Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
~Virginia Woolf

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04:54

Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

~Iris Murdoch, Under the Net

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05:51

Is it not lovely to have books with which one is completely enthralled? I have two on the go right now, one ebook on my phone and one physical book. I love them. The ebook, Villette, I read at 2am when I am wide awake with insomnia, all curled up under the covers traveling to a French country girl's school in 1853. Bliss. And the paper book, The Illegal, I read...whenever I have a chance during daylight hours, which isn't often, but hey. A little bit of rainy weekend or evening reading before bed works too. I've only just started this one and I can already tell it's going to be intense but hopeful.

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05:33

Has anyone read this book? It keeps popping up on my radar as a must-read classic in the same way Jane Eyre does only I've already read JE and figured that was probably as good as old-school governess stories would get. I don't know, somehow the cover and the synopsis of Villette came across as a little bit of a snooze fest. But the opening chapter was delightful! I downloaded it onto my phone to read in bed at night mainly as an antidote to the news. Ugh. It's all so tawdry and terrible out there, don't get me started. Anyway, insomnia is back with a vengeance, so books. Villette was in the classics section for free which was all the prompting I needed to finally give it a try. So far so good.

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04:47

Just a few of my favourite spooky classics to wrap up the season. These are all well worth a read. You may find, in fact, that they are so good you'll be wanting to re-read them every October.

I'd also have to give Stephen King an honourable mention here, but he and I had a small falling out when he got too gory. I don't do gore well and think it is quite unnecessary when the story is good and has a solid creep factor.

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07:54

I'm almost done reading the ebook version of Tolstoy's Boyhood on my phone, and absolutely loving it. His writing, wisdom and insight into the human condition - even as seen through a boy's eyes - is astounding. So there I am reading under the covers at 2am highlighting great swaths of text to reread during daylight hours perchance to absorb them in a more conscious state.

to wit:

I loved Papa, but the intellect is independent of the heart, and often gives birth to thoughts which offend and are harsh and incomprehensible to the feelings. And it was thoughts of this kind that, for all I strove to put them away, arose at that moment in my mind.

Another time, suddenly bethinking me that death might find me at any hour or any minute, I came to the conclusion that man could only be happy by using the present to the full and taking no thought for the future. Indeed, I wondered how people had never found that out before. Acting under the influence of the new idea, I laid my lesson-books aside for two or three days, and, reposing on my bed, gave myself up to novel-reading and the eating of gingerbread and honey which I had bought with my last remaining coins. 

But one cannot always remain the same - one must change a little sometimes.

So delicious was the wondrous scent of birch trees, violets, mushrooms, and thyme, that I could no longer remain in the britchka. Jumping out, I ran to some bushes, and, regardless of the showers of drops discharged upon me, tore off a few sprigs of thyme, and buried my face in them to smell their glorious scent.  

Sometimes I would suppose that happiness depends, not upon external causes themselves, but only upon our relation to them, and that, provided a man can accustom himself to bearing suffering, he need never be unhappy.

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04:13