Comments | hipsterbookclub: writers readers pumpkin eaters

rondaview in hipsterbookclub

writers readers pumpkin eaters

Jul 28, 2011 11:35

What are some books, or authors, that make you want to write? That make you grope for the nearest pen and notepad? That fire you up with the possibilities of language? Assuming a semipermeable membrane between the readers that frequent this comm and those with writerly aspirations....

For me, David Mitchell's Number9dream has been the leading ( Read more... )

Comments 12

josefiend July 29 2011, 14:43:08 UTC

Yes. Annie Dillard. Annie. Dillard. John Donne. Margaret Atwood. Frank McCourt. Tom Waits (okay, those are songs).

rondaview July 29 2011, 16:48:30 UTC

I thought I was the only person who knew Dillard was/is. Good to see that I'm not. There are entire sections of PaTC that I want to photo-copy and, like, paste onto my forehead.

ipsenaut July 30 2011, 19:30:22 UTC

She won a Pulitzer. Presumably her name has gotten out there a bit. ;)

rondaview July 31 2011, 04:01:06 UTC

I know, but I never hear her talked up nowadays! What a travesty.

nodressrehersal July 29 2011, 16:35:30 UTC

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

rondaview July 29 2011, 16:45:28 UTC

I've tried to start this book three times, because it's been raved about by every literate person on the planet, and in all three attempts I failed to make it past page fifty. But I really liked Housekeeping!

nodressrehersal July 29 2011, 17:05:47 UTC

I hear you - I've had discussions with folks who just couldn't see what it was I loved about this book, some saying, "It's not ABOUT anything..."

I loved the way she put us fully and completely inside his head, just us and his thoughts put to words...

Ok, I've just walked over to my bookcase and picked it up; I'll open to a random page and share anything I see that I've highlighted:

Pg. 111, where he describes seeing his son, swinging on a swing outside:

The ropes are long and you are light and the ropes bow like cobwebs, laggardly, indolent. Your shirt is red - it is your favorite shirt - and you fly into the sunlight and pause there brilliantly for a second and then fall back into the shadows again.

Pg. 82:

It has been my experience that guilt can burst through the smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and danknesses, just as native as water.

Pg. 155 about putting his written pages into the woodstove:

There was a rightness to seeing nonsense and frustration fall into the flames.And now I want to ( ... )

nodressrehersal July 29 2011, 17:12:14 UTC

Found what I was looking for:
http://hipsterbookclub.livejournal.com/735444.html

fleaux July 30 2011, 03:20:59 UTC

I write poetry, and here are some poets who inspire me to write: Frank Bidart, April Bernard, Louise Gluck, Lucie Brock-Broido, Richard Siken. Especially Frank Bidart. There was a period of time when I had Watching the Spring Festival on me all the time.

psychox July 30 2011, 11:08:02 UTC

Well, Glenn Beck's book makes me want to write. So does the knowledge of the existence of Ricky Martin's biography.

And I write with kerosene.

josefiend July 30 2011, 14:50:46 UTC

How on earth did I not mention Fitzgerald? Fitzgerald, more than anyone, for the longest time.

Josefiend, "blonde and lazy-eyed, appeared clad in her favorite pink and blinking like an awakened rose."