The Old Man and the Sea

Author- Ernest Hemingway


Dedication - "To Charlie Scribner and to Max Perkins"


First line - "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eight-four days now without taking a fish."


An Excerpt
"But in the dark now and no glow showing and no lights and only the wind and the steady pull of the sail he felt that perhaps he was already dead. He put his two hands together and felt the palms. They were not dead and he could bring the pain of life by simply opening and closing them. He leaned his back against the stern and knew he was not dead. His shoulders told him.
I have all those prayers I promised if I caught the fish, he thought. But I am too tired to say them now. I better get the sack and put it over my shoulders.
He lay in the stern and steered and watched for the glow to come in the sky. I have half of him, he thought. Maybe I'll have the luck to bring the forward half in. I should have some luck. No, he said. You violated your luck when you went too far outside.
Don't be silly, he said aloud. And keep awake and steer. You may have much luck yet.
I'd like to buy some if there's any place they sell it, he said.
What could I buy it with? he asked himself. Could I buy it with a lost harpoon and a broken knife and two bad hands?
You might, he said. You tried to buy it with eighty-four days at sea. They nearly sold it to you too."

An Ode To My Friends

Alas I did not know
That they were made of snow

To melt away when summer came

But I shall wait till fall is here
When frosty seasons draw them near

And build them up again

Life is short so . . .

-eat dessert first
-laugh as much as humanly possible
-learn to let things go
-don't let people ruin your day
-don't ruin other people's day
-don't sweat the small stuff
-remember in the light of eternity its almost all small
-keep your friends close
-if you have any enemies, try to resolve your differences, if you can't avoid them like the dickens
-always go for two scoops
-tell the truth, to yourself and to others
-don't let others lie to you
-believe in magic
-live vicariously through yourself

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Author - Tracy Chevalier
Dedication - none
First line - "My mother did not tell me they were coming"
A Quote -
"I half expected to see myself among the still lifes and seascapes, but of course I was not there."

It was not really a book you quote from, nor a book I would recommend to anyone. It was interesting to me only because I have seen the painting it was based on several times. Take that away and it was at best pore fiction.

The Great Gatsby

Dedication - "Once again to Zelda"

First line - "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."


Quotes and Snippets I found interesting:


" ... for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiristic and marred by obvious suppressions."


"life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all."


"I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone and yet to avoid all eyes."


"I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library."


"He smiled understandingly -- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in a life. It faces -- or seems to face -- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished..."


"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known"


"... He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand..."


"Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry."


"She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand."

"I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."

"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."

The Book of Merlin

Dedication - none

First line - "It was not the Bishop of Rochester"

A Quote - "yes, you are clever. You know the long words and how to juggle with them. If the sentence is a pretty one, you laugh and make it. But these are human souls you are cackling about, and it is my soul, the only one I have, which you have put in the index . . ."

oh well

I had a theory.
My theory was that Norwood had the cutest firemen. (hot seems like an inappropriate word considering.)
Then along came a Colrein squad and tore that theory to shreds.
Oh well.
I wouldn't mind having a slight accident in either district as it is.
So what can I do but continue to gather research?
And maybe if I can swing it, some pics too!

(Girls love a man in uniform)

a question

I is who me am, but is I who you think me are?

my incomplete summer reading list

My King Arthur fix
1. The Once and Future King (a reread) ^
2. The Book of Merlin^
3. Le Morte d'Arthur

Some Classics
4. Great Expectations
5. The Great Gatsby^
6. Oliver Twist

A Few Young Readers
7. Inkspell
8. Brisinger

A Series
9. The Hobbit
10. The Lord of the Rings
11. The Twin Towers
12. The Return of the King

Misc
13. Girl with a Pearl Earring (inspired by one of the paintings at the Cincy Art Museum)

I am hoping to read at least 20 books this summer, and have several more classics in mind, but I'm always interested in something new. So if you've read a good book lately tell me and I'll see if I can work it in.