Feels Like a Woman

I've taken up a new little hobby of collecting lines I like from books. It's so much fun to be able to just open up my journal and find quote after quote from all the spectacular books I take my time to read. It's also extremely handy when trying to come up with songs to match books. ::wink::

Like in the book The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss when Chronicler, Bast and Kvothe (all very confident men) start discussing women:

Frowning, Chronicler opened his mouth, but Bast held up a hand to stop him. 'No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she's beautiful, she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding.' Bast gave a grudging shrug. 'And sometimes that's enough.'

His eyes brightened. 'But there's a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you . . .' Bast gestured excitedly. 'Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.'

Definitely one of my favorite book quotes and it completely reminds me of one of my favorite, favorite songs--Feels Like a Woman by Zucchero

Silence is loud
Without her whispers
My body craves her touch
Such are my prayers
Every break of dawn
To open my eyes
And see her by my side
Take it
When the earth shakes
And the tide breaks
Feels like a woman
So much power takes my breath away

Have I told you to read The Name of the Wind yet? (I know I have). It's excellent. Definitely worth taking your time to delve into. I do, however, warn you that it's the first of an unfinished trilogy.

And if you've never heard this song before--which comes off of the French Kiss soundtrack (good movie)--be sure to watch the video below.

In this post:
Books : The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Music: Feels Like a Woman by Zucchero

A Piano Man Name Kvothe

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a book about magic and mystery and memories, but it is also a book about music. Intertwined into every chapter is the main character's heritage as a traveling musician.

Kvothe (pronounced 'quothe') lives a pretty rough life, he's poor... dirt poor... and spends a fair amount of his time trying to get his hands on a lute. Just so he can feel the strings vibrating across his fingers.

When he finally does manage to get that lute, he uses it to dig himself out of the poverty that has buried him. He plays on caravans for a ride to the next town, in taverns for food, at inn's for a room to sleep in, but he's good.

Really, really good.

"And we sang! Her voice like burning silver, my voice an echoing answer. Savien sang solid, powerful lines, like branches of a rock-old oak, all the while Aloine was like a nightingale, moving in darting circles around the proud limbs of it.

I was only dimly aware of the audience now, dimly aware of the sweat on my body. I as so deeply in the music that I couldn't have told you where it stopped and my blood began."

"And then it was done... I gathered myself and straightened in my chair to look out at the audience. My silent audience.

Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician's curse. Even as I sat, the ending I had improvised was fading from my memory. Then came doubt. What if it hadn't been as whole as it had seemed? What if my ending hadn't carried the terrible tragedy of the song to anyone but myself? ...

Then there was a murmur of sobs released and sobs escaping. A sigh of tears. A whisper of bodies slowly becoming no long still.

Then the applause. A roar like leaping flame, like thunder after lightening."

How do you describe the music in a book? What song do you use to portray the life of a roving musician? Well, if you aren't here to find out then I'm not sure what I can do for you. ::wink::

Billy Joel has a pretty good song about bar musicians called The Piano Man.

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday,
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been coming to see
To forget about life for awhile.
And the piano sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say "Man, what are you doin' here?"

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright.

If you haven't read The Name of the Wind I highly recommend it. Especially if you like epic fantasy.

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Books: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Song: The Piano Man by Billy Joel

Don't forget, tomorrow is Friday Wish-List. So get your posts ready, we want to see what you like!

Name of the Wind Excerpt to Realize

Take time to realize,
That your warmth is.
Crashing down on in.
Take time to realize,
That I am on your side
Didn't I, Didn't I tell you.

But I can't spell it out for you,
No it's never gonna be that simple
No I can't spell it out for you
Realize, Colbie Calliat

***

I stepped over to her and knocked it out of her hand. Her eyes flashed angrily at me. "Spit it out!" I snapped. "Now! It's poison!"

Her expression went from angry to terrified in a flash. She opened her mouth and let the wad of dark stuff fall to the ground. Then she spat, her saliva thick and black.....

I reached into the fire pit, pushing my hand deep into the ashes until I found the unburned coals underneath. I brought up a handful of unburned charcoal. I shook my hand, scattering most of the ashes away, then thrust the handful of black coals at her. "Eat this," I said.

She looked at me blankly.

"Do it!" I shook the handful of coals at her. "If you don't chew this up and swallow it, I'll knock you out and force it down your throat!"

---

"Before. You said you'd knock me down and make me eat coals. You'd never hit me." She turned her head a little. "You wouldn't, would you? Not even if it was for my own good?"

I felt a chill go through me. "What do you mean?"

There was a long pause, and I was beginning to think she'd fallen asleep when she spoke up again. " I didn't tell you everything. I know Ash didn't die at the farm. When I was heading toward the fire he found me. He came back and said that everyone was dead. He said that people would be suspicious if I was the only one who survived..."

I felt a hard, dark anger rise up in me. I knew what came next...

My stomach churned acid. "A man who could do that to you--he's not worth your time. Not one moment of it. It's not a matter of him being only half a loaf. He's rotten through. You deserve better."

***

Take time to realize
Oh-oh I'm on your side
didn't I, didn't I tell you.
Take time to realize
This all can pass you by.. Didn't I tell you

But I can't spell it out for you,
no its never gonna be that simple
no I can't spell it out for you.

If you just realized what I just realized
then we'd be perfect for each other
then we'd never find another
Just realized what I just realized
we'd never have to wonder if
we missed out on each other now.

More on the book 'Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss next week. I really loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the romance, I loved the flow of the story. I'm sure you will too.

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Books: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Music: Realize by Colbie Calliat

Friday Wishlist: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

In 2008 when the first Twilight movie was released a group of friends and I sat in my living room discussing vampires. We had just laughed our way through Robert Pattinson's portrayal of Edward Cullen and were musing over the entire genre of paranormal fiction when someone brought up the book 'The Historian.'

Half the women there shivered visibly.

"That's a good book," one woman said.

The others nodded vigorously.

I had to admit to the group that I had never even heard of the book and the entire room swore they'd bring me their copy the next day.

Two years later and I have yet to hold it.

So what is this book that everyone swore I'd love, but couldn't bring themselves to loan out?

"In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research." -Publishers Weekly

Simply put... it's a vampire book. A really good vampire book.

"For once, a novel that is not horror or all blood and gore, but a truely facinating and suspensful tale that kept me awake after reading only 64 pages of it. I am not faint-hearted, nor have I ever been kept awake by any books. This novel facinated me and made me want to finish it in one sitting."- Buttonsamy, Amazon Reviewer

The problem, however, is that the book only gets 3 1/2 stars and the New York Times didn't have the best things to say about it. So what's the big deal?

Everyone I've talked to swears I need to read it, but most of what I read compares it to one of my least favorite novels (DaVinci Code). I'm flummoxed.

Is this sort of like one of those movies that does great from word of mouth but all the professional reviewers hate it?

I'll admit, I'm intrigued and it is definitely going onto my library list... which means it's about 5 books down. Right after The Name of the Wind, The Way of Kings, Beka Cooper- Terrier, and Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra.

Why am I still on the computer? I have some reading to do!


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Books: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
           The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
           The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
           Beka Cooper-Terrier by Tamora Pierce
           Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra by Obert Skye