I go to Powell's often.   I love the store. I do most of my gift shopping there. Books are a loving gift.  

I bought four books yesterday, and I will share with you the first sentence of each.

1. "Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it." Special Topics in Calamity Physics Marisha Pessl
2. "The ghosts of the three children set up residence in the kataa next to the fishing rods and burlap sacks of potatoes, behind the shovels and rakes." People I Wanted to Be Gina Ochsner
3. "Midway along the journey of our life/ I woke to find myself in a dark wood,/ for I had wandered off from the straight path." The Divine Comedy Volume I: Inferno Dante
4. "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,/ And bathed every veyne in swich licour/ Of which vertu engendred is the flour;/ Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth/ Inspired hath in every holt and heeth/ The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne/ Hath in the Rame his half cours yronne." The Canterbury Tales Geoffery Chaucer

Book Report #1

Today's show and tell comes from the novel I just finished reading.  Initially I was attracted to the book, not only because it was a National Book Award finalist, but because the author, Scott Spencer, has been called a novelist who knows the human heart better than any other.  

"...[T]hat little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds us that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry."

A Ship Made of Paper has an engaging plot, is beautifully written and has astonishingly fantastic moments.  However,  despite the decent plot, the success of the story relies on the connection between the reader and the characters, and none of the characters are extremely likable.  The novel tells the story of Daniel, a lawyer who has moved from NYC to his hometown after a violent confrontation with one of his black clients.  He brings his girlfriend and her daughter, Ruby.  Without being able to help himself, he falls in love with the mother of Ruby's best friend, Iris, who is both married and black.  He pursues her relentlessly, despite the possible ramifications of his actions, and despite his fear of black people. The two begin an affair which ruins their, and their loved ones, lives.  As a reader, I found it difficult to relate to their self destruction and found the book a depressingly sad and tense cautionary tale of adultery.