No empty spaces.

No empty spaces.

“She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.

With wonder, she smiled.

That such a room existed!”

Markus Zusak; The Book Thief
Interesting.

Interesting.

Tears are words that need to be written.
Paulo Coelho
Me too.

Me too.

nprfreshair: Stephen King talks to Terry Gross about whether his writing changed after being hit by a car and getting addicted to Oxycontin, a habit which he has since kicked: When I said that I wasn’t going to write or when I was going to retire, I was doing a lot of Oxycontin for pain and I was still having a lot of pain and it’s a depressive drug anyway and I was kind of a depressed human being because the therapy was painful. The recovery was slow and the whole thing just seemed like too much work, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll concentrate on getting better and I probably won’t want to write anymore,’ but as health and vitality came back, the urge to write came back. But here’s the thing: I’m on the inside and I’m not the best person to ask if my writing changed after that accident. I don’t really know the answer to that. I do know that … was close, that was really being close to stepping out. The accident and, a couple years later I had double pneumonia and that was close to stepping out of this life as well, and I think you have a couple of close brushes with death like that, it probably has [effect]. Somebody said, ‘The prospect of imminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind,’ and I don’t know if that’s true, but I do think it cause some changes, some evolution in the way a person works, but on a day-by-day basis I just still enjoy doing what I’m doing. Image of Stephen King by PILGRIM via Wired

nprfreshair:

Stephen King talks to Terry Gross about whether his writing changed after being hit by a car and getting addicted to Oxycontin, a habit which he has since kicked:

When I said that I wasn’t going to write or when I was going to retire, I was doing a lot of Oxycontin for pain and I was still having a lot of pain and it’s a depressive drug anyway and I was kind of a depressed human being because the therapy was painful. The recovery was slow and the whole thing just seemed like too much work, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll concentrate on getting better and I probably won’t want to write anymore,’ but as health and vitality came back, the urge to write came back. But here’s the thing: I’m on the inside and I’m not the best person to ask if my writing changed after that accident. I don’t really know the answer to that. I do know that … was close, that was really being close to stepping out. The accident and, a couple years later I had double pneumonia and that was close to stepping out of this life as well, and I think you have a couple of close brushes with death like that, it probably has [effect]. Somebody said, ‘The prospect of imminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind,’ and I don’t know if that’s true, but I do think it cause some changes, some evolution in the way a person works, but on a day-by-day basis I just still enjoy doing what I’m doing.

Image of Stephen King by PILGRIM via Wired

nprfreshair

flickr.com

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.
John Berger; Keeping a Rendezvous

neil-gaiman:

The Book That Made Me… In which I talk about the book and the author who made me. (And I talk about Coraline too.)

2,307 plays

amykarafloyd:

Ode to a Nightingale (by John Keats)

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Read More

Strand Books, 12th & Broadway, NY

Strand Books, 12th & Broadway, NY

“The first great bookstore in my life wasn’t really a bookstore. Alvord and Smith was located on North Main Street in Gloversville, N.Y., and if memory serves, they referred to themselves as stationers. I don’t recall the place being air-conditioned, but it was always dark and cool inside, even on a sweltering summer day. In addition to a small selection of books, the store sold stationery, diaries, journals, and high-end fountain and ballpoint-pen sets, as well as drafting and art supplies. The shelves went up and up the walls, and I remember wondering what was in the cardboard boxes beyond my reach. The same things on the shelves below? Other, undreamed-of wonders? Alvord and Smith was a store for people who—though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time—had aspirations beyond life in a grungy mill town.”—Richard Russo [support your local bookstore]

“The first great bookstore in my life wasn’t really a bookstore. Alvord and Smith was located on North Main Street in Gloversville, N.Y., and if memory serves, they referred to themselves as stationers. I don’t recall the place being air-conditioned, but it was always dark and cool inside, even on a sweltering summer day. In addition to a small selection of books, the store sold stationery, diaries, journals, and high-end fountain and ballpoint-pen sets, as well as drafting and art supplies. The shelves went up and up the walls, and I remember wondering what was in the cardboard boxes beyond my reach. The same things on the shelves below? Other, undreamed-of wonders? Alvord and Smith was a store for people who—though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time—had aspirations beyond life in a grungy mill town.”—Richard Russo

[support your local bookstore]

parade.com

Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.
Neil Gaiman
Currently reading.

Currently reading.

What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.
Anne Lamott