Category: words

“This book has great propaganda value, not only for its intrinsic message and thought-provoking nature, but also for the circumstances of its publication: we have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country in his own language for his own people to read.”

“Twenty-three years after her death, Vera Nabokov remains a revered figure in capital ‘L’ Literature … Vera not only performed all the duties expected of a wife of her era … but also acted as her husband’s round-the-clock editor, assistant, and secretary. … So it seems likely that having, or not having, a Vera could be the missing piece in creating gender parity within literature.”

“Shakespeare’s plays are for seeing in performance. Reading them, even for an experienced performer, is heavy going. To read any play with a large cast, it’s hard to keep track of who is who and their relationships with each other. Harder still to remember who is in the scene and not saying much.”

Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah are considered the leading contenders for what is, as of this year, the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Also in the running are novels by Jhumpa Lahiri, Hannah Kent, Audrey Magee, and Eimear McBride.

“A secret package arrived at CIA headquarters in January 1958. Inside were two rolls of film from British intelligence – pictures of the pages of a Russian-language novel titled Doctor Zhivago” which had been banned in the USSR. Yes, it seems that The Company was instrumental in getting Boris Pasternak’s Nobel-winning novel into print.

“If you are feeling low about the fate of the bookstore, just step through the door of Type Books on Queen Street West. Despite competition from ebooks and the giant bookselling chains, this brilliant little chocolate box for bibliophiles is thriving. Its sales are good. Its customers are loyal. The smart, friendly, learned people who work there are far from giving up the ghost.”

“You might refer to an e-reader as being neat, but there is no way anyone is going to call it beautiful. … You are not going to caress it in the same way you would a fine binding, or even admire the cover artwork.”

“As anyone who’s dug through the back stacks of old bookshops, or plumbed the single-copy depths of university libraries, knows: there is so much text out there. We have finally developed the tools to make it live forever.”

No: “Like, come on, let’s calm down.”

“You were always under scrutiny, not just by God but by the eyes of the community which functioned as its own form of Secret Service. That you could meet communal judgment with defiance seemed radical.”