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I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring –

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.


— Louise Glück

(extract from Snowdrops)

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Hello Bibliophiles,

Let's indulge into some heartwarming and
soul soothing books in these tough and tiring
times. Please see caption for the picks.

If you have read these books, did they leave
an impact on you, and what other literary pieces
made you appreciate life as a whole?

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Did you know?

George Orwell intentionally got
himself arrested for being
“drunk and incapable", in 1931. 
At the time, he had been using
the pseudonym Edward Burton
and posing as a poor fish porter. 

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"The real importance of reading is that
it creates an ease and intimacy with
the process of writing; one comes to
the country of the writer with one's papers
and identification pretty much in order.

Constant reading will pull you into a place
(a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where
you can write eagerly and without
self-consciousness. It also offers you
a constantly growing knowledge of
what has been done and what hasn't,
what is trite and what is fresh, what works
and what just lies there dying (or dead)
on the page.

The more you read, the less apt you are
to make a fool of yourself with your pen
or word processor. . . .
'[R]ead a lot, write a lot' is the
great commandment."

Stephen King

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[Welsh]


homesickness or nostalgia,
an earnest longing or desire,
or a sense of regret.

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Which book gave you the
longest book hangover?

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We each are artists of the
self, creating a collage -
a new and original work
of art - out of scraps and
fragments of identifications.
The people with whom we
identify are, positively or
negatively, always important
to us. Our feelings toward
them are, in some way,
always intense.


Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses

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