#i had to read books like wuthering heights and dorian gray in my own time

[clarasghosts]

i have now seen two polls on tumblr today asking about books you were assigned to read in high school that you loved/hated, and i can't answer any of them because my high school didn't assign books :(

[dorianslayyy]

13 Books Tag Game

Tagged by @bubblegum-blackwood

1) The last book I read:

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - I absolutely devoured this sequel, omg. Obviously it’s nothing fancy or anything like that but hey what’s wrong with a smutty YA? Not to mention DRAGONS

2) A book I recommend:

Perfume by Patrick Süskind - when I read it I had no idea it was a whole entire modern classic, I just picked it up at Oxfam for like 3 for £1 or something but, wow, I can 100% understand how it earned that status! If you like an eery not-too-long horror story with the most beautiful imagery describing some fucked up gothic storylines and a lot of social commentary, you’ll love this book!

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

Ahhh ok, im gonna say In Memoriam by Alice Winn. The ending was… idk I wasn’t really a fan of the ending, I thought it kind of disengaged and took away from the struggles and severity of war and sexuality the rest of the book portrayed but until that point the rest of the story was everythingggg, there’s a sweet forbidden romance/coming of age/found family in the 1910’s propelling into a story of the horror of WW1 and losing everything you know. All I can really say is that I read it all in one go (more or less) and it had me laughing and sobbing throughout

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more):

I mean… there’s an obvious choice here - The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. HOWEVER I’m going to absolutely cheat and also say Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, the drama, the trauma, the vast majority of these characters are awful and I love it 🤌🤌

5) A book on my TBR:

So many… so so many… I’m gonna say House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski tho because it was expensive and it’s cool looking and I’ve actually been meaning to read that for a while but boy howdy it’s huge

6) A book I’ve put down:

The Tale Of The Body Thief by Anne Rice UGHH I’m trying so hard!! It’s so many words with so little going on, and I do enjoy it, I really do, it’s so goofy, but it’s so.. i mean verbose isn’t really quite the right word but you know what I mean. Sorry mutuals :( I just need a break to read something short and silly - which I’ve almost finished the little series I’m currently reading

7) A book on my wish list:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch - it sounds absolutely soul crushing and miserable, I know this completely contradicts what I just said about being in the mood for a silly read but <333

8) A favorite book from childhood:

Omg 10000x the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, guys you don’t understand, as much as I would love to talk about how my mum and I used to sit and read Anne Of Green Gables before bed or my Enid Blyton obsession when I was like 6, Skulduggery Pleasant was my absolute jam - I must’ve read that series (the original 9 + spin offs) a million times in primary school. I did keep up with phase 2 when that was coming out but I don’t know if I’ll bother with phase 3, I’m just too old now and phase 2 wasn’t all that imo - I think it’s sort of beating a dead horse at this point :( but the original 9 and Maleficent Seven/Armageddon Outta Here were my childhood and I definitely absorbed Valkyrie Cain into my identity as a child so that series probably shaped a big part of who I am and my hobbies as an adult

9) A book you would give to a friend:

Love On The Brain by Ali Hazelwood. Silly, nerdy, fun, a cute little Pride and Prejudice-esque enemies to lovers feat. women in STEM

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own:

Ok so anyone who’s seen my other poetry blog @apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway knows my obsession with The Complete Poems of Wilfred Owen (I have a lot of difference versions) AHHH by far my favourite poet - as you can imagine with such a young man, you can clearly see his changing mentalities, his growth as a person and a writer, his influences, and really gather a lot of context for what’s going on with him in general through his poems. And he grew up in all the same areas I grew up in and hung around as a kid/younger teen, which I think adds to my personal interest in him too. Idk ig we’re very close friends on a parasocial level lol.

