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565. How to Stop Time

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    Matt Haig

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy

352 pages, published June 11, 2019

Reading Format:   Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

Tom Hazard has a extremely rare medical condition that does not allow him to age like the rest of us.  While he looks 41 years old, he was born centuries earlier during the Elizabethan Age.  As a member of the Albatross Society, Tom has to follow their cardinal rule:  don’t fall in love.  However, after he moves back to his old home of London and starts working as a history teacher, Tom meets a , his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he becomes smitten with an enchanting French teacher.  He must then navigate the dangerous territory between his heart and his head.

Quotes 

“And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?”

 

 “Whenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I don’t expect, I feel civilisation has become a little safer.”

 

“That’s the thing with time, isn’t it? It’s not all the same. Some days – some years – some decades – are empty. There is nothing to them. It’s just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing.”

 

“Everything is going to be all right. Or, if not, everything is going to be, so let’s not worry.”

 

“I

Like

The Way

That when you

Tilt

Poems

On their side

They

Look like

Miniature

Cities

From

A long way

Away.

Skyscrapers

Made out

Of

Words.”

 

“People you love never die. That is what Omai had said, all those years ago. And he was right. They don’t die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters.”

 

“To talk about memories is to live them a little.”

 

“Music doesn’t get in. Music is already in. Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn’t necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up. A rebirth of sorts.”

 

“It made me lonely. And when I say lonely, I mean the kind of loneliness that howls through you like a desert wind. It wasn’t just the loss of people I had known but also the loss of myself. The loss of who I had been when I had been with them.”

 

“As far as I can see, this is a problem with living in the twenty-first century. Many of us have every material thing we need, so the job of marketing is now to tie the economy to our emotions, to make us feel like we need more by making us want things we never needed before. We are made to feel poor on thirty thousand pounds a year. To feel poorly travelled if we have been to only ten other countries. To feel too old if we have a wrinkle. To feel ugly if we aren’t photoshopped and filtered. No one I knew in the 1600s wanted to find their inner billionaire.  They just wanted to live to see adolescence and avoid body lice.”

 

“Maybe Shakespeare was right. Maybe all the world was a stage. Maybe without the act everything would fall apart. The key to happiness wasn’t being yourself, because what did that even mean? Everyone had many selves. No. The key to happiness is finding the lie that suits you best.”

 

“Human beings, as a rule, simply don’t accept things that don’t fit their worldview.”

 

“She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.”

 

“There is only the present. Just as every object on earth contains similar and interchanging atoms, so every fragment of time contains aspects of every other.  In those monents that burst alive the present lasts for ever, and I know there are many more presents to live. I understand you can be free. I understand that the way you stop time is by stopping being ruled by it. I am no longer drowning in my past, or fearful of my future. How can I be? The future is you.”

 

“Maybe that is what it takes to love someone. Finding a happy mystery you would like to unravel for ever.”

 

“The longer you live, the harder it becomes. To grab them. Each little moment as it arrives. To be living in something other than the past or the future. To be actually here.  Forever, Emily Dickinson said, is composed of nows. But how do you inhabit the now you are in? How do you stop the ghosts of all the other nows from getting in? How, in short, do you live?”

 

“History was, is, a one-way street. You have to keep walking forwards, but you don’t always need to look ahead. Sometimes you can just look around and be happy right where you are.”

 

 “She gave me peace just by looking at her, which might explain why I looked at her for too long, and with too much intensity in my eyes. The way people never look at people anymore. I wanted her in every sense.”

 

 “That is one of the patterns: when nothing is happening, nothing continues to happen, but after a while the lull becomes too much and the drums need to kick in. Something has to happen. Often that need comes from yourself. You make a phone call. You say, “I can’t do this life anymore, I need to change.’ And one thing happens which you are in control of. And then another happens which you have no control over. Newton’s third law of motion. Actions create reactions. When things start to happen, other things start to happen. But sometimes it seems there is no explanation as to why the things are happening – why all the buses are coming along at once – why life’s moments of luck and pain arrive in clusters. All we can do is observe the pattern, the rhythm, and then live it.”

 

“This is so often the way with life. You spend so much time waiting for something – a person, a feeling, a piece of information – that you can’t quite absorb it when it is in front of you. The hole is so used to being a hole it doesn’t know how to close itself.”

 

“Nothing fixes a thing so firmly in the memory as the wish to forget it.”

