Playing Fast and Loose with Literary Magic

A while back, Buzzfeed, a source for all things pop culture, and my college-aged daughters' only source for news (does that give you pause like it does me?), asked their readers to submit their favorite lines from literature. Now there's a request to send me reeling. Choosing a favorite line is akin to choosing my favorite child, or worse, my favorite book. Impossible. 

What makes a sentence speak to us, stop us in our tracks, jump out of the page and into our very soul? I suppose it's different for each of us, and each instance is different as well. Some lines conjure up a memory, dust it off, and make it sparkle. Some shine a light on a darkness we didn't know existed or a speck of beauty otherwise overlooked. Some are a balm; others a deep belly laugh. And some leave us in awe at the simple beauty of the thing.

Whatever it is, I know I can no more choose a favorite, or even 100 favorites, to save my life. That's playing fast and loose with literary magic. Buzzfeed published their 51 favorite submissions here. That they ended with an odd number, rather than a clean fifty, tells me a whole lot of wrangling took place as they whittled down their list. An impasse was clearly reached.

So rather than attempt something so brazen or haphazard as a list of favorites, here are few I love, for all the various, glorious reasons. Please know there are hundreds more. I would ask Tracy to submit some of hers as well, but today her head is spinning with only one: "The brothers in orange are undefeated and unbowed."

SOME BUZZFEED SUBMISSIONS I LOVE

“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” —J. D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew

“What are men to rocks and mountains?” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.” —Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.” —Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

“It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.” —Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” —Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

"At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."—Willa Cather, My Ántonia

"Isn't it pretty to think so?"—Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."—Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’”—Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

SOME OTHERS I LOVE, HUGE EMPHASIS ON SOME

"It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us." —Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

"We can love completely what we cannot completely understand." —Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”  —Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

"Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting." —Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.” —Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

"So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?" —Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

"No bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate." —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

"I longed for the cushion of family that was theirs." —Ivan Doig, Last Bus to Wisdom

“With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.” —Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.” —Zora Neal Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God

"It's come at last, she thought, the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.” —Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.” —Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I believe that if we are going to write about life and death, we should not do it from the cheap seats.” —Rick Bragg, All Over but the Shoutin'

If I don't stop now, I never will. Although it induces great anxiety over the many I've left out. It's your turn: what sentences speak to you?

Posted by Rachel

Portable Magic

I feel like cutting in on Rachel’s dance with Stephen King.  May I, please?  I just want to sashay for a moment.  That’s all.  (Actually, cue the disco ball.) Whether you like to get your creep on or not, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is well worth the read.  I do not exaggerate when I say that it’s thoroughly fascinating.  Indeed, it will make you a better writer; in fact, it has become the most popular book about writing ever written.  Writing tips aside, On Writing is keenly interesting because it chronicles King’s rise to fame.  He’s published more than 50 best-selling novels—at times, he did this against addictive odds.  

King doesn’t consider writing a chore—he finds joy in his craft.  His enthusiasm will inevitably find its way into your head.  And even if you don’t aspire to put pen to page, your curiosity will be piqued.  A supernatural force may possess you to the point of unwittingly purchasing a King novel.  After that, you’ll undoubtedly be entranced.  

Remember this fact: the master of the macabre did craft non-frightening stories as well.  It’s the softer side of King that has me rapt.  I’m told The Running Man is particularly good.  The Green Mile and The Body (filmed under the title Stand By Me) both made it onto the silver screen, which speaks volumes about well, these volumes.  My favorite, hands-down, is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. King’s writing is exquisite. For me, it’s hard not to feel enchanted by a novella with the subtitle Hope Springs Eternal. If you can handle some of the awful scenarios prison-life promotes, you’ll be grateful for the reminder that, “hope is a good thing…maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Posted by Tracy

Kill Your Darlings

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.

Who better to spend a little time with on this All Hallows' Eve than the master of fear himself, Stephen King? While I've yet to read any of his fiction, some of which scares me off by its sheer scariness, I am a huge fan of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

I've read my fair share of books on writing and this is the most dog-eared book I own—it practically falls open to his Toolbox section. This, along with Anne Lamotte's Bird by Bird, and The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, are all the books that need line a writer's shelf.

