Lint in Literature: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Okay, if you're a fan of lint and a good thriller, check out The Wife Between Us. I finished this book over the weekend and highly recommend it.



Here's the lint passage in this novel:

"Shameful," Maureen joined in. She brushed a piece of lint off Richard's lapel. It struck Nellie as a maternal gesture. Even though Richard was an orphan, at least he had a big sister who clearly adored him.

This book has more twists and turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco.

It's more the way this story was told than the story itself that is so intriguing, I think. Original and well done.

Lint in Literature: The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve

I love coming across the word 'lint' when I'm reading a book. Lucky me, I just found one!

In the book The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve here's the quote where lint is mentioned:

Grace tries her book again, but reads the same sentence three times. "Have you ever been married?" she asks, pulling a piece of lint from her powder blue sweater.



This novel is just as good as the rest of Shreve's books. I think I've read them all, they're so good!

The Stars Are Fire is the story of Grace, a woman whose life drastically is upended from a catastrophic fire that changes everything.

Lint in Literature: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

My book club recently picked this book, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, for our January book. Since I read like a turtle (well, I'm not sure turtles actually read but I read slow, like a turtle moves), I decided to start reading it now. 

I'm about done, only about 200 pages to go. I'm reading the large print version so it's over 700 pages! But it's so worth it! This book is wonderful! The author is a fabulous writer, the story is unique and compelling, and it's gentle and soothing to read.

Basically, I love it!

Here is the excerpt that contained lint:

Yes, generally speaking such a remark falling from the lips of a statesman should be swept from the floor with the dust and the lint. But when it fell from the lips of Soso, one had good reason to lend it credence.

I've also learned from reading this book that Soso is a childhood nickname of Stalin. That's just one of the hundreds (thousands?) of tidbits you'll pick up. Of course I don't retain such stuff but it's a fascinating historical look at Russia and our world from the early twentieth century through the 1950s (I think, I'm not done yet).

Check out A Gentleman in Moscow if the real world is driving you crazy. This book is a balm against the daily bullshit.

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: Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day

I just finished reading Lori Rader-Day's novel Little Pretty Things, literally, like 10 minutes ago. I loved this book. And there's a nugget in there, on page 180. A lint nugget!

"My own house is too clean now, you know? I see a piece of lint, and I have to stop and pick it up, and I look at it, try to decide where it came from."

Lint aside, this novel is a mystery that had me stumped till the killer was revealed. Well, I sort of had an idea but it was so good! Read it! With more than 24 5-star reviews on Amazon, it's not just me who likes this one.

Little Pretty Things

Lint in Literature: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

I found some lint! I was reading the novel Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng last night and came across this line:

Lydia hugged her knees under the dining table, 

cookbookless; Nath picked lint from the carpet and glowered. 

This book is really good so if you love a good read (and lint), you might want to read it, too.

Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Lint in Literature: After the War is Over and Now Write! Mysteries

I read this lint in literature in After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson:




After the War Is Over: A Novel

His hair, rather charmingly, was standing on end, and his days-old beard had a thread of lint caught up in the hairs.

I've been reading a lot of nonfiction books lately and found lint in one of them. Oh happy day!

The book is titled Now Write! Mysteries. In it Harley Jane Kozak, a funny writer of mysteries, wrote a section called The Telling Detail. A telling detail is one thing a writer says about a character to keep them in the reader's mind. Here's her linty entry:

"Elderly" becomes "She had grandmother hair, so fragile and fine and soft it might have been lint plucked from the clothes dryer and stuck atop her head."

Love it!

Now Write! Mysteries: Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Today's Best  Writers and Teachers

Lint in Literature: Mannequin Girl by Ellen Litman

I started reading Mannequin Girl by Ellen Litman last night. What a treat to see the word lint used twice in the first paragraph!

Here's the first time lint is used:

Later she takes the dress off, puts it back on its hanger, 
makes sure there's not a speck of lint on it, 
not a wrinkle on the seat of the skirt.

Then later, this sentence appears, very similar to the first:

Slowly, lovingly, she takes off her dress, 
makes sure there's not a speck of lint of it, 
returns it to the hanger. 

I think I'm really going to like this novel about a Russian girl with scoliosis of the spine.

Mannequin Girl: 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?

Lint in Literature: Two Sisters by Mary Hogan

I'm reading the novel Two Sisters by Mary Hogan and came across this bit of lint in literature last night:

Lidia replied, "Black isn't as slimming as everyone says it is." Then she added, "That white napkin will leave lint all over your pants."
~*~

At first I wasn't so sure about this book about two sisters with eight years difference between them, but the more I read it, the better I like it.

Lint in Literature: The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas

I was reading the tail end of The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas last night and spotted some lint:

Under her tutelage he flossed, he cleaned his ears with Q-Tips, in the shower he spread the cheeks of his buttocks and washed with soap, he filed his fingernails, clipped his toenails, spread petroleum jelly between his littlest toes, where the skin had a tendency to flake, and removed lint from his belly button.

~*~

Is that a lovely description of tidying up?

Lint in Literature: The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

I just started reading Jeannette Walls' latest book last night and love it! In case she doesn't ring any bells, she wrote the so-good memoir The Glass Castle. If you haven't read it, do! It's wonderful.

So, as I was reading along, the word "linthead" was used several times. Then it was explained! Here's that passage:

"Charlie was a fling, as far as she was concerned. Charlotte was pretty shaken up when that wastrel, Liz's father, decided he didn't want to be a father after all. She went through a wild-divorcee period and got involved with a number of men whom Mother and Father disapproved of. Charlie was one of them. She never considered marrying him. The way she saw it, he was just a linthead."

"What's that?" I'd heard Mom use the word, but I didn't know what it meant.

"A millworker. They come off their shifts covered in lint."

~*~

Isn't that perfect!? I think so. 

Lint in Literature: The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner

I'm reading The Forest for the Trees:  An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner and loving it! Since it's nonfiction, I'm just dipping into it as I have a few minutes so I'm only on page 80. So far, so good!

Today I read this passage where Lerner is discussing types of writers (this chapter is about the self promoter):

I discovered that allegations of professional misconduct had attached themselves to this writer like lint.

I love that analogy. Lint does have a way of sticking where it doesn't belong. 

Lint in Literature: Freud's Mistress

I came across the word lint in the latest book I'm reading, Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman. Here's the passage (Martha is Sigmund Freud's wife):

As the noise level rose, Martha flitted back and forth into the kitchen, checking on the biscuits, the beef, getting this child a glass of water, that child a napkin, removing an elbow or a leg from the arm of a chair, and, at one point, bending over and picking up a wad of lint from the floor.

I like his book, but in places it reads like a history lesson. The story is based in fact but is a historical fictional account of Freud and his sister-in-law Minna, who many feel had an affair.

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 First Affair by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

I recently read The First Affair by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (of The Nanny Diaries fame). This novel was a fictional look at affairs women (young girls really) have with the President of the United States. I was pleasantly surprised; this book didn't just deal with the affair but largely with the aftermath of such a decision by both parties. 

It mostly was seen from the young intern's point of view and was handled very well. The character Jamie McAlister was idealistic and totally fooled, but I don't want to give too much away. Read it! I think anyone would love this smart look at the inner workings of politics today.

This little snippet about lint was in the book:

"Harrisburg? God, no." He considered for a second. "I thought there'd be more camaraderie. I thought join the government, join the campaign, share a common vision, a cause." He picked lint off his slim-cut cords. "But people suck everywhere, I guess."