Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

21 October 2011

The Hangman's Daughter (Oliver Pötzsch)

Exciting mystery with unconventional characters, well written, bogus ending. The usual. It treats the subject of torture seriously without being repugnant. Worth a read.


Quotes:

Jakob grabbed a few ropes from the chest way back in the stable and stuffed them into a sack together with the chains, the rusty pincers, and the linen rags used for mopping up the blood.

“It’s the wrong people that suffer, not the poor. The wrong ones!”

Martha Stechlin’s screams rose from the torture cellar through the narrow windows of the keep into the town. Anyone in the vicinity briefly interrupted their work and crossed themselves or prayed a Hail Mary. Then they continued whatever they had been doing.

His arm, from the elbow to the fingertips, was composed of pieces of bone held together by copper wires passed through holes drilled in the bone.

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