“Life is weather. Life is meals. 
Lunches on a blue checked cloth on which salt has spilled.
The smell of tobacco. Brie, yellow apples, wood-handled knives.”
James Salter, in one of my all-time favorite books, Light Years.
I met James Salter in Portland in July of 2004, and I asked him why he didn’t write another book on marriage. Referring to Light Years, he said, “Doesn’t this say it all?”
It is one of my favorite books. I’ve read it three times. What he says he says brilliantly and poetically. But I believe there’s more to say.
6 Comments
October 4, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I’ve just finished Light Years myself — for the first time. Absolutely stunning, but so is much of his work. Salter can gut you with a simple sentence. He makes me lean back in my chair and leak out small, sad sounds and then he stabs me. It’ll hurt. Not many writer’s can do that.
October 6, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I’ve never read anything by Salter, but I’m going to get Light Years right away. It sounds amazing.
July 8, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I have so many books I want to read now.
July 8, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I know–it’s unbelievable, isn’t it, how many great books are out there. I need to make more time to read.
September 9, 2009 at 10:24 am
Picking this up at the school library today!
September 10, 2009 at 11:29 am
Come back to let us know how you like it!