What's on your (literary) mind?

[Aravis]

Post questions, thoughts, recommendations etc. relating to books.

[wordswordswords]

I found this in the NEW YORK TIMES "Circuits" (December 9)--about some interesting trends in the ways libraries are getting reading materials to patrons:

www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/technology/circuits/09libr.html?pagewanted=1&8cir&oref=login

[wordswordswords]

This was announced on the national (US) news last night, too:

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1403621,00.html

[RobertGraves]

Amazing and exciting...and just think of the data entry *ouch*

[wordswordswords]

Anthony Powell

If there are any other Anthony Powell fans (Dance to the Music of Time) around, this article might be of interest (from the New York Times):

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E4DA113AF932A05753C1A9629C8B63

[RobertGraves]

I just picked up 'My Life' from the library. Has anyone read Clinton's autobiography?

[Nulla]

I'm about halfway through it....

[RobertGraves]

His father's past is interesting. It is not usual to find out that your Dad had three other marriages and a couiple of kids when you are the President, I guess. Probably came more as a shock to his Mum.

[Aravis]

But, genetically speaking (and psychologically?), that might explain so much about Bill Clinton.

[wordswordswords]

"It was a dark and stormy night" contest? These are actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy
who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar
eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because
of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a
formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled
with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,
surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and
Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you
fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each Other like two freight trains, one
having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other
from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that
resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had
also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the
East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only
one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating
for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either,
but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land
mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg
behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with
power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as
if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in
any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it.

[Aravis]

Some of these I had read before, but some were delightfully new. Thanks for posting them, words! ;D

[john]

::She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.::

Ewwww

[wordswordswords]

Sorry, John. Some of the examples are disgusting.

[pinkozcat]

This one is a really clever play on words; I can't imagine a high-school kid writing it unintentionally:

" The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work."

[wordswordswords]

I agree, pink. Unfortunately I can't vouch for the origin of these specimens. The source wasn't given. (I got the post from an Internet forum.)