 

“It is strange how close the past is, even when you imagine it to be so far away. Strange how it can just jump out of a sentence and hit you. Strange how every object or word can house a ghost.”

 

“I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It’s a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.”

 

“Everything in life is uncertain. That is how you know you are existing in the world, the uncertainty. Of course, this is why we sometimes want to return to the past, because we know it, or think we do. It’s a song we’ve heard.”

 

“I loved her, instantly. Of course, most parents love their children instantly. But I mention it here because I still find it a remarkable thing. Where was that love before? Where did you acquire it from? The way it is suddenly there, total and complete, as sudden as grief, but in reverse, is one of the wonders about being human.”

 

“That is the whole thing with the future. You don’t know. At some point you have to accept that you don’t know. You have to stop flicking ahead and just concentrate on the page you are on.”

 

“There comes a time when the only way to start living is to tell the truth. To be who you really are, even if it is dangerous.”

 

My Take

Having thoroughly enjoyed Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, I went in search of another book by this very creative, thought-provoking author.  After reading How to Stop Time, I was not disappointed. Like The Midnight Library, Haig takes a very interesting idea, adds in a relateable protagonist and creates a book that is a pleasure to read and to think about long after finishing.  Highly recommended.

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558. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    V.E. Schwab

Genre:   Fiction, Romance, Fantasy

442 pages, published October 6, 2020

Reading Format:   Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue tells the story of Addie LaRue, a French woman who makes a deal with the devil in 1714 to avoid an unwanted arranged marriage.  She strikes a bargain that she does not fully appreciate the implications of.  She will live forever, but is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.  We follow Addie over the course of 300 years until she meets a young man who remembers her name and that changes everything.

Quotes 

What she needs are stories.

Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.

Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”

 

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”

 

 “…it is sad, of course, to forget.

But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten.

 

 “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because visions weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades…. Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end… everyone wants to be remembered”

 

“Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.”

 

 “There is a defiance in being a dreamer”

 

“Blink, and the years fall away like leaves.”

 

“Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.”

 

“Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”

 

 “Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.”

 “Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?”

 

“It is just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake.”

 

“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price. And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

 

“His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.”

 

“You know,” she’d said, “they say people are like snowflakes, each one unique, but I think they’re more like skies. Some are cloudy, some are stormy, some are clear, but no two are ever quite the same.”

 

“But this is how you walk to the end of the world. This is how you live forever. Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone.”

 

“But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.”

 

 “I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play.”

 

 “I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”

 

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”

 

“Humans are so ill-equipped for peace.”

 

“And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.

Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?

Were the moments of beauty worth the year of pain?

And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says ‘Always.”

 

 “March is such a fickle month. It is the seam between winter and spring—though seam suggests an even hem, and March is more like a rough line of stitches sewn by an unsteady hand, swinging wildly betw

een January gusts and June greens. You don’t know what you’ll find, until you step outside.”

 

My Take

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was a wonderful read.  The author takes an interesting premise, what would happen if you could live forever but no one would remember you, and goes to town with it.  Addie is a fascinating character and her repartee with Luke (aka the Darkness) who controls her fate is highly entertaining.  I listened to the audio version which was very well done and which I highly recommend.

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531. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Kate DiCamillo

Genre:  Fiction, Young Adult, Children, Fantasy

200 pages, published February 14, 2006

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a children’s fable about an impeccably dressed china rabbit named Edward Tulane.  Edward was owned by a girl named Abilene who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely until one day he was lost overboard while Abilene’s family was at sea.  Edward then embarks on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hoboes’ camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis.  Along the way, he learns the lesson that “Someone will come for you, but first you must open your heart.”

Quotes 

“Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”

 

 “Once there was a princess who was very beautiful. She shone bright as the stars on a moonless night. But what difference did it make that she was beautiful? None. No difference.”

Why did it make no difference?” asked Abilene.

Because,” said Pellegrina, “She was a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her.”

 

“Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.”

 

“Perhaps,” said the man, “you would like to be lost with us. I have found it much more agreeable to be lost in the company of others.”

 

“I have been loved, Edward told the stars. So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?”

 

“Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me. The old woman turned and hobbled away. Come back, thought Edward. Fix me”

 

“But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?”

 

“It is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it.”

 

“You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.”

 

“But let’s not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.”

 

“Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly, Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.”

