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“Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.
—The Creation of Éa”
―
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.
—The Creation of Éa”
―
“The detective story, as created by Poe, is something as specialised and as intellectual as a chess problem, whereas the best English detective fiction has relied less on the beauty of the mathematical problem and much more on the intangible human element. [...] In The Moonstone the mystery is finally solved, not altogether by human ingenuity, but largely by accident. Since Collins, the best heroes of English detective fiction have been, like Sergeant Cuff, fallible.”
― Selected Essays: 1917-1932
― Selected Essays: 1917-1932
“Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
― Queen of the Black Coast: Robert E. Howard's Saga of Conan the Barbarian
― Queen of the Black Coast: Robert E. Howard's Saga of Conan the Barbarian
“...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
― The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
― The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“The Moonstone is the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels. But it is something more important than that; it is the best of all the novels written by that man who among the novelists of the nineteenth century was in every way the most closely associated with Charles Dickens. You cannot appreciate Collins without taking Dickens into account; and the work of Dickens after 1850 would not be what it is but for the reciprocal influence of Collins.”
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Neil’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Neil’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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