Books I’ve (willingly) Read at Least Twice
1. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
2. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
3. Persepolis 1 & 2 by Marjane Satrapi
4. The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
5. Daytripper by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
6. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
7. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
8. Acts of Faith by Erich Segal
9. Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi
10. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
11. When we were Gods by Colin Falconer
There’re probably others, but I can’t remember them right now…
I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not, except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question, on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage and try to mitigate it; some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and then there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be afraid of.
“
| — |
-The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
|
Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.
“
| — |
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (via bookmania)
|
See, everyone here’s afraid of something and nuthin. This town, that’s how they live, and they don’t even know it. They stick to what they know, what they bin told. They don’t unnerstand that it’s just a choice you make.
“
| — |
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvery
|
Book Review: the Perks of Being a Wallflower
So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.
I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won’t tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn’t change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
When I was first recommended this book, I thought, oh dear me, not another naive coming-of-age novel. It’s probably going to be full of those high school cliches and longer than necessary scenes of obsessive superficial love.
I was wrong. Very wrong. And I’m not someone who likes admitting that.
Chbosky has a unique voice. Reminiscent of J.D. Salinger, but with less angst and a lot more heart. His narrative is sensitive, full of depth and almost poetic. It felt like reading a diary that an adult wrote about his teenage self.
I highly recommend this book. It’s the perfect companion for approximately 4 hours; depending on your reading speed, of course.