And ofc there really aren’t that many poets around that give such visceral, truthful, and emotional insights to the First World War as Owen does (also a queer icon). He was my intro to war literature and I have tattoos relating to him, he and his work are just incredible to read about, would highly recommend having a look at Siegfried Sassoon’s war poems too; another very blunt poet who was a celebrity and war protestor at the time and happened to mentor Wilfred Owen, as well as being linked with other influential folks of the time such as Robbie Ross, Stephen Tennant, Rupert Brooke, and Ivor Novello. Ok Ill move on :,)

11) A nonfiction book you own:

Surprisingly I quite like nonfiction, mainly history and essays from philosophers and the like. Speaking of, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good And Evil is a pretty solid one I own, I’ve never read anything where the author begins by calling himself and all his coworkers socially inept incels 🥹 but even though I don’t remember the specific reason I bought it (I was reading it to argue against some other philosophers in an essay in college and I really don’t remember who or what it was) I remember it being a really interesting read

Or yknow in a more traditional sense of non-fiction, I also have Notes On A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig. Really helped me get through some stuff, if you’re struggling with anxiety or feeling a bit down lately I’d very much recommend

12) What are you currently reading:

Omg ok, The Hitchhiker Trilogy by Douglas Adams, I’m currently on book 3 of 5 - Life, The Universe, And Everything. Really silly and nonsensical space bs but somehow also a bleakly satirical social commentary on the unseriousness of our ‘serious’ world. Really enjoyable, fairly political to some degree, really short (around or less than 200 pages a book), really fun. Martin Freeman truly was the perfect casting for Arthur Dent in the film of the first book. Full of that quintessentially British cynical humour and of course plenty of cups of tea

To give a little preview, the second book literally opens “The story so far: In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

13) What are you planning on reading next?

Books 4 and 5 of The Hitchhiker Trilogy, and then I suppose I had better carry on reading The Tale Of The Body Thief :D

Tagging whoever wants to have a go, it’s super fun, sorry if I went on a bit on some of these 😅

[belle-keys]

parts of some classic lit that hit different for me

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

- the iconic piece on books and morality from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!

- the “you are in every line I have ever read” tyrade in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

- the whole opening of Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov

My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

- Catherine’s confession about Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

- Darcy admitting the big truth to Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

- Sydney Carton’s last words (*crying*) in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

You cling so tightly to your purity, my lad! How terrified you are of sullying your hands. Well, go ahead then, stay pure! What good will it do, and why even bother coming here among us? Purity is a concept of fakirs and friars. But you, the intellectuals, the bourgeois anarchists, you invoke purity as your rationalization for doing nothing. Do nothing, don’t move, wrap your arms tight around your body, put on your gloves. As for myself, my hands are dirty. I have plunged my arms up to the elbows in excrement and blood. And what else should one do? Do you suppose that it is possible to govern innocently?

- Hoederer being a realistic bad bitch, that’s what, in Les Mains Sales by Jean-Paul Sartre

I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

The “they were careless people” realization in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.'

Frankenstein’s monster’s teenage angst in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

[cogentranting]

Tier Ranking All the Classics/”Literature” type Books I’ve Read

Or at least all the ones I remembered to include/didn’t arbitrarily decide to leave out. (Within each tier the books are not ranked)

Other books wish they had what these books have

(The best of the best. )

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky) A Tale of Two CIties (Charles Dickens)  Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) The Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis)

Love it

Les Misérables (Victor Hugo)  East of Eden (John Steinbeck)- honestly I don’t remember much about it but I remember liking it a lot Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)  Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)  The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)  As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)  Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)- but if I reread this might very well move up a category. Haven’t read it since I was like 11 Emma (Jane Austen) Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)  The Space Trilogy (CS Lewis) Til we Have Faces (CS Lewis) A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)

It makes me think

(It’s not fun in the way you might think but it has really interesting ideas or elements that I enjoy engaging with) 

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky) The Stranger (Albert Camus)  Night (Elie Wiesel)  Grendel (John Gardner)  The Sunflower (Simon Wiesenthal) Confessions (Augustine of Hippo)  The Man Who was Thursday (GK Chesterton)  Orthodoxy (GK Chesterton)

Good Vibes Only

(I don’t really remember it but I remember liking it)

Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)  Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)  Hard Times (Charles Dickens)  Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)  Persuasion (Jane Austen)  My Antonia (Willa Cather)

Really Enjoyable

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (T.S. Eliot)- It’s absurd and a delight.  To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)  Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)  Life of Pi (Yann Martel) War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)  The Crucible (Arthur Miller)  Hamlet (William Shakespeare) The Color of Water (James McBride)  Beowulf A Separate Peace (John Knowles)- Also featuring not one but two movie adaptations of the “so bad they’re funny” variety Middlemarch (George Elliot)  White Fang (Jack London)- except the ending. Let White Fang stay wild.  Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)- they’re trash people doing terrible things and it’s a good time And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) The Silmarillion (JRR Tolkien)

It’s good BUT

(I like it but there’s one glaring exception to that) 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo) - Most of it is fun but also I’m pretty sure the one major plot point is very racist Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) 

yeah, it’s good

(I like it but not strongly)

The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling)  The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoevsky)  Macbeth (William Shakespeare)  The Possessed (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Moby Dick (Herman Melville)  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) Paradise Lost (John Milton)  The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)- respect the fact that between when I read this as a high school freshman to when I read it as a student teacher, it worked its way up from “bleh) to be here The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)  The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) 

Sure

(I feel slightly more positive than neutral)

Animal Farm (George Orwell) Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)  Medea (Euripides)  Antigone (Sophocles) The Odyssey (Homer) David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)  Player Piano (Kurt Vonnegut) 

That’s  definitely a book that exists and I have read

(I have no emotions regarding this book)

The Portrait of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)  Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)  The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway) Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)  Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare) Passing (Nella Larsen) Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson)  Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)- I’m going to be honest. That category title is an exaggeration. I read a children’s abridged version when I was like 8 and that’s it. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 

Need to reread

(I feel like I missed something the first time through and would appreciate it more on reread) 

Beatrice and Virgil (Yann Martel)  Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison)- honestly though I think rereading would move it to “respect but don’t like”  A Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare)  Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) 

I respect it, but I don’t like it

(I fully think that this is a quality book, but for some reason or another, I don’t like it) 

The Plot Against America (Phillip Roth)  The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros) 100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez) 

Bleh

Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare) The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)  The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)

Bad Vibes Only

(I don’t remember this book but I remember I didn’t like it) 

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) A Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Man (James Joyce)  Rose in the Heart (Edna O’Brien)

Strong Dislike

1984 (George Orwell)- It could almost go into respect but don’t like, because I think the world he creates and the idea of it all is very well done. And the essay on NewSpeak is brilliant. But the book is boring and the characters are bad and I don’t really care if Winston gets tortured to death. The Man in the Iron Mask (Alexandre Dumas)- There’s a reason why at least one movie adaptation looked at the plot and went “nah we’ll just write our own”. The first one is basically a swashbuckling adventure and then this one was like “hey want to see the musketeers sad and old and what if they went on one final mission which is deeply misguided where they all fail and die. Does that sound fun?” If I’m remembering it correctly. 

“I can shoot the book physically but not conceptually and that makes me sad” 

(I hate this book so much you don’t understand)

The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)- this category was made specifically this book in mind. 

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

22-28 for the writer asks!

22.) Has your own writing ever made you cry?

Yes! So there’s a traumatizing death that happens either at the end of Undone Part 1/beginning of Part 2 that took me a good 3 months to recover from. I’m not looking forward to rewriting it, because it was literally a case of tearing it off like a bandaid, I dreaded it so much. I do have a very different relationship with the character now, so it may not have the same impact as it once did, but it’s an integral loss for the Marsette family and it really hurts them in very different, individual ways.

There’s also a reunion scene early on in Regardless that gets me every time, even though I know it won’t mean the same to readers who have only just met those characters...

23.) Are you proud or anxious to show off your writing?

Proud! Very proud! Considering I used to go out of my way to cover up my writing whenever I wrote in public, it took me a long time to get to a place where I was excited to share my work. I don’t even think I fully embraced it until Moonage received such an instantaneous and loyal following that it did. That’s when I realized I could share literally anything after that, and it feels good.

