#Moby Dick (for Oscar Wilde

[logophilist1982]

Classic books

[livingdead-gxrl]

Baiting a fujoshi into reading Moby Dick by mentioning it starts with two guys getting married and going on adventures

[nostalgia-tblr]

The immense satisfaction that comes from saying "wait, how old is this book?" when Amazon tries to sell me a very old-fashioned-looking work for 'just £1.99' and then finding it on Project Gutenberg for free instead.

[probablyemery]

hey here’s all those book covers i did!

you can get like a lil’ postcard of each of these on redbubble if you want link in bio hashtag spon hashtag ad vist OstensiblyEm.redbubble.com and enter code [REDACTED] for--

[clairity-org]

William Cordova, Moby Dick (for Oscar Wilde, Óscar Romero y Oscar Grant), 2003,2008,2022, mixed media on reclaimed police car, 10/26/23 #stlartmuseum #sculpture by Sharon Mollerus

[fandom]

Books

Huge congrats to The Iliad. It's only taken 3,000 years. This list is brought to you by Tor Publishing Group, which you're probably familiar with, given what tops the list this year.

The Locked Tomb series +3 by Tamsyn Muir

The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series -1 by Rick Riordan

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

The Six of Crows duology +3 by Leigh Bardugo

Dracula -3 by Bram Stoker

The Warrior Cats series -1 by Erin Hunter

A Song of Ice and Fire -1 by George R. R. Martin

The All for the Game series by Nora Sakavic

The Discworld series +7 by Terry Pratchett

A Court of Thorns and Roses series +3 by Sarah J. Maas

The Silmarillion -1 by J. R. R. Tolkien

Pride And Prejudice -3 by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Raven Cycle series +3 by Maggie Stiefvater

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan & Mark Oshiro

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

Wings Of Fire +9 by Tui T. Sutherland

The Secret History -7 by Donna Tartt

The Trials of Apollo series -4 by Rick Riordan

The Iliad +10 by Homer

The Odyssey +24 by Homer

The Folk in the Air series -8 by Holly Black

The Animorphs series +5 by K. A. Applegate

The Stormlight Archive +8 by Brandon Sanderson

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Moby Dick +24 by Herman Melville

1984 +6 by George Orwell

Fables by Bill Willingham

The Diaries of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka

The Song of Achilles -10 by Madeline Miller

The Last Hours series by Cassandra Clare

The Simon Snow series -10 by Rainbow Rowell

The Throne of Glass series +13 by Sarah J. Maas

Nimona by ND Stevenson

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard +6 by Rick Riordan

The Bell Jar -15 by Sylvia Plath

The Dreamer trilogy +6 by Maggie Stiefvater

The Shadowhunter Chronicles -15 by Cassandra Clare

The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson

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

Captive Prince -1 by C. S. Pacat

The Twilight Saga -7 by Stephanie Meyer

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

The Deltora Quest series by Jennifer Rowe

Romeo and Juliet -8 by William Shakespeare

The Far Side by Gary Larson

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde +2 by Robert Lewis Stevenson

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

The Picture of Dorian Gray -31 by Oscar Wilde

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

The number in italics indicates how many spots a title moved up or down from the previous year. Bolded titles weren’t on the list last year.

[memory-of-my-mother]

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 (Part 1)

Day: 6

Last night I built my new shelf to house all my classics and I sent mum a photo, knowing full well she had gone to bed. I woke up this morning at 7:30 after going to bed at 1. She said it looked awesome and I told her I love it.

Thank you for finally supporting what I love. It means everything.

[13eyond13]

How many of these "Top 100 Books to Read" have you read?

