I think, if I were to have a competition with Nicholas Guest to see who bummed Henry James harder, I would win. He manages to strike the balance between the concise and the beautiful, and it's *great*.

I've not the words. Just go and read it.

Re-reading seems an unnecessary luxury at the moment, but this is short, and it's in my top three favourite books of all time, and I needed it. This book sets out everything imperative to my being; I can think of nothing as beautiful or as perfect in the world.

Another one read in a sitting, but I think that says more about my current state of mind than the book. In any case, I've had a far longer relationship with this book than that: my mother's been telling me to read it for years, because 'it's a coming of age book so if you don't read it soon you'll be too old for it'. (I'm suspicious when books are described like that, though - that they're only suitable for people in a certain state.) Then this guy who I used to work with who said he read a lot said he'd read it and didn't like it because 'okay, this guy has a lot of problems, but I don't, so I don't really care' (which made me think he may as well not say that he reads, to be honest). So now I have read it and, after all that, it feels a bit of an anti-climax. I liked it; it pulled me. I felt for Holden, but I knew he wasn't going anywhere, not really, and now I've finished it I feel a bit unsure about what to do next.

I read this in one sitting. It was mega, although I found the set-up that bookends the story quite disappointing. Severin really doesn't need that: he's far more compelling and reachable as a slave than as a tyrant. More to the point, it just wasn't necessary. I'd take it out and just have the story as told from his journals - it'd shine more brightly on its own. Still definitely worth a read, though.

This is so exciting. I've never read a book this long before, and it's such a literary myth, I ... ooh. I love that the preface is a hundred and twenty pages long. I love the poem at the beginning. I love the fact that Burton simultaneously apologises for waffling on and explodes at those who would dismiss him. If my heart could sing in any eloquent way I would want it to sound like this book.

- - - - - - -

Mmm. Two weeks later and I'm starting to miss being lost in a story. This is probably just a sign that I should be more used to reading non-fiction.

- - - - - - -

I've barely been reading this. Honestly? If you say the same thing sixty times and do so beautifully and eloquently, you're still saying the same thing sixty times. Reading this soothes me, but it doesn't take me anywhere it hasn't taken me several times before; I feel as though I could be reading the same page again and again and I'd feel exactly the same way. I'm starting to think my fiction promiscuity wasn't such a good idea: I've completely lost focus on this one.

- - - - - - -

I've not touched this book in at least a month. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be read cover to cover (unless you're Dr Johnson, of course). Or is that just a cop-out? Tune in next week, when I will still be trying to ignore the copy sitting in my hallway split down the middle by a bookmark that is probably gathering dust by now.

- - - - - - -

Could it be that aiming to read this all the way through is akin to aiming to read a textbook in its entirety? I think so, and I do not think I am copping out; I think I made a mistake about a book that I, at the time, knew precious little about. I think I will read a few sections of this before condemning it to my bookshelf, and I'll flip through it a few times before I die - but I need a longer break first.

- - - - - - -

Scratch that: this is on my bookshelf, where it will remain until I need it for reference. Suffice it to say my lesson has been learnt, and in future I will consider a book far more thoroughly and fairly before committing myself so tightly to it.

NB: The translation I am reading is by James Michie and is not listed on Amazon.

I love how, despite being milennia away from me, I feel I know Catullus from his poetry - it's so ardent, and bitchy, and anguished. Wonderful. And Michie's translation is stunning.

Pretty, glittery, distant; it swept me up but it didn't take me anywhere.

This bit was my favourite:

'... who thinks the almost dearest part
In all the body is the heart:
Without it, rapture cannot rise,
Nor pleasures wanton in the eyes'

There are lines so beautiful that everything is changed by them ... this book makes my soul ache. I cannot praise it enough. I will not try to.