Becky's Greatest Hits Vol. II

“Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.”   ~Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer ~ 

"I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass."

" To the table or to bed, you must come when you are bid."

Everything is beautiful and nothing hurt. 

I learned about this book the way I find a lot of my best picks: from NPR.  Listening to Jesse Eisenberg read from and describe the book had me instantly interested.  And to read it myself was completely charming and delightful.  I also love that it is full of instant quotables from 9 year-olds giving restaurant reviews, middle-aged dads berating their snowflake kids and college girls arguing about Bosnia and roommates.  A cute read that is full of hidden insight and also light enough to not kill your sunny day pool vibes. 

"Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love." 

On the continuation of books I should have read when I was a kid, I finally got to My Antonia .  Set in late 1800's on the American prairie, this book has a message of acceptance and immigration that is pretty relevant today. Every character in this book has an attachment to the "Bohemian girl" Antonia.  So much so, that many of them can't simply say her name but always refer to her as My Antonia.  I think the book can best be summed up by this simple elocution by Jim, the narrator, to Antonia, his childhood friend: "Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away, I think of you more often than anyone else in this part of the world.  I'd have liked you for a  sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister - anything that a woman can be to a man.  The idea of you is part of my mind; you influence my like and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it.  You really are a part of me." And the world thinks county folk a...

And I urge you to please notice when you are happy,  and exclaim or murmur  or think at some point,  'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center  and everything coming out equal.  When you’re good, bad things can still happen.  And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.

He had agonized over it for several weeks,  but in the end he decided that Jack was wrong.  Tom had done his best, and no man could do any more.  Having reached that conclusion he had stopped worrying.

There's something cheering about seeing an ordinary man happy.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"   One of the most memorable lines ever written in literature by one of the most gifted writers and illustrators of children's books.      I don't think it's right to be very sad when a person who has lived a long and full life dies.  But I do think it's right to praise them, to miss them even if you didn't know them, and to pass on the joy they brought to you.   Thank you, Mr. Sendak.