D. A. Hosek

Just another writer

  • Beautiful Sentences: Christian Wiman

    Sometimes God calls a person to unbelief in order that faith may find new forms. Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Derek Robinson

    In mid-March the sky over France was all exuberance. Ragged flotillas of cloud sailed before a brisk west wind. Sunlight sought out the gaps and flickered over the new-green fields far below, The sky was a place of awakening, of vigour, as full of life as the million seeds in the earth. Woolley hacked a…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Richard Dooling

    His fourth day in Africa was spent deep in the interior of a remote, unmapped equatorial latrine exploring the dark incontinent. Richard Dooling, White Man‘s Grave.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Elie Wiesel

    And yet only fanatics—in religion as well as politics—can find a meaning in someone else’s death. That’s what distinguishes them from mystics, or most of us, whose only concern is our own death. Elie Wiesel, The Judges.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Charles Willeford

    Policemen undoubtedly had some kind of inborn perverted streak that normal men like himself didn’t have. Charles Willeford, Miami Blues.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Elie Wiesel

    Don’t forget that the Jews were not the only victims of my father and his accomplices: we, their children, are victims too. In our own way, we too have been uprooted and left on the scrap heap. For the children of the executioners too, midnight will always be sounding. Don’t forget that. Elie Wiesel, The…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 464.342 DIO Las Puertas Retorcidas

    The 460s are Spanish and Portuguese. I was hoping to find something in an intermediate reader since I have at least a decent reading knowledge of Spanish. I thought Las Puertas Retoricidas would be that book, but it turns out it’s a somewhat absurdist story at the service of teaching little lessons of vocabulary and grammar.…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Ernest Hemingway

    “It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 458.242 ADR Italian in 32 Lessons

    As I worked my way through the 400s, the inevitable could no longer be postponed: I’m going to read a language textbook (for most of a year, it turns out), “learning” Italian. I picked Italian in 32 Lessons primarily because it was a slender volume and I figured I could work through 32 lessons in a…