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authors, book reviews, books, country, funny, gay, humour, LGBT, literature, memoir, reading, writers
29 Tuesday Nov 2016
05 Wednesday Oct 2016
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author, book reviews, books, child abuse, fiction, gay, LGBT, literature, memoir, mental health, reading, writer
“We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped are spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats, we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six matching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.
We wanted more flash, more blood, more warmth.
Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept for two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all might wake her, those crystal, still mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid it self down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment – we wanted less : less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this.”
10 Wednesday Jun 2015
06 Sunday Apr 2014
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@thejohnjernigan, book reviews, books, buy John's book on Amazon, culture, dating, depression, gay, gay dating, LGBT, lifestyle, literature, loneliness, love, perspective, point of view, queer, relationships, sex, the Good Earth -Pearl S. Buck.
An all-time classic, one of my favorites, first read when I was maybe 10 years old. My love of money and desire to own things and be rich made it super interesting to me…sadly, I have no money, don’t own much and sure ain’t rich.
“To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.”
“Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.”
“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.”
“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. ”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
15 Friday Nov 2013
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@squeakjernigan, art, book reviews, books, culture, David Sedaris, funny, gay, humor, Ira Glass, john jernigan, kindle, LGBT, literature, memoir, NPR, point of view, queer, relationships, Tampa Bay
David Sedaris is my favorite, my love, the biggest influence on me as an aspiring writer, plus he’s cute and smart and nerdy. Mrs. John Jernigan-Sedaris
quotes from my future ex-husband’s book:
“Hugh consoled me, saying, “Don’t let it get to you. There are plenty of things you’re good at.”
When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he’ll need some time to think.
“The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate. The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teachers latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting “Excuse me, What is an Easter?”
it would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” She said. ” I have no idea what you people are talking about.”
The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.
The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and… oh shit.” She faltered and her fellow country man came to her aid.
“He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two… morsels of… lumber.”
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
“He weared of himself the long hair and after he die. the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”
“He Nice the Jesus.”
“He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”
“Potential boyfriends could not smoke Merit cigarettes, own or wear a pair of cowboy boots, or eat anything labeled either lite or heart smart. Speech was important, and disqualifying phrases included “I can’t find my nipple ring” and “This one here was my first tattoo.” All street names had to be said in full, meaning no “Fifty-ninth and Lex,” and definitely no “Mad Ave.” They couldn’t drink more than I did, couldn’t write poetry in notebooks and read it out loud to an audience of strangers, and couldn’t use the words flick, freebie, cyberspace, progressive, or zeitgeist. . . . Age, race, weight were unimportant. In terms of mutual interests, I figured we could spend the rest of our lives discussing how much we hated the aforementioned characteristics.”
“In New York I’d go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I’ve upped it to six or seven, mainly because I’m too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par with reading a book or devoting time to serious thought. It’s not that the movies have gotten any more strenuous, it’s just that a lot of people are as lazy as I am, and together we’ve agreed to lower the bar.”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
15 Sunday Sep 2013
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arts, authors, book reviews, books, culture, D. Scott Ball, fiction, gay, IKEA, john jernigan, LGBT, Life, literature, perspective, reading, St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay, Thrift Store
Finally broke down and put my IKEA bookshelf together. My library is looking good and taking shape again. When I left Ft. Lauderdale I donated like 300 books to Goodwill, because they wouldn’t fit in my car and I couldn’t afford a U-haul. I’ve started collecting again…on the 1st and 15th of each month the Parc Thrift Store has a sale, everything 1/2 off, meaning $1 hardcovers and $.50 paperbacks. I’m on my way, I’m excited, it’s a party! A cool, hip, gangster book party…
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
16 Saturday Feb 2013
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Alex Adams, authors, book reviews, books, fiction, gay, john jernigan, literature, novel, Pandora's Box, White Horse, writers
I started reading this book and didn’t stop until I finished it six hours later. Our heroine Zoe finds herself alone and pregnant in a post-apocalyptic world where 95% of the population have already died. Those who have survived are starting to show genetic mutations. There is no government, no military, no electricity, no food or medicine, no one to help her…Zoe has only a mother’s strength and her courage to rely on as she journeys to Delphi. White Horse is the name of the virus that has destroyed the planet.
White Horse has been called “McCarthy’s The Road on steroids” and is the first book in a trilogy that I expect will blow the doors off the Hunger Games.
“I’ve heard the story about the woman who opened the box and let havoc grab a choke hold on the world.”
“It’s not just college grades that fall in a curve. Human decency is bell-shaped, with some of us slopping over the edges. Saints on one end, sinners on the other.”
“This is not the country where gleeful tourists toss coins into the Trevi Fountain, nor do people flock to the Holy See anymore. Oh, at first they rushed in like sickle cells forced through a vein, thick, clotted masses aboard trains and planes, toting their life savings, willing to give it all to the church for a shot at salvation. Now their corpses litter the streets of Vatican City and spill into Rome.”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out