Reading is WINNING

In an effort to inspire you, dear readers, to read more than just my blog, here are quotes from some of my favorite books. Read them through, and you might just find that book which could change your life.


"It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn'tdeal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking,malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll--then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time."


White Teeth by Zadie Smith is a social commentary dealing with racism, religion, radicalism, genetic manipulation, war, peace, Jehovah's Witnesses, animal rights, love, hate, sex, passion, mice, and, most importantly, TEETH. It is laugh-out-loud funny but liable to bring the reader to tears or moments of deep reflection. I read most of this on a car trip: out of the ten hours on the road, I spent two reading this book, and three staring out the window thinking about this book (I slept the rest of the time...)

"Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something."


The Chosen by Chaim Potok is an examination of friendship and religion, with an emphasis on how education shapes each individual. It is the story of two Jewish friends who overcome baseball injuries and stubborn fathers to find the meaning in their lives in this coming of age story. I have read it four times, thrice in the same summer. 

"Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week--a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards." 


"We and the world, my children, will always be at war.
Retreat is impossible.
Arm yourselves."


Peace like a River by Leif Enger (amazing name, I know) is a spiritual book. It follows the lives of a family which is touched by crime, not as victims, but as sort of accomplices. It contains allusions galore and makes the reader feel hopeful and empathetic. Expect to shed many, many tears. 

 "Now constipation was quite a different matter...It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them for a political party - with a chance of government. Perhaps - but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail."


44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith is an interesting view of the world from the perspectives of several characters: a college student, an art gallery owner, an anthropologist, a six-year old boy, a dog-owner, and more, who all live and interact in Edinburgh. This is absolutely dry humor with a sadistic slant and an overall feeling of absurdism.  Read this quote again if you didn't catch the awful pun the first time...


"In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots." 


"Succotash my cocker spaniel, you fudging crevasse-hole dipshiitake!"


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is a novel like no other. It skips around from plot to plot and image to image; the reader never knows what will come next. However, eventually the reader catches the thread of the story, and feels everything the narrator is feeling as an orphaned son of a Jewish man killed in 9/11 and the grandson of two rather troubled individuals who lived through the Holocaust (one of whom communicates entirely through writing- he has 'yes' and 'no' written on his hands for quick responses). This book contains crude, pre-teen, absolutely hilarious jokes and wordplays. Also read/watch Everything is Illuminated, and meet Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., the seeing-eye bitch. 

"Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing." 


"His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen."


"In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs"


Edith Wharton is the pre-eminent feminist writer of the Victorian period. She explores true love and passion and how easy it is for people to completely lose themselves and waste away their lives on an empty dream or by giving up on their dreams too early. The Age of Innocence: the title explains all. 


Read these, tell me you read them, and discuss them with me so I can enjoy them once again! These all make great college essay topics if you are able to relate the book to your own life (they're intellectual books wink wink).
Readers are leaders!