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https://www.goodreads.com/eringilson
I didn’t wear clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch or American Eagle unless I’d received them for Christmas.
I'm really not getting thd big deal about this book. the prose is singsongy and stale like it was ghostwritten by a medical professional. it lacks grit and is unconvincing, likd the diary of a teenager. it's been a struggle. im guessing his application to Yale Law School dwelled on these terrible hardships he hsd to endure but im shocked that someone with prose this awful convinced anyone of them. It's eyerolling.
Paltia and 2 other people liked this
“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.”
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“But what do we expect will become of students, successfully cocooned from uncomfortable feelings, once they leave the sanctuary of academe for the boorish badlands of real life? What becomes of students so committed to their own vulnerability, conditioned to imagine they have no agency, and protected from unequal power arrangements in romantic life? I can’t help asking, because there’s a distressing little fact about the discomfort of vulnerability, which is that it’s pretty much a daily experience in the world, and every sentient being has to learn how to somehow negotiate the consequences and fallout, or go through life flummoxed at every turn.”
― The Best American Essays 2016
― The Best American Essays 2016
“That’s no good. If there’s no joy in it, it’s just no good. It’s best to go on to some other area, where the deposits of talent may be richer and the fun quotient higher.”
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.”
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it—with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited—it takes on a life of its own.”
― The Library Book
― The Library Book
E’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at E’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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203 books
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508 books
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Favorite Genres
Adult Fiction, Art, Business, Chick-lit, Children's, Classics, Comics, Contemporary, Crime, Ebooks, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Humor and Comedy, Literary Fiction, Non-fiction, Paranormal, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Romance, Self help, Spirituality, Travel, Young-adult, and War
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