 

“Edward thought about everything that had happened to him in his short life. What kind of adventures would you have if you were in the world for a century? The old doll said, “I wonder who will come for me this time. Someone will come. Someone always comes. Who will it be?” “I don’t care if anyone comes for me,” said Edward. “But that’s dreadful,” said the old doll. “There’s no point in going on if you feel that way. No point at all. You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.” “I am done with being loved,” Edward told her. “I’m done with loving. It’s too painful.” “Pish,” said the old doll. “Where is your courage?” “Somewhere else, I guess,” said Edward. “You disappoint me,” she said. “You disappoint me greatly. If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless. You might as well leap from this shelf right now and let yourself shatter into a million pieces. Get it over with. Get it all over with now.” “I would leap if I was able,” said Edward. “Shall I push you?” said the old doll”

 

“It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love.”

 

“They were always on the move.But in truth said bull we are all going nowhere”

 

 “SEASONS PASSED, FALL AND WINTER and spring and summer. Leaves blew in through the open door of Lucius Clarke’s shop, and rain, and the green outrageous hopeful light of spring. People came and went, grandmothers and doll collectors and little girls with their mothers. Edward Tulane waited. The seasons turned into years. Edward Tulane waited. He repeated the old doll’s words over and over until they wore a smooth groove of hope in his brain: Someone will come; someone will come for you.”

 “But in truth,’ said Bull, ‘we are going nowhere. That my friend, is the irony of our constant movement.”

 

“Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.”

 

“I have already been loved,” said Edward. “I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died. Don’t talk to me about love,” he said. “I have known love.”

 

My Take

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a beautifully written adventure story for children but which also has a lot to say to adults.  It’s theme of loving and being loved, even when your heart is broken, is an eternal one and is conveyed through a compelling and heartwarming story.  The illustrations are exquisite and add quite a bit to the narrative.  A great book to read to a child.

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530. Klara and the Sun

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction

304 pages, published March 2, 2021

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

Klara and the Sun is set in the near future and is told from the perspective of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities.  When she is purchased to serve as a friend to fourteen year old Josie who suffers from a potentially terminal illness, Klara learns that her role may be different from what she expected.

Quotes 

 

My Take

Klara and the Sun is the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and it does not disappoint.  In the same vein as his earlier dystopian novel Never Let Me Go (a book I also really enjoyed), Ishiguro creates a fascinating world not too dissimilar to our current one, but different enough to make you think about the horror of the changes society has decided to accept.  Klara and the Sun explores compelling themes such as what does it mean to be a human, what is our purpose on this earth and what is love.  One of the best books that I have read in a long while.  Highly recommended.

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494. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:   Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

759 pages, published  July 21, 2007

Reading Format:   Audiobook

Summary

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the final book in the classic series by JK Rowling.  The book, and the series, build to a final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort.  Only one can survive.

Quotes 

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

 

“It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.”

 

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”

 

“Death’s got an Invisibility Cloak?” Harry interrupted again.

“So he can sneak up on people,” said Ron. “Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking…”

 

“Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

“After all this time?”

“Always,” said Snape.”

 

“He can run faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo.”

“Cinderella? Snow White? What’s that? An illness?”

 “Albus Severus,” Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, “you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

 

 “There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.  “Is this the moment?” Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. “OI! There’s a war going on here!”  Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.  “I know, mate,” said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, “so it’s now or never, isn’t it?”

“Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?” Harry shouted. “D’you think you could just — just hold it in, until we’ve got the diadem?”  “Yeah — right — sorry —” said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.”

 

 “I’m going to keep going until I succeed — or die. Don’t think I don’t know how this might end. I’ve known it for years.”

 

 “Does it hurt?” The childish question had escaped Harry’s lips before he could stop it.

“Dying? Not at all,” said Sirius. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

 

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

 

 “Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.”

 

 “Here lies Dobby, a free elf.”

 

“Snape’s patronus was a doe,’ said Harry, ‘the same as my mother’s because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from when they were children.”

 

“The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us?’

Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him.”

 

My Take

I read through the entire Harry Potter set with my son Nick while he was in elementary school.  It was a pleasure then and at least an equal pleasure to listen to the audio version of the books during my reading quest.  Narrator Jim Dale is masterful, creating unique and fitting voices for all of the characters.  Author J.K. Rowling finishes the series strong with rising tension, compelling character arcs and a perfect ending.  Even if you have previously read the series, I highly recommend trying out the audio version (especially if you can do so with young kids).  You will not be disappointed.

