A book is like a car. It pulls up to the curb and the passenger door swings open to the reader. The engine revs. Do you want a ride?
Once you get in, the car takes off, the door slamming shut and the rubber burning in its wake. Behind the wheel the driver’s got to be highly skilled, heavy on the pedal, and most of all, oh man, most of all, somebody you want to be with. He’s got to drive near the edge of the cliff but never over.He’s got to turn sharply just as you think you know where you are going.He’s got to gun it on the final lap.
Introduction by Michael Connelly to the 2003 Edition of Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy
Self borrowed her copy from the library, and it is pretty beat up. Nevertheless.
She absolutely loved Eddie’s Boy. Which is what led her here, to the very first book of the series. What did she love so much about Eddie’s Boy? The main character was a professional hit man, married to a member of the British peerage. If that character description doesn’t grab you, self doesn’t know what will.
Self hopes Amanda Lindhout became a travel writer, because her descriptions of Kabul are gold. She hitches a ride to Kabul with a man and his son who live in Peshawar but visit relatives in Kabul regularly.
I’d taken a taxi that day to a wholesale market area near the center of the city, which sprawled in all directions, straddling the banks of the Kabul River, devolving into a labyrinth of crooked alleys. I bought a plastic cup of raisins and apricots mixed with pistachios and honey-sweetened water and ate them with a spoon. I browsed through little shops. In one, I found a shelf stacked with bars of soap, their wrappers showing a photograph of a smiling woman’s face, except that every face had been scribbled over with a marker. This was a fundamentalist Islamic move, something the Taliban once enforced strictly. Any images of things made by Allah weren’t to be replicated by a human hand, because it counted as playing god. Amanuddin had explained it to me: it was okay to paint or print a photograph of a car or building but not a person or animal. Idolatry was a sin.
The host of the #TreeSquare challenge is Becky over at The Life of B. For July, the theme is TREES.
Self is sharing photos from Filoli, a beautiful estate less than 10 minutes drive from self’s house, which she visited in July 2020
The estate belonged to the owner of the Empire Gold Mine, William Bourn. Mansion and gardens together comprise 18 acres. The name ‘Filoli’ is an acronym for: “Fight for a just cause, Love your fellow man, Live a good life.”
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the 600-odd members of the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Central New York and delivered what would become one of his most famous speeches, best known today as “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
This is the first time self has joined this writing challenge.
Here’s the logo, from Marsha Ingrao’s Always Write blog:
She’s pretty excited to join because the theme this week is VACATION. And self is currently on the last leg of a short (several days long) break she took on the central coast, site of some of the fondest memories of her life.
This morning, she was on Avila Beach, where the sound of the surf was loud in her ears, and the sun and the beach and the strollers were unbelievably normal. One could almost forget about the last 16 months. Corona? What’s that?
But before waxing too joyful, let self focus on some pretty fabulous signage. Because this challenge is about words, right? Well, Avila Beach was just hopping with memorable words. For instance, on Front Street, this:
Was there ever a sign more emblematic of our times?
Inside the coffee shop, further surprises:
Honestly, what was she thinking? How could she have walked out of that coffeeshop without buying some of that House Blend?
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke
— The Trouble with Peace, p. 353
Self has the rest of the day to read. She might be able to finish TTWP as early as tonight.
Next on her reading list: All the Devils are Here, by Louise Penny.
Exciting. Self has never read a Chief Inspector Armand Ganache mystery before. Of course it is set in Paris. There is a picture of the Eiffel Tower right on the cover, that’s how she knows.
Self memorably spent Christmas 2017 in Paris. And shared the hotel with a Filipino family (with three small kids) on their way to spend the holidays in Iceland. (Self will never get over this, but Filipinos have a real hankering for extreme cold. It’s a THING) Because self was all surly and anti-holiday, she never spoke to this family, not even when she and they were the only ones in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. She pretended she was Chinese, couldn’t understand Tagalog, didn’t want to know why they were going to Iceland, or where they were staying.
So what if Donald Trump got acquitted AGAIN, and Mitch gave the most self-serving speech in the history of self-serving speeches (It’s all Donald’s fault, see? Don’t blame ANY of this on me or the Republican Party!) It’s the beginning of a new Lunar Calendar!
People born in the Year of the Ox are “honest and sincere and don’t want to be the centre of attention nor look for praise. Their recognition comes from their diligent, hard work. They are logical thinkers, too, and so make great world leaders, just what the world needs right now!” (Thank you, Atlantis Bookshop in London for this description!)
