read a book a week

i went to Maldives, i wanted to read related book.
but this book is boring… shame.

This book is very long, and difficult book.
difficult points are:
-have to read the Haruko-Jyoka(New King Lear’s first part)
-need to knowledge of politic and Buddism
if i have not vacation, i could not read.
but i make substantial reading.
I’m looking forward the next book, “the horse dragging the sun”

Though written in the 70’s, the story of the struggles and hardships this “ordinary family” face are as relevant as it is now.

My heart (and throat) ached for the characters. There was a constant stream of tears. I wanted to somehow reach through the pages of the book and comfort them, to mend their open wounds.

I suppose I should keep a reminder to always have a box or pack of tissues nearby, especially when reading or watching movies. Those always get to me.

I had been meaning to read a book of Mary Oliver’s ever since I stumbled upon “The Journey,” so I read through her book entitled New and Selected Poetry. I found it rich and beautiful – well deserving of its national book award. Her appreciation for nature is admirable, and her ability to see meaning in the simplest of moments incredibly inspirational.

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

I finally got around to reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – can’t believe it took me this long… I loved it; I am finding the sequels, and I am reading them as well.

22. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Long but excellent read and highly recommended. Some quotes from it:

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until the dawn”

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

“A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.”

“Fear dries a man’s mouth, and hate strangles him. That’s why hate has no great literature: real fear and real hate have no words.”

“The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,’ he said, ‘It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds and there are bad deeds. Men are just men-it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good or evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone-the noblest of man alive or the most wicked-has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.”

“On the day the moon loses her daughter.. in a week when two Mondays come together.” – Puzzling at first, but oh how intoxicatingly it unravels.

It took me a number of days to get through the first third of the book, but once the prelude of the dozen or more characters (including all their names) concluded, the enchanting tale blended like a witch’s brew and I was gripped till the very last page.

Now, if I can find the movie..

_{‘How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
There, and back again.
Yes, if your feet are nimble and light,
You can get there by candlelight.’}

As of last evening (10/22) I finished reading my 52nd book of the year. But as I said in a previous entry, I will continue reading and see what my year-end tally actually is.

Of the 52 books I have read thus far, 36 were fiction (12 of those mysteries) and 16 were non-fiction (7 of those biographies, autobiographies or memoirs). Thirty-six were books I owned (a mixture of fiction and non-fiction) and I ended up donating to the library or otherwise passing along 31 of those books. (One of the reasons one of my other goals is not to buy any books until the end of the year is that I have basically run out of shelf space, even though I took over my daughter’s former bookscases once I’d shipped several boxes of her books to her new home).

Since I have already achieved my original goal, I think one thing I will allow myself to do now is re-reads. All the 52 books I read were things I had never read before, but I have a large number of books on my shelves that I read years ago and kept because I liked them. But I know my reading taste has changed over the years, so now I can re-read some of those books and see if they are still ‘keepers’ or not.

Broken Vessel

and

The Devil in Music by Kate Ross