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Boulder
by
I love this place, these narrow black eyes that neither desire me nor reject me, this fabulous freedom.
“A woman spent about ten minutes looking around the shop, then told me that she was a retired librarian. I suspect she thought that this was some sort of a bond between us. Not so. On the whole, booksellers dislike librarians. To realise a good price for a book, it has to be in decent condition, and there is nothing librarians like more than taking a perfectly good book and covering it with stamps and stickers before – and with no sense of irony – putting a plastic sleeve over the dust jacket to protect it from the public. The final ignominy for a book that has been in the dubious care of a public library is for the front free endpaper to be ripped out and a ‘DISCARD’ stamp whacked firmly onto the title page, before it is finally made available for members of the public to buy in a sale. The value of a book that has been through the library system is usually less than a quarter of one that has not.”
― The Diary of a Bookseller
― The Diary of a Bookseller
“People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial, you know.”
― コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]
― コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]
“The next real literary "rebels" in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "Oh how banal". To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows”
― A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
― A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
“Wherever he goes, this winter, I will follow him. I will share the fear, and the exaltation, and the boredom, of the hunting life. I will follow him till my predatory human shape no longer darkens in terror the shaken kaleidoscope of colour that stains the deep fovea of his brilliant eye. My pagan head shall sink into the winter land, and there be purified.”
―
―
“the fact that you’ll never know what sort of person you might have been if you’d read different stuff”
― Ducks, Newburyport
― Ducks, Newburyport
Classics and the Western Canon
— 4973 members
— last activity 20 hours, 18 min ago
This is a group to read and discuss those books generally referred to as “the classics” or “the Western canon.” Books which have shaped Western though ...more
CORMAC MCCARTHY THE MASTER OF WORDS
— 205 members
— last activity Jun 19, 2023 04:35AM
A group dedicated to the enjoyment of great writing, not to analysis, not to eloquence, but to the joy of reading words well put on paper
ExtraGravy’s 2025 Year in Books
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