#and we simultaneously both thought of traveling in Howl's Moving Castle

[jules-van-hering]

had a spiritual experience eating carrot cake with my best friend yesterday ❤️

[despertara]

Hey! I really really like your taste in prose (based on the quotes you reblog!) and I was wondering if you had any prose/poem/book recommendations?

omg hi!!! thanks!!! wild!!! i’d love to throw a list together for you!!!

disclaimer that i read whatever i want so this. is totally a mixed bag featuring commentary no one asked for lmao but here are some pieces i’ve (re)read recently and are close to my heart!!

poetry

fugue for other hands, joseph fasano | fasano is....... one of my top 5 fav poets. he captures this really complex sense of desperation and simultaneous resignation in his writing which ig is another way to say ‘regret’. really spacious but also really specific and intimate. concise and really like... surprisingly violent (in a sense) diction at times like it’s intense and resounding but also an old, dull pain that can’t hurt you more than it’s meant to. i have too many thoughts abt fasano so to cut it short: this is a beautiful, poignant, genuinely stunning collection

the vixen, w.s. merwin |and really any merwin? merwin is also one of my top 5 and he died earlier this year which i’m still processing but. definitely read him. read everything he’s ever written. i don’t cry when i read fasano but even before he left i have cried reading merwin. everything he writes has this soft golden hour cast to it. big bloom. soft focus. very real but not sharp at all, very gentle

cat town, hagiwara sakutaro|technically prose but i have the version that also has the entirety of howling at the moon and blue cat which are all poetry so whatever!!! i.... am going to say that these poems are super surreal because unlike a lot of western poetry that is about unspooling specific memories and making the accompanying feelings accessible, like literally unpacking thoughts and feelings, hagiwara’s work is like looking at someone else’s photo album without them there to explain context to you. just snapshots of a life you can’t fathom or properly relate to, but is all the more compelling for it. he really effects a sense of nostalgia you couldn’t possibly have so you sit and wonder what he must have been thinking of when he wrote this or that

self-portrait in a convex mirror, john ashbery |i originally had this above hagiwara but then i wrote like an entire stream-of-consciousness mini thought piece on hagiwara?? so i moved it underneath ajdlfsdj but only so i could reference my photo album analogy. hagiwara is looking through someone’s photo album without the illumination of their commentary, but ashbery is like reading someone’s travel journal. when i read ashbery i always feel like he’s saying ‘hey remember when’, like there’s a sense of familiarity and the imprecision that comes with telling a story we both already know. it’s like reminiscing

other fav poets: mary oliver always, raymond carver, bassho, jane hirschfield, franz wright, joanna klink, kenneth rexroth

prose

the thirteen clocks, james thurber | this is an actual children’s book but similar to le petit prince it is better written than the bulk of everything i’ve ever read ever. literally i am trying to elaborate but it’s hard like it’s just a master class in telling a story like i reference this book when i feel stuck w my own writing and it never fails me

and i darken / the conqueror’s saga, kiersten white | INSANE. if you like historical fiction (it is set in the ottoman empire and it is WILD) w devastating and endearingly violent female leads you will love this. well-written, extremely round characterization, compelling. wholeheartedly recommend the entire series

the city of brass + the city of copper, shannon chakraborty |READ THESE!!!!! BOOK 2 WAS EXACTLY LIKE BEING STABBED REPEATEDLY IN ALL VITAL ORGANS AND I SUSPECT BOOK 3 (TO DROP IN 2020) WILL GENUINELY KILL ME

uprooted, naomi novik|this has been circulating as A Ridiculously Good Book for a while now but seriously it is a ridiculously good book with some of the most masterful and concise worldbuilding i’ve ever seen. spinning silver by the same author is also Incredible

lockwood & co series, jonathan stroud |if you liked the bartimaeus trilogy........... you will love these. i read this series twice, all five books, within the last 3mos. it’s a middle-grade novel but i wouldn’t have known that if someone hadn’t told me because beyond the premise (teenage ghosthunters fix everything by ruining it first) it’s so well done? like bartimaeus wasn’t poorly written at all and lockwood is imperfect in several regards but to plan out five novels without overworking your own plot/characters is no small feat

honorable mentions

his dark materials by philip pullman is my favorite set of books, full stop.

you also can’t go wrong with diane wynne jones and if you’ve seen howls’ moving castle but haven’t read it... read it and the next two books in the series, and also the spellcoats

peter s. beagle’s the last unicorn............. will change your life

also 100 years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez

also sprach zarathustra by friedrich nietzsche will knock your socks off if it hasn’t already like no matter how you feel abt the dude, the base quality and style of the writing?? is insane???

corny but i’m also a heart of darkness apologist. this and the crucible were the high school pieces that really stuck with me which. is telling lmfao

if you like me are indiscriminate about good writing then you have to read arakawa’s fullmetal alchemist because it sincerely puts 99.999999% of traditional novels to SHAME

please read everything by mary oliver, who is also top 5 for me. i love you mary and i miss you