Zits & Wrinkles: A Book Lover's Survey »

(via Rachel Held Evans, shorterexcerpts et al.)

Can you name…

1. A book you threw across the room in anger.

2. A book in which you underlined nearly every sentence.

3. A book you were surprised to love.

4. A book you can’t wait to read.

1. I have never thrown a book in anger. I did, however, put down Lolita about 50 pages from the end, because it was too upsetting and too awful. I finished it later, when I was less swept up in the writing and more emotionally detached. This is not a criticism of a book. It’s a reflection of Nabokov’s mastery and how well he’s written Humbert Humbert.

2. My Biology 102 textbook, junior year of college.

3. Shopgirl. I read it when I was 17 and thought, “that was okay.” Then I read it again at 22, when clinically depressed, heartbroken, and recently out of an emotionally abusive relationship. The book is flawed, but also tender and true, and I love it.

4. Good question. Maybe The Son Also Rises and Old Man and the Sea? Or The Stories of John Cheever?

(Source: azspot)