Tag: books

Quote for the Day: August 14th, 2021

Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism by Alice Walker

We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in some ways shameful – because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed – is made much more bearable when it is shared, face-to-face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them.

Poem for the Day: August 13th, 2021

The Late Hour: Poems by Mark Strand

From the Long Sad Party by Mark Strand 

Someone was saying
Something about shadows covering the field, about 
how things pass, how one sleeps toward morning 
and the morning goes. 

Someone was saying 
how the wind dies down but comes back, 
how shells are the coffins of wind 
but the weather continues. 

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its 
     white 
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead 
but more of the same. 

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two
     candles 
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching. 
We began to believe 

the night would not end. 
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had 
     noticed. 
Then someone said something about the planets, about 
     the stars, 
how small they were, how far away.

Quote for the Day: August 12th, 2021

Home Body by Rupi Kaur

i want a parade

i want music

i want confetti

i want a marching band

for the ones surviving in silence

i want a standing ovation

for every person who

wakes up and moves toward the sun

when there is a shadow

pulling them back on the inside

People in the book world are always giving Rupi Kaur a hard time. They say her poetry isn’t actually poetry. It’s too sanitized. It’s too accessible. Well pardon the f&$! out of me, but I don’t think you should need an MFA to be able to access poetry. Maybe it’s jealousy? Maybe they’re pissed that Ms. Kaur is out here stacking up paper while twelve people in the entire world are telling them they’re the next Emerson? I don’t know and I don’t really care. If something someone reads resonates with them and makes them feel something, then damn the literati and their thinly-veiled colonialism. Mazel tov.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: August 11th, 2021

The Archer by Paulo Coelho

Nevertheless, do not allow yourself to be carried away by how you shoot in the morning, whether well or badly. There are many more days ahead, and each arrow is a life in itself. Use your bad moments to discover what makes you tremble. Use your good moments to find your road to inner peace. But do not stop either out of fear or out of joy: the way of the bow has no end.

Quote for the Day: August 10th, 2021

Wildflower by Drew Barrymore

I was a humble ant in the middle of the world and I had so much to learn.

My love for Drew Barrymore is everlasting and today’s quote from her memoir Wildflower perfectly encapsulates the humbleness and sense of wonder that pervades her entire being. And if you think about it, aren’t we all just ants in the grand scheme of the cosmos? Smaller than small, playing out our tragedies and triumphs against the backdrop of the biggest stage in the universe. That thought grounds me. I hope it does the same for you.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: August 7th, 2021

Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx

Forgive me this brief exposition, but one of the world’s greatest tragedies was Crash “beating” out Brokeback Mountain for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A tender portrait of the lifelong love between two cowboys, Brokeback Mountain was groundbreaking when it first hit theaters in 2005. Far from being just “that gay cowboy movie”, it really brought queer cinema into the mainstream. Whether they were praising it or bashing it (often without having watched it), *everyone* was talking about it.

The performances in this film are some of the best and most evocative in the history of cinema. Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway all did excellent work, and it is because of their efforts, along with those of Annie Proulx for her source material, Ang Lee for his directorial acumen, and Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana for their faithfully adapted screenplay that the film will be remembered, discussed, and appreciated for as long as moving pictures are considered an art form.

Annie Proulx’s original story (of the same name) on which the film is based was originally published in The New Yorker on October 13th, 1997. It alone is proof that short stories can pack just as much of an emotional wallop as can novels or other works of narrative fiction. A slightly-altered version of the short story was published in the collection pictured above, which was itself a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000. It is from the version published in Close Range: Wyoming Stories that today’s quote is taken.

There was some open space between what he knew and what he believed and nothing could be done about it. And if you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: August 6th, 2021

Born with Teeth: A Memoir by Kate Mulgrew

I’m going to cheat today. Normally, I only share one quote on these posts but being as how Born with Teeth is one of my favorite memoirs of all time, I am sharing three quotes from this amazing book.

It’s hard to know what’s in a person’s heart when she never says goodbye.

Find what you love and the rest will follow.

I set myself on a course and didn’t look back.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.