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Ambar
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Reading for the 2nd time
read in April 2020
Ambar said:
"
Memoirs of Hadrian is monumental. Yourcenar expounds at length on the thoughts of Emperor Hadrian at the height of the Pax Romana, and what he may have felt about Greece, Rome, rulership, and human nature. Grounded in history, but also making no pret
...more
"
progress:
(27%)
"Some would say the best experience of fiction is to be found when you are unable to put down a book in the dead of the night. Certainly, that is true of the most entertaining of books.
But the pinnacle of fiction, to my mind, is a book that you are forced to put down, and ruminate upon while the world sleeps. I already know I’m going to be thinking about “the memoirs... “ for at least some months to come" — Apr 05, 2020 02:06PM
"Some would say the best experience of fiction is to be found when you are unable to put down a book in the dead of the night. Certainly, that is true of the most entertaining of books.
But the pinnacle of fiction, to my mind, is a book that you are forced to put down, and ruminate upon while the world sleeps. I already know I’m going to be thinking about “the memoirs... “ for at least some months to come" — Apr 05, 2020 02:06PM
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Foundation
― Foundation
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The History Book Club
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"Interested in history - then you have found the right group". The History Book Club is the largest history and nonfiction group on Goodread ...more
South Asian Literature
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For readers around the world interested in literature from or about South Asia! Countries of interest include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhut ...more
Ambar’s 2025 Year in Books
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