Tag: books
100 Word Book Review – The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
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100 Word Book Review – I’ve read The Road once before and I loved it as much the second time through. Though it’s a post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son on the road, it reads to me like it could be set in the old west. It’s bleak, it’s terrifying and that’s what makes it so gosh darn good, in my opinion. You feel the desperation and terror the two characters feel as they travel down the road. As depressing as it is, I think I’m starting to consider The Road as one of my favorite books and will, no doubt, read it again.
Favorite Quotes:
He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.
Then they set out along the blacktop in the gun-metal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire.
Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever.
This the day to shape the days upon.
When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.
100 Word Book Review – Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
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100 Word Book Review – Reading this book was like reading an alternate universe version of the To Kill A Mockingbird. This makes sense since this book is essentially the first draft of that classic novel. I’m not going to weigh in on whether or not this book should have been published because I don’t think we’ll ever know the full story behind that. I will say that To Kill A Mockingbird is a much better book. While this one has glimpses and flashes of Mockingbird, it’s not nearly as good. There are some touch and truthful passages and I am glad I’ve read it.
Favorite Quotes:
If you did not want much, there was plenty.
She was easy to look at and easy to be with most of the time, but she was in no sense of the word an easy person.
Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal.
The one thing she liked most about Henry Clinton was that he let her be silent when she wanted to be. She did not have to entertain him.
Time stopped, shifted, and went lazily in reverse.
They…found the rest of the morning lying emptily before them.
She looked up at the sky. “You can almost reach up an touch it, it’s so close.”
“Anybody with eyes that good was up to no good.”
“Don’t you study about other folks’ business till you take care of your own.”
She touched yesterday cautiously, then withdrew.
It was not because this was where your life began. It was because this was where people were born and born and born until finally the result was you, drinking a coke in the Jitney Jungle.
Now she was aware of a sharp apartness, a separation…
Now we are both lonely, for entirely different reasons, but it feels the same, doesn’t it?
“Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”
100 Word Book Review – To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird br Harper Lee
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100 Word Book Review – I was extremely tempted to write the word ‘perfection’ 100 times to review this book. To me, reading this book is the equivalent of falling asleep in your own bed after a long day of work. It’s like visiting with old friends who know you so well. I loved every page of this book and was glad to read it again after so many years. I don’t think I can say much more than has already been said about this novel except to say, “Perfection.” I read this before diving into Go Set A Watchmen which is my current read.
Favorite quotes:
100 Word Book Review – Reader’s Block by David Markson
Reader’s Block by David Markson
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100 Word Book Review – From the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, people really love this book. It’s often called an ‘anti-novel’ in that it isn’t written with a traditional narrative. It’s more a list of weird facts and trivia with a little bit of story about ‘Reader’ and ‘Protagonist’ mixed in every now and then. That’s said, it just wasn’t for me. I’m all for putting a spin on traditional writing but this was not as compelling to me as some reviews make it out to be. The blurb promises us a ‘shattering’ conclusion. For me, it ended with the whimper it began with.
Quotes:
Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.
Horseflies that keep the horse from plowing, Chekhov called critics.
When I could have used a wife, I could not support one, when I could support one, I no longer needed any.Said Kant
There is no death and art can prove it.
According to legend, Li Po drowned when he fell out of a boat, drunk, leaning to kiss a reflection of the moon.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.
Even in the solemn moments of the mass, when prayer should be the purest…when I should groan for what I have done, I sigh for what I have lost.
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Why do you always wear black?I am in mourning for my life.