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- November 2024 Viewing Diary
- “I have trouble working off things that are too preconceived, like storyboards.” — Terrence Malick
- “I thought girls in their teens might like to read [Anne of Green Gables], that was the only audience I hoped to reach.” — L.M. Montgomery
- “I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.” — Jonathan Swift
- “Look in thy heart and write.” — Sir Philip Sidney
- For Busby Berkeley’s birthday: Remember My Forgotten Man and Sucker Punch
- “Well, if I can’t be happy, I can be useful, perhaps.” — Louisa May Alcott
- Exeunt, pursued by hundreds of beavers. Literally.
- “Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” — poet/engraver/visionary William Blake
- For Liberties: Edna O’Brien: Documentary of A Writer and A Star
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Tag Archives: Charming Billy
Happy birthday, Alice McDermott
From an interview with novelist Alice McDermott: It’s been said that, to some extent, every novelist writes the same book over and over. Many reviewers have noted how much your novels share: middle-class Irish Catholic characters, and that Long Island … Continue reading
The Books: “Charming Billy ” ( Alice McDermott)
Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: Charming Billy: A Novel (Picador Modern Classics) by Alice McDermott Alice McDermott writes about Irish-American life and the Irish-American experience (straddling Vatican II into now) – like nobody’s business. Charming Billy is almost creepy to … Continue reading
Alice McDermott: Charming Billy
I read and loved Alice McDermott’s book Charming Billy (I babbled about it a bit here) – and there are a couple of her other books on my shelves that I have yet to get to. Charming Billy is about … Continue reading
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2005 Books Read
Here is the complete list of books I read in 2005. Underworld: A Novel, by Don DeLillo – which I had started in the fall of 2004- before I went to Ireland – and it took me FOREVER to finish … Continue reading
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Tagged American Sphinx, books read, Charming Billy, Children of the Arbat, Crowds and Power, Darkness at Noon, East of Eden, Edmund Burke, Harry Potter, L.M. Montgomery, Middlemarch, Miracle at Philadelphia, The Great Terror, The Pigman, Underworld, W.B. Yeats, Year of Magical Thinking
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“To sail, gracefully and in tandem, across the abyss.”
An excerpt from Charming Billy, a lovely novel I just finished this morning. The excerpt below made me think, immediately, of one of Big Dan’s most recent posts, which pretty much debunks the over-used phrase: “When you’ve got your health, … Continue reading
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Excerpt from Charming Billy
Charming Billy, by Alice McDermott. . Here we get a glimpse of Billy Lynch as a young man – running into his cousin Dennis on the subway. It would take an act of will to picture him now as he … Continue reading
Saturday Snapshots
— Up at the crack of dawn. Three loads of laundry. I do try to take time to revel in simple pleasures. And this morning, sitting in the laundromat, it wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet … staring at the white … Continue reading
Book Notes: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy
I just started Alice McDermott’s novel Charming Billy this morning. I’ve had it for years, since it won the National Book Award, and just now, on impulse I picked it up. Too much non-fiction recently, and the last novel I … Continue reading
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