My Virtual Coffee Table

The books that would grace my coffee table if I had money for books. Or a coffee table. This blog supports equality, kindness, reading, and keeping an open mind. Please leave book suggestions!

[virtualcoffeetable]

I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

It was no Mercury dime New York moon, but a harvest moon brought all the way from the wheat fields of North Dakota to shine with sweet benevolence down on the chosen and the beautiful.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

She says it's too easy to call people evil instead of their choices and that lets people justify making evil choices. Because they convince themselves that it's okay because they're still good people overall inside their own heads.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

[virtualcoffeetable]

it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world

Red Bird by Mary Oliver

They murmur, in the beginning of everything; from the bones of Chaos, rose a girl who built the universe, the stars, the planets, all because she was looking for a place to dance.

Great Goddesses: Life Lessons From Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill

when you are broken / and he has left you / do not question / whether you were / enough / the problem was / you were so enough / he was not able to carry it

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

[virtualcoffeetable]

I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

History was easy: the past with all loss burned out of it, all sorrow worn out of it—all that was merely personal comfortably removed.

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

[virtualcoffeetable]

I’ve a book recommendation! adult historical ficition: century trilogy by ken follett (they’re about wwi wwii and the cold war, they’re pretty cool but they’re definitely not for kids)

I’m sad to admit that I’ve never read a Ken Follett book but I’ve been meaning to for years! I always assumed I’d start with Pillars of the Earth but The Century Trilogy honestly sounds more my style so I think I’ll put it on my TBR instead :)

Thanks so much!

[virtualcoffeetable]

“Everyone knows and loves the Super Little Dead Girls™! These feisty girls are all gutsy, gallant, and gung-ho about fighting monsters and undead menaces, but they’ve got their distinct personalities too. Take our quiz to find out which Super Little Dead Girl™ is your super alter ego!”

Homesick: Stories by Nino Cipri

Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman

A monster. You and your friends, all of you. Pretty monsters. It's a stage all girls go through. If you're lucky you get through it without doing any permanent damage to yourself or anyone else.

Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link

[virtualcoffeetable]

There are many dangers here, child. Many. Many ugly things you’re going to have to do. It will be a great contest for you. And you’re going to think: How do I win? And the answer is—so long as you are alive, you are winning.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

I want to be a body for you. I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious—I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

It is only one world in infinite universes where this impossible happiness exists, but that is what makes it so valuable.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

[virtualcoffeetable]

From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The yellow sun rose, a giant balloon filled with prayers and hopes and promise.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

It had been awful, but I hadn't quit. I had persisted. In battle I had won.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

[virtualcoffeetable]

For I would go to this impossible land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon.

East by Edith Pattou

Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait in line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I believe in memory. I believe in remembering someone you love so well that it becomes kind of like a ghost.

Dead Voices by Katherine Arden

[virtualcoffeetable]

The snow had stopped as quickly as it had come, and outside it was only the ordinary dark of night, a last few floating flakes catching the firelight as they finished drifting down past our doorway.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

His voice was like snow at midnight.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

If we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

[virtualcoffeetable]

My whole life is other people deciding what's acceptable. When I put on a dress, I get to decide what's silly.

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

You can't tell whether people are gay by what they look like. And gay or straight aren't the only two options.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Listen. Just kiss both kinds of face. Maybe you'll enjoy them equally. That's fine. Let love rule.

Giant Days by John Allison, Lissa Treiman, and Whitney Cogar

[virtualcoffeetable]

In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Readers will always insist on adventures, and though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Sorcerers believe that an action taken for the right reasons has an unreasonable chance of success.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine

[virtualcoffeetable]

I have been accused of being somewhat abrupt in my actions and decisions, but I never act without thought; it is simply that I think more quickly and more intelligently than most people.

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

It wasn’t that she had so much character, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but rather that always in her life she had found it difficult to submit.

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

[virtualcoffeetable]

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.

Salt to the Sea by Rita Sepetys

She's right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can't be landed, stuck in the climb—alive, alive, ALIVE.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

[virtualcoffeetable]

Adam’s emotions clear out everything; they quiet the infinite noise of the world and let me find the yellow parts of me that hurt.

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen

Arthur told me that there can be magic in the ordinary.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune

He pretends to be less special than he is, because the world has punished him for loving himself.

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

[virtualcoffeetable]

You don't waste October sunshine. Soon the old autumn sun would bed down in cloud blankets and there would be weeks of gray rain before it finally decided to snow.

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Bury your dead! ... Give up the past! Turn to the future! What is done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

[virtualcoffeetable]

Wherever you go in this big, gorgeous, hideous world, there is a ghost story waiting for you.

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

I don't want October to be over. Because October means you.

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern