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Thursday, June 13, 2013

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON


Author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series (sound familiar? Hint: it’s the series about moi!) as well as romance, romantic suspense, women’s fiction, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Her most recent release is Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the series about moi. Today she stops by to share with us some very special quotes about the value of reading. Learn more about Lois at her website and her Emma Carlyle website. – AP

25 Quotes on the Worth of Reading

When I was a child, I escaped into books. They were my refuge from a childhood that was less than ideal. So it always comes as a shock to me when people tell me they don’t read. I can’t imagine a world without books to read, whether they be physical books or ebooks. Here are some thoughts on the topic by others:

1. You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. -- Paul Sweeney

2. Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.  -- Charles William Eliot

3.  What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. -- J.D. Salinger

4. In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -- Mortimer J. Adler

5. Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. -- Anna Quindlen

6. You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. -- James Baldwin

7. The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours -- Alan Bennett

8. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. -- Margaret Fuller

9. A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.  -- Chinese Proverb

10. Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.  -- Abraham Lincoln

11. So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall. -- Roald Dahl

12. To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -- Edmund Burke

13. A house without books is like a room without windows. --  Heinrich Mann

14. A truly good book teaches me better than to read it.  I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.  -- Henry David Thoreau

15. To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one.  -- Chinese Saying

16. Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books, and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three, and you give me a dangerous enemy mind. -- Anne Rice

17. The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade. -- Anthony Trollope

18. We read to know we are not alone. -- C.S. Lewis

19. No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. – Confucius

20. The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries. – Descartes

21. The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. -- Dr. Seuss

22. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested. -- Francis Bacon

23. Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. -- Frederick Douglass

24. Read in order to live. -- Gustave Flaubert

25. A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson

Revenge of the Crafty Corpse
Anastasia Pollack’s dead louse of a spouse has left her with more bills than you can shake a crochet hook at, and teaching craft classes at her mother-in-law’s assisted living center seems like a harmless way to supplement her meager income. But when Lyndella Wegner—a 98-year-old know-it-all with a penchant for ruffles and lace—turns up dead, Anastasia’s cantankerous mother-in-law becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Upon discovering that Lyndella’s scandalous craft projects—and her scandalous behavior—made her plenty of enemies, Anastasia sets out to find the real killer before her mother-in-law ends up behind bars.

Buy links: (ebook) (paperback)




15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this wonderful list !! I find it impossible to imagine a life without reading!!! Thelma Straw

Lois Winston said...

That makes two of us, Thelma! Thanks for stopping by.

Nancy DeMarco said...

As a child and young adult, I loved to read. Then I got Lyme disease, and reading turned into hard work. It's still hard, but I do it in hopes that someday it will, once again, come easily.

It could be that those who don't enjoy reading are simply not good at it. The words fall out of their heads, and they have to reread each line 5, 6, 7 times before it finds something to stick to. If I'd grown up with this problem rather than acquiring it later in life, I might hate to read, too.

Piper said...

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

This was one of my all-time favorite poems. As a young attorney, I put a copy of it on the wall of my office. Then, one day, a colleague stuck his face through my door and said, "Hey, did you know that about ninety percent of all Emily Dickinson poems can be sung to the tune of 'The Yellow Rose of Texas?'"

Ruinous! I couldn't read Dickinson's work without that dang tune popping into my head after that. But the underlying message about books remains strong.

Lois Winston said...

Nancy, I'm sure that's true for some people. Others were never taught to read properly. And still others want more instant gratification and turn to TV, the movies and video games for their dose of fiction.

Piper, I'll bet that same guy was first in line with the pregnancy horror tales whenever someone in the office announced she was expecting a baby. Some people take great pleasure in bursting other people's bubbles.

Marsha said...

Lois, thanks for pulling these together Some I'd heard before; others were brand new. Good to be reminded of how important what we do is. Even "romance" writers make a difference in peoples' lives.

Rayne said...

Wonderful. Particularly loved the Chinese proverb.
Since a child, I'd devour books.In my teens, I was legally blind for four years, at a time when audio books didn't exist. Although friends and family members read loud to me, I hungered for the intimacy of being alone with a book. After sight was restored in one eye, I'm never without the company of books.
I'm grateful for those blind years. Thy give me such a profound gratitude for the privilege and pleasure of reading.

Lois Winston said...

Marsha, I think romance authors make a profound difference in many people's lives.

Rayne, I'm so glad your sight was restored! I can't imagine how difficult those four years must have been for you.

Mark Baker said...

I loved to read as a kid, and I still do. I grew up not watching much TV or many movies, so books were my window to the world of fiction.

Now I watch plenty of movies and TV, but I still enjoy to read.

While I love many of these quotes, you left out a couple of my favorites.

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. - Mark Twain

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. Groucho Marx.

Lois Winston said...

Thanks for adding to the list, Mark!

Beaj said...

Loved all the comments.
I too love to read and have since childhood. When my eyes were damaged, reading with a lazy eye was very trying...but I persevered till I trained my brain to use it as the other eye does not allow me to see well enough to read. It takes me longer to read something but it's worth every minute..:)

Lois Winston said...

Beaj, glad you were able to overcome the lazy eye in order to enjoy one of life's great pleasures!

Joanne Guidoccio said...

Great list! Thanks for sharing :)

Angela Adams said...

I agree with number one. I like to re-read books. It's just like having old friends over for a visit. Thanks for posting this list.

Lois Winston said...

Thanks for stopping by, Joanne and Angela!