(633) 1984 - George Orwell

(616) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

(613) The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

(573) Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(550) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

(549) The Adventures Of Tom And Huck - Series - Mark Twain

(538) Moby-Dick - Herman Melville

(534) One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

(527) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

(521) The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck

(521) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

(492) Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen

(489) The Lord Of The Rings - Series - J.R.R. Tolkien

(488) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

(480) Ulysses - James Joyce

(471) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

(459) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

(398) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(396) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

(395) To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

(382) War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy

(382) The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

(380) The Sound And The Fury - William Faulkner

(378) Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Series - Lewis Carroll

(359) Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(353) Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

(352) Middlemarch - George Eliot

(348) Animal Farm - George Orwell

(346) Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

(334) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

(325) Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

(320) Harry Potter - Series - J.K. Rowling

(320) The Chronicles Of Narnia - Series - C.S. Lewis

(317) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

(308) Lord Of The Flies - William Golding

(306) Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

(289) The Golden Bowl - Henry James

(276) Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

(266) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

(260) The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

(255) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Series - Douglas Adams

(252) The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne

(244) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

(237) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery

(235) The Trial - Franz Kafka

(233) Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

(232) The Call Of The Wild - Jack London

(232) Emma - Jane Austen

(229) Beloved - Toni Morrison

(228) Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

(224) A Passage To India - E.M. Forster

(215) Dune - Frank Herbert

(215) A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce

(212) The Stranger - Albert Camus

(209) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

(209) The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(206) Dracula - Bram Stoker

(205) The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

(197) A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

(193) Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

(193) The Age Of Innocence - Edith Wharton

(193) The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling - Henry Fielding

(192) Under The Volcano - Malcolm Lowry

(190) The Odyssey - Homer

(189) Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

(188) In Search Of Lost Time - Marcel Proust

(186) Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

(185) An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser

(182) The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

(180) Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

(179) The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann

(178) Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

(178) Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller

(176) The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

(176) On The Road - Jack Kerouac

(175) The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(173) The Giver - Lois Lowry

(172) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

(172) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

(171) Charlotte's Web - E.B. White

(171) The Ambassadors - Henry James

(170) Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

(167) The Complete Stories And Poems - Edgar Allen Poe

(166) Ender's Saga - Series - Orson Scott Card

(165) In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

(164) The Wings Of The Dove - Henry James

(163) The Adventures Of Augie March - Saul Bellow

(162) As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

(161) The Hunger Games - Series - Suzanne Collins

(158) Anne Of Greene Gables - L.M. Montgomery

(157) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

(157) Neuromancer - William Gibson

(156) The Help - Kathryn Stockett

(156) A Song Of Ice And Fire - George R.R. Martin

(155) The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

(154) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

(153) I, Claudius - Robert Graves

(152) Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

(151) The Portrait Of A Lady - Henry James

(150) The Death Of The Heart - Elizabeth Bowen

[llycaons]

okay let me organize. this will probably take me to next year but I do want to prioritize what was already on my list

already up there, no matter the quality:

sorceror to the crown

when fox is a thousand

a taste of gold and iron (if I ever get around to it...)

sistersong - need to give this one a shot

snow crash

tress of the emerald sea - my baby brother LOVES this one I must not disappoint new:

anna karenina - my mom likes this one and I'm excited for the drama and writing

don quixote - a parody, I think

the count of monte cristo - I saw the movie! definitely on the list

the bluest eye - I was unable to keep reading this one when I initially started it but I really love morrison's other works so I'm bringing it back now

the metamorphosis - on the list but not available as an audiobook so it could be a while

things fall apart - definitely a priority, but not available as an audiobook

dracula - available but im saving it for halloween. the structure intrigues me. I tried doing the dracula daily but got bored

frankenstein - on the list!

gods of jade and shadow - not considered a classic but I still want to read it, don't want it to be left behind now that I'm in another bout of book-reading

giovvani's room - 14 weeks wait :(

journey to the west - I think I know enough to be able to follow it but maybe an annotated copy would be better

epic of gilgamesh - release an audio version 🥺🥺🥺 pleaseeee

one hundred years of solitude - I do want to read this but I think I will need help

crime and punishment - I tried to read this one when I started college but it was DENSE. lower priority

moby dick - I have friends into this one!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See - this looks extremely well-researched and I'm pretty intrigued by the language that's referenced, the one that women use to communicate with each other

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan - I like Tan's work, and this one is new to me

The Book of Chuang Tzu - so this is a chinese classic, written in the 4th century. goodrreads claims 'Where the Tao Te Ching is distant and proverbial in style, the Chuang Tze buzzes with life and with insights, often with considerable humour behind them." and if that's true I would love to read it

The Activist's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for a Modern Revolution - I have no way to know how good this book is but the concept definitely interests me. it reminds me of an article about taoism's relationship to anarchism I read years ago. the summary makes me a little nervous tho

