“At that time of night, the only traffic consisted of trucks filled with bodies and detainees, and police cars that roamed the streets like lost wolves howling in the darkness of the curfew.”

That sentence was written by Isabel Allende, and can be found at the bottom of page 442 in her 1985 novel, The House of the Spirits.

I honestly think this may be one of the most perfect sentences ever written.

You don’t need to know what the book is about to feel the fear and despair in these words.

I won’t do a book review on The House of the Spirits because there are so many on the internet already.  I will tell you, though, that I’ll probably read it again someday.

What’s on your nightstand?

4 comments

  1. That’s a powerful sentence and a great example of how creative language can be. I’ve just finished a series, the Summer King Chronicles, which totally absorbed me. It’s written for young people, but the author has a way of pulling the reader into the middle of things. I’m going for The Red Tent next.

  2. Hi Nita, I finished Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter last week. Fun, frivolous romance about The Mr. Darcy. And last night I just finished Family Tree by Susan Wiggs. She has a ‘now’ and a ‘then’ timeline braided. I read the first ‘then’ timeline then stayed with my preference for the now timeline. Trying to figure out why. Perhaps the whole story reminded me too much of a combined Coast Road and Lake News, both by Barbara Delinsky?

  3. HY. I loved that book šŸ™‚
    on my nightstand…3 books: I just finished Lola Bensky: A Novel by Lily Brett . Real nice.
    I have to begin reading The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey for my bookclum meeting, but i JUST RECEIVED A ROMANIAN book I ordered by mail, about childhood in Romanian Communist era …so i really cann’ot decide what to read first šŸ™

I'd love to hear your thoughts!