Posted on January 22, 2013 by pagesofjulia
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!
What an interesting study of a woman I’d never heard of – which has turned out to be a genre I really enjoy, in fact. (Biographies of women I’ve never heard of, that is.) And one of the central themes is the nature, and limitations, of memory:
Perhaps memory is only an element of the process, and memory modifies itself when being evoked. Perhaps memory does not weave a tapestry but runs along a particular strand, uniquely under the influence of the moment.
I am sure we can all sympathize with the shortcomings of our memories; but perhaps few have paid a price like the one Vera Gran paid. Stay tuned for my review.
This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: history, nonfiction | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 15, 2013 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!
This is an interesting book. Its subject is the Italian Mafia and its global role; and most of the prose is straightforward. But it occasionally meanders into fancy, even poetry, as here:
In the middle of Piazza Marina there’s a huge magnolia fig tree that has grown into a vast and magical forest. The trunk is reddish brown, like the Sicilian soil, and has transformed itself into some fabulous creature that consists of knotted, frozen snakes, dragons half hidden in the ground, and elongated elephants. Every time I turn my back on this tree I half expect it to stretch out its arms and grab me.
I am charmed. And the Mafia bits are fine, too. 🙂
This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: history, nonfiction, true crime | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 8, 2013 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!
I can’t tell you how happy I am to be reimmersed in Edward Abbey. For today’s teaser, I’ve chosen a crudely-stated bit of philosophy that I enjoyed, uttered by an unnamed character in a jailhouse scene:
Serenity is for the gods – not becoming in a mortal. Better to be partisan and passionate on this earth; be plenty objective enough when dead.
Something about this sentiment struck me. I like the idea of being partisan and passionate on this earth. Maybe because I am. 🙂
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: misc fiction | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 1, 2013 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!
Sorry. I know I just teased you with this one recently, but it’s simply too much fun. See:
He patted the large book that was the Prose Portal and looked at Mycroft’s genetically engineered bookworms. They were on rest & recuperation at present in their goldfish bowl; they had just digested a recent meal of prepositions and were happily farting out apostrophes and ampersands; the air was heavy with them.
How could I have passed up the meal of prepositions and the farting of apostrophes? I ask you. Great fun, this world of Thursday Next!
Happy reading in 2013, kids! Year-in-review post coming later on today.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: book mystery, fantasy, mystery | 1 Comment »
Posted on December 18, 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!
For those unfamiliar with Jasper Fforde, he writes unique fantasy or alternate-reality mystery novels that take place in a world of books. I read his The Big Over Easy years ago, about the pushing of Humpty Dumpty over the wall; this is my first (and the first) of his Thursday Next series, in which a character by that name (yes, Thursday) works as a Literary Detective. Here’s a tease from the early pages:
…no one was taking any chances since a deranged individual had broken into Chawton, threatening to destroy all Jane Austen’s letters unless his frankly dull and uneven Austen biography was published.
What I think is charming about this story is the world in which books, and art, matter as much as anything does. It’s great fun for those of us who love books, to imagine a world that shares our value system. Also, because cloning and genetic engineering has come so far in Thursday’s alternate world, she has a pet dodo bird named Pickwick, and that’s pretty cute, too.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: fantasy, mystery | 6 Comments »
Posted on December 11, 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!
James Lee Burke is always wonderful. Of all the attractive quotations to tease you with, I couldn’t resist this literary allusion…
Cassandra had been given knowledge of the future and simultaneously condemned to a lifetime of being disbelieved and rejected. The wearisome preoccupation of the elderly – namely, the conviction that they had already seen the show but could never pass on the lessons they had learned from it – was not unlike Cassandra’s burden, except the anger and bitterness of old people was not the stuff of Homeric epics.
…especially when fused with wistful musings on age and its trials.
What are you reading this week?
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: audio, James Lee Burke, mystery | Leave a comment »
Posted on December 4, 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!
I am transfixed by Jared Diamond’s new book. For example:
Although the specific role of TV has not been quantified in India, a study in Australia found that each hour per day spent watching TV is associated with an 18% increase in cardiovascular mortality (much of it related to diabetes), even after controlling for other risk factors such as waist circumference, smoking, alcohol intake, and diet. But those factors notoriously increase with TV watching time, so the true figure must be even larger than that 18% estimate.
This is the kind of statement I find fascinating, shocking, and utterly unsurprising all at once. Although sinister, it does make me want to read more! How about you?
This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: nonfiction | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 27, 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!
This is a beautiful coffee table book, chock full of stunning photographs as well as short essays about the glories of the Alaskan Arctic.
“Wow! Bumblebee on a lousewort!” Patrick Endres shouts through the wind, so excited that you think he’s just spotted his first grizzly bear. For a photographer like Patrick, small is just as important as big.
I read this vignette as allegory: one of the points of this book, in fact, is that small (flowers, birds, linguistic groups) matters as much as big (oil, industry, money). But seriously, go get it for the photos, if nothing else!
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: nature, nonfiction | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 20, 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!
I confess I thought this looked a little silly. Maybe it’s the whole vampires-in-pop-fiction trend? But I confess, I like it. And there’s a movie, you know… Here’s a teaser.
I shouted after him: “Why haven’t you killed me!” His answer came calmly from the next room. “Some people, Abraham, are just too interesting to kill.”
And maybe that’s how the book is striking me, too. Too interesting to kill. 🙂
What are you reading this week? Do share.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: fantasy, historical fiction, paranormal, sci fi | 5 Comments »
Posted on November 13, 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!
On Extinction has been out in the UK for a year or so now, but is just coming to the US in December. Its subjects are several, but I find the nature writing to be some of the loveliest parts.
Above me, the skies were blue but for the tightrope of the horizon balancing a giant rhombus-shaped raincloud. The scuffing of the waves across the riveted stone of the cove was like a dare.
Don’t you agree?
And what did the waves dare her to do? Stay tuned!
This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.
Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: nature, nonfiction | 1 Comment »
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