I've already read all of austen and the brontes I've wanted to, I read les mis, no interest in little women, I hate oscar wilde on a personal level, I struggle a lot with surrealism so I'm sticking to more conventional structures, I don't have a lot of interest in white 20th-century americana, I consider ishiguro's books to be modern classics with beautiful writing but they make me too sad, hmm why the fuck is call be by your name on this list...I'm interested in Taoism in novels but I haven't found a lot that offer that besides the danmei I've already read (ha) but it sounds like it will be a definite theme in JTTW. another reason to get an annotated copy. all the books I'm finding look like they're written by white academics anyway. I mean there's THE Tao Te Ching but I definitely need that one annotated and I think it would be difficult for me to focus on since it sounds a little dry.

I do want to get into historical texts like jttw it's just a question of how much I'd understand which is why an annotated physical copy is probably the way to go with something like that. like I saw an excerpt of the tale of genji and I was completely lost

[aeth-eris]

Good evening dear! Your blog is absolutely amazing and it’s so interesting to read your posts ☺️💓 I wanted to kindly ask, if you will be interested of course, can you please make a post about zodiac signs and books from classic literature? It would be great 🥰💓 Thank you love!

I'm so glad that you find my posts interesting! Most definitely! You're very welcome!

Zodiac Signs As Classic Literature

Aries - "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville: A story of adventure, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of a goal, much like the determined nature of Aries.

Taurus - "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen: A tale of enduring love and societal expectations, appealing to Taurus' appreciation for stability and romance.

Gemini - "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson: A narrative exploring the duality of human nature, akin to the curious and adaptable traits of Gemini.

Cancer - "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee: A heartwarming and poignant novel that delves into themes of empathy, family, and justice, resonating with Cancer's nurturing and compassionate spirit.

Leo - "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald: A story of glamour, ambition, and the allure of the American Dream, capturing the dramatic essence and desire for recognition often associated with Leo.

Virgo - "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë: A tale of self-discovery, resilience, and the pursuit of independence, reflecting the practicality and inner strength of Virgo.

Libra - "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy: A narrative exploring complex relationships, love, and societal norms, echoing Libra's appreciation for balance, harmony, and interpersonal connections.

Scorpio - "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë: A passionate and intense tale of love, revenge, and the darker aspects of human nature, resonating with Scorpio's depth and emotional intensity.

Sagittarius - "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain: A story of freedom, adventure, and self-discovery, reflecting the adventurous and philosophical nature of Sagittarius.

Capricorn - "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens: A narrative of ambition, self-improvement, and societal advancement, reflecting the perseverance and determination often associated with Capricorn.

Aquarius - "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley: A thought-provoking novel that delves into futuristic societal norms and individuality, mirroring Aquarius' unconventional and forward-thinking perspective.

Pisces - "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde: A tale of beauty, art, and the complexities of the human soul, resonating with Pisces' imaginative and introspective nature.

[smalltownfae]

Let me know what are your fun classic books! Classics have the reputation of being "serious literature", but let me tell you I have read ridiculous ones. They are so fun and easy to read that no one should be intimidated by them. I will start with:

The Odyssey by Homer (I read the Fagles translation, but the Emily Wilson one looks very easy and fun too and I want it);

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (honestly, a fun romcom where the spiciest thing is touching a hand);

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (there are too many ridiculous moments to list, but when I tell you at least one problem is solved by "hey, do you want drugs?");

Dracula by Bram Stoker (just check the Dracula daily tag);

The Picture of Dorian Gray/The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (I swear I never seen anyone that read it dislike Dorian Gray (the book). It's that entertaining).

I hesitate to put Moby Dick here because there are also boring moments, but it has some hilarious chapters and lines too.

[familyabolisher]

2022 reading list >:)

fiction:

charlotte brontë, jane eyre

n.k. jemisin, the stone sky

victor hugo, les misérables

susanna clarke, piranesi

james baldwin, giovanni's room

tamsyn muir, gideon the ninth

tamsyn muir, harrow the ninth

emily brontë, wuthering heights

ursula k le guin, the left hand of darkness

oscar wilde, the picture of dorian gray

isaac fellman, dead collections

joan lindsay, picnic at hanging rock

shirley jackson, dark tales

gretchen felker-martin, manhunt

herman melville, moby dick

octavia butler, parable of the sower

shola von reinhold, lote

larissa lai, the tiger flu

alison rumfitt, tell me i'm worthless

julia armfield, our wives under the sea

shirley jackson, the haunting of hill house

miguel de cervantes, don quixote

toni morrison, the bluest eye

isaac babel, odessa stories

alexandre dumas, the count of monte cristo

daphne du maurier, rebecca

clark ashton smith, the dark eidolon and other fantasies

rivers solomon, the deep

akwaeke emezi, freshwater

e.m. forster, a room with a view

vladimir nabokov, lolita

ayse papatya bucak, the trojan war museum and other stories

sheridan le fanu, carmilla

e.m. forster, maurice

tamsyn muir, nona the ninth

vladimir nabokov, pale fire

shirley jackson, we have always lived in the castle

jorge luis borges, fictions

henry james, the turn of the screw

tamsyn muir, undercover

ling ma, severance

orhan pamuk, the museum of innocence

shirley jackson, hangsaman

nonfiction:

vijay prashad, no free left: the futures of indian communism

eduardo galeano, open veins of latin america

hakim adi, pan-africanism: a history

paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed

a rainbow thread: an anthology of queer jewish texts ed. noam sienna

kwame nkrumah, africa must unite

vijay prashad, red star over the third world

norm finkelstein, the holocaust industry

robin wall kimmerer, braiding sweetgrass

vladimir lenin, the state and revolution

saidiya hartman, wayward lives, beautiful experiments

john aberth, from the brink of the apocalypse

erik butler, metamorphoses of the vampire in literature and film

amin maalouf, the crusades through arab eyes

anandi ramamurthy, black star: britain's asian youth movements

christopher chitty, sexual hegemony

shakespearean gothic, ed. christy desmet and anne williams

cervantes' don quixote: a casebook, ed. roberto gonzález echevarria

edward said, culture and imperialism

emily hobson, lavender and red: liberation and solidarity in the gay and lesbian left

audre lorde, zami: a new spelling of my name

ghassan kanafani, on zionist literature

afsaneh najmabadi, women with moustaches and men without beards: gender and sexual anxieties of iranian modernity

jamie berrout, essays against publishing

beverley bryan, stella dadzie, suzanne scafe, heart of the race: black women's lives in britain

jamaica kincaid, a small place

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian and scientific

poetry:

trish salah, lyric sexology

melissa range, scriptorium

wendy trevino, cruel fiction

june jordan, selected poems

[mylittledarkag3]

How many have you read out of the hundred?

Me: 64/100

Reblog & share your results

1. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

2. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

3. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

4. "1984" by George Orwell

5. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens

6. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez

7. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

8. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

9. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

10. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

11. "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville

12. "The Odyssey" by Homer

13. "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

14. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy

15. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

16. "The Iliad" by Homer

17. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

18. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo

19. "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes

20. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot

21. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

22. "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

23. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

24. "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen

25. "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" by Victor Hugo

26. "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells

27. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

28. "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer

29. "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James

30. "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling

31. "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

32. "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri

33. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

34. "The Trial" by Franz Kafka

35. "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen

36. "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas

37. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

38. "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift

39. "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner

40. "Emma" by Jane Austen

41. "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe

42. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy

43. "The Republic" by Plato

44. "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad

45. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle

46. "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson

47. "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

48. "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka

49. "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway

50. "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens

51. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

52. "The Plague" by Albert Camus

53. "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

54. "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov

55. "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal

56. "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

57. "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand

58. "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

59. "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

60. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

61. "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle

62. "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins

63. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

64. "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson

65. "Ulysses" by James Joyce

66. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe

67. "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray

68. "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett

69. "Walden Two" by B.F. Skinner

70. "Watership Down" by Richard Adams

71. "White Fang" by Jack London

72. "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys

73. "Winnie-the-Pooh" by A.A. Milne

74. "Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor

75. "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" by Margaret Fuller

76. "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence

77. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig

78. "The Aeneid" by Virgil

79. "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton

80. "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

81. "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu

82. "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" by Benjamin Franklin

83. "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin

84. "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

85. "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

86. "The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk

87. "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov

88. "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok

89. "The Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

90. "The City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau

91. "The Clue in the Crumbling Wall" by Carolyn Keene

92. "The Code of the Woosters" by P.G. Wodehouse

93. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

94. "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas

95. "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller

96. "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon

97. "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown

98. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Leo Tolstoy

99. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon

100. "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells

[woundthatswallows]

what are your favorite books? / books you recommend to your followers?

