Ex Libris Kirkland is my entirely self-centered way to keep track of what I read, what I enjoy, and what I want to remember.
📓 Recent Notes 📓
Also fun to see that the area where Helm (the wind!) dominates has a place called Kirkland, which I know is a place name. But still jarring every time I see it.
a note about Helm
Knowing the tone of these, I didn’t experience the same cringe/dread that the first one engendered, and just enjoyed the trainwreck. One of those books that has me cracking up quietly to myself, while my wife comments ‘I don’t need to know what you think is funny in this book but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.’
a note about The Honeywood Settlement
Finally picked up the sequel to The Honeywood Files, which was absolutely one of my favorite books I’ve read over the last few years. It picks up right after the client Sir Leslie Brash has moved into the new house, and continues with architect James Spinlove and the builder Grigblay as they all try to settle accounts… and figure out if they all got what they wanted out of this exercise. The editor, who comments on each piece of correspondence, is as wry and funny as ever.
a note about The Honeywood Settlement
Interestingly the author decides to go chill out for a while in Yunnan province, which is apparently known for having a laid back culture. This was also written about in Dan Wang's book Breakneck, which I just finished. A place I had never heard of!
a note about I Deliver Parcels in Beijing
This was interesting but not revelatory: stories from working in the last-mile logistics world in China, where you can get a LOT more stuff delivered to you quickly. The best parts were there, which I assume were the original blog posts that went viral in China. And then, because he got a book deal, there is a significant amount of padding to turn it into a whole book - notes on every job the author has ever had.
a note about I Deliver Parcels in Beijing
📖 Recent Quotes 📖
In early September, the last piece of the Revelation Machine arrives, slowly down the track to Kirkland, behind two long-fringed piebalds. Lilith. She has been bought and sent over from Harrisons, the agricultural merchants in Penrith, for the bargain sum of fifty pounds.
an excerpt from Helm
This letter must have been sent to Spinlove pinned to the other papers, by an oversight. It shows Grigblay's business to be conducted in the old-fashioned style that still lingers, with the best traditions of the building crafts, in the provinces, where son follows father to the bench or the scaffold, and the master calls his men by their Christian names, knows the domestic circumstances of each, and distributes joints and poultry among them at Christmas. There may be somewhere in this world happier men than these, associated in more delightful work, but it is a hard thing to imagine.
an excerpt from The Honeywood Settlement
Between them sits a jellied gammon and a tureen of anaemic disintegrating potatoes. A mysterious sauce, wobbling under a brown meniscus, is deposited on the table by Midge. Their wine glasses stand empty. The decanter is also empty.
an excerpt from Helm
I also liked to stroll around the Lianhua Supermarket there, and I would while away my days off in IKEA, because it was nearby and had AC. I'd find a couch and curl up for a nap, which nobody seemed to mind at first, but eventually the capitalists removed their mask of kindness and sent security to move along anyone who was sleeping—because you can't wake up someone only pretending to be asleep, the only ones disturbed were those of us genuinely there to get some rest.
I didn't buy furniture in the store, but I often took advantage of the Absolut Vodka promotion in the first-floor food shop. A bottle of vodka cost around one hundred yuan on discount and came with a free bottle of juice. I'd then spend the evening sitting by my window drinking and looking out at the bustling streets. I felt especially serene in those moments. Though this might have just been the alcohol.an excerpt from I Deliver Parcels in Beijing
[raiding the pantry for a midnight adventure] Finally they seized an enormous box of chocolate biscuits. "They must be Miss Gozzling's," said Emma, giggling. "She never gives any to us. We'd better call her Miss Guzzling!" and these they removed without conscience or care, though before they had tried not to make their taking too obvious. But Charlotte had a faint twinge of shame about Miss Gozzling, thinking how kind she could be and how terrible to have so many chins.
an excerpt from The Summer Birds