jock librarian

I've been reading some extraordinarily fine novels this summer among them Alice Greenaway's White Ghost Girls, a lyrical and haunting story about two American girls living in Hong Kong during the Maoist Revolution and the Vietnam War. The narration begins with these rich detailed lines:

What can you give me?
Can you give me a back alley, a smoke-filled temple where white-hooded mourners burn offerings and wail for the dead? The single chime of a high-pitched temple bell? The knocking of a wooden fish?
Can you give me hot rain, mould-streaked walls, a sharpness that creeps into my clothes, infests my books? The smells of dried oysters, clove hair oil, tiger balm, joss burning to Kuan Yin in the back room of a Chinese amah? The feverish shriek of cicadas, the cry of black-eared kites? The translucent green of sun shining through elephant ear leaves?
Can you give me a handful of coloured silk? An empty pack of cigarettes? A tape recorder? Narrow, stepped streets, balconies hung with shop signs, laundry strung on bamboo poles, rattan birdcages? A ripened pomelo split open? The chalky bone of cuttlefish?
Can you give me my father's hand in mind, Frankie's in the other? Then take everything and go away?
Because if you can't, it's not enough. And if you can, I might leave anyhow. I'll head for cover. Disappear in jungles of triple canopy.

This morning, our coach gave us a long and equally moving main set:
400 free pace

4 x 50 descend

4 x 50 descend

4 x 50 descend