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485. Uprooted

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Joni Renee Zalk

Author:   Naomi Novik

Genre:   Fiction, Fantasy

435 pages, published May 19, 2014

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

The protagonist of Uprooted is Agnieszka, a village girl who is selected by “The Dragon,” a magical wizard who every ten years chooses a girl to take to his tower.  The Dragon, who protects the villagers against the malevolent and encroaching Wood, trains Agnieszka in his magical ways and enlists her help in fighting the Wood.

Quotes 

“You intolerable lunatic,” he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me.”

 

“truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.”

 

“I’m glad,” I said, with an effort, refusing to let my mouth close up with jealousy. It wasn’t that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn’t, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. But they meant life: she was living, and I wasn’t.”

 

“I was a glaring blot on the perfection. But I didn’t care: I didn’t feel I owed him beauty.”

 

“I don’t want more sense!” I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. “Not if sense means I’ll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that’s worth holding on to?”

 

“I don’t want more sense!” I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. “Not if sense means I’ll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that’s worth holding on to?”

 

“I leaned against his side, his irritation oddly comforting. After a moment he grudgingly put his arm around me. The deep quiet was already settling back upon the grove, as if all the fire and rage we’d brought could make only a brief interruption in its peace.”

 

“You’ve been inexpressibly lucky,” he said finally. “And inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing”

 

“His name tasted of fire and wings, of curling smoke, of subtlety and strength and the rasping whisper of scales.”

 

“Those the walkers carried into the Wood were less lucky. We didn’t know what happened to them, but they came back out sometimes, corrupted in the worst way: smiling and cheerful, unharmed. They seemed almost themselves to anyone who didn’t know them well, and you might spend half a day talking with one of them and never realize anything was wrong, until you found yourself taking up a knife and cutting off your own hand, putting out your own eyes, your own tongue, while they kept talking all the while, smiling, horrible. And then they would take the knife and go inside your house, to your children, while you lay outside blind and choking and helpless even to scream. If someone we loved was taken by the walkers, the only thing we knew to hope for them was death, and it could only be a hope.”

 

My Take

While a lot of people love Uprooted, I am not a fan.  It had way too many action sequences, was often disjointed (incomprehensively jumping from one thing to another) and failed to develop the main characters or their relationship.  A bit of a slog to get through it.

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475. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:   Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

652 pages, published September 16, 2006

Reading Format:  Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s epic saga and follows Harry, Ron and Hermione in their sixth year at Hogwarts.  Ron and Hermione are prefects, Harry is captain of Griffindor’s quiditch team and all are struggling with teenage hormones and angst.  While Voldemort is regrouping with the death eaters in support, Dumbledore is preparing Harry for the battle that lays ahead.

Quotes 

“Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?”

“Yes,” said Harry stiffly.  “Yes, sir.”  “There’s no need to call me “sir” Professor.”  The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying.”

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”

 

“He accused me of being Dumbledore’s man through and through.”

“How very rude of him.”

“I told him I was.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knee. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady.

“I am very touched, Harry.”

 

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”

 

“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”

 

“It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world.”

 

“You’d think people had better things to gossip about,” said Ginny as she sat on the common room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. “Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.”

Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.

What did you tell her?”

I told her it’s a Hungarian Horntail,” said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. “Much more macho.”

Thanks,” said Harry, grinning. “And what did you tell her Ron’s got?”

A Pygmy Puff, but I didn’t say where.”

 

“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that’s gripping the nation!”

 

“Harry looked around; there was Ginny running toward him; she had a hard blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that fifty people were watching, Harry kissed her. After several long moments, or it might have been half an hour-or possibly several sunlit days- they broke apart.”

 

“And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stood in front of him one by one, his mother, his father, his godfather, and finally Dumbledore, all determined to protect him; but now that was over. He could not let anybody else stand between him and Voldemort; he must abandon forever the illusion he ought to have lost at the age of one, that the shelter of a parent’s arms meant that nothing could hurt him. There was no waking from this nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really, that it was all in his imagination; the last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been.”

 

My Take

It was a pleasure to read the sixth Harry Potter book as I continue to work my way through the audio versions of this classic series.  As with all of the installments, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince did not disappoint.  J.K. Rowling is truly such a talented and creative writer and listening to the excellent and exuberant voice work of actor Jim Dale is a rare treat.

