Lost in the World of Books

What an astonishing thing a book is.

"This then, I thought, as I looked round about me, is the representation of history. It requires a falsification of perspective. We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how it was."

--W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn--

The Library of Birmingham, United Kingdom

"With a little effort, anything can be shown to connect with anything else: existence is infinitely cross-referenced. And everything has more than one definition." --Martha Cooley, The Archivist--

Hoping Autumn could help me heal.

I love Bram Stoker's Dracula and I am such a huge fan of the 1992 film adaption directed by Francis Ford Coppola! #bramstokersdracula1992

"We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are."

--Anaïs Nin, Little Birds--

What are the chances of finding a book written by a Filipino writer at an Oxfam second hand bookshop here in England? The odds are indeed very slim. That's why I couldn't contain my excitement when I found Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (which is in my long list of TBR). My heart literally skipped a beat because I feel a bit closer to home now.

Reader, I married him. I married a South African! 🤣 So I think it's only proper to read more about SA, its culture & history 🇿🇦 (also, it's a good excuse to buy more books about SA). Here I am, about to delve in to Trevor Noah's @trevornoah Born A Crime.

Below are the few words that I have learned already from the hubby: lekker (good), braai (not a barbecue, mind you 😬), boerewors (a type of sausage), droëwors (dried meat sausage), biltong (dried cured meat), now now (which means later not now 🤣), robot (traffic signal or stoplight), Dankie (means thank you), Die Antwoord (the only SA hip hop artist I know so far 🎶), Ja (yes), links (means left ↩), regs (means right ↪). I sure need to learn more words. 🇿🇦

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall—

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

--Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings--

It may sound petty, but I did got quite upset with the husband this morning as I wanted to go to a book farm and he instantly asked me of I would buy anything (meaning more books). And then he had his little moan on how we are running out of space (my books occupy a good half of the book shelf 🤣), and that it's going to be hard for us to move around with all the books. Long story short, that really pissed me off and had a rant. We decided not to go anymore as both of us were in a bad mood. So yeah, I say include that to the wedding vows. 😆

"By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be."

--Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting--

"We carry the lives we've imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost."

--Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk--