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Books I finished reading
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(48)
To kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
1st April 2024
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back ...
...ways of making people into ghosts.
...he loved honour more than his head,...
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
"... That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the table-cloth you let him...
The male population of the class...
"... some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one,...
"... before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
"... I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. ..."
... radiated waves of disapproval.
Between two fires, I could not decide which I wanted to jump into...
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(47)
Atomic habits - James Clear
27th March 2024
.. I knew that if things were going to improve, I was the one responsible for making it happen.
I fulfilled my potential.
... changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you're willing to stick with them for years.
... the quality of our lives often depend on the quality of our habits.
... find the ideas that matter most and connect them in a way that is highly actionable.
Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits - not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
... each book you read not only teaches you something new but also opens up different ways of thinking about old ideas.
Mastery requires patience.
Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.
We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.
... commitment to the process...will determine your progress.
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when habit becomes part of your identity.
True behaviour change is identity change.
Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.
Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms attached to their identity.
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
... try, fail,learn, try differently.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
We're so used to doing what we've always done that we don't stop to question whether it's the right thing to do at all.
Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.
Your culture sets your expectation for what is "normal." Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself.
Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.
Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings,...
The key to finding and fixing the causes of your bad habits is to reframe the associations you have about them.
We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action.
The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity.
The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
...make it easy as possible in the moment to do things that payoff in the long run.
... create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.
...master the habit of showing up.
The secret is to always stay below the point where it feels like work.
It's better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.
The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do.
The road less travelled is the road of delayed gratification.
"Don't break the chain"
...never miss twice.
The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing one is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
When the consequences are severe, people learn quickly.
Competence is highly dependent on context.
... genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.
Your personality is the set of characteristics that is consistent from situation to situation.
When you can't win by being better, you can win by being different.
Until you work as hard as those you admire, don't explain away their success as luck.
How we feel influences how we act, and how we act influences how we feel.
If you change your identity too quickly and become someone radically different overnight, then you feel as if you lose your sense of self. But if you update and expand your identity gradually, you will find yourself reborn into someone totally new yet still familiar. ... identity change without identity loss.
... historians specializing in robe acquisitions,...
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(46)
Boy tales of childhood - Roald Dahl
12th March 2024
Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly. All are true.
Alarm bells were beginning to ring faintly in our ears.
... a very limited intelligence.
... survive in silence.
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(45)
The song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
9th March 2024
Quickly, I became a disappointment...
Our ragged alliances prevailed only when no man was allowed to be too much more powerful than another.
"What would you have done?" I asked. ... "I don't know." ... "No one has ever tried to take something from me." "Never?" ... "Never." He was silent a moment, thinking. "I don't know," he repeated, finally. "I think I would be angry."
"You have been taught to ride, I suppose?" We nodded, quickly. "That is unfortunate. Forget what you learned. ..."
"... perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth, when another is gone. ..." ... Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark, or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.
My mother's lyre. He had brought it with him. "I wish I had known," I said, ... "I almost did not come, because I did not want to leave it." He smiled. "Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere."
I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
... we lay on the river-bank, learning the lines of each other's bodies anew. This, and this and this. We were like gods, at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
... the trinity of my fears ...
Disapproval had always burrowed deep in me ...
"Name one hero who was happy." ... "You can't." ... "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous and happy." ... "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." ... "I'm going to be the first." ... "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, ... "I swear it," he echoed. ... "I feel like I could eat the world raw."
... I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room, loving him in silence.
"Who is this man,..." ... Achilles answered coolly, "My husband." I closed my mouth, quickly, so I did not gape like a fish.
I recognize him by touch alone, by smell, I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
"Useless information is my curse,.."
When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
He was spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again.
Men's faces are heavy with anger, but there are no more fights - it is too hot. They lie in the dark and hate each other.
" ... You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature."
...a man who moved like the gods were watching;...
... I heard the creaking of the chariot, and the distant banging of bronze, and returned to greet my Achilles.
They would be preserved, in memory, if not in life.
I still felt half a child myself, though most my age were parents several times over.
We obey the kings, but only within reason.
... being betrayed to his worst enemy, by the man he holds closest to his heart.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say.
"If he is dead, I will not be far behind."
"There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."
"... fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another."
"we cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. ..."
"Have you no more memories?" I am made of memories.
We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.
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(44)
The village by the sea - Anita Desai
5th March 2024
... all the strain and worry that went with the excitement.
... it was possible to have a future, that one did not remain where one was stuck always but could move out and away and on. One needed to make great efforts for this to happen,...
... if you want to survive, you will have to change...
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(43)
The Peculiars - Maureen Doyle McQuerry
17th February 2024
She was more than the sum of the crimes of her father.
"Came here ... 'fore this town was anything at all, and I'm still here now that it's nothing again."
"... Being a quick learner is more important than knowing all the answers."
... terminally shy.
"Who can say what demons anyone had to fight unless we're inside the person's skin?"
"You did what you thought was best, based on the truth you knew. That's all anyone can do."
... a healthy dose of fear,...
"It's not your family who defines you; they're an influence, all right, but they don't have the final say. We answer for that ourselves."
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(42)
The namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
5th February 2024
"Do yourself a favour. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late "
... weighing next to nothing but changing everything,...
... names die over time, that they perish just as people do.
... Divided soul,...
... steady decline into madness.
... awkward truths.
... the gift of accepting her life;...
... to make a clean start in a place where no one knows her, ...
... a young person who carried about her a premonition of old age.
... things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.
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(41)
Bloody Bones - Laurell K. Hamilton
22nd January 2024
I could either dress professionally or in feathers and blood.
He could have done toothpaste commercials.
... the color of a surprised carrot.
'I prefer the word "confident" to "arrogant," ...
'Fair or not, it's the truth.'
... people who are determined to blacken their lungs.
... the kind of boys who looked pretty rather than handsome...
We were the only two women at the crime scene, which meant we were playing with the big boys. You had to be tougher than the men, stronger, better, or they held it against you. Or they treated you like a girl.
'Do you trust him?' I asked. ... "Not as far as I could throw him.'
'You sound like a vegetarian.' 'Oh, no,' ... 'I eat all sorts of things.'
'... glory bound,' ...
Guns don't care how big you are.
... save someone and leave revenge for someone else.
... he wasn't who I was mad at. He was just a convenient target.
... very powerful people completely crippled by self-doubt.
I struggled to put into words something that we had no vocabulary for.
... close enemies.
... something better than sex, more fulfilling than power. Home.
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(40)
Eve and Adam and girl creates boy - Michael Grant, Katherine Applegate
13th January 2024
... crank the volume to brain-numb,...
... goddess of painful pauses.
... planning to forget to remember.
... predictably insane self, raving on about world domination.
What's vertical? You could just say, "What's up?"
She knows no fear, ... No, that's not true. She shows no fear.
"... capturing Satan on canvas."
From weed to waves,...
"... my maze rat powers."
"Stop projecting your feelings on me,"
... in love with his own IQ.
... answer questions in monosyllables.
... an amoral bitch.
"It's the fate of all creators: they fall in love with their creations."
... with doom in my pocket,...
... I'm not simply different, I'm unique.
"I can't handle prison!" Dr Chen wails. "I'm an intellectual!"
"And spare me your angst, bitch. In the end, this whole thing made you rich."
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(39)
13 Reasons why - Jay Asher
10th January 2024
... I haven't felt normal in hours.
Poetry, not a therapist.
My deepest and my darkest? What are you, my gynecologist?