24.) When did you start considering yourself a writer?

I was 9 and I’d started dabbling in poetry, and my 4th grade teacher saw the potential in me and convinced me to enter an essay writing contest, which I won. I then woke up one day and decided to try my hand at writing a short story, which accidentally became a 75 page novella, like 3 months later! 

25.) What books are must-reads in your genre?

For books that really speak to key themes/style for my novels:

Time travel:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

A Wrinkle in Time

The Time Traveller’s Wife

Circus:

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

Nights at the Circus (Angela Carter)

Gender fucks:

Orlando (Virginia Woolf)

The Passion of New Eve (Angela Carter)

The Passion (Jeanette Winterson)

Rogues and Thieves:

A Darker Shade of Magic (V.E. Schwab)

The Mime Order (Samantha Shannon)

Fingersmith (Sarah Waters)

Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo)

Ethereal Magic:

Stardust (Neil Gaiman)

The Dream Thieves (Maggie Stiefvater)

Victorian Gothics:

Wuthering Heights

Dracula

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Frankenstein

26.) What would you like to see more of in your genre?

I want more totally wild, completely surreal mind fuck time travel, where writers take more risks with throwing space/time continuum rules out the window. I want time travel with real, intense consequences.

I want scary, campy supernatural horror. Where we bring back genuinely scary vampires and werewolves etc, with fresh new twists on terror. 

I want more gritty Victorian dramas, where we see the fucked up side of history, where people weren’t prim and proper and had to do horrible things just to survive. I really really want more gritty Victorian fantasy/scifi (even though I know it’s having a bit of a moment right now... but I want more!)

I want more female protagonists who are morally grey and just ready to fuck shit up. Girls who take on that bad boy persona instead of all the broody male love interests. These really flawed, unapologetically mean, angry girls. But also girls who support each other, and mothers who are gentle, and kind, and will give you what for when you do something stupid.

27.) Where do you get inspiration from?

Just reading a ton! I read so much classic literature, and YA scifi/fantasy. I unconsciously pull bits and pieces from every author I really connect with as a reader. But I also get about  85% of my motivation to write from readers, so the more they get excited about my characters, the more I get excited to write about them, and the cycle continues. Excited readers beget excited writers beget fully realized characters begets excited readers again! 

But I’ve always been really fascinated with darker concepts. I love when a story has really dark and twisted elements that surprise me. I wanna be able to replicate that. That’s why you will always find strong hints of Wuthering Heights and Shakespeare in all my writing. I’m just extremely excited by pieces of history that are just so morally grey, or corrupt. I was obsessed with Sweeney Todd as a teen and that got me into Victorian crime. Seeing that era’s seedy underbelly has always been so fascinating to me.

28.) On a scale of 1-10, how much do you stress about choosing character names?

Like a 2. At this point, they just name themselves, and I’m like “oh, that’s your name? I’ve never heard of that before! Cool! Welcome to the family! Here’s a cookie. Go hang out and wait for me to torture you later!” Naming characters is fun for me. It’s a joy to collaborate with them on things like that. It’s like that first glimpse of who they are as a person and it’s exciting every time they divulge that first crucial part of themselves.

[sur-pentanguine]

MBTI Book Tag

I was tagged by @apartment-mbti, and I’m thrilled, because I love talking about books

Questionnaire Portion

1. First things first, what is your MBTI type? INTJ

2. When did you learn to read? According to my dad, I learned to read when I was 1 ½, which I find dubious

3. What languages can you read in? English, French

4. What book are you currently reading or most recently read? I just finished The White Road yesterday, and before that I read Zami (technically for a class, but it was so enjoyable it counts as a fun read too). I’m working my way slowly but surely through @ink-splotch‘s Leagues and Legends series, and next on my list is a recent compilation of unpublished Shirley Jackson writings, Let Me Tell You.

