Daniel Ronan > Recent Status Updates

God damn do I enjoy a book without quotation marks. You could probably give me a copy of Morning Glory Milking Farm with all the quotes deleted, and I'd assume it was written by Shakespeare.

"The Original Uncut Version" I don't know Bobby, maybe you should have listened to your editor about cutting out those 70,000 words.

This is really testing my rules about when to DNF a classic or book club pick. Some pretty good writing (if a bit sexist/dated) hidden in an absolute slog of bullshit.

Reading this because part of it takes place at a wedding in Cancun, and I happen to be going to a wedding in Cancun next month. But the wedding is terrible, and a character has a broken ankle from training for a marathon, so now I'm getting nervous.

There are so many characters and they are all slightly older than me so it feels like I'm reading about all of my cousins if my family was much richer.

This book is insane.

"But no man could do for me what a plane could. What man could propel himself to a speed of 150 knots before lifting us to an altitude of 37,000 feet?"

There's a decent chance I DNF this book 100+ pages in. Miller is a great writer, but holy shit it's getting depressing.

Not a spoiler, it's all on the jacket, but this guy is pretty cool and lovable, but he also cheats on this wife and then dies. I'm not sure if I have 200 pages of depression in me right now, especially when there's a book about a lady who marries a plane just waiting for me at the library.

"Plants and mycorrhizal fungi are promiscuous: many fungi can live within the roots of a single plant, and plants can connect with a single fungal network. In this way a variety of substances, from nutrients to signaling compounds, can pass between plants via fungal connections."

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was reading a book about SOCIALISM!

"Just as one should purchase new underwear in a new relationship, Sabine encouraged new bedding on a new house, even if the house was an ancient, crumbling ruin."

Been a while since I've been in a new relationship, so news to me.

This book is very weird and very funny so far.

"She had once been beautiful, thought Bud. Still was. Though "beautiful " seemed too small to contain her. Miss Winkle held multitudes."

This book is delightfully weird and funny.

"The first one, involving sodomy, was an actual criminal offense at the time; the second, incest with his sister Augusta, not actually illegal as such but considered equally shocking."

Wild, but also, wouldn't expect anything less from that bastard George III.

"When he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife's feet. ... If you love me at all you'll put up with your, twenty-four, forty-eight hours, that's all I ask, then it'll be over, I promise, I swear!"

Ain't that the dream, Montag, reading 20 books in two days?

The ISBN seriously couldn't have 451 in it anywhere, you coward publishers

"She opens Mrs. Dalloway. She doesn't want to think of her husband anymore.. She has already thought of her husband so many times, and she has never once finished Mrs. Dalloway. She always told herself it was because she didn't care for Woolf's style, the circular sentences, the never-ending thoughts punctuated with semicolons; like this; and this; and then this."

Good damnit am I going to read Mrs. Dalloway again?

"Such an event,, however distressing, was not unusual at the time when antenatal care and care in childbirth were still awaiting the advances of Victorian times."

Can you imagine how bad childbirth and healthcare must have been if you were waiting on the Victorians to figure shit out?

"If someone Chris loved got a sudden yen to go snorkeling, if Kathryn, for instance, said, Hey Chris, I'd really love to go snorkeling with you this weekend, he'd be more than happy to go."

This might be the first time I've encountered "yen" out in the wild, and not the NYT crossword puzzle.

"Okay, golden boy, don't get fruity, focus on the task at hand."

"Resting on her side so that her beautiful breasts stack vertically, decline beautifully, breastily bedward—thank you, oh thank you gravity."

This book was written by a woman.

This book is name dropping so many other weird and obscure novels, it's going to be difficult not adding them all to my TBR list.