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The Secret History
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Book cover for All That Is Mine I Carry with Me
In my mind’s eye, she had always been sixteen years old (though she was actually older the last time I saw her). For a moment, but only for a moment, I even regretted seeing her and spoiling that vivid, precious memory.
Laura
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“What turned babies, fragile and curious, into Shermans? Into Ollies? Into men who could not interact with a new thing without wanting to dominate it?

What order of events did Vern need to disrupt in the lives of the millions upon millions who woke up every morning proud to be Americans? What made someone love lies?

She saw that cursed flag on the hunter's T-shirt and wondered if he know about the glut of traumas that define this nation's founding. Had he fallen so in love with the myth of belonging that he thought the corpses of his imaginary foes were worthwhile sacrifices toward barbecues, megachurches, bandannas, and hot dogs?

The primary freedoms this nation protected were the ones to own and annihilate.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland

“When I think about the Catholic church, and about most religions in general, my theory is that they came to be as a solution to our existential dread. It's comforting to imagine that everyone who is dead is just waiting for us in the next room. It's calming to imagine that we
have an all-powerful father who is watching over us, and who loves us. All of it makes us feel like our lives have some divine meaning; it helps us feel happy.”
― Emily Austin, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

Natalie Jenner
“Grief and regret put a hole right through you that nothing can ever fill. And trust me, I've tried. And I suspect some of you have tried as well, with your own losses over the years. And the hard, crushing reality of it all is that the hole can never be filled. That you have to live with it, this absence that is not replaceable by money, or objects, or art -- or even by another person, no matter how much you might learn to love and trust again.”
― Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society

“Going against tended to end more rightly, more justly, than going with. People were wrong. Rules, most of the time, favored not what was right, but what was convenient or preferable to those in charge.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland

James   McBride
“The collective history of this sad troupe moving down the hospital corridor would become tiny blots in an American future that would one day scramble their proud histories like eggs, scattering them among the population while feeding mental junk to the populace on devices that would become as common and small as the hot dog that the dying woman thought she smelled; for in death, Chona had smelled not a hot dog but the future, a future in which devices that fit in one’s pocket and went zip, zap, and zilch delivered a danger far more seductive and powerful than any hot dog, a device that children of the future would clamor for and become addicted to, a device that fed them their oppression disguised as free thought.”
― James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

93389 #MomsReading — 35 members — last activity Dec 14, 2014 05:14PM
Join http://www.mommy-miracles.com as we read a book a month, escape our lives momentarily, and find pockets of quiet. (Use #momsreading on Twitter an ...more
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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
1065386 Literally Dead Book Club — 16520 members — last activity Sep 02, 2026 06:45PM
THIS BOOK CLUB IS NOW HOSTED ON FABLE (AND YOUTUBE AS USUAL) fable.sng.link/Ali7l/8k77h/ddnk A mostly monthly book club (February-November) focused ...more
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The Buzzword Readathon (#buzzwordathon) is a monthly readathon, running the first week of each month (1st through 7th). Each month will have a designa ...more
1068584 Fantastic Strangelings Book Club — 443 members — last activity Mar 28, 2026 08:00PM
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