"Freshly washed sheets were highly dangerous, according to the good doctor, because of the lethal smell of soap."

"Grief, when it comes, takes many forms. I had lost enough people from my life to have experienced them all. But the tears shed following the death of someone close to you were nearly always the tears of the future. People cry for what will never be, the days they won't spend together, the celebrations they would miss, the conversations they will never have. They are the tears of absence."

Essays about Coulter's walk from alcoholic to sober woman. Equally compelling was her chart from single to career woman to married woman, measured by the alcohol she indulged in. Feminism makes a slight play for the brass ring, but Coulter's forthright voice about the ins and outs of the nearest bottle and her place in it garner center stage. Rightfully so.

"Is this the kangaroo?", I asked the waiter. "Or is it something else that's just called kangaroo?". He gave me a blank look. "You know, the way mahi mahi is called dolphin". Another blank look. I guess Germans were not all that up on fish trivia.

Gewurtraminer, 1990. You leave Salzburg for Bern, where you spend an entire weekend reading music magazines in cafes. From one, you learn that Paul Westerberg has quit drinking and feels great. You know you should be happy for him. Instead, you think, We're not the same kind of person anymore, as you drink another glass of wine and are lonely, lonely, lonely.

Disappointing. Very predictable, and the lead character was so dumbed down the reader had very little or no sympathy for her. The exact opposite of what the book was going for.

See screen shot.

"You couldn't get stuck if you're always moving."

"He owed two months of rent to his roommates, and he'd eaten so much instant ramen, he'd contracted sodium poisoning."

Of course the daughter is wearing a Duran Duran shirt. She has great taste!

"If I let you play that, you're going to start singing, then I'm going to start singing, then we're going to have some kind of moment, and when it's over things will be weird between us. I'm not ready to sing Neil Diamond with you. That's a big step. You haven't been in the field long enough."

"You don't see Bill O'Reilly going on USO tours".
"That's not fair, honey", I said. "He has no talent".

Fascinating treatise about jellyfish; their unassuming presence that affects so many aspects of oceanlife. It also ties into the environment and what's going on in the world today. The only thing I could have done without was the author talking so much about herself.

I always love Grafton's books. The fact that psycho hose beast Ned was still loose and Kinsey is on her guard was nail biting. The mystery of who killed Sloan in 1979 and the fallout over a sex tape was s bit annoying. I disliked all of the people involved in that side of the story, hence the so-so rating. And not enough Henry! Otherwise, typical Kinsey, which I love. Just hated the group of spoiled brats under suspicion.

"The number one career match for Alan Franken was "jazz musician". Number two was "camp counselor". Coming in dead last? "Scientist".

"Today, not one Democratic U.S. senator cones from the Deep South".

A satisfying end to the much-heralded "R.F. Jackaby" series. If you stuck with it this long...and you should have!...you will be pleased with the end. There's only one problem with this book....it bogs down a bit in the middle but otherwise, it keeps you surprised by the curve balls and the action is pretty much 'on' the whole book...just not that mid part where you're a little bit ?. I will greatly miss RF Jackaby and his gang.

"If just being magical meant that something was dangerous, you'd have long b
Since been killed by a butterfly, or a bubble, or an apple turnover".
That's quite a line. ?

Or at least one app. In Iceland, a former endogamy hot zone thanks to its geographical isolation, potential dates can download an app that tells them if they are cousins (actual tagline: "Bump in the app before you bump in bed").

"I know it's about as appealing as pondering the number of insect parts in your pizza sauce or a game of Escape The Room with Ted Cruz". --- Guess who is NOT having pizza tonight?

"Many of the Lilly men sport big beards, suspenders, flannel shirts, and trucker hats. Give them a glass of absinthe and a Zadie Smith novel and they could pass for hipsters in Brooklyn."---- A.J. knows how to put quite an image in one's mind.

Loved it! Funny, honest, and you can tell the man loves his craft (As well as books and the Beatles). Self-effacing and warm-hearted, you'll love it.

