#readingnotes — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #readingnotes, aggregated by home.social.
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"In the town they tell the story of the great pearl--how it was found and how it was lost again."
-- First sentence of Steinbeck's *The Pearl*
#ThePearl #JohnSteinbeck #ReadingNotes #FirstSentences #Bookstodon
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Started this morning. Will probably read quite quick, but notes will go here.
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"The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay."
-- #FirstSentences of John Steinbeck, *East of Eden*
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This is my first read of East of Eden.
I am finishing the first Library of America volume of his novels, 1942-1952. Page numbers for these #ReadingNotes will reference that edition.
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Where my imaginary line
Bends square in woods, an iron spine
And pile of real rocks have been founded.
And off this corner in the wild,
Where these are driven in and piled,
One tree, by being deeply wounded,
Has been impressed as Witness Tree
And made commit to memory
My proof of being not unbounded.
Thus truth's established and borne out,
Though circumstanced with dark and doubt --
Though by a world of doubt surrounded.
THE MOODIE FORESTER-- "Beech" by Robert Frost
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I've been reading Robert Frost's *A Witness Tree*, the first full volume I've read of his (although as a volume, it's really quite slim).
Thought I'd share a few reading notes here.
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From *The Supreme Court and the Philosopher: How John Stuart Mill Shaped U.S. Free Speech Protections* by Eric Kasper and Troy Kozma:
"US constitutional jurisprudence today has remarkably strong free speech protections when compared to other developed democracies." (10)
This book just came out in 2024. I don't think they could have gotten away with that line if their book was published just a few months later... 😩
(Also, will use this thread for #ReadingNotes of this book, which I grabbed on a whim and should be a really interesting read, especially right now.)
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"That night [...] I wrote a story about a bug who woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a hideous Franz Kafka. He was in Franz Kafka's body, in Franz Kafka's house, in Franz Kafka's bedroom. Bug lay on his back and with great effort lifted his oversize human head to peer down at his hideous naked being: at his pigeon chest, his flabby belly, his spindly legs, a meager two now, when the night before he'd had a magnificent six."
-- Shalom Auslander, *Feh* (p. 53)
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Started this last night and it's absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking, all at the same time. Also, hitting a little close to home at times -- but that can also be good.
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"It's refreshingly simple in design: a plastic rectangle with a hole punched out the middle, then split into two inward-curving hooks that keep the bag snug. When produced en masse, they're printed in an extraordinarily long row with small arms connecting the clips, then wound like a movie reel.
[...]
About twenty machines are scattered across the factory's cement floor. Colorful clips spiral out at an unimaginable speed, each hue corresponding to a specific day of the week--not for branding, but for efficiency. [...] It's impossible to comprehend just how many bread clips, nevermind the sheer variety in cuts and shapes, are being churned out around you in teh factory. In one year alone, Kwik Lok sells billions."
from Nina Corcoran, "Consider the Bread Clip," in *Cake Zine* (Winter 2025)
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"A sparse snow was falling."
#FirstSentence of Han Kang, *We Do Not Part*
(Starting running thread for any notes here)
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"We all fell quiet then, as there's nothing to stir the spirits like a story of wickedness regretted."
-- Matthew Kneale, Pilgrims (p. 35)
[Just started this -- will use this thread for quotes and notes, if I have any!]
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A typical Thursday afternoon...
#thursday #thursdayvibes #lifestyle #giovedìmeme #quinta #readingnotes