You don't have to want to write to love this book. The first half is a memoir: a look into the life that built the writer, and when it's the writer behind the likes of Carrie, Misery, and The Shining, you know you're in for quite a ride. You'll learn that King is part of a writers-only rock band, along with Amy Tan, of all people, and how he wrote his first best seller in the eighth grade, The Pit and the Pendulum. Selling it for a quarter a copy, he had three dozen sold and was riding high with nine dollars in change weighing down his book bag, before he was summoned to the principal's office for turning the school into a marketplace. You'll be regaled with tales of poison ivy, potentially lethal science projects, how his first national bestseller was saved from the trash bin by his wife, and that in the end, it was his compulsion to write that brought him back from the brink of death.

I'll leave you with this early piece of advice from his mother, who encouraged King to get his teaching credentials as a backup, should the whole writing thing not pan out: "You may want to get married, Stephen, and a garret by the Seine is only romantic if you're a bachelor. It's no place to raise a family."

Posted by Rachel

Stardust

In the soul-sister spirit of Anna Quindlen, it’s widely known in a small circle that I make a mean spaghetti sauce, I can spy a surprisingly stunning paint swatch, and I have a semi-successful sideline in matchmaking.  More importantly, I have a gift for making friends—an eye for the very best.  The odds weren’t in my favor of finding Rachel in a packed and bustling JFK International airport.  Admittedly, providence stepped in.  Still within 5 minutes of our first real conversation, I knew she was a keeper.  Who wouldn’t draw close to light? Of course, I was young.  My brain wasn’t fully developed.  There was no way to know then that I had discovered a once-in-a-lifetime friend.

Yes, this is a blog about the best books.  But it’s as much about a consummate friendship.  A friendship that started in a noisy airport terminal, flourished in a foreign country, and thrived immeasurably over years.  It’s one for the books.  For me, some of the most exquisite reads revolve around timeless friendships that are a lot like winter’s first generous snowfall—it beckons you to watch from the window with quiet wonder.

I’m sure I’ve learned how to be a friend, in part, from reading.  I learned about the constancy of friendship from Minny & Abileen.  No matter how ugly life got, they’d pull through because they had each other. Miriam’s sacrifice for Laila reminds me that the most profound relationships are rooted in unselfishness. I shudder to think what if Hamlet didn’t have Horatio?  So maybe your best friend claims to have seen a ghost…or per chance, he tries to kill his uncle—as a best friend, it’s your job to love and support him anyway.  Oh and don’t forget, it was Horatio who lived to tell Hamlet’s story.  I don’t want that job for just anyone—a trusted task for Rae or a sister of mine.

Real friendships should provide us shade and cover.  Respite.  Honestly, I don’t know everything the magical formula entails.  I do know it when I see it.  Rachel and I…we show up.  We listen. We laugh.  The rest is just stardust.

Posted by Tracy

Throwback Thursday

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.

Tracy and I have a list of people we're best friends with in our minds. Anna Quindlen is one. Rachel Remen is another. Emma Thompson definitely makes my list as well. And Helene Hanff. If she were still alive, and I somehow lived down the hall from her New York City apartment, we'd spend long afternoons talking about books and our love for quaint little Englishmen who work in bookshops. We'd also laugh about our hopelessly horrible math skills (My algebra teacher, Mr. Moots, will vouch for mine). When asking for book prices to be given in dollars, rather than pounds, Hanff writes: "Will you please translate your prices hereafter? I don't add too well in plain American, I haven't a prayer of ever mastering bilingual arithmetic."

If you love books, London, and charming used bookshops, this classic is for you. 84, Charing Cross Road, published in 1970, is a collection of real letters, spanning over twenty years, between Hanff and Mark Doel, a book dealer at London's Marks & Co.. Despite the miles between them, the difference in cultures, and the fact that they never meet, they develop a friendship that does what all the best friendships do: changes them both for good.

It's a quick read, as in you can read this in a day quick. Which is sad, because it will leave you wanting so much more of Helene and Frank, and yet beautiful, because you can read it again and again.

I've yet to see it, but it was made into a movie in 1987, staring Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, and Judi Dench. Of course, true to Hollywood form, they've turned it into a love story, and not the book loving kind. Blatant embellishment aside, I plan on Netflixing this pronto.

Posted by Rachel

Somewhere South Of The Moon And North Of Hell

Luck is the star we steer by.

We called her Grandma with the Chickens. She was no-nonsense, yet also mischievous, with a hearty, deep down honest laugh. She wasn't a hugger, but whenever I walked into her home, heard the familiar "Howdy," and smelled her fried chicken and homemade biscuits, I knew I was loved. The lines on her face spoke of a hard life: one that moved her from farm to farm as my grandfather searched for greener pastures, with eleven children underfoot, and just enough money to keep a roof, albeit a small one, over their heads. There was no time to speak of love, she was too busy showing it.

