you reading this week?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

did not finish: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (audio)

Posted on May 10, 2012 by pagesofjulia

The War of the Worlds is a classic, and H.G. Wells is a respected name. I guess I’d only read his The Invisible Man, as a very young (I had assumed, too young) girl; it didn’t resonate much with me. I thought I’d give him a second chance with this sort of landmark work in early science fiction, and I selected the audio version because of the story attached to its original radio production that caused all that panic when people thought the Martians were *really* attacking. But this one was a fail for me. I quit about halfway through.

First, I’ll give you a partial plot synopsis: Our unnamed narrator-character (not to be confused with the narrator of the audiobook, who will be discussed shortly), a resident of the English countryside, describes what seemed to be falling stars but turn out to be giant cylinders fired from a rocket on Mars. These land, every 24 hours, around London and disgorge Martians, who turn out to be better-armed than the locals, technologically superior, and unfriendly. They operate giant tripod-machines that shoot fire and destroy land, crops, vegetation and people. The Brits try to fight back with their inferior weapons but are getting their butts kicked. And then I stopped listening.

The style of narration was dry. I was easily bored; my mind wandered. I think the audio-narrator, Bill Weideman, was part of my problem. For one thing, he has the odd habit of dropping the occasional leading consonant, like so: “we are ‘ill waiting” (for “still waiting”) and the like. I am perplexed at why you would choose someone with such a strange habit of speech to narrate an audiobook; I was frequently confused as to certain words he pronounced in this manner. Another oddity involved accents. This story is set in England, and when the narrator quotes other characters he gives them an English accent (which by the way seemed excessively nasal and frankly annoyed me), but in the voice of the main-character-narrator, no accent was used (meaning, he sounded American to me). I did not learn, in the half of the book I listened to before giving up, if the narrator was in fact American. But perhaps most generally, Weideman and Wells between them created a monotonous, even soporific effect on me. I couldn’t seem to focus on following the story, as the narrator (in both senses) felt emotionless to me. I can understand how the idea of “total warfare,” total destruction of acres upon acres of land and men and women and children were demolished wholesale in a single sweep of the Martians’ weapons, was shocking to this book’s original audience (1898) and that of the radio drama (1938). But in a world that has seen an atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, perhaps the impact is lessened.

Of course, as is always the case when I read a Great Classic and do not find myself moved, there is the question of whether there’s something wrong with me: what did I miss? I do not discourage you from trying out this well-known and well-respected book (although I might discourage you from trying Weideman’s audio narration). I hope you like it. I did not.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

book beginnings on Friday: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Posted on May 4, 2012 by pagesofjulia


Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I am listening to this classic on audiobook, read by Bill Weideman. It begins, somewhat philosophically:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.

I admit I’m finding it a tad slow, but here we go. Have you read this one? I was attracted by the audio format because of the stories of its original radio broadcast, in which people panicked, thinking it was a real-life news story! What an exciting time that must have been.

What are you reading this weekend?

Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 109 other followers

%d bloggers like this: