Books I want to remember
mist comes right then, laying the salt air gently on the fruit, you have something that money can’t buy and chefs can’t create. A perfect, lightly salted blackberry. You can’t make them; it has to come with time and nature. They’re a gift, when you think summer’s over and the good stuff has all gone. They’re a gift.”’ Our path, our magnificent walk, was slipping away from him. Hold on to it, Moth, hold it tight; it’s ours, our bright light in the mess of our lives.
Piranesi a book by Susanna Clarke
bookshop.org
I write down what I observe in my notebooks. I do this for two reasons. The first is that Writing inculcates habits of precision a carefulness. The second is to preserve whatever knowledge I possess for you, the Sixteenth Person.
I am guilty of bad practice. Only one system of numbering is needed. Two introduces confusion, doubt, uncertainty, doubt and muddle. (And is aesthetically unpleasing.)
In accordance with the first system I have named two years 2011 and 2012. This strikes me as deeply pedestrian what happened two thousand years ago which made me think that year a good starting point. According to the years names like 'The Year I named the Constellations' and 'The Year I counted and named the Dead each year a character of its own. This is the system I shall use going forward
For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only apprehend my felicity; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing that I was not. I was in the condition of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let loose after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself with myself. It was like passing out of Time into Eternity—for it is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me. From “The Superannuated Man” 1823
Women fill with fury at waste, eco-apocalypse and the pressure to be flawless in a lyrical and oblique short story collection
Lauren Elkin • Florida by Lauren Groff review – rage and refusal as Earth reaps the whirlwind
Leaves, soil and seeds. Not normally words that make your pulse race. But they do light a fire in the mind and heart of Hope Jahren. In her hands, you will never feel the same way about these words again. Leaves become elegant machines, soil is the interface between the living and the dead, and seeds, well, they are transformed into the most patien... See more
Lucie Green • Lab Girl: A Story of Trees, Science and Love by Hope Jahren – review
Way Out There is an account of J. Robert Harris’s extraordinary exploits while backpacking in some of the world’s most tantalizing places―largely alone and unsupported. And after almost fifty years of wilderness travel, “J. R.,” as he’s known, has plenty of tales to tell! His stories are by turns funny, tragic, and uplifting, and are all told in hi... See more
Way Out There: Adventures of a Wilderness Trekker
Grand Central Winter
sevenstories.com
THE SUN IS A COMPASS chronicles a 4,000-mile human-powered expedition from the Pacific rainforest to the Arctic coast. For six months, Caroline and her husband, Pat, crossed some of the most remote and rugged places left on earth. A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, the book explores the bounds of the human body and the te... See more
The Sun is a Compass — Caroline Van Hemert
Numbers in the Dark is a collection of short stories covering the length of Italo Calvino's extraordinary writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. They include witty allegories and wise fables; a town where everything has been forbidden apart from the game of tip-cat; a pitiable tribe watching the flight paths of gui... See more