Volta Place
@voltaplacereads.bsky.social
reading every book. no matter what.
physical book object joy.
physical book object joy.
You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.
Henrik Ibsen
A Doll’s House
1879
#EdvardMunch #AppleTree #NorwegianLiterature #playwright #theatersky #theatresky #victorian #protofeminism #feminism #desire #imprisonment #expressionism #expressionist
Henrik Ibsen
A Doll’s House
1879
#EdvardMunch #AppleTree #NorwegianLiterature #playwright #theatersky #theatresky #victorian #protofeminism #feminism #desire #imprisonment #expressionism #expressionist
January 22, 2026 at 1:39 AM
You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.
Henrik Ibsen
A Doll’s House
1879
#EdvardMunch #AppleTree #NorwegianLiterature #playwright #theatersky #theatresky #victorian #protofeminism #feminism #desire #imprisonment #expressionism #expressionist
Henrik Ibsen
A Doll’s House
1879
#EdvardMunch #AppleTree #NorwegianLiterature #playwright #theatersky #theatresky #victorian #protofeminism #feminism #desire #imprisonment #expressionism #expressionist
The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.
John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress
1678
#booksky #firstnovel #englishliterature #allegory #christianity #earlymodernliterature #C17 #dreamliterature #protestantliterature #readbooks #readingisresistance #journey
John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress
1678
#booksky #firstnovel #englishliterature #allegory #christianity #earlymodernliterature #C17 #dreamliterature #protestantliterature #readbooks #readingisresistance #journey
January 8, 2026 at 8:23 PM
The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.
John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress
1678
#booksky #firstnovel #englishliterature #allegory #christianity #earlymodernliterature #C17 #dreamliterature #protestantliterature #readbooks #readingisresistance #journey
John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress
1678
#booksky #firstnovel #englishliterature #allegory #christianity #earlymodernliterature #C17 #dreamliterature #protestantliterature #readbooks #readingisresistance #journey
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
David Hume
The Treatise on Human Nature
1740
#empiricism #skepticism #naturalism #C18 #philosophysky #booksky #philosopher #humannature #sentimentalism #psychology
David Hume
The Treatise on Human Nature
1740
#empiricism #skepticism #naturalism #C18 #philosophysky #booksky #philosopher #humannature #sentimentalism #psychology
January 4, 2026 at 2:21 PM
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
David Hume
The Treatise on Human Nature
1740
#empiricism #skepticism #naturalism #C18 #philosophysky #booksky #philosopher #humannature #sentimentalism #psychology
David Hume
The Treatise on Human Nature
1740
#empiricism #skepticism #naturalism #C18 #philosophysky #booksky #philosopher #humannature #sentimentalism #psychology
The victors always spare some village at the end to remind themselves of what they have destroyed.
Anton Shammas
Arabesques
1986
#nakba #palestine #translation #multilingual #booksky #arabic #hebrew #reading
Anton Shammas
Arabesques
1986
#nakba #palestine #translation #multilingual #booksky #arabic #hebrew #reading
December 30, 2025 at 2:18 AM
The victors always spare some village at the end to remind themselves of what they have destroyed.
Anton Shammas
Arabesques
1986
#nakba #palestine #translation #multilingual #booksky #arabic #hebrew #reading
Anton Shammas
Arabesques
1986
#nakba #palestine #translation #multilingual #booksky #arabic #hebrew #reading
The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss.
Robin DiAngelo
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
2018
#booksky #readingisresistance #jimcrow #antiracism #implicitbias #contacttheory
Robin DiAngelo
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
2018
#booksky #readingisresistance #jimcrow #antiracism #implicitbias #contacttheory
December 16, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss.
Robin DiAngelo
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
2018
#booksky #readingisresistance #jimcrow #antiracism #implicitbias #contacttheory
Robin DiAngelo
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
2018
#booksky #readingisresistance #jimcrow #antiracism #implicitbias #contacttheory
I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome
1911
#winterreading #winterbooks #winterreads #snowday #adultery #romance #newengland #novella #booksky #readersky #lacuna
Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome
1911
#winterreading #winterbooks #winterreads #snowday #adultery #romance #newengland #novella #booksky #readersky #lacuna
December 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM
I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome
1911
#winterreading #winterbooks #winterreads #snowday #adultery #romance #newengland #novella #booksky #readersky #lacuna
Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome
1911
#winterreading #winterbooks #winterreads #snowday #adultery #romance #newengland #novella #booksky #readersky #lacuna
She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
1857
#RealTalk #FrenchLiterature #RealistNovel #19CNovel #19CLiterature #Luxury #Adultery #Escapism #Obscenity #ObsenityTrial #Arsenic #Ennui
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
1857
#RealTalk #FrenchLiterature #RealistNovel #19CNovel #19CLiterature #Luxury #Adultery #Escapism #Obscenity #ObsenityTrial #Arsenic #Ennui
December 2, 2025 at 10:47 PM
She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
1857
#RealTalk #FrenchLiterature #RealistNovel #19CNovel #19CLiterature #Luxury #Adultery #Escapism #Obscenity #ObsenityTrial #Arsenic #Ennui
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
1857
#RealTalk #FrenchLiterature #RealistNovel #19CNovel #19CLiterature #Luxury #Adultery #Escapism #Obscenity #ObsenityTrial #Arsenic #Ennui
Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security & peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body & soul completely in its healing.
DH Lawrence
Sons & Lovers
1913
#codependence
DH Lawrence
Sons & Lovers
1913
#codependence
November 24, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security & peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body & soul completely in its healing.
DH Lawrence
Sons & Lovers
1913
#codependence
DH Lawrence
Sons & Lovers
1913
#codependence
You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird
1994
#WritingAdvice #Memoir #Booksky #AmWriting #CreativeNonfiction
Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird
1994
#WritingAdvice #Memoir #Booksky #AmWriting #CreativeNonfiction
November 21, 2025 at 2:49 AM
You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird
1994
#WritingAdvice #Memoir #Booksky #AmWriting #CreativeNonfiction
Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird
1994
#WritingAdvice #Memoir #Booksky #AmWriting #CreativeNonfiction
Il est rare que la vérité rattrape le terrain purdu sur la légende.
[it is rare that the truth catches up with the ground lost to legend]
Stefan Zweig
Amerigo
1942
#cartography #booksky #cartographer #historicalerror #vespucci #legacy #legend #ComedyOfErrors #GermanLiterature #FrenchTranslation
[it is rare that the truth catches up with the ground lost to legend]
Stefan Zweig
Amerigo
1942
#cartography #booksky #cartographer #historicalerror #vespucci #legacy #legend #ComedyOfErrors #GermanLiterature #FrenchTranslation
November 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Il est rare que la vérité rattrape le terrain purdu sur la légende.
[it is rare that the truth catches up with the ground lost to legend]
Stefan Zweig
Amerigo
1942
#cartography #booksky #cartographer #historicalerror #vespucci #legacy #legend #ComedyOfErrors #GermanLiterature #FrenchTranslation
[it is rare that the truth catches up with the ground lost to legend]
Stefan Zweig
Amerigo
1942
#cartography #booksky #cartographer #historicalerror #vespucci #legacy #legend #ComedyOfErrors #GermanLiterature #FrenchTranslation
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
September 3, 2025 at 1:39 AM
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
1963
#booksky #pocketmirror #ghostship
“A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
August 20, 2025 at 5:25 PM
“A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit
1937
So make friends with danger (or chili spiced sipping chocolate)
#booksky #newmexico #sippingchocolate #newmexicohumanities #humanities #fairies #fairyland #pueblo #chilis #cacao #mesoamerica #Oaxaca #porcelain #cocoa #read
Like it or not, pregnancy has a plot, a story.
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
August 12, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Like it or not, pregnancy has a plot, a story.
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
Jazmina Barrera
Linea Nigra
2022
#booksky #bookcover #ThreeActPlay #spanishliterature #childbearing #earthquakes #eclipses #lactation #LowieHollowell #CreativeLabor #memoir #manifesto
If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
July 28, 2025 at 1:19 AM
If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
Wendell Berry
The Unsettling of America
1977
#booksky #culture #agriculture #environmentalism #climatecrisis #labor #pastoral
The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title.
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
July 26, 2025 at 1:25 AM
The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title.
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
Matt Haig
The Comfort Book
2021
#PeanutButterToast #booksky #hope #depression #marmalade
The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
July 22, 2025 at 10:38 PM
The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
Fragments d’un discours amoureux
(A Lover's Discourse)
Roland Barthes
1977
#YourLoveIsMyDrug #booksky #readingsky #FrenchTheory #FatalAttraction
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
June 8, 2025 at 11:37 PM
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
2010
#booksky #empress #pharaoh #thepastisfemale #egypt #africa #romanempire #reading #readingisresistance
The quality you most admire in a man? Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd.
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
June 6, 2025 at 2:48 PM
The quality you most admire in a man? Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd.
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
Christopher Hitchens
Hitch-22
2010
#booksky #anima #absurd #womenaretooemotional #journalist
There on the horse rode Power, through the gateway of triumphal entries, with dazzling features, but graven as in stone. The Power which transcends us and whose hooves we kiss.
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
May 28, 2025 at 10:16 PM
There on the horse rode Power, through the gateway of triumphal entries, with dazzling features, but graven as in stone. The Power which transcends us and whose hooves we kiss.
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
Heinrich Mann
The Loyal Subject/Man of Straw
1918
#booksky #militarism #commercialism #germany #corruptsociety #reading
It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
May 19, 2025 at 3:45 PM
It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Mark Twain
The Mysterious Stranger
1908
#booksky #existentialcrisis #existentialism #satan
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
May 17, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
from the brows, only to rise
in the heart.
Li Qingzhao
Trans. Wendy Chen
The Magpie at Night
2025
#booksky #poetryintranslation #songdynasty #chineseliterature #chinesepoetry #poem
“I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him.”
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
May 12, 2025 at 8:15 PM
“I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him.”
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
The Personal Librarian
2021
#booksky #passing #segregation #libraryofcongress #blacklibrarian #manuscript #civilrights
They move the cafe out to the back so anyone who wants a drink or a snack has to traipse all the way through the store. And naturally, on their way there—human nature being what it is—they’ll pick up a little something extra.
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
May 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
They move the cafe out to the back so anyone who wants a drink or a snack has to traipse all the way through the store. And naturally, on their way there—human nature being what it is—they’ll pick up a little something extra.
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Nicola Barker
Darkmans
2007
#consumerism #booksky #manbooker #shortlist
Blood flowed in Bluebeard’s house,—in the slaughterhouses,—in the amphitheaters, where God’s seal turned the windows livid. Blood and milk flowed.
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
April 25, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Blood flowed in Bluebeard’s house,—in the slaughterhouses,—in the amphitheaters, where God’s seal turned the windows livid. Blood and milk flowed.
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
John Ashbery translating Arthur #Rimbaud
Illuminations
2011
#poetryintranslation #booksky #poetrymonth #prosepoem #poetsky #reading #resistance
There are no reasons. She is obliged to be who she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
April 22, 2025 at 7:52 PM
There are no reasons. She is obliged to be who she is. We all are. Reasons are in books.
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1998
#booksky #pulitzerprize #pulitzer #america #americandream #1968 #reading #readingisresistance