

“Love, it’s such a night, laced with running water, irreparable, riddled with a million leaks. A night shaped like a shadow thrown by your absence. Every crack trickles, every overhang drips. The screech of nighthawks has been replaced by the splash of rain. The rain falls from the height of streetlights. Each drop contains its own shattering blue bulb.”
― The Coast of Chicago
― The Coast of Chicago

“America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.”
― In Persuasion Nation
― In Persuasion Nation

“In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself.”
― Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
― Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“First, he says, you have to go out into the world. This is not a simple matter of going outside one's door. No, that is simply going out. That's what one does when one is on the way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. When one goes out into the world, one is shedding preconceptions of past paths and ideas of past paths, and trying to move freely through an unsubstantiated and new geography.”
― The Way Through Doors
― The Way Through Doors

“Then the wooden benches along the walls, where so many outcasts had slept, would be lit by a sort of slow, clocked lightning til the bulb steadied and fastened its tiny feral fury upon the center of the room like a single sullen and manic eye. To burn on there with a steady hate. Til morning wearied and dimmed it away to nothing more than some sort of little old lost gray child of a district-station moon, all its hatred spent.”
― The Man With the Golden Arm
― The Man With the Golden Arm

An instinct for great books since 1974.

Join acclaimed author Jesse Ball for a discussion of his work in celebration of his newest novel The Curfew. Jesse will answer questions September 5-9 ...more

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David’s 2020 Year in Books
Take a look at David’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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