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Books read in 2023
January
Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
The slow regard of silent things - Patrick Rothfuss
The magic faraway tree - Enid Blyton
February
My summer of pink and green - Lisa Greenwald
Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare
Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare
Clockwork Princess - Cassandra Clare
Chain of Gold - Cassandra Clare
Chain of Iron - Cassandra Clare
March
Chain of Thorns - Cassandra Clare
City of bones - Cassandra Clare
City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare
City of Glass - Cassandra Clare
City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Clare
City of Lost Souls - Cassandra Clare
April
City of Heavenly Fire - Cassandra Clare.
The Bane Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson.
The Red Scrolls of Magic - Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu.
May
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy - Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson and Robin Wasserman.
The Shadowhunter's Codex - Cassandra Clare and Joshua Lewis.
July
Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston.
Red, White and Royal Blue (Collector's edition) - Casey McQuiston.
October
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen.
How to think like Mandela h Daniel Smith.
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
November
Fantastic Beasts and where to find them (The original screenplay) - J.K. Rowling.
The Bookman's wake - John Dunning.
December
Fantastic Beasts and where to find them (The original screenplay) - J.K. Rowling.
The boy in the striped pyjamas - John Boyne.
The first teacher - Chingiz Aitmatov
Total number of books read : 28
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Books read in 2022
April
City of bones - Cassandra Clare
May
The handmaid's tale - Margaret Atwood
Elizabeth 1 - Meg Harper
The message in the hollow oak - Carolyn Keene
What Katy did - Susan Coolidge
Rhyme stew - Roald Dahl
June
The love that split the world - Emily Henry
Going solo - Roald Dahl
Sir Gawain and the green knight - Michael Morpurgo Going solo
Family life - Akhil Sharma
October
The girl on the train - Paula Hawkins
The giraffe and the pelly and me - Roald Dahl
Total number of books read : 12
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(38)
The first teacher - Chingiz Aitmatov
22nd December 2023
... I traveled back to life,...
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(37)
The boy in the striped pyjamas - John Boyne
8th December 2023
... neither friends nor trouble.
... a hundred and one things to do.
... the loneliest place in the world. The middle of nowhere.
... civilization of dolls ...
... piercing scream; one that woke Mother up from her afternoon nap and brought her running into the bedroom to find out which of her children had murdered the other one.
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5th December 2023
... an unselfconscious Keatonesque quality, a sense of a different rhythm to those around him.
(36)
Fantastic Beasts and where to find them (The original screenplay) - J.K. Rowling
2nd November 2023
... no judgement, simply interest.
Jacob - Newt... I don't think I'm dreaming. Newt - What gave it away? Jacob - I ain't got the brains to make this up
... uncomplicated kindness.
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(37)
The Bookman's wake - John Dunning
16th November 2023
... so totally without brains that she just missed being classified as a new species in the animal kingdom.
... full of hell and ready for life.
... technological perfection at the expense of individualism.
... I left the store poorer but happier.
"... know a lot about a few things and damn little about most of it."
"That's an easy mistake to make." "Of course it is. But gods don't make mistakes."
... in all ways my teacher.
The young endure and hope, until suddenly they're forty and time isn't what it once was. The old suffer and save their hopes for the real things in life - a high, dry present and a quiet place to die.
... a confirmed fuckup ...
"How do you cut your losses on a piece of your heart?"
... a romance of the mind ...
... the air grew ripe with the promise of rain.
... old companion, insomnia ...
... greet trespassers with the business end of a gun.
... fluent in a universal tongue, .... Love and hate. Sex. Life and death. Fear. Money and politics. The stuff that gets you where you want to go, in far-flung places that only seem different from the town you grew up in.
Fame and glory don't mean as much when we're fifty, when they're finally within reach, as they did when we could only dream about them at twenty.
Gotta plan, I thought. Gotta be more than strong, gotta be smart.
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(36)
Fantastic Beasts and where to find them (The original screenplay) - J.K. Rowling
2nd November 2023
... no judgement, simply interest.
Jacob - Newt... I don't think I'm dreaming. Newt - What gave it away? Jacob - I ain't got the brains to make this up
... uncomplicated kindness.
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