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| words and eggs |
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| e.e.cummings |
some words from Sol Le Witt:
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| Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse |
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| same as it ever was |
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Holy War |
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Bukowski  |
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Women are from Venus, Men are from New Jersey |
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| Add caption |
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well ...these are somewhat off beat!!! Why books tonight?
well...on the first of december lovely blogger mlleparadis tagged me on her wonderful post 'My Beautiful Bibliophilia' and asked 5 of us to talk about what writers have made an impression us. Well... that's easy I thought... I relished the thought of getting a chance this week to respond...
This is what she wrote when responding to the request herself:
That notwithstanding, I thought it would be kind of silly and not at all in the spirit of the season to decline Guillemette's tag (THANKS G.!) to list 15 of the authors whose writing has "marked me, even turned me upside down - or, I guess "upset me" as bouleverser can be translated from the French." Certainly, for me, the writers below have unveiled to me certain truths in such eloquent, sensitive and sometimes (D. Sedaris) hysterically funny ways. Truths which I had already somewhat suspected, but had not elsewhere found validation or elucidation of. (Do ya know what I'm trying to get at here?)
So: THESE FOURTEEN:
Marcel Proust, Colette, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, MFK Fisher, Rumer Godden, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Sedaris, Lorrie Moore, Tennesee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, William Maxwell, Charles Bukowski
So...can I think of that many... its getting late...what will come to mind?
Milan Kundera for 'Unbearable lightness of being' comes in top of my list. Somehow it has lodged itself in my mind as the most penetrating read to date. Also Harper Lee's " To kill a mockingbird" from school days. The rest are in no order and represent moments of time when something came my way and stood out for some reason. As a child the Secret Garden lingered for years.
Madame Bovary - Flaubert,
George Elliot - Middlemarch,
Zorba the greek - Kazantzakis,
various Jane Austen books,
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott,
George Orwell - 1984 (somewhat tense reading but affecting),
Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda,
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson,
I have loved many biographies...particularly Hilary Spurling's 2 volumes on Matisse. I've gone through quite a bit of non-fiction at times... and for espcapism detective/crime novels. Mlle Paradis' list reminded me of Rumer Godden whos books for children really captivated me. I should have kept a list all these years... now I see how hard it is to recall. Patience Gray's 'Honey from a Weed' is on my blog sidebar for a much loved read. I like poets...Pablo Neruda, Greek poet Odysseus Elytis. I adore talking books and have listened to many in the past. I think I'd best leave it there though!
I'll pop back and tag some people soon too. But for now...it's late and Id best disappear into the night!
tootlepip!
S x
13 comments:
oh i love all these things that you found and all their quotes and the quotes around them! so funny! really quite genius - how you find these things sophie!!!
glad to have you almost back!
it's first thing in the a.m. here and i'm still tired but w/ two cats desperate to go outside so i'll come back later with more comment! cheers dear!
grrrr! I knew I forgot TRUMAN CAPOTE! I love his short stories...
Love your illustrated book titles - very entertaining. And your book list, yes... I am not surprised we overlap :^)
Happy week dear Sophie! xoxo
We overlap on several of the must reads too! Loved the Sol LeWitt quote, mostly because it is directed at one of my all time favorite women artists Eve Hesse. (next to the grand dame of them all Louise B!!!)
Great vintage covers too!
Welcome back.
MP.... what absolute fun you inspired!
The genius was all down to whoever lives at that Tumblr - 'this isn't happiness'. I did travel around quite a bit to arrive there last night...but when I found that penguin cover 'Go away I'm reading" I knew I'd struck gold!
I think you are supposed to click on the words that were under each one to visit the origin...but it was late and some of them didn't link properly and you know... best visit the tumblr and forgive my effort!
Ive learnt one should write doen what one reads if one wants to remember....
so kitty cats calling ...talk soon!
S x
Hi Janis...
its hard to recall...I saw your books and thought... yes... Neruda...! In the end I had to look up the best 100 lists and then decide if any of those should be on my list! I kept thinking about the less well known writers that I have loved but could not for the life of me get the names to come to me. That's OK though...it can be a work in progress.
Quite fun some of those book covers.... was so glad to find them!
and a good week to you too my friend!
S xo
Oh Mary,
glad you liked that quote...
it wasn't a cover but I had to include it. Thank you...it was nice to be able to think about something outside of what has preoccupied me for weeks! Ifel back in being able to focus another things...though I do have a backlog and must attend to it today...
Strictly recreational blogging last night!
Sophie
well ya know! i was trying to keep it to 14!!!!! so my own list did not include capote - and who doesn't get chills from reading in cold blood! it definitely crossed my mind to including it, but it's really the only one of his books i've read, whilst everybody else on my list i've read nearly everything of except for proust of course cause each of his books counts for like 10 of everybody elses! and i forgot to add vonnegut practically all of whose books i read in a snowy january in germany once. but i should save all this for another post!
anyway sophie, have i sent you this before, about marilynne robinson? she also crossed my mind but i've only read housekeeping. she's SO SMART tho!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/may/30/marilynne-robinson
you might like this is you ever get the time. it's been in my bookmarks forever now.
let's do another joint book week/post at the beginning of the year.
pps highly recommend robert sullivan. we were just leaving nyc when his "rats" came out. i felt not a little schadenfreude about leaving a place where you are never more than eight feet from one those critters. i really enjoyed his book "meadowlands" which is about the "biodiversity" of a place in new jersey that is famed for being a mafia burial ground.
i could go on and on! xo
Hi MP... ah...Capote has eluded me... ive read often of him bit not read him. Proust ditto sadly....and yes...10 books worth in one.
Im annoyed that my memory needs so much prodding to recall what I have read.
Marilynne Robinson is I imagine pretty amazing ...the book left its mark... even the film was able to carry something of that immensely poignant atmosphere! I will read that article you have sent.
Ive read quite a bit of non-fiction about seeds, plants and botany this year so I definitely need to dip into some good literature!
lets do that book week for sure... youre on!
Robert Sullivan sounds pretty amazing... so little time so many books!
thanks MP...I loved this task!
S x
Great list Sophie! Unbearable Lightness of Being is part of me as well. Good list to keep, thanks.
Hi Lisa,
its one of those books...I read it in Greece in 1987 and everyone i talked with on that trip seemed to have or be reading it!
It seemed to be universally affecting!
cheers,
S
Wonderful stuff! I love the series of book images and quotes you found on Tumblr, particularly that Sol LeWitt quote - genius! I'll be sticking a print-out of that on my wall for 2011 :) And thanks for the reading inspiration... the weather here in A'dam is just right for hibernating and getting lots of reading in!
Wonderful stuff! I love the series of book images and quotes you found on Tumblr, particularly that Sol LeWitt quote - genius! I'll be sticking a print-out of that on my wall for 2011 :) And thanks for the reading inspiration... the weather here in A'dam is just right for hibernating and getting lots of reading in!
(P.S. Sophie, I tried to leave this comment once before but I think technical glitches kyboshed my earlier attempt. However, apologies for duplication if you've now rec'd it more than once! :)
good to hear from you Suzanne.... when the weather closes in nothing better than books to curl up with... glad you liked these quotes!
The Sol Le Witt's a goodie... here's to a great 2011...and lots of inspiration ...
S
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