Lint in Literature: A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

As I just typed that heading, I realized it makes perfect sense that there would be lint near a spool of blue thread. 

So, I finished A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler last week and like all of her novels, loved it. She is a pro at writing novels with great character development and tidbits of everyday life that are easy to read but that are also engaging.



Here's the lint excerpt from this novel:

The rug was linty, the floor was strewn with cast-off hangers and dry-cleaner's bags, and a hard gray light from the stripped windows gave the room a bleak and uncared-for look. 

So, in this instance, lint isn't technically used, but linty is. I'll take it.

What are you reading lately? Have any good lint stories to share?

Lint in Literature: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Well, long time, no see. I should be ashamed. It's been almost a year since I last posted here and I know I've read the word 'lint' in more than one book. Did I post about it? NO! 

Sorry.

But I'm posting now about a novel I recently finished and it had the word at least twice. I'll just post one since I forgot to mark the second one. By the way, I loved this book. So, here's the excerpt:

Then I went through the process of wiring him up:  soaking squares of lint with salt solution, fixing these to the electrode plates; putting the plates in position on his leg with elastic bindings. 



This book is kinda creepy, kinda spooky, all good! I just loved it and relished every page.

Lint in Literature: The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

Okay, I can't believe it was last September when I last posted here. Oops!


Anyway, I am reading a wonderful book, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow. And last night I spotted this gem:

"Tristan, I'm going to marry Remington Arrow." Lettuce brushed some lint from her sleeve in an effort to appear very casual. "Don't look so shocked. You knew this was going to happen."

If you haven't read this book, oh boy, you're lucky. You get to read it! If you want to, of course. But I highly recommend it. It's well written and has an interesting premise.

Lint in Literature: All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner

I was thrilled to find a variation of the word lint in All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner on page 8 of this interesting novel:

The magazine was still open to the quiz on the couch beside me. I grabbed it, bending my head to avoid the scrutiny of the ubermommy two seats down whose adorable newborn was cradled against her body in a pristine Moby Wrap; the one who was not wearing linty black leggings from Target and whose eyebrows had enjoyed the recent attention of tweezers.

Then later near the end of the book, there is was again. Lint.

Every year, I was allowed to buy a single souvenir. The summer I was eight years old, I'd saved a few dollars of tooth fairy and allowance money, augmented by the quarters I'd cadged from the sofa cushions and the dollar bills from the lint filter in the dryer.

Do you read Weiner's books? She also wrote In Her Shoes and Little Earthquakes. All so good!

All Fall Down: A Novel

Lint in Literature: Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

It's been awhile since I posted here on my lint blog. So sorry! I have cleaned my dryer's lint filter since I last posted but that's about all the lint I've had in my life, I guess, until last night!

I was reading my book, Lucky Us by Amy Bloom, and what appeared? Lint! Here's the excerpt:

I did notice that the ladies were very happy for me to use the lint brush on their furniture, make tea, and empty the trash, and would you mind, there's a good girl, just take the dog for walkies while I'm drying.


Lucky Us: A Novel


This novel is a delight! I've read a few of Amy Bloom's other novels and this one is just as good. 

The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott

I've had shingles for a week now and had, what my doctor thought was a sore or blister near my right eye. So, I've been having to wear gauze over my eye during the day and an eye patch at night. This one-eyed situation made it really hard to do certain things, like read!



So, I figured out, with my daughter's help, how to download an audiobook onto my iPad to listen to instead of reading an actual book. I quickly chose The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott from my library using the Overdrive app. I am loving this book!

Last night while lying in bed, they mentioned lint. The ladies work in a textile mill in 1832 in Lowell, Massachusetts so there is lint flying from the cotton used to make the fabric. I didn't catch the sentence since I was listening, instead of reading, but it was a wonderful use of the word lint and had to share it with you.

If you like historical fiction (and lint), you can't go wrong with The Daring Ladies of Lowell.

Lint in Literature: Torch by Cheryl Strayed

I just started reading Torch by Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, and what did I find on the very first page? Lint! Yes! I was tickled pink.


Here it is:

"She examined her shirt for lint and cat hair, errant pieces of thread, and primly picked them off."

I'm only on page 29 of this novel but am loving it already.

What are you reading? Does it have any lint in it?

Navel Gazing and Belly Button Lint

I know I've been neglectful of my lint blog, but I've been busy. I have not, as the title of this blog post might suggestion, been doing any navel gazing and no, I don't have belly button lint but in an attempt to write a new blog post, I searched for "belly button lint" because it's always a fun topic to spend a few minutes on.

I came across this article by the Huffington Post called This Is What Your Belly Button Says About You. It's chockfull of information about what the shape of our belly buttons say about us, touches on a few people who do not have belly buttons (they were removed in surgeries; they are not aliens), and the ever-popular belly button lint. So take a few minutes to read some of those strange facts, if you like. 

And if that's not enough, there's a book out called Re:  Belly Button Lint by Brooke West. I have a feeling it's not entirely about navel fluff, but I found it interesting that there's a book with belly button lint in the title!

Lint in Literature: Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

I finished this novel a few days ago and toward the end, came across our favorite word:  lint!

"He sets his teacup down. 'Well,' he says, picking off an imaginary piece of lint from his trousers, 'I'm in the middle of changing professions. Now that the war is over, there is, happily, less demand for cranial surgery. I'm reading psychiatry, which can't be a complete surprise to you."

I really enjoyed this book about memory loss and women during World War I or The Great War as it was called at the time, having no second world war to begin the numbering scheme.

Oh, I also changed my furnace air filter today, which was full of dust and lint. Do you need to change yours?

