Paperback Favorites

I usually read paperbacks even when given a choice of hardcovers. Anyway, here are some of my favorite paperbacks in alphabetical order.

01 - Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte > link
What's it about: home, teaching, growing up, faith
Favorite Passage: "All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge; I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others, but the world may judge for itself; shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture, and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend."

02 - The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery > link
What's it about: marriage, love, life, belonging
Favorite Passage: "You see — I've never had any real life", she said. "I've just — breathed."

03 - Gathering the Water by Robert Edric > link
What's it about: water, grief, home, future
Favorite Passage: "Starting anew, I began to discern the light and the landmarks of the possible future. There was a time in between, of course — a period of confusion in which life went on and I acted out my part within it — but it was never starting anew, never a rebirth, merely a succession of lesser endings, during which I severed my ties one after another — my family, my work, my connection to Helen's family, to her sister, to my colleagues, and finally upon reaching the shapeless centre of that darkness, my hopes and expectations for the future."

04 - Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver > link
What's it about: ghost, grief, home, magic
Favorite Passage: “The Other Side was a busy place — as busy, if not busier, than the Living Side. They ran parallel, the two words, like two mirrors sitting face-to-face, but normally Po was only dimly aware of the Living Side. It was a swirl of colors to the ghost's left; a sudden explosion of sounds to its right; a dim impression of warmth and movement.”

05 - Postcards from a Dead Girl by Kirk Farber > link
What's it about: postcards, grief, travels, neurotic dreams
Favorite Passage: "The postcard is everything, but looks like nothing. An inconsequential sheet of pressed pulp decorated with a few drops of ink, it barely exists in the physical realm. But this one has got hold of something inside me that feels like forever. I follow the looping lines that make up Zoe's penmanship, the soaring arcs and inky swirls. I try to understand the true implications of her words, the hidden message behind the surface one. What a ridiculous phrase: wish you were here."

06 - Snow hunters by Paul Yoon > link
What's it about: reborn, orphans, home, family
Favorite Passage: "He thought of these years as another life within the one he had. As though it were a thing he was able to carry. A small box. A handkerchief. A stone. He did not understand how a life could vanish. How that was even possible. How it could close in an instant before you could reach inside one last time, touch someone's hand one last time. How there would come a day when no one would wonder about the life he had before this one."

07 - Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell > link
What's it about: family, marriage, gossips, relationships, love
Favorite Passage: "I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent."

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