Yes, that’s right, I only read one book in the month of February. Can you believe it? I can’t. The last time I only read one book in a month was before I moved to New York, so it’s been at least 4 years since that happened. I’d like to blame it on the book, but it was all me. Given the choice between rewatching all the seasons of Gilmore Girls and reading, I am ashamed to say that I chose reading.
Nonetheless, I really liked the one book I read, although it left me with enough questions to not be able to recommend this to many people since it was 745 pages long.
Some of my favorite passages were:
1. “It was necessary for him to be in Manhattan because he was a burglar, and for a burglar to work anyplace else was a shattering admission of mediocrity.”
2. Pearly had decided that a dead Short Tail deserved to be interred as close to hell as possible, and that the burial should entail as much risk to life and limb as could be imagined (the ultimate honor to the fallen).”
3. “They liked him, it was true, but in the way that you like an awkward dog that loses its footing and skis down the stairs.”
4. “The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake ones soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.” (I loved this and will be soon making for you a list of books that I find to be like this.)
5. “To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.”
6. “When night fell, he was often hungry and thirsty and would go to Times Square to get some papaya juice, which he loved because, when he drank it, it made him feel just like anyone else, just like a businessman or a registered nurse.”
Oops-I just realized I didn’t tell you the name of this book. It was A Winters Tale by Mark Helprin. It was good and very interesting and a little confusing and a great vision of the city, but a little too long with a little too many unanswered questions for my taste.
