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12,845 voters
“After a few months she left off speculating about the villagers. She admitted that there was something about them which she could not fathom, but she was content to remain outside the secret, whatever it was. She had not come to Great Mop to concern herself with the hearts of men. Let her stray up the valleys, and rest in the leafless woods that looked so warm with their core of fallen red leaves, and find out her own secret, if she had one; with autumn it might come back to question her. She wondered. She thought not. She felt that nothing could ever again disturb her peace. Wherever she strayed the hills folded themselves round her like the fingers of a hand.”
― Lolly Willowes
― Lolly Willowes
“Was it for pleasure that you followed them
Putting off your slippers at the door
To dance barefoot and blood-foot in the snow?
No.
What then? What glamoured you? No glamour at all;
Only that I remembered I was young
And had to put myself into a song.
How could time bear witness that I was tall,
Silken, and made for love, if I did not so?
I do not know.
- Earl Cassilis's Lady”
― Selected Poems
Putting off your slippers at the door
To dance barefoot and blood-foot in the snow?
No.
What then? What glamoured you? No glamour at all;
Only that I remembered I was young
And had to put myself into a song.
How could time bear witness that I was tall,
Silken, and made for love, if I did not so?
I do not know.
- Earl Cassilis's Lady”
― Selected Poems
“There's no such thing as fiction", Annie told him once. "If you can imagine something, then it's happened.”
― Someplace to Be Flying
― Someplace to Be Flying
“Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery.”
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“So let us praise the distinctive pleasures of re-reading: that particular shiver of anticipation as you sink into a beloved, familiar text; the surprise and wonder when a book that had told one tale now turns and tells another; the thrill when a book long closed reveals a new door with which to enter. In our tech-obsessed, speed-obsessed, throw-away culture let us be truly subversive and praise instead the virtues of a long, slow relationship with a printed book unfolding over many years, a relationship that includes its weight in our hands and its dusty presence on our shelves. In an age that prizes novelty, irony, and youth, let us praise familiarity, passion, and knowledge accrued through the passage of time. As we age, as we change, as our lives change around us, we bring different versions of ourselves to each encounter with our most cherished texts. Some books grow better, others wither and fade away, but they never stay static.”
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Madeleine’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Madeleine’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
2,530 books
|
212 friends
1,491 books
|
41 friends
2,333 books
|
101 friends
321 books
|
2 friends
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