So when Ivan Doig introduced me to Gram in Last Bus to Wisdom, I found I already knew her. This happens a lot with Doig; his characters feel like old friends. And like a true friend, they stay with you long after you've read the last page. Eleven year-old Donal (minus the d) Cameron, is one of those friends. As with Rusty in Doig's The Bartender's Tale, I found myself not only rooting for him, but wanting to adopt him.

We meet Donal aboard the dog bus (Greyhound) where he wrestles with homesickness for his Gram and nervous anticipation of meeting his great aunt Kate.  It's 1951, and Gram's illness has forced him to leave the Double W ranch in Montana for Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to spend the summer with an aunt he's never met. Armed with an autograph book and all the money he has, which isn't much, pinned to the inside of his shirt, Donal experiences his first kiss, has a run-in with a squirrelly sheriff, and finds an unlikely ally, along with a slew of other memorable characters. Great Aunt Kate turns out to be nothing short of a henpecking bully, but Donal finds a friend in her beleaguered husband, Herman the German. Circumstances soon lead Donal and Herman back on the dog bus, headed for "somewhere south of the moon and north of hell," where they'll find wisdom and goodness in the most unexpected of places. Trust me, you'll be glad you came along for the ride.

Reading Doig reminds me of sitting around the table with my dad and uncles as they regaled us with tales of their youth. It feels like home. While The Bartender's Tale remains my favorite of Doig's work, Last Bus to Wisdom and The Whistling Season are in a close race for second. Sadly, this is his last novel, he passed away before it was published, and I feel bereft over the loss of his magical storytelling. I take comfort in the books he left that line my shelves, to be read time and again. I owe this man an ode.

Posted by Rachel

A Not So Jolly Holiday With Mary

Halloween and I have a complicated relationship. Our troubles began when I was six and dressed up as my favorite hero: Mary Poppins. I set out with my brothers, clutching my umbrella and magical bag, with visions of Mr. Goodbars dancing in my head. It would be a jolly holiday, indeed. My brothers were older and faster, and wearing practical shoes—turns out Mary Janes aren't the best trick-or-treating footwear, so I struggled to keep up all night. Finally, seeing them already knocking at the next door, I decided to throw caution to the wind and cut across the yard. With my eyes on nothing but the candy ahead, I failed to notice the chicken wire protecting their flowers, and well...Mary Poppins took flight, much to the unabashed joy of my brothers. Pulling my six-year-old self together, I stumbled to the door, ripped tights, torn bag, big tears welling up in my little eyes, only to be harangued by the meanest lady I'd ever met for daring to run through her yard. So severe was her wrath that it even silenced my heckling brothers. For a minute, anyway.

I bounced right back the next year as Miss America. Clearly, I still hadn't learned the whole practical shoes lesson. But Halloween had lost some of its luster, and as I grew older I became even less of a fan of dressing up. Then followed a few blissful years of not having to participate in the whole shebang, only to be thrown head first into the world of kids and costumes and school parties. Eek.

Halloween is not without its redeeming qualities: pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, and most especially pumpkin spice donuts, crisp night air, trick-or-treaters at my door, costumes—as long as I don't have to make or wear them—and, of course, spooky reads. And the candy. Definitely the candy.

BE THE HALLOWEEN HERO

(best read-aloud books to get a classroom cheering)

"Wiener Dog, Wiener Dog!" the other dogs mercilessly tease Oscar. His mother doesn't help matters by calling him her "little Vienna Sausage" and coming up with the worst Halloween costume ever. But when Oscar has the chance for the last laugh, he chooses kindness, and that makes all the difference.

This brave little old lady has her fearlessness put to the test.

You'll never be sorry when you make room for more friends—on your broom or in your heart.

"Everyone we know is giving out candy?! I can wear that."

SPOOKY CHAPTER BOOKS

A story of a boy, raised by ghosts, living in a graveyard. Your kids will love it.

What's scarier than Miss Trunchbull?

Make a deal with your kids: read the book, see the movie. Jack Black is great incentive.

Sophie and the BFG (big friendly giant) set out to save the world's children from the other not-so-friendly giants.

A BOOK TO SCARE YOUR OWN SOCKS OFF

Don't read this at night. Alone. You've been warned.

Posted by Rachel

We Hear You, Anna

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. —Anna Quindlen

We've given our bookshelf a makeover! Head over and have a look by choosing the tab above, or because it's Monday, and we know you're exhausted, here it is. Gift guide coming soon!