"I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?"
- Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

I'm Philippa, 24, and I'm from London.

~ Wednesday, November 30 ~
Permalink
Drop everything, the new Stephen King has arrived!* I have been so excited about this book for a very long time. Not only have I read and loved several of King’s books in the past, this book is about alternate histories which is the area that I wrote my MA dissertation on. *The two books that I was reading, How to Breathe Underwater and The Secret Lives of People in Love are both books of short stories, so can easily be picked up in between readings of this massive book.

Drop everything, the new Stephen King has arrived!*

I have been so excited about this book for a very long time. Not only have I read and loved several of King’s books in the past, this book is about alternate histories which is the area that I wrote my MA dissertation on.

*The two books that I was reading, How to Breathe Underwater and The Secret Lives of People in Love are both books of short stories, so can easily be picked up in between readings of this massive book.

Tags: stephen king 11.22.63 Alternate History lit books
11 notes
~ Monday, August 8 ~
Permalink
“ Dori Seda never met Lester Bangs. Two simple real-life acts of human caring, at the proper moment, might have saved them both; but when those moments came, they had no one, not even each other. And so they went down into darkness, like skaters, breaking through the hard bright shiny surface of our true-facts world. Today I made this white paper dream to cover the holes they left.
—

Bruce Sterling, “Dori Bangs” in Globalhead

I found this at the end of an essay in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction and I thought that it was beautiful. I’m definitely going to seek out this book of short stories.

Tags: bruce sterling dori bangs globalhead quote alternate history lit
3 notes
~ Saturday, July 16 ~
Permalink
Mr Roth and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship. Hate in that I really really don’t like his writing and love in that he loves being relevant to my chosen topics of study. Saying that, The Plot Against America is the best book I’ve read of his so far.

Mr Roth and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship. Hate in that I really really don’t like his writing and love in that he loves being relevant to my chosen topics of study. Saying that, The Plot Against America is the best book I’ve read of his so far.

Tags: philip roth the plot against america alternate history study
3 notes