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Brian Blanchette
https://www.goodreads.com/bookman33
“The Cairngorm water is all clear. Flowing from granite, with no peat to darken it, it has never the golden amber, the ‘horse-back brown’ so often praised in Highland burns. When it has any colour at all, it is green, as in the Quoich near its linn. It is a green like the green of winter skies, but lucent, clear like aquamarines, without the vivid brilliance of glacier water. Sometimes the Quoich waterfalls have violet playing through the green, and the pouring water spouts and bubbles in a violet froth.”
― The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland
― The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland
“The air is part of the mountain, which does not come to an end with its rock and its soil. It has its own air; and it is to the quality of its air that is due the endless diversity of its colourings. Brown for the most part in themselves, as soon as we see them clothed in air the hills become blue. Every shade of blue, from opalescent milky-white to indigo, is there. They are most opulently blue when rain is in the air. Then the gullies are violet. Gentian and delphinium hues, with fire in them, lurk in the folds.”
― The Living Mountain
― The Living Mountain
“Walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent. But no metaphor, transparent, or light as air, is adequate. The body is not made negligible, but paramount. Flesh is not annihilated but fulfilled. One is not bodiless, but essential body.”
― The Living Mountain
― The Living Mountain
“To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain.”
― The Living Mountain
― The Living Mountain
“Imagination is haunted by the swiftness of the creatures that live on the mountain - eagle and peregrine falcon, red deer and mountain hare. The reason for their swiftness is severely practical: food is so scarce up there that only those who can move swiftly over vast stretches of ground may hope to survive. The speed, the whorls and torrents of movement, are in plain fact the mountain's own necessity. But their grace is not necessity. Or if it is - if the swoop, the parabola, the arrow-flight of hooves and wings achieve their beauty by strict adherence to the needs of function - so much the more is the mountain's integrity vindicated. Beauty is not adventitious but essential.”
― The Living Mountain
― The Living Mountain
JUST FOR FUN Reading Challenge 2013
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January 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013 THIS GROUP IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW MEMBERS! 36 PEOPLE COMPLETED THE CHALLENGE AND THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN EMAILED!! Je ...more
Books on the Nightstand
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A group to discuss books and topics mentioned on Books on the Nightstand, a blog and podcast about books and reading.
Brian’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Brian’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
23 books
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156 friends
372 books
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199 friends
401 books
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42 friends
3 books
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3,077 friends
172 books
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6 friends
0 books
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55 friends
19 books
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1 friend
1 book
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161 friends
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