PONDER

my most old person take is that i think the prose of most contemporary fiction is unreadable. every sentence. is so short. and punchy. and you can never. get pulled into. the flow of the story. because it feels like. you're being pelted. with tiny pebbles of sentences. and i hate it.

reading Anne of Green Gables for the first time is so funny bc Anne is primarily a sweet, eager, earnest, dramatic, imaginative child who’s taking the world with open arms and loving life, and also she’s trying to explode Gilbert Blythe with her mind

hey quick PSA but “reading before bed to wind down” only works if you’re normal about books btw. if you aren’t you are going to end up awake at 2:52am after finishing the whole book just trust me on this one

penultimate is such a good word. its like....maybe the second best word

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

Every so often I think of how the LOTR movies managed to cast a guy as Aragorn who is simultaneously yes, very masculine, very action-hero-y, and also someone who as a woman I would one hundred percent feel safe being alone with in any situation. Not one cynical, alpha male, smirky, appeal-to-the-jerkbros-in-the-audience fibre in his body. Just thinking about Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn makes me feel a little calmer. Absolutely outstanding.

"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."

Asunder is basically the most classic way to be torn, and if you're looking to be cleft, in twain is a vintage but stunning choice

obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.