Volta Place
@voltaplacereads.bsky.social
reading every book. no matter what.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
September 3, 2025 at 1:39 AM
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
“A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
August 20, 2025 at 5:25 PM
“A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
Like it or not, pregnancy has a plot, a story.
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
August 12, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Like it or not, pregnancy has a plot, a story.
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
July 28, 2025 at 1:19 AM
If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title.
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
July 26, 2025 at 1:25 AM
The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title.
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
July 22, 2025 at 10:38 PM
The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
June 8, 2025 at 11:37 PM
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
The quality you most admire in a man? Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd.
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
June 6, 2025 at 2:48 PM
The quality you most admire in a man? Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd.
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
There on the horse rode Power, through the gateway of triumphal entries, with dazzling features, but graven as in stone. The Power which transcends us and whose hooves we kiss.
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
May 28, 2025 at 10:16 PM
There on the horse rode Power, through the gateway of triumphal entries, with dazzling features, but graven as in stone. The Power which transcends us and whose hooves we kiss.
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
May 19, 2025 at 3:45 PM
It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
May 17, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
“I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him.”
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
May 12, 2025 at 8:15 PM
“I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him.”
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
They move the cafe out to the back so anyone who wants a drink or a snack has to traipse all the way through the store. And naturally, on their way there—human nature being what it is—they’ll pick up a little something extra.
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
May 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
They move the cafe out to the back so anyone who wants a drink or a snack has to traipse all the way through the store. And naturally, on their way there—human nature being what it is—they’ll pick up a little something extra.
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Blood flowed in Bluebeard’s house,—in the slaughterhouses,—in the amphitheaters, where God’s seal turned the windows livid. Blood and milk flowed.
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
April 25, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Blood flowed in Bluebeard’s house,—in the slaughterhouses,—in the amphitheaters, where God’s seal turned the windows livid. Blood and milk flowed.
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
There are no reasons. She is obliged to be who she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
April 22, 2025 at 7:52 PM
There are no reasons. She is obliged to be who she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.
Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
1997
#booksky #childhood #resilience #sierraleone #reading #humanrights #resistance
Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
1997
#booksky #childhood #resilience #sierraleone #reading #humanrights #resistance
April 16, 2025 at 8:24 PM
If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.
Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
1997
#booksky #childhood #resilience #sierraleone #reading #humanrights #resistance
Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
1997
#booksky #childhood #resilience #sierraleone #reading #humanrights #resistance
…tightening the rope until there was no more resistance. So that’s what it was to kill.
Pilar Quintana
The Bitch
2017
#booksky #dogs #colombia #motherhood #love #violence #perimenopause #menopause #BibliotecaDeNarrativaPrize #translation #shelterdog #puppy #pacific #reading #spanish #literature
Pilar Quintana
The Bitch
2017
#booksky #dogs #colombia #motherhood #love #violence #perimenopause #menopause #BibliotecaDeNarrativaPrize #translation #shelterdog #puppy #pacific #reading #spanish #literature
April 14, 2025 at 8:13 PM
…tightening the rope until there was no more resistance. So that’s what it was to kill.
Pilar Quintana
The Bitch
2017
#booksky #dogs #colombia #motherhood #love #violence #perimenopause #menopause #BibliotecaDeNarrativaPrize #translation #shelterdog #puppy #pacific #reading #spanish #literature
Pilar Quintana
The Bitch
2017
#booksky #dogs #colombia #motherhood #love #violence #perimenopause #menopause #BibliotecaDeNarrativaPrize #translation #shelterdog #puppy #pacific #reading #spanish #literature
Everyone at some point in their lives should have a long great love affair with a magnificent lunatic.
Lorrie Moore
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
2023
#booksky #death #meditation #reality #grief #grieving #haunted #ghoststory #ghosts #novelsky #bronx #reading #readingisresistance #thepast
Lorrie Moore
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
2023
#booksky #death #meditation #reality #grief #grieving #haunted #ghoststory #ghosts #novelsky #bronx #reading #readingisresistance #thepast
April 10, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Everyone at some point in their lives should have a long great love affair with a magnificent lunatic.
Lorrie Moore
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
2023
#booksky #death #meditation #reality #grief #grieving #haunted #ghoststory #ghosts #novelsky #bronx #reading #readingisresistance #thepast
Lorrie Moore
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
2023
#booksky #death #meditation #reality #grief #grieving #haunted #ghoststory #ghosts #novelsky #bronx #reading #readingisresistance #thepast
So self-acceptance does not mean self-admiration or even self-liking at every moment of our lives, but tolerance for all our emotions, including those that make us feel uncomfortable.
Gabor Maté
Scattered Minds
1999
#booksky #adhd #audhd #attentiondeficit #uncomfortablefeelings #selftolerance
Gabor Maté
Scattered Minds
1999
#booksky #adhd #audhd #attentiondeficit #uncomfortablefeelings #selftolerance
April 8, 2025 at 6:22 PM
So self-acceptance does not mean self-admiration or even self-liking at every moment of our lives, but tolerance for all our emotions, including those that make us feel uncomfortable.
