(And that was from In the Empire of Dreams by Dianne Highbridge.)

"She was trying to tease him, but it came out wrong, like a lizard with a little hat on."

From "Willing," in Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore.

Okay, okay, it's an old favorite, but it's on the coffee table in front of me and I re-read it recently, so I'm pretending it's a recent discovery.

I will accept your entry. Also, that's a great line.

"The color of monotony is blue."
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

"For it is written that 'if the wise man always appears stupid his failures do not disappoint, and his success gives pleasant surprise'
Maggie smacked him on the leg. 'That is not written'
sure it is Imbeciles three verse seven
There is no book of Imbeciles.
Drudges four?"

I just started Lamb:The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Friend

I am kind of entranced with Christopher Moore at the moment.

Is he fun? i keep wanting to check out the vampire one for the cover.

"To feel is perhaps the most terrifying thing in this society."

-Cecil Taylor, quoted by Nat Hentoff in Jazz Is.

A London fog, solid, substantial, yellow as an old dog's tooth or a jaundiced eye. You could not look through it, nor yet gaze up and down it, nor over it; and you only thought you saw it. The eye became impotent, untrustworthy; all senses lay fallow except that of touch; the skin alone conveyed to you with promptness and no incertitude that this thing had substance. You could feel it; you could open and shut your hands and sense it on your palms, and it penetrated your clothes and beaded your spectacles and rings and bracelets and shoe-buckles. It was nightmare, bereft of its pillows, grown somnambulistic; and London became the antechamber to Hades, lackeyed by idle dreams and peopled by mistakes.

The Voice in the Fog, Harold MacGrath, 1915 (mystery story)
________________________________

Autumn returned to Gormenghast like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold. Its breath could be felt in forgotten corridors - Gormenghast had itself become Autumn. Even the denizens of this fastness were its shadows.

...

Fuchsia removed her shoes without untying the laces by treading on the heels and working her feet loose. Mrs Slagg had made up a glowing fire and Fuchsia, pulling off her dress, rubbed her wet hair with it. Then, wrapping a warm blanket about her, she fell back into a low armchair that had been drawn up to the fire and, sinking into its familiar softness, gazed absently at the leaping flames with half-closed eyes.

When Mrs Slagg returned with a tray of tea and toasted scones, currant bread, butter and eggs and a jar of honey, she found Fuschsia asleep.

The Gormenghast Trilogy, Mervyn Peake
________________________________

They turned downhill, towards the convent. Before them the hard ground gleamed silver with frost. Behind them the abandoned candles flickered. Around them was an argentine brightness, solar and lunar, unearthly and mercurial, sparkling from the dead branches, flickering in the ditch, glinting on the cobbles before the church door. The convent windows were washed with brightness, the grimy stonework glowed; high on the terraces, fireflies seemed to dart.

All my life till now, she thought, has been a journey in the dark. But now another kind of travelling begins: a long vagrancy under the sun, in its sacred and vivifying light.

Fludd, Hilary Mantel

That's a great quote, b (Cecil Taylor's one of those musicians I've pretty much given up on ever selling anybody on, but I've been listening to Looking Ahead! a lot lately (it's an early, very transitional CT album, with drums and bass and vibes (from Earl Griffith, speaking of underrated)), and it's amazing. Here's a ballad written by Griffith: Cecil Taylor Quartet - African Violets. There's also an article about Taylor in the most recent Down Beat).

I love this thread. Here are the last two paragraphs of a Charles Willeford book I read recently:

There isn't any use to tell about the trial. It was in all the papers. The only defense I had was the fact that I was a good soldier during the war. My lawyer passed my medals around the jury box, and they were closely examined.

They didn't help a bit.

The voice of Pippin was suddenly lifted up above the others in one of Bilbo's favourite bath songs.

I love that's it's one of Bilbo's favourite bath songs (suggesting the existence of a whole repertoire) and that Tolkien then actually supplies the lyrics to it.

Tolkien is one of my comfort reads- I pick up books and read a page at random when I don't want to commit to a whole new book.

Thanks for that Taylor piece, box. I'm finding myself drawn to jazz a lot more these days - mostly because I find most indie rock to be fairly insipid lately, for the most part.

/derail

Sure thing, b--I hope you enjoy it.

J.G. Ballard, in "The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D," which is the first chapter/story of Vermilion Sands:

The three gliders, brilliant painted toys, revolved like lazing birds above Coral D, waiting for the first clouds to pass overhead. Van Eyck moved away to take a cloud. He sailed around its white pillow, spraying the sides with iodide crystals and cutting away the flock-like tissue. The streaming shards fell toward us like crumbling ice-drifts.

I had to read this out loud to my boyfriend because it just popped out of nowhere:

When [Isabella] becomes bored with entertaining Beatrice, she sends her pet dwarf, Mathilda, to make Beatrice laugh by lifting up her skirts and chasing Beatrice's greyhound puppy around the room, shooting little squirts of pee in his direction.

Leonardo's Swans, Karen Essex

Not my favourite line, but it's the most recent one that I read...

Abu: "If I ever catch you looking sideways at another man, I will beat the daylights out of you!"

Christina (surprised): "Will you really?"

Abu: "No. You won't be out of bed long enough to give me reason."

Not that I read crap like this, but it's for a post that I'll be making on the blue.

Is he fun? i keep wanting to check out the vampire one for the cover.
posted by ethylene 15 March |

I am also reading that one, (I just started it so I can't tell you if its a good read or not yet) I can't seem to read one book at a time I usually have 3 or so going. My favorite of his so far is A Dirty Job but Lamb so far is coming in a very close second. He has this dry snarky sense of humor which I really dig. He has a minor couple of characters that show up in his other books which makes for sort of an inside joke to people who have read them. I like that he ties in those characters even though the stories are totally unrelated without sacrificing any storylines.