A few bits that caught my attention, for some reason or other, taken from the book I have recently finished reading – How To Read The Air, written by Dinaw Mengestu (which to be quite and frankly honest was a bit of a struggle to finish as it seemed to be mainly about two sets of people who weren’t really having a good time being together and who ended up not; something I found disappointing as I really liked the title and expected something much more – maybe a whacky road trip across America in which the main character retraces a similar journey made by his parents and although that ‘sort of’ happens, it is VASTLY inferior to the book which I am NOW reading, Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of The Window and Disappeared, which IS, in part, a whacky road trip, a really whacky road trip and an excellent read to boot, though interestingly I haven’t yet ear-marked any bits to pull out and quote like I did with Dinaw’s book. Maybe because the story is so interesting I’m distracted?). (185)

…his head that reminded him of the moon before it had fully risen and hung low and dim…….

…the thesaurus was a gift from mum  - “I’ve heard it’s really good. And by good I mean exceptional, superb, outstanding, marvellous, wonderful, first-rate, first-class, sterling.”

….for now he would have to say that it reminded him of a certain type of sadness that came to him whenever he found himself alone.

…a pair of 300 dollar shoes that she claimed was still cheaper than a therapist.

…you run and hide when anything dangerous comes too close. You seek comfort wherever and however you can, regardless of the consequences.

… what we were was something closer to a jazz trio than a family…

… as babies and young children we know and understand only what is immediate and before us. We accumulate memories and in doing so begin to make our first tentative steps backward in time, to say such things as ‘I remember when I was’. And from there our lives grow into multiple dimensions until eventually we learn to regret and finally to imagine.

(184)