"Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired (by passionate devotion to them) produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity...we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance."

(A.E. Newton)

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"He had been given patience, a weapon against which even the Klingons had no defence."

(John M. Ford, The Final Reflection)

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"He thinks he's awake, it's a common delusion."

("Jame" in P.C. Hodgell's fantasy novel Godstalk)

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"I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition
of an old book is a rebirth."

(Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections)

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Or, at least, one-tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid and often painful and uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which suprised her. Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed to use only about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.

(Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul)

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In later years it is stifled and gagged—buried deep, a green turf at the head of it, and on its heart a stone; but it lives, it breathes, it lurks, it will up and out when 'tis looked for least. That stockbroker, some brief summers gone, who was missed from his wonted place one settling-day! a goodly portly man, i' faith: and had a villa and a steam launch at Surbiton: and was versed in the esoteric humours of the House. Who could have thought that the Hunter lay hid in him? Yet, after many weeks, they found him in a wild nook of Hampshire. Ragged, sun-burnt, the nocturnal haystack calling aloud from his frayed and weather-stained duds, his trousers tucked, he was tickling trout with godless native urchins; and when they would have won him to himself with honied whispers of American Rails, he answered but with babble of green fields. He is back in his wonted corner now: quite cured, apparently, and tractable. And yet—let the sun shine too wantonly in Throgmorton Street, let an errant zephyr, quick with the warm South, fan but his cheek too wooingly on his way to the station; and will he not once more snap his chain and away? Ay, truly: and next time he will not be caught.

(Kenneth Grahame, "Orion", Pagan Papers)

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I was by no means the only reader of books on board the Neversink. Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature.

(White Jacket, Herman Melville)

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For myself, I probably stand alone in owning to a sentimental weakness for the night-piercing whistle—judiciously remote, as some men love the skirl of the pipes. In the days when streets were less wearily familiar than now, or ever the golden cord was quite loosed that led back to relinquished fields and wider skies, I have lain awake on stifling summer nights, thinking of luckier friends by moor and stream, and listening for the whistles from certain railway stations, veritable "horns of Elf-land, faintly blowing." Then, a ghostly passenger, I have taken my seat in a phantom train, and sped up, up, through the map, rehearsing the journey bit by bit: through the furnace-lit Midlands, and on till the grey glimmer of dawn showed stone walls in place of hedges, and masses looming up on either side; till the bright sun shone upon brown leaping streams and purple heather, and the clear, sharp northern air streamed in through the windows..."We are only the children who might have been," murmured Lamb's dream babes to him; and for the sake of those dream-journeys, the journeys that might have been, I still hail with a certain affection the call of the engine in the night...

(Kenneth Grahame, "The Romance of the Rail", Pagan Papers)

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How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves and worn-out appearance, nay the very odour (beyond Russia) if we would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating library" Tom Jones or Vicar of Wakefield. How they speak of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages with delight.

(Charles Lamb, Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading)

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"Reading stimulates the young and diverts the old, increases ones satisfaction when things are going well and when they are going badly provides refuge and solace. It is a delight in the home, it can be fitted with public life, throughout the night, on journeys and in the country, it is a companion which never lets me down."

(Cicero, 64 BC)

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"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are."

(George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.)

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One of my favorite authors, a proponent of the "new space opera", is blogging.

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Night after night they played there in the great cabin with the stern-windows open and the ship's wake flowing away and away in the darkness. Few things gave them more joy; and although they were as unlike in nationality, education, religion, appearance and habit of mind as two men could well be, they were wholly at one when it came to improvising, working out variations on a theme, handing them to and fro, conversing with violin and 'cello; though this was a language in which Jack was somewhat more articulate than his friend, wittier, more original and indeed more learned. They were alike in their musical tastes, in their reasonably high degree of amateur skill, and in their untiring relish.

(The Far Side of the World, Patrick O'Brian)

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Ladies and gentlemen, rest easy. The newest issue of Dave Langford's Ansible has been posted.

Charles McGrath calls Philip K. Dick `A Prince of Pulp, Legit at Last' and adds a little whitewash: `... "The Man in the High Castle," his most sustained and most assured attempt at mainstream respectability, and it's barely a sci-fi book at all but, rather, what we would now call a "counterfactual" ...' (New York Times, 6 May) [PB]

...and many other gems...

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[1] Grant me, O spirit of Reason, matter for Deduction, Intuition, and Analysis; plenty of three-pipe problems, that I may avoid the cowardice of seven percent cocaine, or at least substitute something a little special in white wines. more...

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(2005 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2005 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2005 continues!)

Review can now be read here.

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Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.

(2005 continues!)

The review can now be found here.

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(2005 continues!)

The review can now be found here.

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