11,281 books
—
10,977 voters
Shannon
is currently reading
progress:
(page 200 of 366)
"This book is incredibly frustrating and I have MANY THOUGHTS about it. I find myself violently agreeing with one chapter and then wanting to throw the book out the window after the next chapter! I have bitched about this book and author to my husband ad nauseum." — May 04, 2026 07:18AM
"This book is incredibly frustrating and I have MANY THOUGHTS about it. I find myself violently agreeing with one chapter and then wanting to throw the book out the window after the next chapter! I have bitched about this book and author to my husband ad nauseum." — May 04, 2026 07:18AM
Shannon
is currently reading
progress:
(21%)
"I really like this book but don't pick it up every day. The world is heavy and sad and scary and sometimes I gotta choose the fluff book." — Apr 01, 2025 04:55AM
"I really like this book but don't pick it up every day. The world is heavy and sad and scary and sometimes I gotta choose the fluff book." — Apr 01, 2025 04:55AM
“Though the Ista they thought they loved, she supposed, was an imaginary one, a woman who existed only in their own minds, part icon, part habit. The reflection did not depress her unduly, now that she knew someone who loved the Ista who was real. She fell asleep thinking of him.”
― Paladin of Souls
― Paladin of Souls
“But I made an issue of the precise wording of the vows. I wanted liberalized ones, with no outmoded Pauline nonsense exacting from the bride the promise to 'obey' the groom. Here I put my foot down, rather in the manner of a husband determined to show at the outset who was boss. 'I'll have no obedience around here!' I said, banging the table. 'Is that clear?'
'Is it an order?'
'Yes.”
― The Blood of the Lamb
'Is it an order?'
'Yes.”
― The Blood of the Lamb
“YEARS AGO I set three "rules" for myself. Every poem I write, I said, must have a genuine body, it must have sincere energy, and it must have a spiritual purpose. If a poem to my mind failed any one of these categories it was rebuked and redone, or discarded. Over the forty or so years during which writing poems has been my primary activity, I have added other admonitions and consents. I want every poem to "rest" in intensity. I want it to be rich with "pictures of the world." I want it to carry threads from the perceptually felt world to the intellectual world. I want each poem to indicate a life lived with intelligence, patience, passion, and whimsy (not my life—not necessarily!—but the life of my formal self, the writer). I want the poem to ask something and, at its best moments, I want the question to remain unanswered. I want it to be clear that answering the question is the reader's part in an implicit author-reader pact. Last but not least, I want the poem to have a pulse, a breathiness, some moment of earthly delight. (While one is luring the reader into the enclosure of serious subjects, pleasure is by no means an unimportant ingredient.)”
― Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
― Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
“In the space of a sundown, you show me the wide world from a horse’s back, and the soul of the world within my own walls.”
― Fool's Errand
― Fool's Errand
“A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But certainly it was an invitation to consider the matter.”
― Paladin of Souls
― Paladin of Souls
Shannon’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Shannon’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Shannon
Lists liked by Shannon
































