"I had never really left it, of course. From the very dawning of perception, books were vital to every aspect of my being".

Adorable and wonderful! The comparisons to "Charlotte's Web" are apt. Josie lives with her family in an overcrowded apartment in the city. On Thanksgiving, her brother brings home a piglet he rescued from a farm. The minute Josie has Hamlet squealing in her arms, she's in love. The Shilling clan fall head over heels in love, but there's no way Hamlet can stay with them forever. Josie must find her friend a home. A happy, wonderful book 4 the kids

Loved it! Not an easy book so wussies should not even bother with it. Dark, deeply unsettling and visceral, while it took a bit to adjust to that...fantastic growth of one of my favorite characters in fiction in a long, long time, Turtle. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed this more than the so-so indicates. I simply could not give it a pick when so many small things picked at me. Let's give the girl not one, but two love interests, and then neither one ends up as this. Let's sacrifice the truly good hearted and honest person in the book, in what felt to me like a senseless sacrifice. The main reprehensible character gets away with it. Other lives are introduced, then vanish into the ether. Uneven

"What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a melo-drama!- a famous prison, called The Tombs. Shall we go in?"

I expected this to be scarier from the description on the book cover. It ended up being similar to your everyday news crisis situation. The fierce kingdom of a mother's unwavering love for her son was the true payoff with this book.

So much promise. Loved the premise of the story and all of the characters, but everything that Jende and Neni were fighting for as immigrants seems to be forgotten by the end of the novel. The bad guys aren't as bad as you think, and the overall message was that the American dream will be anything but. Not a very inspirational message.

No. Just no.
Underwhelming. Couldn't get my head around either character. That ending....WTH was that? A valiant effort at a utopian existence, but ugh. No.

This has to be one of my favorite books this year! Thank you, @Allietaylor16 for the recommendation months ago.
If you want a realistic but funny in parts story about a mother and son's complicated relationship, this is a great place to start. Great supporting cast, too.

I was torn about how to rate this. I was reading it on break at work today and my coworker put up with my loud exclamations of "What the hell?". I got home and went to finish it and the exclamations continued. I still have no idea what to say about this, but I certainly have never read anything like it in a long time. There is no clear definition of what happened, what is happening, and why it happened. Twin Peaks-like.

"Dare ain't (ISN'T) always an easy explanation of a life".

"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie oh't! Ah fie!"
What the fuck is that? Who talks like that? And who said this was great literature?

"To this day, I weep like a child when those purple bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs show up in the Walgreens seasonal aisle at the first dawn of spring". AMEN, Samantha Irby, AMEN!

"Books. Sure. But mostly I build interest. Attention. Allure. A book is just packaging, a container. This is what I've realized. The mistake people in the book business make is they think their job is to build good containers. Saying you're in the book business is like a winemaker saying he's in the bottle business. What you're actually building is interest. A book is simply one shape that interest can take when we scale and leverage it.

I was trying to start this.
My "son" has other ideas.

"For they are actions that a man might play,
But I have that within which passeth show". - That Billy Shakes guy (William Shakespeare).

Books and bars are NOT a bad idea, according to this. Lol. #BringItBooks&Booze

I received "Before the Fall" by Noah Hawley for my birthday.
#LIBERTHDAY
@Liberty

My absolute darling will not let me read " My Absolute Darling". ?

"It doesn't matter what you look like or how interesting you are, once there's a four in front of your age, you're basically invisible"....character in the book about online dating in your forties. DEPRESSING! ?

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"That's all we expect of man, this side
The grave: his good is- knowing he is bad."
Robert Browning.

"A Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people. It is the idea of infinity and also there will always be done one better than you."

"Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares makes me think of summer. #SWEETSUMMERSTACK @Liberty

"Are you happy here?" I said at last.
He considered this for a moment. "Not particularly," he said. "But you're not very happy where you are, either".

"Every Tree Has A Rotten Branch"