Where Is Your Bookmark? (04/14/2015)

A friendly lizard visiting our house

How are you today? It is days like these I hate being cooped up inside an office. I would much rather be outdoors, enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze. It was a pleasant weekend too. Mouse started another season of soccer. I recognized only one child from her previous class in her current one, but this class seems closer to her age. 

Last week I finished reading Diamond Head by Cecily Wong. I was too busy catching up on my magazine reading this weekend to start a new book right away.  Plus, I needed a little time after Wong's book before sinking my teeth into another. I am now reading Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, which admittedly had not even been on my radar before the book arrived on my doorstep last month. It is the second book I have received for my postal book club.  I am saving that for when I finish the book. I am really enjoying being a part of this group and look forward to seeing what comes in the mail next month. I have been good and have not yet read the previous two book bloggers' journal entries. 

What are you reading at the moment? Is it something you would recommend?

Every Tuesday Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea hosts 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where  

participants share the first paragraph (or a few) of a 

book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.

The blurb from my current book, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger:

Once in a great while, we encounter a novel in our voluminous reading that begs to be read aloud. Leif Enger's debut, Peace Like a River, is one such work. His richly evocative novel, narrated by an asthmatic 11-year-old named Reuben Land, is the story of Reuben's unusual family and their journey across the frozen Badlands of the Dakotas in search of his fugitive older brother. Charged with the murder of two locals who terrorized their family, Davy has fled, understanding that the scales of justice will not weigh in his favor. But Reuben, his father, Jeremiah—a man of faith so deep he has been known to produce miracles—and Reuben's little sister, Swede, follow closely behind the fleeing Davy.

It begins:

From my first breath in this world, all I wanted was a good set of lungs and the air to fill them with--given circumstances, you might presume, for an American baby of the twentieth century. Think about your own first gasp: a shocking wind roweling so easily down your throat, and you still slipping around in the doctor's hands. How you yowled! Not a thing on your mind but breakfast, and that was on the way.

When I was born to Helen and Jeremiah Land, in 1951, my lungs refused to kick in.

What do you think? Would you continue reading?  

I admit it took me a bit to get into Peace Like a River. I was not sold on it right away, but it has grown on me the more I read. I am quite attached to Swede and Reuben now.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely ladies at Broke and Bookish.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday theme is Top Ten Inspiring Quotes from Books (anything that inspires you, challenges you, makes you think, encourages you, etc.). This is a challenging topic for me given how I do not write down or remember quotes from books very often. I mean, I am really bad at jotting down or marking quotes. I will give it a try though!

1. From Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos:

"Less is less. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I'm sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don't measure these things."

2. From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: 

"I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience." 

3. From Who By Fire by Diana Spechler:

"Everything is a choice," I say, but I'm not even sure I've said it aloud, until Chaim responds, "Even guilt is a choice."

4. From The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness:

“Here's what I think," I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. "I think maybe everybody falls," I say. "I think maybe we all do. And I don't think that's the asking." 

 I pull on her arms gently to make sure she's listening. "I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”  

5. From The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald:

Afterwards, in bed with a book, the spell of television feels remote compared to the journey into the page. To be in a book. To slip into the crease where two pages meet, to live in the place where your eyes alight upon the words to ignite a world of smoke and peril, colour and serene delight. That is a journey no one can end with the change of a channel. Enduring magic. 

6. From The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern:

“Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.”

7. From Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

8. From Every Day by David Levithan:

“If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: We all want everything to be okay. We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.” 

9. From The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy:

“I’ve never been fooled by the romantic, grand gestures. Love is all about the little things, the everyday considerations, kindness, and pardons.”

10. From The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

“You have to find a way to laugh a little bit each day despite everything, or your heart will simply run out of the joy that makes it go.”

Have you read any of these books? What quotes from books have inspired or moved you in some way?

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© 2015, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.