5. Name 3 books you never finished. I started The Doll People at least ten times as a kid and somehow always lost interest after the first five chapters. More recently, I had to give up on Magonia, since it was taking too long to get to the exciting fantasy/environmentalist part, and apparently an absence from straight teenage romance does not make the heart grow fonder. There’s also Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which is a pathetically horrible novel and the only book I’ve ever actually thrown across the room.

6. What are your favorite books from childhood? The Penderwicks, Swallows and Amazons, Bunnicula, Vampirates, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, way too many more.

7. What are your current favorite books? Umm…Some of my all time favorites are Peter Pan, The Raven Cycle, Wuthering Heights, The Blue Castle, Orsinian Tales, anything by Shirley Jackson, Fun Home, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Great Gatsby, and the Widdershins series; recent books that I loved include Every Heart a Doorway/Down Among the Sticks and Bones, A Darker Shade of Magic et al, and The Night Watch.

Multiple Choice (bold as many as apply to you & add your own choice if you must)

8. Your favorite genres:

Mystery/Sci-fi/Chick Lit/Young Adult/Fantasy/Horror/Nonfiction/Memoirs/Dystopias/Poetry/Self-Help/Historical Fiction/Fanfiction/Realistic Fiction/Biographies

9. Your opinion on rereading books: I do it all the time/It has to be a really good book (Much as I would like to reread an absurd number of books, I’d like to read new ones more)/I can’t stand it/I haven’t done it since I was a child/I only reread my favorite sections

10. How long does it take you to read one book on average? 1 to 3 days/a week/a few weeks/about a month

11. How do you typically read? Every opportunity I get, in transit, while waiting, etc/Before bed/On the go by audiobook/When I can truly relax (Theoretically every opportunity I get, but I don’t like reading while waiting because I never know when I’m going to be interrupted and I get tense)/When I remember to

12. How many books do you typically read in a year? None or 1/About 1 to 3/Maybe 4 to 10/At least more than 10/Too many. I can’t keep track

13. For school assigned books, what type of student are/were you? I read all the books in detail/I read all but sometimes skimmed/I nearly read all, I may have skipped a few because they were too boring/I only read the interesting ones/There’s a reason why Sparknotes was made!

Tag yourself!

[sumquiasum]

D, I, J, X

Thank you!!

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that this says “X” and not “K”. Well, five questions for the price of four.

Ask me book related questions from A-Z!

D: What book do you hate that most others love?

I wouldn’t say most others love it because I know quite a few people who don’t but I really didn’t like SJM’s A Throne of Glass. It’s one of the first books I stopped reading because of the terrible writing style.

I: Do you have a favorite poet?

For now, it’s Emily Dickinson! My favourite Dickinson poem is “If I can stop one heart from breaking” because I’d love to look at life that way.

I say “for now” because I am a fickle person as I read more poetry, this is pretty much bound to change.

J: Favorite woman writer?

Jean Rhys! I’m actually writing my bachelor thesis on women in her books (or loneliness - haven’t quite decided yet)

K: Favorite male writer?

If you expected me to say Oscar Wilde you’re out of luck because I gotta say Rick Riordan. For a long time, I refused to read Percy Jackson (mostly because a first person narrator can be incredibly jarring in German) but once I did, I devoured the original Percy Jackson books, Heroes of Olympus, and Magnus Chase within a few weeks. He’s doing a lot of good with his books and I wish my English had been good enough to read them in middle school.

X: What book has your favourite cover art?

I spent almost an hour writing a long-winded answer to this question but tumblr fucking ate it so now you’ll have to make do with a list of links.

Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tennant of Wildfell Hall

Jane Eyre, Pride and Predjudice, Sense and Sensibility (in German, I don’t own these but they were to pretty not to be included)

The Bronte Sisters - Three Novels (I also don’t own this but when I first saw this I almost cried)

The Picture of Dorian Gray 

The Picture of Dorian Gray (which I don’t own)

The Song of Achilles

I’d be amiss not to include Wie schreibe ich meine Briefe? (How do I write my letters?) which is not only one of the prettiest books I own but also one of the oldest: It’s from the 1890s!