“Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination.”
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“Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.”
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“Books are the carriers of civilization...They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
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“Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say ‘We loved the earth but could not stay.”
― The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
― The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
Our Shared Shelf
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OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
On the Southern Literary Trail
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Whether you prefer Faulkner, O'Connor, McCullers or more recent authors of Southern Literature such as Clyde Edgerton, Tom Franklin, William Gay, or M ...more
Christina’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Christina’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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Art, Biography, Classics, Contemporary, Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Memoir, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Travel
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