Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I finished it today. But I'll wait until the rest of the gang has caught up.
I will say that 10 hours reading marathons do make your eyes sore!

Invitation to a Beheading

I've just finished Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov. It was written in 1959, in the USSR. The influence Communist rule is present from the very beginning. The story is about a man named Cincinnatus C. (his last name is never given), and the book opens with Cincinnatus being sentenced to death in a court of law. The story is in the USSR, of course, but also some kind of strange, alternate reality runs parallel to the events that unfold. I don't want to give too much away: the book basically depicts Cininnatus' last days in prison, so much of the book is consumed with introspective thoughts and interactions with prison employees. But, the book reminded me of Franz Kafka's The Trial in that the reader is drawn into something serious that is happening to the main character; it is not entirely clear how he got into that position, but it is also clear that there is little the main character can do about his situation and the actions of the people around him. It is frustrating at times for this reason, but the story is gripping, and pulls you along, agressively. I recommend it to both of you, although I personally expect that Linz will like it better than Kris.

Can anyone help here?

My grandmother really wants to find out who said/wrote this, and while it isn't directly bookish, I don't know where else to pick literary brains without entering some scary forum.

"For I in thy heart/ Had dwelling/ And thou has in mine/ Forever."

I've searched the Internet in vain. All I found were records of gravestones with this written on them, and nobody seems to be particularly concerned with methods of proper literary documentation on gravestones!

Any clues?

Timothy Findley: I love you

One of Timothy Findley's recurring themes is the distruction of the family unit from within, and Not Wanted on the Voyage is no exception. I thought that it couldn't get worse than in The Last of the Crazy People, but it is possible.

Not Wanted on the Voyage is the story of Noah Noyles, his wife, their three sons, and their sons' wives. Noah is the Noah, from the Bible. The story opens with the family already in a state of decline. Then God shows up and explains to Noah that he's going to flood the world, so Noah had better build an arc ASAP, and load it up with all these animals I brought you. So Noah does just that, and completely destroys his family in the process.

The Bible tells the story of Noah in a very ho-hum, everything-is-gonna-be-cool kind of way. Everything is orderly, peaceful: the animals practicaly hold hands and skip two by two into the boat. Findley, of course, doesn't tell it that way. I normally would steer clear of a book based on a religious tale; but trust Finldey to do a very tongue-in-cheek, somewhat snide account of Biblical events, complete with gender bending and homosexual undertones.

I do not want to ruin the plot, or the ending, so I won't go much further into detail, lest I spoil it. I would, however, strongly recommend this book to anyone, religious or no. Findley himself was a gay man with very cynical views of religion - Christianity in particular. Wikipedia describes Findley as such: "His writing, typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic genre, was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology, and mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted -- sometimes to the point of psychosis -- by these burdens."

This novel is no exception, so if you enjoy a little darkness, you will enjoy this book as much as I do: it is rife with psycosis and, like Crazy People, is written in a seemingly simplistic fashion, with an incredibly dark and raw underlay, wich succeeds in revealing immense amounts of information about his characters. To establish some kind of rating sytem here, if I may: 8.5/10 points. (For the record, I give The Last of the Crazy People a 9.5/10, but i read it a while ago, and do not feel comfortable giving an adequate review!)