Blue Shoes and Happiness (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) (Alexander Mccall Smith)

Between sips of tea and meditations on morality, fleeting happiness is achieved via a pair of blue shoes.

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Quotes:

It was better, she thought, to be a little bit bad in this life, and not too perfect.

“Keep your mouth shut,” he had written in The Principles of Private Detection. “Keep your mouth shut at all times, but at the same time encourage others to do precisely the opposite.”

Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did.

“Anybody can lose,” cautioned Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “You need to remember that every time you win.” He thought of adding, and anybody can cry, even a man, but knew that this would be wasted on the apprentices.

I am a girl from Bobonong, she said to herself. I am a girl from Bobonong, with glasses. There was a man who was going to marry me, a kind man, but I frightened him away through my foolish talk. Now I am alone again. That is the story of my life; that is the story of Grace Makutsi.

Of course one could judge others, and Mma Ramotswe used the standards of the old Botswana morality to make these judgements. But there was nothing in the old Botswana morality which said that one could not forgive those who were weak; indeed, there was much in the old Botswana morality that was very specifically about forgiveness. One should not hold a grudge against another, it said, because to harbour grudges was to disturb the social peace, the bond between people.

And of course it was always difficult for Mma Ramotswe not to feel sympathy for another, however objectionable his conduct might be, however flawed his character, simply because she understood, at the most intuitive, profound level what it was to be a human being, which is not easy. Everybody, she felt, could do evil, so easily; could be weak, so easily; could be selfish, so easily.

The problem was that she had not been to the Botswana Secretarial College, where the motto, proudly displayed above the front entrance to the college, was Be Accurate. Unfortunately, there was a spelling mistake, and the motto read Be Acurate. Mma Makutsi had spotted this and had pointed it out to the college, but nothing had been done about it so far.

If I ever see God, she thought, I am sure that he will not be thin.

Evil, she thought. That is what I see. Evil. She had seen it only once or twice in her life, and on each occasion she had known it. Most human failings were no more than that—failings—but evil went beyond that.

Mma Ramotswe sat back in her chair. She put the pencil down. And she thought, How might I think if I were in this woman’s shoes? How do you think if you are so heartless as to blackmail those who are frightened and guilty? And the answer that came back to her was this: hate. Somewhere some wrong had been done, a wrong connected with who she was perhaps, a wrong which turned her to despair and to hate. And hate had made it possible for her to do all this.

The Book of Craw: A Hobo's Testament (Companion Volume to "The Dirty Parts of the Bible") (Sam Torode)

Not much to say about this one. I got it from the author for free, which was nice. It's a collection of poems (some original) that might have inspired one of the characters of the book The Dirty Parts of the Bible.

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In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) (Alexander Mccall Smith)

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Quotes:

But after a few minutes, as they watched Charlie walking quickly away in the direction of the town, they realised that something serious and potentially irremediable had happened. They saw before them the ruins of a career; the wrecking of a life.

Now he has decided that he can give everything up just because his rich lady is running after him in her Mercedes-Benz. Oh dear! Those cars have a lot to answer for.”

We are all human, all creatures of water and salt, all human.

People did not spend enough time sitting and talking, she thought, and it was important that sitting and talking time be preserved.

She had been too young then to stand up to him, and now, when she could do so, when she had the facts of her success with which to confront him, she felt only the same ancient fear, the fear which had made women through the ages cower before such men.

There was a way of walking in Johannesburg, a way of holding oneself, that was different from the way in which people did these things in Botswana. Johannesburg was a city of swagger, and that was something which people in Botswana would never do.

One might have all the things which the modern world offered, but what was the use of these if they destroyed all that which gave you strength and courage and pride in yourself and your country?

Mma Ramotswe was horrified when she read of people being described in the newspapers as consumers. That was a horrible, horrible word, which sounded rather too like cucumber, a vegetable for which she had little time. People were not just greedy consumers, grabbing everything that came their way, nor were they cucumbers for that matter; they were Batswana, they were people!

that is what redeems us, that is what makes our pain and sorrow bearable—this giving of love to others, this sharing of the heart.

The Song of Songs -- A New Version (Sam Torode)

Sam Torode's verion of the Song of Songs, which was the inspiration for his book The Dirty Parts of the Bible is not a scholarly version, whatever that means, but it's pleasant to read and a document of the author's engagement with the ancient poem.

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Quotes:

Love is an eternal fire— one spark will set you ablaze. Oceans can’t extinguish it, rivers can’t wash it away. If a man tried to buy love— even with all of his family’s wealth— he would be scorned, ridiculed.

The Full Cupboard of Life (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) (Alexander McCall Smith)

Number 5 in the series, continues the development of the remarkable characters and their setting. By now I'm firmly addicted to this series, and i will miss it when i finish.

