Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
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It is Valentine's Day with all that implies, but though I recognize it is about people like Helen of Troy whose face launched a thousand ships, I actually prefer Horton Hatches the Egg with his statement of loyalty:
“I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one-hundred percent!”
Characters in mystery series who are married and who are friends help me enjoy the stories more. Falco has Helena Justina, a senator's daughter, who is his help and joy. Armand Gamache has his wife Reine Marie as a true friend.
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In the book A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (pgs. 183, 184), the Count’s dear friend Mishka sends him a letter with these words included:
Always to shine,
To shine everywhere,
To the very depth of the last days…
It had been four years since Mishka had moved to Kiev with Katerina; it had been one year since she left him for another man; and six months since he had returned to Petersburg to barricade himself once again behind his books. Then one spring night at four in the morning, unable to sleep, he finds him himself on Nevsky Prospekt following the very same route that he had walked with Katerina on the day that she had first taken his hand. And there, as the sun began to rise, he is overcome with thoughts of an affirmation, a proclamation, a promise-a promise to shine everywhere and always to very depths of the last days-which after all, is all that anyone has ever asked of love.
…Mishka would pine for Katerina the rest of his life! Never again would he walk Nevsky Prospekt…without feeling an unbearable sense of loss. And that is just how it should be. That sense of loss is exactly what we must anticipate, prepare for, and cherish to the last of our days; for it is only our heartbreak that finally refutes all that is ephemeral in love.
Stardust
Nat King Cole
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Who are your favorite characters in love?
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Do you like romance in books besides the romance genre? (I admit that I do.)
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Sonnets from the Portuguese 6
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore, ..
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.
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My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
(How could I forget having loved you so?)
In the sad half-light of evening,
The face that was all my sunrising.
Rupert Brooke: ‘The Beginning’
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Diaries of the Week:
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/8/1739828/-Write-On-How-that-feels
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NOTE: I have been having trouble connecting with the server in a timely way so if I am late or go missing some Wed. night please just chat with each other and I will be back soon.
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