Thursday Quotables: Women in Love

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.

This week I was in the mood to read for another time Women in Love (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, which is one of my favourite books. To be honest, this novel influenced me a lot. The following passage is from a very emotionally charged scene.

   'I love you right enough,' he said grimly. 'But I want it to be something else.'        'But why? But why?' she insisted, bending her wonderful luminous face to him, 'Why isn't it enough?'                                                                                                 'Because we can go one better,' he said, putting his arms round her.                   'No, we can't,' she said, in a strong, voluptuous voice of yielding. 'We can only love each other. Say "my love" to me, say it, say it.'
  She put her arms round his neck. He enfolded her, and kissed her subtly, murmuring in a subtle voice of love, and irony, and submission:'Yes -my love, yes- my love. Let love be enough then. I love you then -I love you. I'm bored by the rest.'                                                                                                                    'Yes,' she murmured, nestling very sweet and close to him.

Have you read Women in Love? What do you think about the passage?

Cover Characteristic: Cars

This meme is hosted by Sugar & Snark.

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favourite covers with that characteristic.

This week's characteristic is cars. So, here are my picks:

5. A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) by John Irving

This isn't actually the well-known cover for this book, but I rather like it. The old truck in front of the barn creates an amazing image.

4. We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (2006) by Joan Didion

This is a collection of the author's nonfiction. I like very much this cover, especially the colour.

3. The Long Goodbye (1953) by Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe has always been one of my favourite detectives. So, when I saw that this week's characteristic was cars this cover came into my mind. I like that it shows only a detail of the car, it suits a mystery novel.

2. Mobile Library (2015) by David Whitehouse

What an amazing cover is this! I love the colours, I love the books that are shaped like birds.

1. The Hundred-Year House (2014) by Rebecca Makkai

Ok, the car is on the background but this cover is gorgeous! 

What are your favourite book covers with cars on them?

Thursday Quotables: De Profundis

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.

This week I decided to pick the quotes from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde. This is a heartfelt book and very touching. Wilde wrote it while he was in prison and comes into terms with the things that happened to him and his own emotions. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. 

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return.

Sorrow is a main theme in De Profundis. Wilde returns to this emotion various times.

Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

It's so moving to read this change happening to the author, to finally understand himself.

But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere way in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world in meaningless, and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, in Humility.

I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that. I am quite candid when I say that rather than go out from this prison with bitterness in my heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread from door to door.

Have you read De Profundis? What did you think about it?

Thursday Quotables: number9dream

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.

This week I chose a book that I reviewed at the beginning of the year, number9dream by David Mitchell. In this novel, a young man, Eiji Miyake, moves to Tokyo in order to find out the identity of his father. I can't really give anything more of the plot because it would be a spoiler. But, as a Mitchell novel, it's unique and thought-provoking. 

It would be so much simpler if you would just drop by her for a sandwich and a coffee. I will recognize you, introduce myself, and persuade you that natural justice in on my side. How do daydreams translate into reality? I sigh. Not very well, not very often. 

In this novel, Mitchell explores many themes and ideas. It's sure to think about it a long time after you've finished it.

A single night is stuffed with minutes, but they leak out, one by one. My capsule is stuffed with Stuff. Look up 'stuff' in a dictionary, and you get a picture of my capsule above Shooting Star. A shabby colony in the empire of stuff.

The part about memories is probably one of my favourite in number9dream.

'I took her literally at first, too.' Mrs. Sasaki speaks carefully, the way she does. 'But I think she's talking about her memories.' We watch her disappear in the shimmer. Cicadas wind up and wind down. 'All we are is our memories.'

And a quote about us gamers.

All these people like my mother paying counsellors and clinics to reattach them to reality: all these people like me paying Sony and Sega to reattach us to unreality.

Have you read number9dream? What do you think about these quotes?

Cover Characteristic: Cigarette/Smoking

This meme is hosted by Sugar & Snark.

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favourite covers with that characteristic.

This week's characteristic is with cigarettes or someone smoking. So, here are my picks:

5. Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami

I like this cover because it's like a painting. It's a little abstract, but the colours are great. I also like that it's a scene from a bar.