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Quotes:

Why, she asked herself, why keep a wound open when forgiveness can close it?

He was a good man, which, when all is said and done, is the finest thing that you can say about any man. He was a good man.

“They will ruin cars left, right, and centre,” he said. “That is what will happen to them. There will be great sadness among the cars of Botswana.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood back respectfully. The revealing of an engine of this nature—an engine which was older than the Republic of Botswana itself—was a special moment, and he did not want to show unseemly curiosity as the beautiful piece of engineering was exposed to view.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We all know that it is women who take the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women.”

She approached him carefully, as one always should when coming across somebody reading the Bible,

But there was a great deal that people did not understand and would only learn through bitter experience. In her view, one of these things was the truth of the old African saying that it takes an entire village to raise a child. Of course it does; of course it does. Everybody in a village had a role to play in bringing up a child—and cherishing it—and in return that child would in due course feel responsible for everybody in that village. That is what makes life in society possible. We must love one another and help one another in our daily lives.

“Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika,” God Bless Africa, give her life, watch over her children.

The Way of a Pilgrim; The Pilgrim Continues His Way (Russian)

It's my second reading of this book. I like it, not only for the strange (to my tradition) Orthodox prayer tradition, but by the captivating way it's exposed through Russian peasant stories.

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Quotes:

By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my actions a great sinner, and by calling a homeless wanderer of the humblest birth who roams from place to place. My worldly goods are a knapsack with some dried bread in it on my back, and in my breast pocket a Bible. And that is all.

He was silent for a while and looked at me closely. Then he said, “Ceaseless interior prayer is a continual yearning of the human spirit towards God. To succeed in this consoling exercise, we must pray more often to God to teach us to pray without ceasing. Pray more, and pray more fervently. It is prayer itself which will reveal to you how it can be achieved unceasingly; but it will take some time.” So saying, he had food brought to me, gave me money for my journey and let me go. He did not explain the matter.

“The continuous interior Prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine Name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart while forming a mental picture of his constant presence and imploring his grace during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’

“Now I give you my permission to say your Prayer as often as you wish and as often as you can. Try to devote every moment you are awake to the Prayer, call on the Name of Jesus Christ without counting the number of times, and submit yourself humbly to the will of God, looking to him for help. I am sure

I gave up saying the Prayer with my lips. I simply listened carefully to what my heart was saying.

“If you do not understand the Word of God, the devils understand what you are reading and tremble,”

“The holy book is full of profound wisdom,” he was saying. “It is a secret treasury of the meaning of the hidden judgments of God. It is not everywhere and to everyone that it is accessible, but it does give to each such guidance as they need, to the wise, wise guidance, to the simple-minded, simple guidance.

Lord! what mysterious things humans are!

“Everyone has their own gift from God,” I answered. “There have been many preachers, Father, but there have also been many hermits.

a secret prayer lies hidden within the human heart. The individuals themselves do not know it, yet working mysteriously within their souls it urges them to prayer according to each one’s knowledge and power.

The Apostle says, “Pray without ceasing.” That is, he teaches us to have the remembrance of God in all times and places and circumstances. If you are making something you must call to mind the Creator of all things, if you see the light, remember the Giver of it, if you see the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, wonder and praise the Maker of them. If you put on your clothes, recall whose gift they are and thank the one who provides for your life. In short, let every action be a cause of your remembering and praising God, and lo! you will be praying without ceasing and therein your soul will always rejoice.’

“The trouble is that we live far from ourselves and have but little wish to get any nearer to ourselves. Indeed we are running away all the time to avoid coming face to face with our real selves and we barter the truth for trifles.

“The one who has attained to true prayer and love has no sense of the differences between things: they do not distinguish the righteous person from the sinner but love them all equally and judge nobody, as God causes the sun to shine and the rains to fall on the just and the unjust.”

“You have no right, friend,” said the starets, “to abuse and curse the Jews like this. God made them just as God made us. You should be sorry for them and pray for them not curse them. Believe me, the disgust you feel for them comes from the fact that you are not grounded in the love of God and have no interior prayer as a security and, therefore, no inward peace.

“Why, of course I know that Prayer. I used to say it sometimes to keep my courage up when I was going to do a robbery.”

Everything seems particularly desirable to us from a distance. But we all find out by experience that every place, though it may have its advantages, has its drawbacks too.

Therefore, when one happens to remember one's neighbor, or at the time appointed for doing so, it is well to bring a mental view of the neighbor into the Presence of God, and to offer a prayer in the following form: “Most merciful God, Thy will be done, which will have all persons to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth, save and help thy servant N. Take this desire of mine as a cry of love which thou has commanded.”

