The Thousand and One Books

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unapologeticallyamelia — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:24:05 -0500

"[But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen.] And all that cal."

unapologeticallyamelia — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:21:05 -0500

“[But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen.] And all that cal.”

- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

"It was not the feeling of completeness that I needed, but the feeling of not being empty."

unapologeticallyamelia — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:41:05 -0500

“It was not the feeling of completeness that I needed, but the feeling of not being empty.”

- Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

"I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:26:06 -0500

“I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"I am not a bad person. I am a good person living in a bad time."

unapologeticallyamelia — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:27:05 -0500

““I am not a bad person. I am a good person living in a bad time.””

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"I would give everything for them to live without violence. Peace. That is all that I would ever want..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:41:05 -0500

“I would give everything for them to live without violence. Peace. That is all that I would ever want from them. Not money and not even love. It is still possible. I know that now, and it is the cause of so much happiness in me.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)

"One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family."

unapologeticallyamelia — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:37:05 -0500

““One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.””

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

twobillionwords: Page 68 of Everything Is Illuminated. Picture:...

unapologeticallyamelia — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:57:05 -0500

twobillionwords:

Page 68 of Everything Is Illuminated.

Picture: weheartit.com/entry/15142551

"If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:28:06 -0500

“If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller’s felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.”

- Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

"Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:36:05 -0500

“Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night’s sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn’t hear her husband’s ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren’s will be. But we learn to live in that love.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

twobillionwords: Page 229 of Everything Is...

unapologeticallyamelia — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:41:06 -0500

twobillionwords:

Page 229 of Everything Is Illuminated.

Picture: wesharethesadness.tumblr.com/post/6478768219

"He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:51:06 -0500

““He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others—the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.””

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:27:05 -0500

“Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving; and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for.”

- Jonathon Safran Foer.

"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:40:05 -0500

“She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything is Illuminated

COMPLETED: Everything is Illuminated AND One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:55:45 -0500

As you may have already figured out, I’ve finished reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book makes my definitely recommend list. It’s beautiful and compelling and funny and engaging and heartbreaking. And it’s altogether just wonderful, so read it, ok?

(Interesting fact #1: This book stemmed from Foer’s research for his senior thesis.)

(Interesting fact #2: Foer is married to Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love. They both write beautifully and create great stories. I envy their children.)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was an interesting read. The horror stories about the asylum are both fascinating and sickening, and the characters are delightfully odd (though rarely as insane as they’d like you to believe). It contributes to some interesting conspiracy theories about society’s desire to emasculate all men so women can have power too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

In other news, I finished reading Minor Characters and the horrible racial psychology book as well. I’d recommend Minor Characters. Definitely wouldn’t recommend the other one, unless you’d just like to bore yourself to death.

Up next: A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss.

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unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:40:06 -0500

"She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:55:05 -0500

“She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an urgent, desperate struggle to justify her life.”

- Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Let love write on you.

unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:25:00 -0500

-Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"This is love, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything?..."

unapologeticallyamelia — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:29:44 -0500

“This is love, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

Now Reading:

unapologeticallyamelia — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:04:25 -0500

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey
Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Oh, and let’s not forget…

“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D.

I’m exceedingly thrilled about that last one. [insert sarcastic eye rolling here] Hooray for required reading in an education class.

And on my upcoming reads list:

Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss
Big House by Nicole Krauss
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti