Ziad’s Guide to a Fun, Safe, Sexy Motorcycle Trip
Be Prepared ⚜ If you don’t have one already, make a packing list of everything you’ll need for your body and your bike. Start the list days or weeks in advance and keep checking it and honing it, adding things you’ve forgotten and scratching off things you don’t need after all (and keep the list […]
The Shadow of the Wind
Only three or four things are worth living for; the rest is manure. —Carlos Ruiz Zafón
City of Mirrors
They’d been dead for many hours; his efforts were pointless. Yet one had to try. A lot of life, Michael had learned, came down to trying to fix things that weren’t fixable. —Justin Cronin
Wes Anderson: Centered
Wes Anderson // Centered from kogonada on Vimeo.
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
Well, as I see it, it’s exactly one half-dozen significant things: Humor, Imagination, Eroticism—as opposed to the mindless, instinctive mating of glowworms or raccoons—Spirituality, Rebelliousness, and Aesthetics, an appreciation of beauty for its own sake. —Tom Robbins
The Invention of Wings
“How can you ask us to go back to our parlors?” I said, rising to my feet. “To turn our backs on ourselves and on our own sex? We don’t wish the movement to split, of course we don’t—it saddens me to think of it—but we can do little for the slave as long as […]
The Door
“Have you ever killed an animal?” I said I had never killed anything. “You will. You’ll put Viola down. You’ll have him injected, when the time comes. Try to understand. When the sands run out for someone, don’t stop them going. You can’t give them anything to replace life. Do you think I didn’t love […]
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
A few days go by. Maybe a few weeks. But after that, one by one, other different children start tagging along with Alex and Elsa in the playground and corridors. Until there are so many of them that no one dares to chase them anymore. Until they’re an army in themselves. Because if a sufficient […]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
…the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying. —J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerers‘ Stone
…to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. —J.K Rowling
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
I have no idea what I hope to accomplish. I only know that I must try to see her. That’s what love is about, Roger. It’s when a woman drives all lucid thought from your head; when you are unable to contrive romantic stratagems, and the usual manipulations fail you; when all your carefully laid […]
Euphoria
I have done it. Full fathom five it lies. Hiding out here in the 3rd class library for the time being. Strange how a ship was our doing and now our undoing. Let him rage. Let him rage across the oceans. But he will rage alone. I am getting off tomorrow at Aden. Doubling back […]
Lovecraft Country
…stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though. —Matt Ruff
What is the What
The government burned the villages to punish them for supporting the rebels. It’s very easy to kill a town, yes? Harder to kill an army. —Dave Eggers
Uncanny Valley
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The Tsar of Love and Techno
His gaze climbed her legs. When he reached her eyes, she’d already seen him. “I’m Kolya,” he managed to say. “Galina,” she replied. Her lips flattened and curved at the ends like something wet that hadn’t dried right. It was a smile. His chest unzipped from the inside. —Anthony Marra
The Turner House
Humans haunt more houses than ghosts do. Men and women assign value to brick and mortar, link their identities to mortgages paid on time. On frigid winter nights, young mothers walk their fussy babies from room to room, learning where the rooms catch drafts and where the floorboards creak. In the warm damp of summer, […]
H is for Hawk
A sudden thump of feathered shoulders and the box shook as if someone had punched it, hard, from within. ‘She’s got her hood off,’ he said, and frowned. That light, leather hood was to keep the hawk from fearful sights. Like us. Another hinge untied. Concentration. Infinite caution. Daylight irrigating the box. Scratching talons, another […]
FTFY, Internet
As anyone who’s stood within earshot of me for more than 45 seconds can tell you, I tend to be supremely annoyed by “when I was your age” anecdotes about how much things used to cost, particularly when people use nominal dollars instead of real dollars. Since I’ve seen half a dozen instances of this stupid […]
The Sellout
Hospitals don’t have the rainbow of directional lines anymore. In the days of butterfly bandages, sutures that didn’t dissolve, and nurses without accents, the admitting nurse would hand you a manila folder and you’d follow the Red Line to Radiology, the Orange to Oncology, the Purple to Pediatrics. But at Killer King, sometimes an emergency […]
