Like many (most? all?) other Litsy members, I have more lists and stacks of books than time for them all. This one was a Christmas present, though, and made its way to the top of my bedside stack. I am glad. Just finished it, and found it informative, thought provoking, and entertaining.

Finished Sebastian Barry's Old God's Time this weekend. Tom's remark that “sleep was the mother of health“ appears early in the novel, but I remembered and smiled at that statement after I'd finished. I found the book so beautiful and haunting I kept trading sleep for more reading time.

“If you are disappointed with your face, eventually it shows.“

At some point, Gorey's library overflowed his bookcases and engulfed everything

The mere fact that her children were children, condemned for years to feel powerless and bewildered and confined, filled her with such pity that to add any further hardship to their lives seemed unthinkable. She could excuse anything in them, forgive them everything. She would have made a better mother, perhaps, if she hadn't remembered so well how it felt to be a child.

“Sometimes, you need to hold on to a small worry, to stop you from reaching out for something bigger.“

“I have never been able to do harm to a book. Even books I don't want, or books that are so worn out and busted that they can't be read any longer, cling to me like thistles.“