4. Neuromancer by William Gibson

The Hungarian edition of the Neuromancer has this amazing cover, where we see Molly smoking outside of a car. 

3. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy 

In a list where the main characteristic is cigarettes, it was obvious that one of the picks would be from a noir novel. The femme fatale smoking and looking mysteriously is a little standard, but in this cover it works perfectly. 

2. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

There are a lot of editions of Sherlock Holmes. This one by White's Books has this amazing cover. The pipe is one of the things that distinguish the great detective and here is the main characteristic of this cover. 

1. Slaughter on Fifth Avenue (The Sandman #32), by Neil Gaiman and Shawn McManus

My #1 pick is the 32nd issue of The Sandman, Slaughter on Fifth Avenue. Written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Shawn McManus, this issue, like the rest of The Sandman, is compelling. 

Have you read any of these? What do you think of this list? Which are your favourite covers with cigarettes/smoking? 

Thursday Quotable: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.

This week's book is Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. According to these prophecies, the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. This book is hilarious and with the small passage I've chosen I hope to show you the humorous style, without giving away anything from the plot.

Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn't start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand million years old. By the same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old. 

These dates are incorrect. 

Medieval Jewish scholars put the date of the Creation at 3760 B.C. Greek Orthodox theologians put Creation as far back as 5508 B.C. 

These suggestions are also incorrect. 

Archbishop James Usher (1580-1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testaments in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 B.C. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh. 

This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour.

And what conclusion do we make out of this passage?

...the Earth's a Libra.

Have you read Good Omens? What did you make of this small passage? 

Cover Characteristic: Green Covers

This meme is hosted by Sugar & Snark.

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favourite covers with that characteristic.

This week's characteristic is Green Covers, so in this list there are some of my favourite covers with this colour.

My Picks

5. The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

The third instalment of the All Souls trilogy has this amazing cover. Even if I wasn't aware of the previous two books, I would still want to pick it up and read it. 

4. Arabella by Georgette Heyer

This cover reminds me of a painting and I love this thing about it. It also suits this novel perfectly. All Jane Austen fans out there don't hesitate to read it, this is Regency Romance at its best!

3. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

This cover is gorgeous! I love everything about it, the snake, the roses, this particular shade of green. Plus, it's another take on Snow White and I have a thing for folklore and retellings.

2. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a touching novel and it has a beautiful cover too. The green of the background is combined with great balance with the yellow and red of the kimono.

1. The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer 

My top pick couldn't be other than the third book in Artemis Fowl series! These books are hilarious, have great action and I love most of the characters in them. I would reread them anytime!

Which are your favourite green covers? Have you read any of the books in the list above? What did you think? 

Thursday Quotables: The Snow Kimono

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. This is my first time participating, but I like the idea so much, that I'll make it regular! 

This week's quote is from The Snow Kimono by Mark Henshaw (To be published June 9th, 2015) 

In this novel, two men rediscover their lives through the eyes of one another.

In the beginning, he loved only her laugh. Then found he loved her. This smart, lean-limbed girl, with her green eyes and dark skin. Her tripping laugh as sharp as swallows. He loved her name - Madeleine. Sweet-sounding. Unforgettable. She wasn't Caroline, whose ghost had come back to him. But it didn't matter. Not now. After the pieces had fallen into place.

But the quote that really resumes the theme of the novel is this one:

We can only see our lives through the eyes of another

This was Thursday Quotables for this week.  Have you read this book? What did you think of the quotes?

Cover Characteristic: Swords

This meme is hosted by Sugar & Snark.

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favourite covers with that characteristic.

My Picks

5. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This is so beautiful and eerie. It's what it should be for this novel!

4. Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

This cover is so epic and puts in the mood for some action!

3. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

This cover is just so beautiful that I can't stop looking at it!

2. Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

This is actually a katana, but the cover is impressive. I love the red colour as well.

1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica Vol.2 by Magica Quartet and Hanokage

I love everything about this cover! Sayaka and Kyouko, both with their weapons. I won't lie that this is my #1 because I love the story so much as well. You can also read my recent review of it.