The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

Time for a head count of books that I read this year. Looks like 39. And among them, my favorite was: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice. Totally a chick-flick type book. So enjoyable. And written so well. I couldn't put it down. Then I sent it home with my sister and she devoured it as well. As I have admitted before, when I love a book, especially the writer's style, I have to mark it up as I go along. And so, this book is littered with my ink. I underlined a ton of things ... sometimes for the humor, sometimes for the emotion, often for the expression. Here's a little bit lengthy sampling of some of my favorite lines:

* Crying made her whole face swell up, as if she were allergic to her own tears.

* (speaking of a house) Magna sits like a sapphire among the trees - part birthday cake, part ocean liner, part sculpture, part skeleton- ...

* I have often wondered how Lady Lucy could have been so unbelievably dim...

* Some things are made to survive. I don't think a thousand wars could have destroyed that dress.

* He has acres of land, and more importantly, acres of style.

* I love her, she loves him. It's not the most original story in the world, is it?

* He's never been able to take rejection, which is so tiresome for us all.

* The room was so full of clutter and objects that it almost hurt the eyes.

* I felt my intellectual resolve weaken. I wanted everything, everything, everything - in fact, I felt myself positively winded by my need to consume.

* ... hot with annoyance.

* "You're what they call big-boned," diagnosed Vivienne with all the sympathy of the terminally petite

* Isn't it just dreamy? Everything's pure Narnia.

* I could have cheerfully murdered him.

* When the song finished, two and a half minutes later, something was different. I think we all felt it separately, each of us alone with our own little reasons for why the balance of the earth had shifted.

* "She thinks I'm lazy." "Aren't you?" "Of course. Any sensible person is."

* The glare of the sun on the snow bruised our eyes.

* I felt angry out of all proportion to the situation.

* She looked beautiful in the most understated way.

* Do you think any of them realize that the building behind them is far more fascinating than any of the fools inside it?

* "No! How long have you known each other?" gasped Hope, virtually winding me with the insult of her astonishment.

* The dark night spat hailstones against the windows.

* I wanted to gnash my teeth, but I wasn't sure how, so I let her go on.

* Without people like them, the house swayed, unhinged.

* I knew her well enough by now to understand the difference between Charlotte Dreaming and Charlotte Speculative.

* She's jolly beautiful until she opens that mailbox of a mouth.

* ... we battered the seriousness out of each other.

* "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes." Who, on hearing these words, ever says no? I wondered.

* Ooh! I had to stop myself from shouting out things about pots and kettles when she said that.

* We were young and the world spun for us alone.

* Where's little Penelope Wallace, havoc maker?

* Who was Papa? He was a million things that I would never know, and a million things that I had made him as a result of never knowing.

* I never imagined that the sun could be too bright for Aunt Clare. At times, she had seemed to bright for the sun.

* He was quite capable of divorcing extravagance from guilt - a quality that I quite envied in him.

* She was talking quicker and quicker - it was as if the truth was dawning on her and she needed to speak it before it crept away again.

* I experienced a happiness so acute it felt half holy: a happiness made all the more intense because I knew it was a limited happiness, just passing through.

* I bit my lip and choked back the tidal wave of salt water that threatened to spill from my eyes.

* "Oh, darling Penelope, don't cry!" Of course, tears take their cue from lines like this...

* Any house, great or small, ceases to seem real when the people you love are no longer there.

* Would it ever, ever leave? I had become used to the ache now; it was with me all the time, and never seemed to lessen. Time was no healer, I decided, but it was a great accommodator.

* "Rioting in the aisles," said Charlotte thoughtfully. "We must do some of that before the week's over."

* "I thought Magna was a dream house," admitted Charlotte, "but you know me, anything elaborate and romantic and ancient sends me into raptures."