Wednesday, April 10, 2013

For instance: everything I read when I was 17 was just a book. (Quotent Quotables)

"Already, invidiously, however, I had an inkling that the books he read were somehow not the real books."

-- From Valentine, by Tessa Hadley

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Until I read this line in that short story at lunch today, I never knew how to put into words my secret suspicion that there are books, and then there are the real books.

But there are. And you know the difference when you read them.

3 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

My books are realer than your books!

Andrew Leon said...

Yeah, see, I wish people understood that difference, but "people" want to say that all books are equal.
Bah!
Just so you know, I think Eclipse and the After are real books.
I hope to write real books, too, but I'm not sure if I'm all the way there, yet. I hope to know once I've finished Brother's Keeper.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

"invidiously"? Holy crap. Your vocabulary has left me in the dust.