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Tracy Reilly

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Tracy is Currently Reading

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

The Russian Debutante's Handbook

by Gary Shteyngart (Goodreads Author)

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Jan 18, 2026 09:05AM

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

Between the World and Me

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

bookshelves: currently-reading, didn-t-finish

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Tracy Reilly said: " Didn't finish ,only because I gave it to a student I hoped would read it ...more "

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(page 0 of 152)
— Mar 26, 2025 09:34AM

Mar 26, 2025 09:37AM · see review

Tracy Reilly is currently reading

Slow Learner: Early Stories

by Thomas Pynchon

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

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Tracy Reilly said: " I'm not finished yet, will probably change the review stars, but want to jot down my early thoughts. This isn't the correct edition I have, but I can't find any others listed on GR. Maybe it's the weird , unexpected source from which I got this early I'm not finished yet, will probably change the review stars, but want to jot down my early thoughts. This isn't the correct edition I have, but I can't find any others listed on GR. Maybe it's the weird , unexpected source from which I got this early collection of TP short stories, which , I think from reading the author's forward, was his first published collection.

My odd source was my local recycle shed. See, I live way out in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and we have to tote our own trash and have no monthly garbage fees, as a result! I kinda dig it: it's not that big a deal to drop a bag of trash and sort out the recyclables every Sunday on our way to the Food Lion grocery store. Kinda cathartic. Every once in a while, I drop off some some detritus from my life that's clogging up the works, like an old pan, table, piece of tech, or shirt I haven't used in a while...into a brilliant local thing called the recycling shed. You can drop off your personal extras, and look through other persons' detritus, and take them if they tickle your fancy. I love the communism of it, but don't let the locals hear me call it that!

One day, a few months back, I dropped off some crap, and looked through the books lined up on the shelves. I was heartened to realize someone had taken my cast off Norton Anthology of American Lit and extraneous ratty copy I'd had of 1984. Then I spied a gem...what? Thomas Pyncheon??!! A pristine, possibly unread copy, of a book I've never heard of, with a high end cover and unbroken spine? What free treasure is here? It was called SLOW LEARNER, and it was apparently Pyncheon's first published book of short stories.

In the front was an interesting and insightful self-analysis of this early work by the author himself. He agonized over his lack of form, young writer's naivete, and general embarrassment that was quite refreshing to see in a novelist so well known for his avant -guardism and difficulty. I had started my interest in Pyncheon with, to me, the easily understood symbolism of THE CRYING OF LOT 49 (really should re-read that one, but can't find my copy) and graduated to GRAVITY"S RAINBOW--what the hell, but brilliant!! In SLOW LEARNER, the seeds are there, but you can also feel what Pyncheon cringed about. Not that it's bad! but just not quite his later form--any writer would be proud to call this collection theirs! More later when i finish, but lots of army years reminiscing ... ...more "

Oct 14, 2023 01:57PM · see review

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Tracy’s Quotes

“I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

3086 likes

“Dear Jesus, do something.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

tags: prayer

319 likes

“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

tags: romeo-and-juliet, shakespeare

4283 likes