#ishhh i referenced it so

[omgkatsudonplease]

Hi, I hope you don't mind me asking but would you recommend any books to read? I'm trying to decide what next to read, and I thought I like your writing so I'll ask what you would rec? Don't worry about genre, just any book you'd think one should read or anything that inspires your writing ? I love your writing so automatically felt you must read books with depth. I hope this ask doesn't feel too pushy or intrusive. Thank you :)

Hahaha, oh my god. I don’t consume as much published fiction as I should (so much fanfiction. So little time) so I’m probably not the best person for book recs that aren’t classics/things you’d probably read for school, so :P but I can tell you some books that have stuck with me over the years or have informed portions of my works!

The entire Middle-earth legendarium (the Hobbit, LotR, the Silm) by J.R.R Tolkien has been with me since sixth grade, and I guess his attention to detail in worldbuilding really rubbed off on me! The Hobbit is a very short light read, though you’ll probably get irritated at the lack of female characters. LotR requires stamina because he goes on and on and on about Tom Bombadil for a chapter or two and it’s… It reads like a history book. Because he made up LotR to disseminate his elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya. It wasn’t the other way around. And it’s pretty obvious. (And the Silm is even more of a history book, but with added Elves Behaving Badly. and suffering.)

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy is one of my favourite pieces of classic literature, not only because Thomas Hardy drags 19th century British society for their double standards regarding female sexuality but also the prose is so beautiful? There’s a scene where Angel Clare carries Tess across a river and it’s nothing but doki doki schmoop schmoop in the most beautiful of words, and now that I really think about it no wonder most of the selkie AU was also doki doki schmoop schmoop in pretty words. I love Tess so much, I would fuckin die for her, and fuck EL James for completely misinterpreting the entire novel in Fifty Shades.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is probably one of my favourite comedies of his (but I like. am a huge Shakespeare nerd? check out my Shakespeare sideblog @eighttwotwopointthreethree lmao). I’ve got mixed feelings about the slutshaming section of it but like, it’s pretty obvious that Claudio is a foil to Benedick when that plot point rears its ugly head so like. Kill Claudio amirite. Anyway. The point is, the entire setup between Bea and Ben is fucking amazing and @actualyuuri and I super duper want to see a Viktuuri AU set to Much Ado for this reason

(I could also talk about Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night, and Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet – but then I’d be here all day. I love Shakespeare so much)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro fucked. Me. Up. That quiet moody introspective narration! This terrible dystopian universe told in such a soft way!!! Pls let me live oh my god. 

Life on Mars by Tracey K Smith is a book of poems that she wrote to work out her feelings around her father’s death, couching it in stuff about the endless unknown of space (and also David Bowie). I feel like her style of poetry at least lowkey influenced some of the poems in the selkie AU? Also I just love space poems.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is so… relevant. And I’m so pumped for the Hulu miniseries oh my god. It’s a really gripping, slightly terrifying in the current climate kind of read. 

The Princess of Cleves by Mme de Lafayette. oH MY GOD OH MY GOD. I know like most French students hate having to read this novel but I am SO ALIVE, I LIVE for longwinded descriptions of how fuckin besotted M de Nemours is, I LIVE for the sweet sweet drama of people who clearly wanna bone each other deciding not to and then pining away terribly forever and ever. (I also LIVE for the ending lmfao because that’s exactly how I like het media to end.) Anyway, if I were to write a period drama Viktuuri AU I would probably utilise elements of the plot of the Princess of Cleves that is how much I love this novel okay. You’ll probably see influences from it in my writing from the way a lot of the action gets driven by introspection and stream of consciousness, so yeah.

Also, I don’t know if you also want nonfiction recs, but I really enjoyed Day of Empire by Amy Chua, the Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett, How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair by Johnathan Beckman (it doesn’t even read like a history book it reads more like a whodunit!) and oh. my god. The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann. I am such trash for this biography of the Empress Elisabeth I of Austria. I would also probably put in elements of the early parts of her life into this hypothetical period drama AU for Viktuuri because fuckin Franz Joseph disregarded all of his duties to watch his fiancee get her portrait done like he’s not the fuckin Emperor of Austria? What the hell? And she commissioned portraits of herself in deshabille for an anniversary present??? which he hung over his desk like BABE. DON’T PUT NUDES OF YOUR WIFE UP IN YOUR OFFICE OH MY GOD. (like I recognise that her story was ultimately super duper tragic and the Habsburgs are all just a big mess but every time I think about this stuff I just die a little on the inside from happiness so)

Anyway that’s probably enough to get you started, and I’m sorry for my disintegrating coherency. Like I said I really should read more published works! Pretty high on my list rn is the Miniaturist by Jessie Burton mostly because I stole so much of what happened to her regarding the publication and success of that novel for the selkie AU that I’m really genuinely interested in what caused such hype lmao. So yeah happy reading!