first 14 are my faves!! then the rest r also beloved ones off the top of my head that i think everyone should read

frankenstein by mary shelley

rebecca by daphne du maurier

the bell jar by sylvia plath

the carnivorous lamb by agustín gómez-arcos

the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek

the diary of anaïs nin vol 1 (highly recommend all of her work, she's my favorite author!)

wilderness by jim morrison

autobiography of red by anne carson

angels in america by tony kushner

carmilla by sheridan le fanu

blood and guts in high school by kathy acker

the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde

the goldfinch by donna tartt

lolita by vladimir nabokov

the inseparables by simone de beauvoir

book of longing by leonard cohen

death comes for the archbishop by willa cather

on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong

the bluest eye by toni morrison

devotion by patti smith

oh and right now i'm reading and absolutely loving moby dick by herman melville + beautiful losers by leonard cohen and would prematurely recommend them for sure

[boldlycrookedsalad]

Literary Canon (from kissgrammar)

The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version [At a minimum, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, from the Old Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Apocalypse from the New.] Whether or not you are Christian is irrelevant. The civilization in which we live is based on and permeated by the ideas and values expressed in this book. Understanding our civilization, the world in which we live, is probably impossible without having read -- and thought about -- at least the most famous books in the Bible. Historically, the King James Version is considered the most artistic, and thus has probably had the most literary influence.

Homer, The Iliad

Homer, The Odyssey

Sophocles, Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex)

Sophocles, Antigone

Plato, The Republic, especially "The Myth of the Cave"

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Saint Augustine, The Confessions

Dante, The Divine Comedy

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Giambattista Vico, Principles of a New Science

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Romeo and Juliet

King Lear

Hamlet

Othello

Macbeth

John Donne, "Holy Sonnet XIV"

John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

A Modest Proposal

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Michel de Montaigne, Essays, especially "Of Experience"

Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Moliere, The Misanthrope

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

Voltaire, Candide

Erasmus, In Praise of Folly

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts One & Two

Honore de Balzac, Old Goriot (also translated as Pere Goriot)

Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Emile Zola, Germinal

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

William Blake

William Wordsworth

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lord Byron, Don Juan

John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

A Tale Of Two Cities

Hard Times

A Christmas Carol

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven"

Samuel Butler, Erewhon

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

George Eliot- Silas Marner

Middlemarch

Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil

The Will To Power

The Birth of Tragedy

On the Genealogy of Morals

Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin

The Bronze Horseman

Nikolai Gogol -The Overcoat

Dead Souls

Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Fyodor Dostoevsky -Notes From the Underground

Crime and Punishment

Leo Tolstoy -The Death of Ivan Ilych

War and Peace

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Emily Dickinson - "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"

"The Tint I Cannot Take"

"There's a Certain Slant of Light"

Walt Whitman  - "Song of Myself"

"The Sleepers"

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

"As I Ebbed With The Ocean of Life"

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown

The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Raven"

The Cask of Amontillado

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Kate Chopin -The Story of An Hour

The Awakening

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Henry James

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Luigi Pirandello

[rideretremando]

L' arte d'insultare:

D’Annunzio su Marinetti

Cretino fosforescente.

Marinetti su D’Annunzio

Idiota con lampi di imbecillità.

Gore Vidal su Truman Capote

È in tutto è per tutto una casalinga del Kansas, pregiudizi compresi.

Truman Capote su Jack Kerouac

Quello non è scrivere, è battere a macchina.

Oscar Wilde su Alexander Pope

Ci sono due modi per disprezzare la poesia: uno è disprezzarla, l’altro è leggere Pope.

