Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes That I Really Liked From Ten Books That I Love

Happy Tuesday everybody!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Quotes From/About Books. So you can share book quotes that you love, quotes about books themselves, quotes about being a reader, etc. I decided to highlight Quotes That I Really Like From Ten Books That I Love. I went with the last ten books I gave five star for this one, because I’ve just read so many books.

Without further ado, let’s get into it! From most recently read and rated to least recently read and rated – to keep them straight in my head (but mostly because I’m having trouble choosing which books I like better than others).

#1

Perhaps that is what it is like with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi

#2

“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”
Becky Chambers – A Psalm for the Wild-Built

#3

One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.
Heather Fawsett – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

#4

Art doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. I’ve heard it said that art is the one truly useless creation-intended for no mechanical purpose. Valued only because of the perception of the people who view it. The thing is, everything is useless, intrinsically. Nothing has value unless we grant it that value. Any object can be worth whatever we decide it to be worth.
Brandon Sanderson – Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

#5

There is no such thing as a single truth. There are just the stories we tell others, and the ones we tell ourselves.
Chelsea Abdullah – The Stardust Thief

#6

Humanity is awful, angry, and violent. But we are also magical and musical. We dance. We sing. We create. We live and laugh and rage and cry and despair and hope. We are a bundle of contradictions without rhyme or reason. And there is no one like us in all the universe.
TJ Klune – In the Lives of Puppets

#7

Real hearts are nothing but trouble.
They break and bleed and bring their owners torment. But without them existence is hollow, only breath following breath.
Frances Hardinge – Unraveller

#8

You are the Ship of Theseus. We all are. There is not a single living cell in my body that was alive and a part of me ten years ago, and the same is true for you. We’re constantly being rebuilt, one board at a time.
Edward Ashton – Mickey7

#9

“Not every story is willing to reveal itself right away. Some of them are bashful.”
Marissa Meyer – Gilded

#10

“I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”
V.E. Schwab – A Darker Shade of Magic

What are your favorite quotes? Are they from your favorite books? Do you have any quotes you really like that are just about books and reading in general?

As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke | Book Review

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

LENGTH: 245 pages

GENRES: Fantasy, Literary, Fiction

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing

RELEASE DATE: 15 September 2020

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house–a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.

My Review

‘I said that this is a perfect world. But it’s not. There are crimes here, just like everywhere else.’

Oh. My. Stars. What an amazing little read this book was. Piranesi has been on my radar for years, but I’ve always put it off for various reasons. But I finally got around to reading it, and I’m very glad I did. Because this was a very good book.

I’m not gonna talk a lot about the stuff I usually talk about in my book reviews – and as a result this might be a shorter review – because I don’t want to ruin the experience of reading this novel for anyone who might read this post. Because the thing I absolutely loved the most about this book was how you could slowly piece together the plot and the backstory and the way all the characters (alive and dead) related to each other. It was a bit of a slow burn in a way, but a fantastic one.

I enjoyed following Piranesi’s journal entries and observing how he viewed his world. I think I said it in my first Emily Wilde review and I’ll say it here: We need more epistolary novels! The other characters were interesting as well – I especially found Piranesi’s evolving perception of The Other and 16 to be fascinating.

Perhaps that is what it is like being with other people. Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not. Perhaps that is what Raphael means.

The way Clarke describes here world is beautiful and otherworldly. The Labyrinth is serene and whimsical and mysterious and terrifying all at once. I especially enjoyed the Coral Halls – they sounded absolutely breathtaking. Her writing is also very, very good.

This novel was an even bigger breath of fresh air for me because it was a much better reading experience than the last book that I read and reviewed. I’m always nervous about starting a new book after reading a book that I didn’t care for or outright hated. So it was wonderful to read a book that I really, really loved.

I’m also looking forward to the Laika adaptation (probably) coming out a few years from now. I think they’re perfect for adapting this particular book, and hope that they do it justice.

So yeah, I know this is a shorter book review – especially compared to my last one – but like I said, I don’t want to taint any one’s experience reading Piranesi for the first time. Because it truly is an actual reading experience. So just read it – I think most people will really enjoy it.