The Kalahari Typing School for Men: A No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel (4) (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) (Alexander McCall Smith)

I love this series.

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Quotes:

Sins, thought Mma Ramotswe, are darker and more powerful when contemplated within confining walls. Out in the open, under such a sky as this, misdeeds were reduced to their natural proportions—small, mean things that could be faced quite openly, sorted, and folded away.

He felt weary. Life was a battle against wear; the wear of machinery and the wear of the soul. Oil. Grease. Wear.

He closed the door behind him, taking one last look at the pump. It was an old friend, in a way. No modern pump would look like that, with its wheel and its beautiful heavy casing; no modern pump would make a noise like the trumpeting of an elephant. This pump had come from far away and could be given back to the British now. Here is your pump, which you left in Africa. It is finished now.

“You don’t have to read a book to understand how the world works,” Mma Potokwani continued. “You just have to keep your eyes open.”

No, this was not a lie; it was an interpretation.

“That is somebody who comes to stay with us from time to time,” said Mrs. Moffat. “He writes books.”

Morality for Beautiful Girls: A No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel (3) (Morality for Beautiful Girls (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency) (Alexander Mccall Smith)

By now, I'm hopelessly addicted to this series!

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Quotes:

It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about them, but that was not all there was in Africa. However great the suffering of the people of Africa, however harrowing the cruelty and chaos brought about by soldiers—small boys with guns, really—there was still so much in Africa from which one could take real pride. There was the kindness, for example, and the ability to smile, and the art and the music.

In her experience, when people began to behave out of character it was a sign that something was very wrong.

NOT EVERYBODY had a maid, of course, but if you were in a well-paid job and had a house of the size which Mma Ramotswe did, then not to employ a maid—or indeed not to support several domestic servants—would have been seen as selfishness.

That understanding, thought Mma Ramotswe, was the beginning of all morality. If you knew how a person was feeling, if you could imagine yourself in her position, then surely it would be impossible to inflict further pain. Inflicting pain in such circumstances would be like hurting oneself.

I am lucky, thought Mma Ramotswe. I am lucky that I can make somebody so happy just by saying something.

There were eight main tribes in Botswana—and some smaller ones—and although most younger people did not think these things should be too important, for the older generation they counted a great deal.

You can cultivate your mind, or you can cultivate your hairstyle. But you cannot do both.

Motlamedi was, quite simply, a bad girl. This description was very specific; it had nothing to do with bad women or bad ladies—they were quite different categories. Bad women were prostitutes; bad ladies were manipulative older ladies, usually married to older men, who interfered in the affairs of others for their own selfish ends. The expression bad girl, by contrast, referred to somebody who was usually rather younger (certainly under thirty) and whose interest was in having a good time.

“Do not be ashamed to cry, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is the way that things begin to get better. It is the first step.”

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester)

My friend Mike Perlowin considers this one of his favorite books.

It is very good classic SiFi, weird and ferocious.

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Quotes:

Any man was capable of jaunting provided he developed two faculties, visualization and concentration. He had to visualize, completely and precisely, the spot to which he desired to teleport himself; and he had to concentrate the latent energy of his mind into a single thrust to get him there. Above all, he had to have faith...the faith that Charles Fort Jaunte never recovered. He had to believe he would jaunte. The slightest doubt would block the mind-thrust necessary for teleportation.

It was an age of freaks, monsters, and grotesques. All the world was misshapen in marvelous and malevolent ways.

“Scientifically mated,” Moira said proudly. She pulled up the sleeve of her nightgown and showed him her arm. It was disfigured by four ugly slashes. “I have been inoculated with something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

a gold organ with robot organist by Tiffany,

“The Burning Man! Look! The Burning Man!”

Revenge is for dreams…never for reality.”

“Sensible, matter-of-fact, like good businessmen who’ve had bad luck,” Sheffield answered promptly. “That’s the usual attitude of the professional criminal. It’s obvious you’re an amateur, if you’re a criminal at all.

But I’m not a robot. I’m a freak of the universe...a thinking animal...and I’m trying to see my way clear through this morass.

“Because you’re alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? Don’t ask about it. Live it.”

“I believe,” he thought. “I have faith.” He jaunted again and failed again. “Faith in what?” he asked himself, adrift in limbo. “Faith in faith,” he answered himself. “It isn’t necessary to have something to believe in. It’s only necessary to believe that somewhere there’s something worthy of belief.”

Bear In Love (Daniel Pinkwater)

Very cute, very good, as good as the best other Pinkwater picture books, really.

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Quotes:

“You are some cute little bear.”
“And you are quite the big strong bunny."