The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham

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This is my first time reading this author and so far I am loving this little masterpiece. Why have I not read Maugham before? His understanding of human emotion and motives, as well as excellent story telling skills is making me fall in love.

'it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was Beauty.'

'When all things lasted so short a time, and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.'

'the beauty which now and then men create out of chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life.'

I loved this book. This is awarded the best book of January 2018 and will go forward to my list of 12 that I will use to decide the best book I read in 2018. It is sad but beautiful.

Do we live a life of lies that we tell ourselves or do we live according to truth as it is revealed?

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