As always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

The sight of the One- Hundred- and- Ninety- Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.

MY LINKS:

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Weekly Wrap-Up: 12/31 – 1/8

It’s been a bit (ei: a month) since the last time I did one of these, but since I’ve gotten my crap back together, I’ve decided to bring this back.

So without further ado, let’s get into the post. (Also, yes, I know this is technically nine days and not seven. … Shh, say nothing!)

Saturday 12/31: DNF’s of 2022, Five Star Books of 2022

On the left day of 2022, I did a double post after a several day hiatus. (I get busy around the holidays, okay?) These posts were concerning the books I read over the past year, specifically the ones that I DNF-ed and the ones that I gave five stars. If you’re interested and you missed them, you can check out the DNF post here and the five star books post here.

Sunday 1/1: Happy New Year

My New Year’s post was about… you guessed it, New Year’s! It was basically just a post wishing everyone a Happy New Year and going over my goals and stuff that I want to do in 2023. You can read the post here.

Monday 1/2: December 2022 Reading Wrap-Up, Majestic Monday #6

On the second day of the new year, I once again double posted. Firstly, I posted my December 2022 reading wrap-up, wherein I discussed my StoryGraph reading statistics from last month. Then, I posted the first Majestic Monday in like a month, but the sixth one chronologically. In this one, I highlighted A Coup of Tea by Casey Blair, The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, and Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer. You can read the reading wrap-up here and the Majestic Monday post here.

Wednesday 1/4: 2022 Reading Wrap-Up, Shelf Control #7

On Wednesday, I did another double post. (I’m noticing a trend here, lol.) The first was my year of reading for 2022, where I go over the my 2022 StoryGraph stats as a whole, and the second post was another Shelf Control, where I talk about Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather, the sequel to How to Hang a Witch. If you missed it, you can read my 2022 year in review here and the Shelf Control post here.

Sunday 1/8: Anticipated First Quarter Books

Yesterday, I finally posted my anticipated books… for the first quarter of 2023. So January, February, and March. There’s waaayy too many novels on it to list here in a compact manner, so just check it out here if you’re interested in new fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and contemporary novels coming out.

My Favorite Books I Read in 2022

I wanted to end the year on a high note, and there’s no higher note to end on on a book blog than a post glorifying books.

So I’m going to be highlighting my 5 star reads from the past year. Let’s get started!

Note: Despite this being a numbered list, it is not ranked in terms of how much I enjoyed these books. It isn’t ranked at all, actually. It’s just organized in the order that I read them.

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) by V.E. Schwab: I loved this book sooo much. The magic system. The world building. The setting. It was just. Amazing. One of my favorite books I’ve ever read actually.
Gilded (Gilded #1) by Marissa Meyer: I absolutely loved this book. Just… so, so good. Marissa Meyer is truly the queen of fairytale retellings.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton: This book got me out of a reading slump near the beginning of the year. Going into this book, I had a feeling that I would enjoy it a fair amount, but I was surprised just how much I enjoyed it.
Summer Knight (Dresden Files #4) by Jim Butcher: I started The Dresden Files very soon after finishing Mickey7 actually, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this series as a whole, as well. (Books 1 – 7 at least – I just... I haven’t gotten to reading the rest of the series yet, okay?!?) I only gave two of the books perfect 5 star ratings, however, and Summer Knight was one of them.
Death Masks (Dresden Files #5) by Jim Butcher: I almost enjoyed this more than Summer Knight if it were possible. Everything was absolutely perfect in this novel: the plot, the characters, the sass. I loved this book. (Note: I haven’t reviewed this series yet on the blog because I’m planning to do a massive review like with The Murderbot Diaries when I finish the entire series.)
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells: Okay, so I’m cheating a bit here. I didn’t rate all of the novellas in this series perfectly. There were two that I gave 4.5 stars. But, as a whole, this series is definitely a 5 out of 5 for me. And the only reason those two even got that score was because they were just the slightest bit less than perfect. But I still consider this to be a perfect series.
The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding (Prosper Redding #1) by Alexandra Bracken: This was another unexpected surprise. I knew going into it that I would like this book, but once again, I was surprised by just how much. I just… I really loved everything about this one.