Book Quotes of the Week

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"Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life." Jesse Lee Bennett

"Reading is a gift. It's something you can do almost anytime and anywhere. It can be a tremendous way to learn, relax, and even escape." Richard Carlson

"Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told." Umberto Eco

"As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!" William James

"Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading - once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive - is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good."  Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

"Medicine for the soul." Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes

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Pamuk, Orhan "The Museum of Innocence"

Pamuk, Orhan "The Museum of Innocence" (Turkish: Masumiyet Müzesi) - 2008

Until now, I have loved every single book I read by Orhan Pamuk. That hasn't changed after reading this piece of art. The author has a wonderful eye for detail, he manages to describe anything in a way that you imagine having it in front of your eyes, feeling the sentiments the characters feel. You rejoice with them and mourn with them. A wonderful author who will hopefully write many many more books.

In this story, shortly before marrying, a guy falls in love with another girl. He becomes totally obsessed with her, his whole life changes, he becomes one of those creepy guys who follow a girl around without ever having a chance of going out with her. Still, the years pass and so does his relationship with the world in general and the girl in particular. The protagonist collects all sorts of stuff that reminds him of the girl and the relationship and puts it together in an apartment and eventually starts a museum with his collection. All this is described in a unique way, you feel the years passing along, they seem to go slow and fast at the same time, just as in real life.

This book reads almost like a biography and I had the feeling that the author passed on parts of himself. He actually appears in the book under his real name which is quite funny. And the novel doesn't miss out on humour, either, it is both sad and funny at the same time. We also follow the protagonist, not just on his visits into life but also into his soul. There is 1uite a philosophical approach at times. This book leaves you quite breathless for a while. It is magnificent. I love the author.

After the success of the book, Orhan Pamuk has established an actual "Museum of Innocence". (Unfortunately, the website I found is only in Turkish: Museum of Innocence/Masumiyet Müzesi but there is a gallery in English in the Guardian)

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The Museum of Innocence - set in Istanbul between 1975 and today - tells the story of Kemal, the son of one of Istanbul's richest families, and of his obsessive love for a poor and distant relation, the beautiful Füsün, who is a shop-girl in a small boutique. The novel depicts a panoramic view of life in Istanbul as it chronicles this long, obsessive, love affair between Kemal and Füsün; and Pamuk beautifully captures the identity crisis experienced by Istanbul's upper classes who find themselves caught between traditional and westernised ways of being. For the past ten years, Pamuk has been setting up a museum in the house in which his hero's fictional family lived, to display Kemal's strange collection of objects associated with Füsün and their relationship. The museum will be called The Museum of Innocence and it opens in 2010."

Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Orhan Pamuk received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2005.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Segal, Erich "Love Story"

Segal, Erich "Love Story" - 1970

A beautiful story, one of the greatest love stories ever told. I teaches us that love is possible even if the circumstances don't seem to allow it. That love is without end even though the circumstances try to show us that is. That love can be beautiful, even if everything around us is ugly and terrible.

I am sure everyone has heard about this story, if not of the book then certainly of the movie. Also, a lot of little girls were called Jennfier and boys called Oliver when the movie came out, they owe their name to this story. Funny, how certain books influence lives of people who might not even have heard about it.

In any case, this is both the most wonderful love story as well as one of the saddest stories ever written. The language is beautiful, as well. So, definitely worth reading.

This wonderful books also contains one of the best quotes ever: "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"This is a love story you won't forget. Oliver Barrett meets Jenny Cavilleri. He plays sports, she plays music. He's rich, and she's poor. They argue, and they fight, and they fall in love. So they get married, and make a home together. They work hard, they enjoy life, they make plans for the future. Then they learn that they don't have much time left. Their story has made people laugh, and cry, all over the world."

Book Quotes of the Week

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"A book that is shut is but a block." Thomas Fuller

"If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison

"Reading means borrowing." Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms

"I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage." Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, Pensées Diverses

"For friends ... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble." Francis Bacon

"Reading. That place where you're by yourself but you're never alone." N.N.

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Murphy, Jill "Five Minutes' Peace"

Murphy, Jill "Five Minutes' Peace" - 1986

The Large family consists of Mrs. Large, Mr. Large, Lester, Laura, Luke and baby Lucy (although she is only added in one of the later books). They are a family like yours and mine, only they are elephants. But Mama and Papa have to go through all the troubles human parents have to go through, as well.

In this book, Mrs. Large wants to take a bath and just wants five minutes peace. Does she get them? I don't think I spoil the pleasure of reading the book too much if I mention that she does not.

I have often asked myself whether the authors of children's books write for the parents or the children.  The stories of the Large family are just as funny for both. Children of all ages will enjoy these as well as mum and dad. They belonged to the favourite ones in our family when our boys were little. This is my personal favourite.

Other titles in this series:
Five Minutes' Peace
All in One Piece
A Piece of Cake
A Quiet Night In
Mr. Large in Charge
Laura Bakes a Cake
Luke Tidies Up
Lester Learns a Lesson
Lucy Meets Mr Chilly
Grandpa In Trouble
Sebastian's Sleepover
My First Year at Nursery

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"All Mrs. Large wants is five minutes' peace from her energetic children, so she heads to the bathtub for some well-deserved quiet time. But the kids want Mom to join in their fun, so they follow her wherever she goes! With a relatable dilemma and hilarious art, Five Minutes' Peace is a favourite among moms."

Cervantes, Miguel de "Don Quixote"

Cervantes, Miguel de "Don Quixote, vols. 1 and 2" (Spanish: El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha) - 1605/1615

Even if people haven't read Don Quixote, they know about his horse Rocinante, his faithful servant Sancho Panza and his beloved Dulcinea, his fight with the windmills and several other of his stories.

When reading any classic story, one has to consider the time it was written, the language used at the time. When reading the translation of a classic story, one has to think about that, as well. So, I wasn't too surprised when the language didn't flow as well as if I read a novel by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, for example.

A lot of short stories are told, almost like in "The Decameron" which is about 300 years older. Still, you can tell the medieval character.

This might be one of the reasons why I enjoyed the second part more than the first, I had made my way through all those little stories and the whole thing came together more and more and developed into a large book rather than just little short stories.

Don Quixote lives in a world of his own which makes the story at times almost fantasy-like. However, this is always accompanied with a twinkle in the author's eye so we can all have a good laugh together. We fear with Don Quixote for the outcome of his next task, with Sancho for the outcome of the whole adventure. Will he ever return home to wife and children?

I was I had an edition that was parted in two halves, even they were very heavy. In cases like this I can understand that people tend toward an eReader, even though I normally don't like that at all (see here).

So, if you do like classic books, or large books, you should definitely put this on your reading list. And remember, especially when reading Don Quixote "Things are not always what they may seem."

From the back cover:

"Cervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squire, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the 'books of chivalry', this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. Cervantes' greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels, all suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out to encompass the reader."

Book Quotes of the Week

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"Reading furnishes the mind with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours." John Locke

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” William Faulkner

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” George Orwell

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you." Ernest Hemingway

"Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different". Stephen King

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