Thamus is currently reading The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau and The Intellectual Devotional.
I’m male, from Ireland. I’ve been a DailyLit member since June 24, 2010. My reading interests include Classics, history, and novels.
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Ideas - Favourite opening line(s) of a novel.
The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the invention of spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in sheltered places, and now the wind unpacking the great planes, ransacking the great planes…
I have escaped to this island with a few books and the child — Melissa's child. I do not know why I use the word "escape". The villagers say jokingly that only a sick man would choose such a remote place to rebuild…
At night when the wind roars and the child sleeps quietly in its wooden cot by the echoing chimney piece I light a lamp and walk about, thinking of my friends – of Justine and Nessim, of Melissa and Balthazar. I return link by link along the iron chains of memory to the city we inhabited so briefly together: the city which used us as its flora – precipitated conflicts which were hers and which we mistook for our own: beloved Alexandria!
[Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet: Justine]
Etc. - "Buttonhole books" Everyone has at least one
The Gods Of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Under The Net - Iris Murdoch
Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell
Book Sampler: Best of Brit Lit - Stealing our writers, again
I would like to remind you that James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker are Irish writers. They are not "Brit Lit."
Question of the Week - Which Word Would You Import?
A modern Hebrew word - balagan - a mess, chaos or fiasco. "They tried to give away 100 free lottery tickets in an orderly way, but it turned into a complete balagan."
Etc. - 50 Word Challenge
A wind in the red plains sends ochre dust down this valley. We arrived with a bang in a beach ball of Mars junk? We sniffed minus-16 rusty air? Goddam right we didn't. Only way to get here, holy roller, is riding in on the Thought Train.
Question of the Week - What's Your Favorite Word?
Vatic.
Reader Challenges - What's Your Sentence?
He was always aware of being a speck on the outer rim of a vast rotating galaxy, receding at great speed into an ever expanding universe.
Reader Challenges - Shaking Up Shakespeare
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory;
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament,
this majestical roof fretted with golden fire -
why, it appeareth no other thing to me
than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! They'll sit by the fire,
and presume to know what's done i' the Capitol;
Enough! Cry 'Havoc,'and let slip the blogs of Gore.