"A good book should leave you...slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it."
~ William Styron
"In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and a many kinds of lives as we wish."
~ S. I. Hayakawa
About Us
- GirlsWannaRead
- We are a mother and daughter blog team, fellow bibliophiles, and avid readers. We write about/review books that we read for pleasure. Frances ~ I love novels, and I read a wide variety of genres. I read the classics, Southern Lit, historical fiction, sagas, and contemporary fiction. Rose ~ I am a lover of everything from fiction to non-fiction, classics to fantasy. Many of the books/series I read are historical fiction, modern classics, and mysteries. I also enjoy world literature, especially from India and Scandinavia.
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Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan
Fair Stood the Wind for France - H. E. Bates
Fair Stood the Wind for France - H. E. Bates
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Waxing Poetic: On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations by Robert Frost
Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet who is known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
Frost was 86 when he spoke and performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. When he climbed the stage at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, poet Robert Frost intended to read "Dedication," a poem he'd written for the occasion. Famously, though, the glare from sunlight bouncing off the snow was too bright that day for Frost to read the words. So instead, the 86-year-old poet recited another of his poems, "The Gift Outright," from memory.
Here is one of his poems that seems appropriate for this Thanksgiving eve.
On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations
You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drought will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.
Bookish Quotes #26
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled, "This could change your life"."
~ Helen Exley
"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself."
~ Marcel Proust
~ Helen Exley
"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself."
~ Marcel Proust
Waxing Poetic: Rewrite by Paul Simon
This week we feature singer/songwriter Paul Simon with the lyrics from a song on his latest album, So Beautiful or So What.
Rewrite
I’ve been working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
It’s just for working on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash
I’ve been working at the carwash
I consider it my day job
Cause it’s really not a pay job
But that’s where I am
Everybody says the old guy working at the carwash
Hasn’t got a brain cell left since Vietnam
But I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I’d no idea
That you were there
When I said help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer
I’m working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna turn it into cash
I’ll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
When the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms
And I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I’d no idea
That you were there
When I said, help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
It’s just for working on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash
I’ve been working at the carwash
I consider it my day job
Cause it’s really not a pay job
But that’s where I am
Everybody says the old guy working at the carwash
Hasn’t got a brain cell left since Vietnam
But I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I’d no idea
That you were there
When I said help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer
I’m working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna turn it into cash
I’ll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
When the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms
And I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I’d no idea
That you were there
When I said, help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer
Bookish Quotes #25
"The greatest gift is a passion for reading...It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination."
~ Elizabeth Hardwick
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
~ Charles W. Eliot
~ Elizabeth Hardwick
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
~ Charles W. Eliot
Waxing Poetic: Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke(1887-1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the WWI. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England".
In 2000, the British Library unearthed letters from Brooke to a previously unknown lover, the artist Phyllis Gardner (I can't help but think of A. S. Byatt's Possession). Gardner is said to have seen him for the first time and when he ran his fingers through his mop of "silky golden hair" she was transfixed and couldn't get the image of the young man out of her head. The letters document their brief but intense relationship. Their relationship deteriorated when Gardner refused further intimacy without further commitment from Brooke. This is detailed in an article published in the Telegraph, here. Brooke died in the war and was buried in Greece and Gardner never married.
Gardner's painting Fairy Gold is a self-portrait symbolizing her love for Brooke or their relationship as fairy gold.
Brooke's poem, Beauty and Beauty, was written for Gardner and was inspired by a moonlight tryst (sans clothes) that they had.
Beauty and Beauty
When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After -- after --
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After -- after --
Bookish Quotes #24
"A novel is a mirror carried along a main road."
~ Henri B. Stendhal
"Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk - a free fall, a loose splash, a spill."
~ Cynthia Ozick
~ Henri B. Stendhal
"Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk - a free fall, a loose splash, a spill."
~ Cynthia Ozick
Waxing Poetic: Bookmobile by Joyce Sutphen
This poem by Joyce Sutphen was posted last month on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. I have a special affinity for this poem because I, too, spent part of my childhood waiting for the bookmobile.
Bookmobile
I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.
It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.
Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,
because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.
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