The Hours

Every sentence in the book is eloquent, and the prose is so enchanting that it made me take my time going through the story just to saviour its beauty.

I saw this as a wonderful look
at our human difficulty in
living a life that is at once
both everyday and exceptional.
An incredible book that held up
very well to a second reading.

Probably at least the fifth time I've read this since the fall of 2002 — still as beautiful as ever. One passage in particular leaps out at me and, in truth, always has, but given the last 10 months has new resonance:

“There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.”