Books – Page 17

9 great short stories, with links: Nabokov, Marques, Chekhov and more

Samsa in Love Let me know if you like them!

Symbols and Signs by Vladimir Nabokov
The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
Samsa in Love by Haruki Murakami
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by Gabriel Garcia Marques
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
The American Male at Age Ten by Susan Orlean
The Grasshopper by Anton Chekhov
How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman

Books I recently read: The True Believer, Darwin’s Cathedral, Battle Hymn, and more

Here’s an ongoing list of finished books.

The below are my favorites since the March update, sorted into the order of “if I only had one month to live where would I start”. I hope you like them, too!

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marques (excerpts)
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (for the 2nd time; excerpt)
Here is New York by EB White
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer (summary)
Technology Matters by David Nye (for the 2nd time; here is my summary)
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (didn’t expect to like it, but I did!)
On Writing Well by William Zinsser (review)
Darwin’s Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson (summary)

“It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.” – EB White, Here is New York

Success requires no apologies, the tech founders edition

It ought to be admitted that some performances are considered so essentially noble as to justify the sacrifice of everything else on their behalf. The man who loses his life in the defence of his country is not blamed if thereby his wife and children are left penniless. The man who is engaged in experiments with a view to some great scientific discovery or invention is not blamed afterwards for the poverty that he has made his family endure, provided that his efforts are crowned with ultimate success. If, however, he never succeeds in making the discovery or the invention that he was attempting, public opinion condemns him as a crank, which seems unfair, since no one in such an enterprise can be sure of success in advance. – Bertrand Russell

From The Conquest of Happiness.

12 magical descriptions of Love in the Time of Cholera

What a book, what a writer, what a story. A good story is one that ends just a little too soon. And at 350 pages this one still had so much more to say.

At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorous mosquitoes rose out of the swamps…

His natural gallantry and languid manner were immediately charming, but they were also considered suspect virtues in a confirmed bachelor.

What Florentino Ariza liked best about her was that in order to reach the heights of glory, she had to suck on an infant’s pacifier while they made love. Eventually they had a string of them, in every size, shape, and color they could find in the market, and Sara Noriega hung them on the headboard so she could reach them without looking in her moments of extreme urgency.

For Florentino Ariza, that night was a return to the innocent unruliness of adolescence, when he had not yet been wounded by love.

In the darkness he could barely see the naked woman, her ageless body soaked in hot perspiration, her breathing heavy, who pushed him onto the bunk face up, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his trousers, impaled herself on him as if she were riding horseback, and stripped him, without glory, of his virginity.

He said: “It is like a firstborn son: your spend your life working for him, sacrificing everything for him, and at the moment of truth he does just as he pleases.”

In any case, he did not resemble him in the pictures, or in his memories of him, or in the image transfigured by love that his mother painted, or in the one unpainted by his Uncle Leo XII with his cruel wit. Nevertheless, Florentino Ariza discovered the resemblance many years later, as he was combing his hair in front of the mirror, and only then did he understand that a man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.

Every day, at his first swallow of coffee and at his first spoonful of soup, he would break into a heartrending howl that no longer frightened anyone, and then unburden himself: “The day I leave this house, you will know it is because I grew tired of always having a burned mouth.”

A few years later, however, the husbands fell without warning down the precipice of a humiliating aging in body and soul, and then it was their wives who recovered and had to lead them by the arm as if they were blind men on charity, whispering in their ear, in order not to wound their masculine pride, that they should be careful, that there were three steps, not two, that there was a puddle in the middle of the street, that the shape lying across the sidewalk was a dead beggar, and with great difficulty helped them to cross the street as if it were the only ford across the last of life’s rivers.

They finished their second cup in a silence furrowed by presentiments

That is how it always was: he would attempt to move forward, and she would block the way. But on this occasion, despite her ready answer, Florentino Ariza realized that he had hit the mark, because she had to turn her face so that he would not see her blush. A burning, childish blush, with a life of its own and an insolence that turned her vexation on herself. Florentino Ariza was very careful to move to other, less offensive topics, but his courtesy was so obvious that she knew she had been found out, and that increased her anger.

América Vicuña, her pale body dappled by the light coming in through the carelessly drawn blinds, was not of an age to think about death.

William Zinsser on writing well

“A writer is always working. Stay alert to the currents around you. Much of what you see and hear will come back, having percolated for days or months or even years through your subconscious mind” – William Zinsser

On Writing Well is a book for working writers who want to improve. If you need inspiration to pick up your pen and put words to paper, I’d recommend Stephen King’s On Writing. If you want to laugh and sympathize with a writer’s life, I’d recommend Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

william-zinsser-on-writing-well

Zinsser’s book is an oyster farm of wisdom. Here are some of my favorite pearls (I couldn’t resist the metaphor :)

Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well.
Consider all the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that don’t need any help. We don’t face problems anymore. We face up to them when we can free up a few minutes.
Beware, then, of the long word that’s no better than the short word: “assistance” (help), “numerous” (many), “facilitate” (ease), “individual” (man or woman), “remainder” (rest), “initial” (first), “implement” (do), “sufficient” (enough), “attempt” (try), “referred to as” (called)
It’s amazing how often an editor can throw away the first three or four paragraphs of an article, or even the first few pages, and start with the paragraph where the writer begins to sound like himself
Nouns now turn overnight into verbs. We target goals and we access facts.
Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the vibrations are good.
The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right.
Surprise is the most refreshing element in nonfiction writing.
This is adjective-by-habit—a habit you should get rid of. Not every oak has to be gnarled.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with “but.” If that’s what you learned, unlearn it—there’s no stronger word at the start.
…it is still widely believed—a residue from school and college—that “which” is more correct, more acceptable, more literary. It’s not. In most situations, “that” is what you would naturally say and therefore what you should write.
Surprisingly often a difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.
Most of the nudgers urged me to adopt the plural: to use “readers” and “writers,” followed thereafter by “they.” I don’t like plurals; they weaken writing because they are less specific than the singular, less easy to visualize.
When you use a quotation, start the sentence with it. Don’t lead up to it with a vapid phrase saying what the man said.
Enjoyment, finally, is what all humorists must convey—the idea that they are having a terrific time, and this notion of cranked-up audacity
After verbs, plain nouns are your strongest tools; they resonate with emotion.
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself.
With each rewrite I try to force my personality onto the material.
Writers who write interestingly tend to be men and women who keep themselves interested. That’s almost the whole point of becoming a writer.
Two final words occur to me. One is quest, the other is intention.
The only thing [readers] should notice is that you have made a sensible plan for your journey. Every step should seem inevitable.
Never be afraid to break a long sentence into two short ones
When you get such a message from your material—when your story tells you it’s over, regardless of what subsequently happened—look for the door.
You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job: humor, anecdote, paradox, an unexpected quotation, a powerful fact, an outlandish detail, a circuitous approach, an elegant arrangement of words.
One of the bleakest moments for writers is the one when they realize that their editor has missed the point of what they are trying to do.

Thanks for reading! Here’s an earlier post on the same topic, how to improve your writing.