Lint in Literature: The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

I recently read The Signature of All Things, a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert (you know, Eat Pray Love?). Anyway, this novel was amazing! It can be called epic and a classic and smart and funny. So good!

I was delighted to find this lint reference somewhat early in the book (on page 147):

Retta ran over to her friend, and sat down beside her. "Look at you! You are overcome on my behalf! You care about me do!" Retta put her arm around Alma's waist, just as she had done on the day they met, and embraced her closely. "I must confess that I am still a bit overcome myself. What would such a clever man want with a silly bit of lint like me?..."

If you are looking for a book you can really settle into for a week or so (I'm a slow reader; maybe you'd read the nearly 500 pages much quicker), The Signature of All Things is highly recommended.

Lint in Literature: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I've read lots of books since my last post but none mentioned lint. And I haven't been actively seeking out lint news. You could say I've been in a lint lull.

Well, I'm happy to say the lull has been broken!

Last night while reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, I came across this perfect passage with lint:

"Katie was the type who'd bustle around all day, clean the kitchen tile with a toothbrush, pull the lint from the floorboards with a toothpick before she spoke much about anything uncomfortable."

This book is dark and wonderful like the other books Flynn's written. If you're not familiar with Gillian Flynn, she also wrote that little book Gone Girl. Yeah, her. Sharp Objects was her first novel and it's good, but I did like Gone Girl better and Dark Places best.

Lint in Literature: The Watchmaker's Daughter by Sonia Taitz

I'm still reading The Watchmaker's Daughter by Sonia Taitz, and this memoir of a daughter of two Holocaust survivors is very good. 

 
Last night I read this passage and smiled because I'd get to share this bit of lint with you:

Will he greet my damp-faced, round-cheeked mother in her housedress, wearing pink kid shlurkes on her feet as she spreads the dust around with a lint cloth or boils up some exhausted white chicken?

This author candidly exposes her feelings growing up as the only daughter (she has an older brother) of a watchmaker. Her father was a craftsman who was allowed to live by repairing Nazi's watches in the Dachau concentration camp during the war. 

This book really has nothing to do with lint but has a lot to offer on the history of a family and what it means to be a the child of World War II Jewish parents. 

Lint in Literature: Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter by Sara Mansfield Taber

I just finished reading Born Under an Assumed Name:  The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter by Sara Mansfield Taber. This was a very good book and it contains lint, to boot!

Near the end of the book, she describes the teachers at the Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan where she attended high school:

"My French teacher was a fastidious man with impeccable clothing from which he brushed off invisible bits of lint with his manicured fingernails."

Lint in Literature: The Girl Giant by Kristen den Hartog

I just started reading The Girl Giant by Kristen den Hartog last night and could tell right away that it was a winner. This small book--both in size (it measures about 5 X 7 inches) and page length (just 219 pages)--is compact but tells a big story.

Here's where the lint comes in (on page 26), when Ruth is describing going to her first day of kindergarten with her mother:

"On my first day, I was creeping up on five feet, heads taller than my peers, who stared at me as I made my way down the speckled hall to my classroom, sweaty hand gripping Elspeth's sleeve. Clip-clop went Elspeth's shoes, and her dark dress without a speck of lint swished against her nylons, like people whispering."

The writing is so good and the story wonderful.

Lint in Literature -- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003

This "lint in literature" entry comes to you from The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, edited by Dave Eggers, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.

This is a compilation I've had lying around for several years. I've moved it from one bookshelf to another, but when I finished a book over the weekend and didn't have another on deck, I grabbed it and am loving the short entries. All of the stories appeared in magazines and periodicals in 2002, so they range from very short (2 pages) to usually less than 20 pages.

Imagine my delight when last night I was reading The Littlest Hitler by Ryan Boudinot and I stumbled on a line about lint. Not just once, but twice!

Mr. Boudinot was writing about a fourth grader who dressed as Hitler for Halloween, even wearing the costume to school. He was heckled nastily, mostly by the girl who dressed as Anne Frank, and was pretty much tarred and feathered during class and at recess, so he had to make a change (literally) before the afternoon parade. His teacher let him borrow her gray wig.

"By the time our parade made it to the middle school I was thoroughly demoralized. I had grown so weary of being asked 'What are you?' that I had taken to wearing the wig over my face and angrily answering 'I'm lint! I'm lint!'"

This book is full of wonderful writing that you just don't come across unless you read these periodicals in 2002:  Time, Mississippi Review, Atlantic Monthly, Little Engines, Shout, Esquire, and Columbia Review (plus a bunch of others). I, for one, didn't.

Lint in Literature: This Charming Man

Marian Keyes, the author of This Charming Man, writes well, writes funny, and writes provocatively. I've only read one of her other novels (The Brightest Star in the Sky). It too was funny and wise, but This Charming Man goes way beyond that. It addresses some tough truths. I'd recommend it in a minute.

But where's the lint, you ask. Here 'tis:

"He walked away, then stopped and turned back. "Hold on a minute." He approached like he had spotted something about me--lint on my collar, perhaps, or ball of fluff in my eyebrow--and wanted to help remove it."

Oh, what the heck.  I'll tell you. This book is about four women who all, at some point in their lives, know a powerful Irish politician. And they all know how dangerous his charm he can be.

Lint in Literature: City of Thieves

I'm reading City of Thieves by David Benioff (very good!) and last night read this passage:

Abruptly he released me, shoving his hands into my coat pockets, pulling out scraps of paper, a bit of string and lint, nothing close to money. Koyla sighed and turned to the vendor.

Do you ever watch for certain words in books you read? If so, what are they? Do you find them very often?