Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Really Random Tuesday #67: Quotes about Books and Reading

The Reader by Fragonard, courtesy of Wikipedia

"The world was hers for the reading.”
 ~Betty Smith
"You could never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."
~C.S. Lewis
"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
~Stephen King
"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!  How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!"
~Jane Austen
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“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
~Jane Smiley
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte

“I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me; I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life.  As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
~Malcolm X
“I am a part of everything that I have read.”
~Theodore Roosevelt
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“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
 ~Henry David Thoreau
“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time."
~Virginia Woolf
“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
~Maya Angelou
“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”
~Angela Carter
“A good book is an event in my life.”
~Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”
~René Descartes
“I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.”
~Edgar Allan Poe
~~~~~~~
“While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading, the truth is that there is still in our culture something that suspects those who read too much, whatever reading too much means, of being lazy, aimless dreamers, people who need to grow up and come outside to where real life is, who think themselves superior in their separateness.”
 ~Anna Quindlen
“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.”
~Bill Gates
“Oh! It is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't.  More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.”
~Oscar Wilde
“All I have learned, I learned from books.”
 ~Abraham Lincoln

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Appearing on random Tuesdays, Really Random Tuesday is a way to post odds and ends--announcements, musings, quotes, photos--any blogging and book-related matters you can think of.  If you have miscellaneous book news to gather up and are inspired by this idea, "grab" the button for use on your own blog, then add your link to the "master" Mister Linky on the Really Random Tuesday page

I hope you've enjoyed these quotes about reading and books. Your comments are welcomed.  If you have a favorite quote about books or reading, please feel free to include it in your comment.  Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Really Random Tuesday #66: A Good Dinner and a Book Winner

Was Virginia Woolf a foodie?  Ahead of her time in many ways, she wrote about the importance of giving women more equality, and was one of the first modern writers to write about food. Virginia Woolf defied the conventions of the time, and described the "soles and partridges and potatoes", the food served at a luncheon, in A Room of One's Own.  At the very least, she appreciated the benefits of eating well, of "a good dinner".

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."
~Virginia Woolf

Do you think Virginia Woolf would be a vegetarian, or even a vegan, if she lived in the present day? I  think maybe she would be.


Even if you're not vegetarian, the dish below is quick and easy to make.  I think it would've pleased discerning Virginia Woolf.


~ Pasta with Sun-dried Tomatoes ~

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.   - See more at: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/15338/#sthash.d80REBHP.dpuf
It's been ages since I last cooked with sun-dried tomatoes!  I used to buy them quite often.  When my friend, Diane, mentioned them to me recently, I recalled their intense flavor, and decided to make them the focus in a vegetarian pasta dish.  Diane combined sun-dried tomatoes with cappellini, or angel hair pasta, which sounded very good to me.  Since I didn't have much cappellini on hand, I decided to use vegetable radiatore from Trader Joe's, as I had a full package.  Created in the 1960s by an industrial designer, radiatori are little pasta shapes that resemble radiators. (They do remind me of the hissing radiators from my childhood, whose sounds at night were oddly reassuring.)



Ingredients:
8 ounces of pasta, such as cappellini or radiatore
1 - 2  tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
1 ounce sun-dried tomatoes
4 or 5 white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup of water (or red wine)
Oregano or basil to taste
Parmesan cheese for topping

Directions: 
In a small pan, cook two cloves of minced garlic in about a tablespoon and a half of olive oil for a couple of minutes, then add the sliced mushrooms, an ounce or so of sun-dried tomatoes (which need to soak beforehand in warm water for 15 minutes), about 1/4 cup of water (or red wine), and generous sprinkles of oregano.  Of course, you could also use basil instead of or in addition to the oregano, and add pepper, too, if desired.  (I have a lot of organic oregano right now from my garden so I used that.)  Cook for about 25 minutes over a low flame on the stovetop, stirring occasionally.  While this mixture is cooking, cook the pasta according to directions on package, for about 10 minutes, then drain in a colander.  I used about 2/3 of a 12 ounce package of pasta to make two generous servings. This recipe can be easily adjusted to make more servings.

Toss the pasta with the sun-dried tomato mixture, and top with shredded and/or grated Parmesan cheese (unless you are vegan).  A fresh garden salad goes well with this dish.

Pasta with Sun-dried Tomatoes

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The randomly chosen winner of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall is Carol N. Wong.  Congratulations, Carol!   I think you'll enjoy this biography about Margaret Fuller, who influenced and inspired others, including Virginia Woolf.  

Thanks to everyone who participated in this book giveaway.  I have other giveaways listed on the right side of my blog for those of you interested in winning other books.  Please take a look!




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Appearing on random Tuesdays, Really Random Tuesday is a way to post odds and ends--announcements, musings, quotes, photos--any blogging and book-related matters you can think of.  If you have miscellaneous book news to gather up and are inspired by this idea, "grab" the button for use on your own blog, then add your link to the "master" Mister Linky on the Really Random Tuesday page

Happy Tuesday!  I welcome your participation in this meme, and your comments.

(Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry, c. 1917, courtesy of Wikipedia.)








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