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'In London November isn't a month,' he said, 'it's a state of mind.'

Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb, 1937, translated by Len Rix, 2000

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I can be by myself because I'm never lonely, I'm simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to take a liking to the likes of me.

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, 1976, translated by Michael Henry Heim

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I huddle in the lee of my paper mountain like Adam in the bushes and pick up a book, and my eyes open panic-stricken on a world other than my own, because when I start reading I'm somewhere completely different, I'm in the text, it's amazing, I have to admit I've been dreaming, dreaming in a land of great beauty, I've been in the very heart of truth.

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, 1976, translated by Michael Henry Heim

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Inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself.

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, 1976, translated by Michael Henry Heim

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When I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, 1976, translated by Michael Henry Heim

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The tree of knowledge leads humanity to death but a cross of wood grants immortality to humanity. Remember, O Amvrosy, that repetitions are granted for our salvation and in order to surmount time.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, 2016. Translated by Lisa C. Hayden.

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Because if I have gone down the incorrect path, I will not have time to return to the correct one.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, 2016. Translated by Lisa C. Hayden.

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It took too long for you to get yourself together. Essentially, what's happening here isn't really about time, because true love is beyond time. It can, after all, wait an entire lifetime.... The cause of what's happening here all lies in the absence of an internal fire. Your trouble, if you will, is that reaching final conclusions just isn't your thing. You're afraid the decision you make will deprive you of further choice, so that paralyzes your will. Even now, you don't know why you've come. Meanwhile, you've missed out on the best thing life had arranged for you.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, 2016. Translated by Lisa C. Hayden.

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Movement away from the present-- in both directions-- became something Ambrogio needed as much as air, because it removed time's unidimensionality, which caused him to gasp for breath.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, 2016. Translated by Lisa C. Hayden.

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You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, 2016. Translated by Lisa C. Hayden.

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A friend brought it to my attention late last night that fantasy author Patricia McKillip passed away on May 6th, and though there is an obituary in Locus, the news sadly seems to have been overlooked by other on-line fantasy outlets.

She was one of my favourite writers, having penned well over twenty novels across the course of her career and being the recipient of several awards, including the World Fantasy life achievement award in 2008.

She’s perhaps most famous for her Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, though for my money her best work was written between 1995 and 2010, decades in which she wrote the likes of Winter Rose, The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Song for the Basilisk, The Tower at Stony Wood, Ombria in Shadow, In The Forests of Serre, Alphabet of Thorn, Od Magic, The Bell at Sealey Head and The Bards of Bone Plain – all standalone fantasy novels that melded her distinctive poetic-prose with stories based on fairy tales, mythology, ballads and other fantasy inspirations.

As a younger reader, there was seriously nothing else like them. The cover art featured above was done by Kinuko Y. Craft, and they’re a perfect visual compliment to McKillip’s dense, ornate prose. Oftentimes reading her books was like trying to unravel a tangled knot – but a lot more fun. No matter how complicated things got, you knew you would eventually land on solid ground.

“Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.”

― Patricia A. McKillip, Harpist in the Wind

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A.S. Byatt | 24 August 1936 - 16 November 2023

"An odd phrase, 'by heart,' he would add, as though poems were stored in the bloodstream." (Possession, 1990)

"Everybody needs, as it were, an unreal world to complete the real world." (Interview)

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We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, 1980. Translated by William Weaver.

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Then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851

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Ahab is forever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851

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Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors!

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851