Books I want to share: stories of ageing, music and memorable lines

I love libraries. They let me keep up with new books without overloading my bookshelves any more than they already are.

But there are always some bits I want to keep. So when I see a line I love in a book, I take a photo of it so I can remember. Some of them are too good not to share so here goes: some of the books I’ve read in October and the best bits. Coincidentally most, but not all, are about age. I hope you like them.

Patti Smith: Year of the Monkey

 

I’m in two minds about Patti Smith. I love the fact that she exists, but I don’t love all her art.

Her best book is Just Kids, the story of young people in bohemian New York in the 1970s, because it has an actual narrative – and a great sense of time and place. Since then, she’s gone a bit vague and beat-poet-y. But there are always some good bits.

In Year of the Monkey, she turns 70 so there are some meditations on age and loss.

On life as sand in an egg timer: “The grains pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual.”

On how you see yourself when you get older: “Staring at my image on the mercurial surface of the toaster, I noticed I looked young and old simultaneously.”

She also looks back at when she was young. On her first meeting with Sandy Pearlman: "His suggestion that I should front a rock band, though improbable, was also intriguing. At the time, I was seeing Sam Shepard and I told him what Sandy had said. Sam just looked at me intently and told me I could do anything. We were all young then, and that was the general idea. That we could do anything."

Bernard MacLaverty: Midwinter Break

 

A poignant story about retired couple at a crossroads in their life together.

The saddest bit: “‘I want to leave you,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know how to go about it.’”

Not to do with the story, but a lovely image. “We flew over tulip fields. From the air they looked like freshly opened plasticine.”

On the familiarity of old pop songs: “Those songs are just part of the lining of your brain.”

Kate Atkinson: Big Sky

I finally got to the top of the queue for the latest Jackson Brodie book. I’ve also made a note of some of the music he’s listening to: Patti Griffin, Miranda Lambert, Lori McKenna. Jackson/Kate has good taste.

A description of one of the main characters: “Crystal was hovering around thirty-nine years old and it took a lot of work to stay in this holding pattern.”