Gabor Maté
Scattered Minds
1999
#booksky #adhd #audhd #attentiondeficit #uncomfortablefeelings #selftolerance
Gabor Maté
Scattered Minds
1999
#booksky #adhd #audhd #attentiondeficit #uncomfortablefeelings #selftolerance
I see the long years of our marriage ahead like a great spacious welcoming firelit room…I want to show you off. I want to wave you around in pride.
According to Mark
Penelope Lively
1984
#booksky #love #affair #romance #bookerprize #biography #biographer #england #mystery #reading #pride #lovewins
According to Mark
Penelope Lively
1984
#booksky #love #affair #romance #bookerprize #biography #biographer #england #mystery #reading #pride #lovewins
April 6, 2025 at 12:36 AM
I see the long years of our marriage ahead like a great spacious welcoming firelit room…I want to show you off. I want to wave you around in pride.
According to Mark
Penelope Lively
1984
#booksky #love #affair #romance #bookerprize #biography #biographer #england #mystery #reading #pride #lovewins
According to Mark
Penelope Lively
1984
#booksky #love #affair #romance #bookerprize #biography #biographer #england #mystery #reading #pride #lovewins
Poetry’s fundamental figure, metaphor—opportunistic and changeable as DNA—roots itself in error and the grubbiness of language, relying less on likeness than the gap failure opens.
Katherine Coles
The Stranger I Become
2021
#booksky #poetrysky #walking #looking #writing #metaphor #retinas #poem
Katherine Coles
The Stranger I Become
2021
#booksky #poetrysky #walking #looking #writing #metaphor #retinas #poem
April 3, 2025 at 9:56 PM
“If you’re a frustrated interior decorator, sewing for your home is the answer to your problems.”
Needlecraft for the Home
1952
#booksky #vintage #crochet #needlepoint #knitting #fabricart #textileart #woobles #embroidery #interiordecoration #interiordesign #softlife #homemaking #nesting #reading
Needlecraft for the Home
1952
#booksky #vintage #crochet #needlepoint #knitting #fabricart #textileart #woobles #embroidery #interiordecoration #interiordesign #softlife #homemaking #nesting #reading
March 31, 2025 at 2:11 AM
“If you’re a frustrated interior decorator, sewing for your home is the answer to your problems.”
Needlecraft for the Home
1952
#booksky #vintage #crochet #needlepoint #knitting #fabricart #textileart #woobles #embroidery #interiordecoration #interiordesign #softlife #homemaking #nesting #reading
Needlecraft for the Home
1952
#booksky #vintage #crochet #needlepoint #knitting #fabricart #textileart #woobles #embroidery #interiordecoration #interiordesign #softlife #homemaking #nesting #reading
"It's a wonderful effect," speaking then as she gently touched the blouse-front, a net of sheen grey fainter than pearl, a dove-down diaphanous grey, fashioned, as it were, to hold in a web of insinuation that treasure next of lace..."
Terry Southern
Flash and Filigree
1958
#booksky #beatnik #beat
Terry Southern
Flash and Filigree
1958
#booksky #beatnik #beat
March 27, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.
Henry van Dyke
The Ruling Passion
1901
#booksky #bookcover #coverart
#victorian #canadian #frenchcanadian #shortstory #moral #anecdote #reading #rural #resistance #buyused #buybooks #read #blossoms
Henry van Dyke
The Ruling Passion
1901
#booksky #bookcover #coverart
#victorian #canadian #frenchcanadian #shortstory #moral #anecdote #reading #rural #resistance #buyused #buybooks #read #blossoms
March 24, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.
Henry van Dyke
The Ruling Passion
1901
#booksky #bookcover #coverart
#victorian #canadian #frenchcanadian #shortstory #moral #anecdote #reading #rural #resistance #buyused #buybooks #read #blossoms
Henry van Dyke
The Ruling Passion
1901
#booksky #bookcover #coverart
#victorian #canadian #frenchcanadian #shortstory #moral #anecdote #reading #rural #resistance #buyused #buybooks #read #blossoms
The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.
Arati Kumar-Rao
Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes
2023
#booksky #environment #culture #memory #springequinox #vernalequinox #equinox #spring #renewal #destruction #slowviolence #regrowth #india #landscape #reading
Arati Kumar-Rao
Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes
2023
#booksky #environment #culture #memory #springequinox #vernalequinox #equinox #spring #renewal #destruction #slowviolence #regrowth #india #landscape #reading
March 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.
Arati Kumar-Rao
Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes
2023
#booksky #environment #culture #memory #springequinox #vernalequinox #equinox #spring #renewal #destruction #slowviolence #regrowth #india #landscape #reading
Arati Kumar-Rao
Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes
2023
#booksky #environment #culture #memory #springequinox #vernalequinox #equinox #spring #renewal #destruction #slowviolence #regrowth #india #landscape #reading