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469. Bag of Bones

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:   Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Fantasy, Suspense, Horror

529 pages, published September 22, 1998

Reading Format:  Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

Bag of Bones is the story of novelist Mike Noonan and the grief he suffers after the sudden death of his pregnant wife Jo.  Mike develops writer’s block which is temporarily relieved when he returns to Sara Laughs, their remote vacation home on a lake in Maine.  There he meets the beautiful young widow Maddie and her toddler daughter Kyra.  Much stands in the way of Mike and Maddie’s growing attraction for each other:  her vengeful ex father in law who wants custody of Kyra, Mike’s reluctance to be with someone so much younger and the ghosts that increasingly insert themselves into the lives of Mike and those around him.

Quotes 

“Compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the earth and casting his shadow there,” Hardy supposedly said, “the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones.” I understood because that was what I felt like in those interminable, dissembling days: a bag of bones.”

“Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.”

 

“This is how we go on: one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root-canal at a time; boat-builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind us as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things – fish and unicorns and men on horseback – but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightening flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.”

 

“For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.”

 

“I felt lonely and content at the same time. I believe that is a rare kind of happiness.”

 

“Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.”

 

“I was being paid to do what I loved, and there’s no gig on earth better than that; it’s like a license to steal.”

 

“I see things, that’s all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.”

 

“A person can go along quite awhile if they get a good day every once and again.”

 

“I think reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.”

 

“Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.”

 

“Fear is actually an acronym for Fuck Everything And Run.”

 

“And perhaps the greatest blessing was that we never knew how short the time was.”

 

“Murder is the worst kind of pornography, murder is let me do what I want taken to its final extreme.”

 

My Take

I have always enjoyed reading Stephen King and Bag of Bones was no exception.  In fact, it is now one of my favorite Stephen King books. Improving the reading experience was Stephen King narrating the audio version himself.  The main character novelist Mike Noonan is a stand in for King and hearing King tell this story adds extra resonance.  I especially enjoyed the touching relationship between Mike and toddler Kyra that is tenderly drawn.  I highly recommend this book.

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465. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Suzanne Collins

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

517 pages, published May 19, 2020

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to the wildly popular Hunger Games Trilogy.  The book opens with the reaping in advance of the tenth annual Hunger Games.  In the Capitol, 18 year old Coriolanus Snow, whose prominent family has fallen on hard times after the death of his military hero father, is preparing to serve as a mentor in the Games and hope that the experience will provide him the redemption he desperately seeks.  Snow is assigned to tribute Lucy Gray Baird, a 16 year old singer/songwriter from District 12.  As the games proceed, Snow develops feelings for Lucy and starts to question the life he has led.

Quotes 

“You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does.”

 

“Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.”

 

“That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it.”

 

“You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about that you learned tonight.”

 

“And try not to look down on people who had to choose between death and disgrace.”

 

“We control it,” he said quietly. “If the war’s impossible to end, then we have to control it indefinitely. Just as we do now. With the Peacekeepers occupying the districts, with strict laws, and with reminders of who’s in charge, like the Hunger Games. In any scenario, it’s preferable to have the upper hand, to be the victor rather than the defeated.”

 

“I’m planning to,” said Sejanus. “I’m planning to build a whole new beautiful life here. One where, in my own small way, I can make the world a better place.”

 

My Take

While not quite as good as The Hunger Games trilogy, I enjoyed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which provided insight into how Coriolanus Snow became a heartless tyrant in later life.  I especially liked the characters of Sejanus and Lucy who preserved their humanity in spite of horrific conditions.

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461. Ninth House

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Leigh Bardugo

Genre:   Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy

459 pages, published October 8, 2019

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Overdrive

Summary

Galaxy “Alex” Stern was raised in Los Angeles by a hippie mom and dropped out of school into a world of drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and worse. At 20, she is the sole survivor of a multiple homicide.  Alex is then given a second chance when she is offered the opportunity to attend Yale on a full ride scholarship.  When she arrives in New Haven, she is called upon to use her special skill to see “grays” or ghosts on behalf of Yale’s secret societies.

Quotes 

“All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down.”

 

“I let you die. To save myself, I let you die.  That is the danger in keeping company with survivors.”

 

“But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.”

 

“Maybe all rich people asked the wrong questions. For people like Alex, it would never be what do you want. It was always just how much can you get?”

 

“Only two things kept you safe: money and power.”

 

“That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you’d been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for.”

 

My Take

I had a hard time following the plot of this book and never really engaged with any of the characters.  A mish-mash.  Skip.

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