This started out as a very promising book: a spunky but solitary elderly divorcee who loves & translates books and just accidentally dyed her hair blue while drinking red wine. What's not to love? But it quickly becomes too convoluted to follow thanks to her semi-arbitrary flashbacks and is peppered with so many literary references that it alienated me (not being familiar with many of them). Still, there were several lines that tickled my fancy, and two of my favorites were:

"I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word."

"I thought I'd be reading a new book today, but it doesn't feel right, or I don't feel like it. Some days are not new-book days."

For a more patient bibliophile, this might very well become a new favorite.