I bought this poster in NYC awhile back. Love it (especially the first line).
It was a tough 2011, including an eyesight issue, so my ability to read and write was severely impaired for about a year (which explains the lack of blog posts until fairly recently).
But my sight has adjusted thanks to surgery (a blessing, thanks to all for your prayers).
During that difficult time, television became a heroin of sorts for me. And it wasn’t even a legit addiction where you actually get out there. Hustle. Make money. Find a dealer. Buy the stuff. I just mainlined it into my veins like an iv of passive rococo.
I am no cultural snob, I assure you. But my television addiction slowly made me feel icky. And weak. Like it took all my superpowers away.
So awhile back, I called my enabler to cancel my subscription whereupon the lady on the other end of the line promptly offered me three months free service (kinda like a free all-you-can-eat heroin buffet). I inhaled sharply. Bit my lip and spent the next ten minutes convincing the cable girl I was, in fact, aware of what I was asking her to do.
The cable box was returned. And instead, I decided to select one book from my shelf that I wanted to read (or re-read) but life and other such matters intervened.
I chose the winning book based on the author’s very first line. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Contender #1: Anna Karenina (otherwise known as a novel set in eight parts), Leo Tolstoy
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Contender #2: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
Contender #3: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
“The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails and was at rest.”
Contender #4: The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
“Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.”
Contender #5: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (shout out, Canadian boy), Moredecai Richler
“What with his wife so ill these past few weeks and the prospect of three more days of teaching before the weekend break, Mr. McPherson felt unusually glum.”
Contender #6: Bleak House, Charles Dickens
“London.”
Intrigued by a one-word start… Bleak House won.
Much love from the girl with the newfound cable-induced-short-term-one-line-literary-decision-making abilities,
Erica
