Skip to main content

"I'll always long for your asking me."

It's a new year, a clean slate. And I like to think of it as such, quietly absorbing the possibilities as I quietly restrain myself from attempting to make overly ambitious resolutions that I will only renege on or fail at miserably within a month's time. As I cast about for some possibility, some inspiration, I came across an unlikely source: literary break-up letters. This fascinating article in The Atlantic features excerpts and background information from eight different writers penning their parting words to lovers, spouses, more-than-friends. Luminaries include Simone de Beauvoir (whose line I used in my post title), Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde, Mary Wollstonecraft, and more. They are wistful and so very real. Just the kind of real I needed at this time of cold, quiet beginnings. I hope your year is full of possibilities. And if there must be partings, let them be well-written.

Comments

  1. I know what you mean. It's so easy to be overly ambitious when we are so optimistic about the upcoming year and our abilities. I'm still assessing what I want to accomplish reading-wise this year. I think just more older books and adult books. I've been feeling a little burnt out on YA stuff. Oh, and I want to read the Sevenwaters books.

    Good luck to you, whatever you decide on, Angie. I know you'll rock it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know I never make reading goals? Outside of a few classics I want to get to each year, that is. But I watch everyone participating in a host of reading challenges and am all amazement and admiration. These days I go where the wind takes me. I understand about the burnout though. I think I've been feeling a bit of it as well.

      But you WILL NOT REGRET reading the Sevenwaters books. That I can promise you, Flann. And I really want to be around while the whole thing is going down!!

      Delete
  2. Oh my. Now people break up with text messages. :) It seems like letters are a lost art form. Does anybody write them anymore? I like to send thank you notes in the the mail, but that's about it. Of course, maybe it's just that I lack someone to write to? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! How things have changed. I think you're right though. We're not separated the way people used to be. Those letters written and sent across physical and emotional distances were truly lifelines, I think. I certainly enjoyed reading these.

      Delete
  3. Thanks for this Angie. It was exactly what I needed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love old letters, and old love letters are awesome! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So do I, Jen. These were especially so.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous5:39 PM

    Talk about well written. *shudders with chills* You've inspired me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aren't they? Inspired was exactly how I felt after reading them.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous2:21 PM

      Yes they were. But I meant your words.

      Delete
    3. Well, shucks. ;)

      Delete

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Bibliocrack Review | You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I've done a shamefully poor job of addressing my love for Cat Sebastian 's books around these parts. I've certainly noted each time her beautiful stories have appeared on my end-of-the-year best of lists, see:  The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes ,  basically every book in  The Cabots series , and of course  We Could Be So Good .  And the pull is, quite simply, this: nobody is as kind and gentle with their characters and with their hearts than Cat Sebastian. Nobody. I haven't always been one for the gentler stories, but I cannot overstate the absolute gift it is sinking into one of Sebastian's exquisitely crafted historicals knowing that I get to spend the next however many pages watching two idiots pine and deny that feelings exist and just  take care of each other  as they fall in love. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. Not this one or any other.  Only two things in the world people count by months. H

Interview with April Lindner + Jane Giveaway!

I'm very excited about today's interviewee. As you know, I had been looking forward to the publication of Jane for months when a review copy happened in my lap and I let out a gasp of joy. Being a modernized retelling of Jane Eyre with a rock star-ized Mr. Rochester named Nico and a cover that hits every last one of my aesthetic buttons, it was sort of made to order for this reader. Needless to say, it more than lived up to my not inconsiderable expectations and I have been recommending it on a pretty much daily basis to family, friends, co-workers, neighbors . . . you get the picture. It's now just under a month until the book is out and, in anticipation of the release, I invited  April Lindner over to dish about all things Jane. She kindly accepted. Please welcome April! First things first: The Cover. I am in deep smit with that cover. Did you have any input and what was your reaction upon seeing it for the first time? I adore the cover too, and was blown away the

Review | Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

It really is a pretty cover. And dragons. I love them so.  It's been far too long since I've read a book in which dragons played any kind of primary character role. They do here, and they are probably my favorite aspect of this book. But more on that later. It's probably worth noting that I, like the rest of the world, was aware of Fourth Wing and the collective losing of BookTok's mind over it. I mean, it was kind of thrilling to hear that you couldn't find a copy anywhere—in the sense that I love it when books are being consumed and loved. And when that happens in such a way that it takes publishing by surprise (for lack of a better way to phrase it) so much so that they have to scramble to print more. So I did the sensible thing and bought the ebook. And then I proceeded to do the not-so-sensible-but-extremely-Angie thing and not read it. There was a cross-country move tucked in there somewhere between the buying and the reading, but more on that at a later date