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Title details for The Commonplace Book by Elizabeth Smither - Available

The Commonplace Book

by Elizabeth Smither
ebook
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I read this on a sandwich board outside a coffee shop. I stopped, pulled out my notebook, and leaned against a shopfront. You're nothing but a piece of crockery and a bit of blood. - Epictetus How sharp and bloodtinglingly lovely on a clear early autumn day. The sun sharp on the shop panes, clear shadows on the footpaths, faces outlined in a way they are not in summer. Necks with knotted scarves, half-coats. Last year's shoes dusted and polished. I was impervious to the glances I got as I wrote down the words - perhaps I was mistaken for a reporter. Heaven forbid it should be a poet. But that harshness in Epictetus, the Stoic, how lovely. A bit of railway cup a train has run over. A bit of blood that has gone brown, perhaps from a nosebleed during a high fever. I put the notebook back in my purse and walked on, rejoicing. Elizabeth Smither has always kept her own collection of other people's words: quotations, extracts, poems and pensées, the found and overheard. In The Commonplace Book she shares these witty and wise quotations with us, interspersed with incidents and memories from her own writing and life, offering a sparkling glimpse into the influences and inspirations of a far-from-commonplace writer.
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Publisher: Auckland University Press

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781869407483
  • Release date: October 1, 2013

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781869407483
  • File size: 3067 KB
  • Release date: October 1, 2013

Formats

OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Literary Criticism Nonfiction

Languages

English

I read this on a sandwich board outside a coffee shop. I stopped, pulled out my notebook, and leaned against a shopfront. You're nothing but a piece of crockery and a bit of blood. - Epictetus How sharp and bloodtinglingly lovely on a clear early autumn day. The sun sharp on the shop panes, clear shadows on the footpaths, faces outlined in a way they are not in summer. Necks with knotted scarves, half-coats. Last year's shoes dusted and polished. I was impervious to the glances I got as I wrote down the words - perhaps I was mistaken for a reporter. Heaven forbid it should be a poet. But that harshness in Epictetus, the Stoic, how lovely. A bit of railway cup a train has run over. A bit of blood that has gone brown, perhaps from a nosebleed during a high fever. I put the notebook back in my purse and walked on, rejoicing. Elizabeth Smither has always kept her own collection of other people's words: quotations, extracts, poems and pensées, the found and overheard. In The Commonplace Book she shares these witty and wise quotations with us, interspersed with incidents and memories from her own writing and life, offering a sparkling glimpse into the influences and inspirations of a far-from-commonplace writer.
Expand title description text
Literary Criticism Nonfiction