Dust and Spores

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

This week's teaser comes from Roberto Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, which is honestly, the most inspired book I've read in ages. If you have an appreciation for Greek mythology, you really really must read this.

Every time Zeus turned himself into a snake, time's arrow flew backward to bury itself in the origin of things. At which the world seemed to hold its breath, listening for that backward movement that marks the passage from one era to another.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

I'm taking a break from everything else to read Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief real quick before the movie comes out. It's pretty ok so far, I guess.

I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbeque. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

After being so happy with Carrie, I picked up King's second novel, 'Salem's Lot. I've only read the introduction so far, so... well whatever.

So I have come here, to a town which was first told of to me by a most brilliant man, a former townsman himself, now lamentably deceased. The folk here are still rich and full-blooded, folk who are stuffed with the aggression and darkness so necessary to... there is no English for it.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

I'm in the midst of reading Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetrology. This is from the second book, Runaway Horses, which I just started. I haven't gotten to the page I just opened to, but I believe this scene depicts a kendo match.

The Lieutenant's eyes glared fiercely. Isao's stave came whistling down, aimed directly at the top of the Lieutenant's close-cropped head. At the same moment, their eyes met, and Isao sensed a communication pass between them too swift for any words.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

Recently I started a book I picked up randomly because it was pretty, and it turned out to be (so far) an impressive work by a talented new author. The book is grotesque and disturbing. It's called Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler.

I'd put a finger to my forehead and say, MOMMY, and my child, taller than me, went: PAWOOO PAWEEEE!
Stubborn, like his father, with the straight white teeth to match.
The things I knew he'd never be.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

Last night I finished this lovely book, but I read it so quickly I never teased from it.

Midori and I sat in a corner of the room, talking quietly the whole time. She read my palm and predicted that I would live to a hundred and five, marry three times, and die in a traffic accident. Not a bad life, I said.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

Since I locked myself out of my house this weekend with no belongings, I outfitted myself with a tote bag and a couple books to pass the time until the guy who had my spare key could meet me on Monday. So I got a good way into this rather long novel, and I'm loving it more than I even expected.

It was the first such note he had ever received; it was the first rendezvous he had ever been granted. His heart, swollen with the drunkenness of joy, felt as though it was about to fail on the threshold of that earthly paradise known as love.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

I've been reading The Golem's Eye, the second book in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy a couple pages at a time for about 6 months. I'm just about done, so I thought I'd give it a teaser.

Upon the gruesome death of a magician at the hands of a genie he failed to control:

Then the whole place erupted into noise; those magicians who had already suitably bound their slaves, my master among them, stepped from their pentacles and gathered around the scorch mark, stewy-faced and jabbering. We higher beings began a cheery and approving chatter.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

So I'm still working on Villette by Charlotte Brontë with the people at The Valve. I'm really starting to get into it, though it took me a little bit.

He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as strong as prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right. I heard, poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings, to "Marie, Reine du Ciel," some deep aspiration that his hope might yet be mine.

I have no idea what this means. I haven't gotten to this part yet. I just like the way it sounds.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

Another from Infinite Jest, which incidentally I have made almost no progress on. Hard times indeed.

It was not that the sky was lightening so much as that the stars' light had paled. There became a sullenness about their light. Now, also, strange-looking U.S.A. insects whirred actively past from time to time, moving jaggedly and making Maranthe think of many windblown sparks.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

In addition to Infinite Jest, I'm also reading Villette by Charlotte Brontë with some people at The Valve. I'm not really participating in discussion with that one because I feel unqualified. (There are smart people there.) I'm just keeping up. Anyway:

A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me to rest; a want of companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

It's gonna be like InfiniteJestapalooza up in here for a while since I'm going to be reading it all summer with the good people at Infinite Summer. If you don't believe me, wait until tomorrow's Wondrous Word post, which is already over 30 words long.

Anyway, the random spread I opened to just now is of course two giant text blocks with nary a paragraph break in sight and maybe like 3 periods. One might be a decimal point. I managed to find two short sentences right in a row, thank god. Well... a sentence and a fragment.

As much as his shoulder, calf, toe, and whole right side were hurting, it occurred to Gately that you don't normally think of wraiths or ghostish phantasms as being tall or short, or having bad posture, or wearing certain-colored socks. Much less having anything as specific as extrusive nostril-hair.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously.

While waiting FORTY-FIVE FREAKING MINUTES for the subway this morning, I started a new book: The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox, another one from the 18th century. I think I may like it because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Anyway here we go:

You must know, Sir, said Lucy, sobbing, that there came a Man here to take away my Lady: A great Man he is, though he worked in the Gardens; for he was in Love with her: And so he would not own who he was.

Ah the stuggles of class. Also this happened in Season 1 of Desperate Housewives.

Teaser Tuesday time again, hosted by MizB. How it works is you grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. No spoilers, obviously, and I'm making up a new rule right now where it can't be about anything gross like mushrooms so everybody start following that rule, ok? K, thanks.

I'm reading Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and I have been for ages, but I'm finally in the home stretch. Anyway:

And hence, I think, we may very fairly draw an argument, to prove how extremely natural virtue is to the fair sex; for, though there is not, perhaps, one in ten thousand who is capable of making a good actress, and even among these we rarely see two who are equally able to personate the same character, yet this of virtue they can all admirably well put on; and as well those individuals who have it not, as those who possess it, can all act it to the utmost degree of perfection.

Sorry for that one, ladies. Thank heavens for social development, yeah?

This is a little meme hosted by MizB, which I found via Lisa.

Basically, grab the book you're reading, open to a page, and pick a juicy two-sentence teaser. Oh and make sure the sentence is not "Snape kills *DELETED*" or anything that would make you a jerk.

I'm reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein and probably will be for 50,000 years at the rate I'm going. Nonetheless:

You know I wouldn't be rude to the old woman who posed for that. What I can't understand is a so-called artist having the gall to pose somebody's great grandmother in her skin... and you having the bad taste to want it around.