D.H. Lawrence su Herman Melville

Nessuno riesce a essere più buffonesco, sgraziato e sentenziosamente di cattivo gusto come Herman Melville, persino in un grande libro come Moby Dick… Uno sforzo immane. Ma c’è qualcosa di finto. Ed è Melville. Oh Dio, quando il solenne asino raglia, raglia raglia!

Charles Baudelaire su Voltaire

Mi sono annoiato in Francia – e la ragione principale è che tutti assomigliano a Voltaire… il re degli imbecilli, il principe dei superficiali, l’anti-artista, il portavoce delle portinaie, il padre Gigogne dei redattori del “Siècle”.

Vladimir Nabokov su Fëdor Dostoevskij

La mancanza di gusto di Dostoevskij, il suo monotono trattare di personaggi sofferenti di complessi pre-freudiani, il suo modo di sguazzare nelle tragiche sventure dell’umana dignità – tutto ciò è difficile da ammirare.

William Faulkner su Ernest Hemingway

Non risulta aver adoperato mai parola che costringesse il lettore a consultare il dizionario.

Ernest Hemingway su William Faulkner

Povero Faulkner. Davvero crede che i paroloni suscitino forti emozioni?

William Faulkner su Mark Twain

Uno scribacchino che in Europa non sarebbe stato considerato nemmeno di quart’ordine, e che ha agghindato qualche vecchio schema letterario di provato successo con la giusta dose di regionalismo per affascinare i superficiali e i pigri.

D.H. Lawrence su James Joyce

Dio mio, che minestrone è James Joyce! Nient’altro che avanzi, torsoli di citazioni bibliche, e tutto il resto cotto nel brodo di una deliberata, giornalistica lascivia.

Virginia Woolf su Aldous Huxley

Completamente rozzo, immaturo e oppositivo.

Friedrich Nietzsche su Dante Alighieri

Una iena che scriveva poesie sulle tombe.

Gustave Flaubert su George Sands

Una muccona piena di inchiostro.

Elizabeth Bishop su J.D. Salinger

L’ho odiato [Il giovane Holden]. Mi ci sono voluti giorni per leggerlo, una pagina alla volta, con cautela, imbarazzandomi per lui a ogni frase ridicola. Come hanno potuto permetterglielo?

Mark Twain su Jane Austen

Non ci guadagno nulla a stroncare libri, e non lo faccio a meno che non li odii. Spesso ho provato a scrivere di Jane Austen, ma i suoi libri mi fanno diventare matto a tal punto che non riesco a nascondere la mia furia al lettore; perciò devo fermarmi ogni volta che comincio. Tutte le volte che leggo Orgoglio e Pregiudizio mi viene voglia di disseppellirla e colpirla sul cranio con la sua stessa tibia.

Henry James su Edgar Allan Poe

Provare entusiasmo per Poe è segno di uno stadio di pensiero decisamente primitivo.

Gertrude Stein su Ezra Pound

Lui descrive villaggi. Sarebbe eccellente se tu fossi un villaggio, ma nel caso non lo fossi, allora non lo sarebbe.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich su Emily Dickinson

Una reclusa eccentrica, sognatrice, di un villaggio fuori mano del New England (o di qualunque altro posto del mondo) non può impunemente disprezzare le leggi della gravità e della grammatica. L'oblio è in attesa nelle immediate vicinanze.

Bernhard su Heidegger

Ridicolo filisteo nazista con calzoni alla zuava, ciarlatano, ruminante, imbecille delle Prealpi.

Giacomo Puccini su Richard Wagner

Non si può giudicare l'opera di Wagner dopo averla ascoltata una sola volta, e non ho nessuna intenzione di ascoltarla una seconda

Lord Byron su John Keats

Ecco qui la poesia di Keats piscia-a-letto, e tre romanzi da iddio sa chi… Non più Keats, vi supplico: scorticatelo vivo; se qualcuno fra voi non è disposto a farlo, lo dovrò fare io in persona: non c’è posto per quelle schifezze idiote nel genere umano.

Céline su Proust

Sì, sarà anche bravo ma vorrà ammettere che scrivere 300 pagine per dire che lo vuoi prendere nel culo sono un pochino troppe.