Twits, Tweets, and Opening Lines

(Picture courtesy of NicksFlickPicks.)

"The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years--if it ever did end--began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain." 1

"Howard Roark laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff." 2

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." 3

And of course, quite possibly the best opening lines ever, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." 4

I don't know about you, but I love opening lines. They can tell you so much about a book right off the bat. You know that Gunter Grass, for example, isn't going to be an easy bathtub read when The Tin Drum begins with "Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peep-hole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me." Wow! (Hmmm, I had forgotten how good that book is. I'm going to have to sit down and read that again as soon as this post is finished...)

Most people standing in a bookstore will choose a book based on the cover, or the blurb on the back, or perhaps the reviews. All of those are good things to know before committing to a book, but me, I like to read the opening line.

Which is why I am absolutely delighted to have found "TwitterLit", a member of the Twitter community who, as her profile says, is "Twittering the first lines of books so you don't have to." I'm not sure how many of you readers out there are on Twitter, but if you are I HIGHLY recommend following @TwitterLit. Every day she tweets the first line of a new book, and includes a link to the book on Amazon.com. Some of the first lines I've been intrigued by so far are:

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad" http://snipr.com/5sdsd

"The day the stock market falls out of bed and breaks its back is the worst day of your life" http://snipr.com/552wt

"I started puberty very late" http://snipr.com/5n71k

"It is its own religion, this love" http://snipr.com/5gnn8

It's a potential new addiction delivered directly to you every day! I'm only upset that I didn't think of it myself! Now if you'll excuse me, I have the first line of a book calling my name...

(If you are not familiar with it, Twitter is a micro-blogging application somewhat like Facebook, but with only the status updates. The gist of it is this, if you join Twitter (become a Twit?) you have 140 characters in which to say something, absolutely no more. You may "tweet" as often as you like, and include links to interesting web finds or photos. I started "tweeting" about 3 or 4 months ago, and I've met some interesting people, but I'm still not sure if it's the application for me. If you decide to give it a try, or are already on Twitter, let me know. My profile is @ghostblogger.)

1 It by Stephen King

2 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

3 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

4 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

What Are You Reading?

This is one of my favorite questions to ask of friends--or even strangers! With friends I ask unapologetically as I rifle through their shelves or peer into books left lying around on counter/tabletops. Strangers will inevitably get the question when my infamous inability for small talk rears its ugly head; "Hi, nice to meet you. Beautiful weather we're having. So... what do you like to read?" Or even worse, I stop and crane my head to rudely stare at the covers of books I see people reading in parks or while waiting in lines.

I can't help it. I love to know what's out there: What's good, what people are reading, what I'm missing, and what I absolutely shouldn't miss. So here is a list of what I'm reading right now (I always have more than one book going at a time, there's too much good stuff out there to limit it to one), and I hope you'll comment to let me know what you're reading. And please tell me what you think of it as well. The recommendations of friends is the best way to find great new reads!

• Cannery Row- My very favorite Steinbeck. This is the November read for my literature class, so you can expect some commentary or biographical trivia about this book and its author in future posts.






• 3 Minutes or Less, Life Lessons from America's Greatest Writers- Presented by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. A collection of humorous, heartwarming, inspiring or confessional short speeches from writers presenting at the annual gala at the Folger Shakespeare Library.





• The World Before Her- by Deborah Weisgall. A fictional account of a year George Eliot spent in Venice on her honeymoon with a man not quite her soul mate, intermingled with the account of a modern woman in Venice with her husband to celebrate their 10 year marriage which has become stale over time. Their parallel stories are told in alternating chapters as they each search for love and identity in the city rich with beauty and history.


• Living With Books- By Alan Powers. I am LOVING this book! Filled with beautiful photos of homes in which people make books an intimate part of their lives and decor. Rather than making room for books in your home this book tells (and shows) you how to beautifully and tastefully build your home around your books. This can be a dangerous book, as I guarantee it will make you want to completely re-organize/ -decorate your house and incorporate the ideas you find in here. I've already taken the cabinet doors off my linen cabinet to make an eccentric but charming new book-nook.

And I can't finish this post without mentioning that I just finished reading Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Bill Bryson's Shakespeare, the World as Stage. Both are extremely worthwhile reads.

Happy Reading!

(Girl with book photo at the top of this post courtesy of Urban Photo)

If you are reading this on Facebook you can click here to go to the original post on my blog, Banquet of Books

Weathered Reflections on Human Nature

We've had a little bit of rain in Southern California this weekend, and in a state where there is precious little dew on the ground in the morning, let alone out-and-out rain, this is news in and of itself. Being a person whose moods are susceptible to changes in the weather, I have been walking around with a spring in my step all weekend. I suppose you could say that the presence of clouds in the sky have lifted the clouds in my soul.

(I know what you're thinking--"poor little weather-rich girl with all her pretty sunshine"--but a monotony of sunshine can be just as oppressive as a monotony of rain.)

The rain also inspired me to find a short story to which I was first introduced in elementary school, and which has remained linked in my mind to the rain ever since. The story is Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day." It is a very short read, and certainly not one of Bradbury's best works, but it is piercingly painful. I have always cried for Margot, the wan little girl who waits five years for a two hour glimpse of the sun, only to be locked away from it by her ignorant classmates.

I've spent the morning wondering why it is that this tiny, insignificant story has stuck with me for decades. I think part of it is the story's distilled quality; the shortness of length makes the strength of emotion all the more potent. The other part of it is that I think all of us can relate to Margot's longing, her willingness to wait five years and look with hopeful eyes into a never ending rain, hoping for a glimpse of the sun, afraid to give in to the joy of believing it will actually appear, but unable to live without that very hope.

I don't know if that hope is good or bad. Is it right to be satisfied with feeling the warmth of the sun only every seven years? Is it apathy or endurance that keeps the residents of Venus from fleeing the oppressive rains?