Oct 8, 2025
You can learn all you need to know about someone by watching how they treat small things.
— Silas House, Lark Ascending (Algonquin Books, Sept 27 2022)
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You can learn all you need to know about someone by watching how they treat small things.
— Silas House, Lark Ascending (Algonquin Books, Sept 27 2022)
Round 1
They have all asked me to write down the whole particulars about how I came to be here, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back. So now in my old age, I need to begin with our journey. When my parents and I crossed the wide Atlantic in the hopes of sanctuary on the green island of Ireland. Eventually I will need to go further back to make everything clear, but this is the real beginning.
-Lark Ascending, Silas House
The night Kate Harker decided to burn down the school chapel, she wasn't angry or drunk. She was desperate.
-This Savage Song, V.E. Schwab
They are all here, gathered like vultures around my bed, watching with long faces and occasionally bending near to listen for my breathing.
-Jerusalem’s Queen, Angela Hunt
Which is the best opening?
Lark Ascending?
This Savage Song
Jerusalem’s Queen
…as long as there were still cedar trees and dogs, I reckoned I had a reason to keep going.
New Releases: September 2022
New Releases: September 2022
This post is sponsored by me for the rerelease of Under the Lights Real Bad Things by Kelly J. Ford (1st) Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets. When Jane Mooney’s violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared, most folks in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas, assumed he got drunk and drowned. After all, the river had claimed its share over the years. When Jane confessed…
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Book Rec: Lark Ascending by Silas House
What an astounding take on the state of the world: The setting dystopian yet fully recognizable, the words lyrical and fully resonating with the soul of the reader.
Silas House writes a book of warnings—climate change, tyranny, religious zealots and intolerance come to a catastrophic peak.
Even with all the trauma, House gives us Lark and Seamus and a glimpse into the resilience of humanity. The message that grace can remain as long as we fight looms through Lark's exhausting journey.
There are so many poignant quotes from this work but I hope you read it and pick your own, and then pick the better path.
See more of Beth's recs
Early morning in May
This time of year it seems impossible to stay in bed. The sun always seems to find its way through a gap in the curtains and, once you have assessed the quality of light to guess what the time is, it is far too late. You are awake and thinking so you might as well get up, make a cup of tea and go out to enjoy the garden.
My first task is to put out more bird food as the pigeons, blackbird and sparrows are waiting, often perched only about a foot away as I put food onto the bird table.
“Shropshire Lad” and clematis are getting blowsier and the wonderfully scented rose “Ivory Castle” is budding. This starts as a deep yellow, but fades to a paler colour as it opens. And the scrambling climbing rose “The Lark Ascending” is showing little splashes of colour as it fights its way up a pittosporum and in competition with the more aggressive “Rambling Rector”. The former has small clusters of blooms that begin a deep apricot that turns to softer tones as it opens and is, I think, better as a bud than when it is fully open. The “Rambling Rector” has clambered many metres up and is escaping into the neighbours adjoining magnolia tree. I hope they appreciate it.
Lark Ascending: A Novel
By Silas House.f
Lark Ascending Rose