Posts tagged Taylor Books
Notes from behind the counter
The Mother Warns the Tornado
I know I’ve already had more than I deserve.
These lungs that rise and fall without effort,
the husband who sets free house lizards,
this red-doored ranch, my mother on the phone,
the fact that I can eat anything—gouda, popcorn,
massaman curry—without worry. Sometimes
I feel like I’ve been overlooked. Checks
and balances, and I wait for the tally to be evened.
But I am a greedy son of a bitch, and there
I know we are kin. Tornado, this is my child.
Tornado, I won’t say I built him, but I am
his shelter. For months I buoyed him
in the ocean, on the highway; on crowded streets
I learned to walk with my elbows out.
And now he is here, and he is new, and he
is a small moon, an open face, a heart.
Tornado, I want more. Nothing is enough.
Nothing ever is. I will heed the warning
protocol, I will cover him with my body, I will
wait with mattress and flashlight,
but know this: If you come down here—
if you splinter your way through our pines,
if you suck the roof off this red-doored ranch,
if you reach out a smoky arm for my child—
I will turn hacksaw. I will turn grenade.
I will invent for you a throat and choke you.
I will find your stupid wicked whirling
head and cut it off. Do not test me.
If you come down here, I will teach you about
greed and hunger. I will slice you into palm-
sized gusts. Then I will feed you to yourself.
-Catherine Pierce in The Kenyon Review.
She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself.
(Source: eatmenotfood, via literatureismyutopia)
(Source: unicorn-meat-is-too-mainstream, via literatureismyutopia)
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
(Source: wordpainting)
An End to Gendered Book Covers
Well-read people are less likely to be evil.
(Source: prettybooks)
Staff Pick: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
“The author really does know how to write for children: in other words, he writes of what he himself delights in and so pleases without any effort both young and old.” —The Nation
“This book is both silvery present and golden retrospect. All that is tedious and sullen and deceptive vanishes in its sunniness as clouds vanish in the tempered air of a summer day… We think that the book will last, too, from edition unto edition.” —Saturday Review
“There is plenty of excitement, a little danger, a quality of thinking, planning and fun which is delightful and stimulating.” —Times Literary Supplement
This is by far one of the best and most perfect children’s books I have ever read. It is realistic while having an element of fantasy(imagination), and it speaks to exactly what I wanted to do when I was a child. I eagerly await the day my nieces and nephews will be old enough to enjoy it with me.
I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.
(Source: wordpainting)
7 Underappreciated American Novels
What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.
(Source: cajunmama, via literatureismyutopia)
2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. It was first published anonymously in January of 1813, with a second edition released in November.
I bet if you look at the average teenager and the average adult, the average teenager has read more books in the last year than the average adult. Now of course the adult would be all like, ‘I’m busy, I got a job, I got stuff to do.’ WHATEVER! READ! I mean, you’re watching CSI: Miami. Why would you be watching CSI: Miami, when you could be READING CSI: Miami, the novelization?
(Source: wordpainting)
New In Paperback for May
When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.
(Source: theparisreview)
“Although a novel takes place in the larger world, there’s always some drive in it that is entirely personal—even if you don’t know it while you’re doing it. I realized some years after A Book of Common Prayer was finished that it was about my anticipating Quintana’s growing up. I wrote it around 1975, so she would have been nine, but I was already anticipating separation and actually working through that ahead of time. So novels are also about things you’re afraid you can’t deal with.”
Joan Didion in her bedroom, from issue 176, Spring 2006.
