#laura valente

[maurosempre]

Mango e Laura Valente - Chissà se nevica {SANREMO 2007} 3a serata

🙏

[radiosciampli-blog]

[digitalfountains]

Laura Regaz by Adolfo Valente

[persephonethewanderer]

give us gothic literature recs!!!!

here you go anon!

FICTION:

wuthering heights, emily brontë

jane eyre, charlotte brontë

the bloody chamber, angela carter

mathilda, mary shelley

we have always lived in the castle, shirley jackson

the yellow wallpaper, charlotte perkins gilman

rebecca, daphne du maurier

carmilla, sheridan le fanu

dracula, bram stoker

frankenstein, mary shelley

the mill on the floss, george eliot

the orphan's tale, catherynne m. valente

the haunting of hill house, shirley jackson

my cousin rachel, daphne du maurier

the double, fyodor dostoyevsky

the grey woman, elizabeth gaskell

beloved, toni morrison

the fall of the house of usher, edgar allan poe

wise blood, flannery o'connor

white is for witching, helen oyeyemi

wide sargasso sea, jean rhys

our wives under the sea, julia armfield

valerie and her week of wonders, vítězslav nezval

salome, oscar wilde

deathless, catherynne m. valente

piranesi, susanne clarke

picnic at hanging rock, joan lindsay

NON FICTION:

decadent daughters and monstrous mothers: angela carter and european gothic, rebecca munford

the contested castle: gothic novels and the subversion of domestic ideology, kate ferguson ellis

gothic incest: gender, sexuality and transgression, jenny diplacidi

our vampires, ourselves, nina auerbach

the madwoman in the attic, sandra gilbert and susan gubar

a new companion to the gothic, david punter

daughters of the house: modes of the gothic in victorian fiction, alison milbank

women and the gothic, avril horner and sue zlosnik

fairy tale & gothic horror, laura hubner

female gothic histories, diana wallace

women and domestic space in contemporary gothic narratives, andrew hock soon ng

gothic and gender, donna heiland

perils of the night: a feminist study of 19th century gothic, eugenia c. delamotte

the female gothic: new directions, diana wallace and andrew smith

[kyoukamybeloved]

“Such a shallow bond.”

for more soukoku web weaves

creds:

epithalamium - Louise Glück// art by @xieliancore // annunciation - Marie Howe// cowboy like me - Taylor Swift// queen of peace - Florence+the machine// from a classic greek play but i can’t remember which one// deathless - Catherynne M. Valente// art by @iztea // the dive from Clausen’s pier - Ann Packer// sad beautiful tragic - Taylor Swift// free - Florence+the machine// madness love// art by @muaviinu // unkown// never love an anchor - the crane wives// blinding - florence+the machine// wayward son - Rainbow Rowell// free - florence+the machine// ivy - Taylor Swift// p.d vulpe// art by @nittkach44 // sharp objects - Gillian Flynn// art by @dersacerj // by zee on medium// suburban legends - Taylor Swift// the crooked the craddle - the crane wives// art by @iztea// planet of love - Richard Siken// heavy in your arms - florence+the machine// i almost do - Taylor Swift// r.m drake// art by @twilicidity // bloodsport - Yves Olade// art by @yomeiu // p.d. vulpe// the moon will sing - the crane wives// anti-hero - Taylor Swift// the flesh i burned - Ritika Jyala// art by @nittkach44// cat’s eye - Margaret Atwood//shake it out - florence+the machine// anti-hero - Taylor Swift// grace - florence+the machine// art by @venusgoose // the secret diary of laura palmer - Jennifer Lynch//

tags (comment or send a message if you want to be added/removed):

@philzokman @dinosaur-mayonnaise @vivid-vices @pendragonstar @vinylbiohazard @fixation-central @sommmee @lotus-reblogs @galaxitic @gorotic @dazaisbbgrill @thesunshinebard @underthetree845 @whiteapplesandblackblood @pe4rl-diver @autistic-ranpo @the-gayest-sky-kid @amagami-hime @ricelover888 @sskk-brainrot @liyv @hypotheticallyhaunted @sigskk @oatmilkbasic @sempieternall @pastel-paramour @thornedarrow @springkitten @sproutingstars @ghostsinacoat @shroombunnies @cosmiclovehauntings

[filmnoirsbian]

Hi !! I was wondering if you had any book recs/favorite books? Things that you think of as inspiration or just plain like? Genuinely curious. <3 im in love with your work btw i spent the other day binging your patreon

Some favorites that deeply impacted me from a young age up into teenagedom: the Animorphs series by K. A. Applegate, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, Oddly Enough by Bruce Coville, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Little Sister by Kara Dalkey, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage, Piratica by Tanith Lee, the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, Holes by Louis Sachar, The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori, The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins, Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath, Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan, The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, The Iliad and Odyssey (allegedly) by Homer, The Táin by many people, Harlem by Walter Dean Myers, Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan, The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein, The Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, The Ethical Vampire series by Susan Hubbard, The Howl Series by Diana Wynne Jones, the Curseworkers series by Holly Black, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, Android Karenina by Ben H. Winters, An Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, Beloved by Toni Morrison, A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, World War Z by Max Brooks, This is Not A Drill by K. A. Holt, Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Crush by Richard Siken, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, Devotions by Mary Oliver, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Some favorites read more recently: The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, Engine Summer by John Crowley, Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, Reprieve by James Han Mattson, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, Station Eleven by Emily St. John-Mandel, The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib, The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica, The Girl with All the Gifts by Mike Carey, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, She had some horses by Joy Harjo, Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón, The King Must Die by Mary Renault, Books of Blood by Clive Barker, Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, Cassandra by Christa Wolfe

Plays: The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Electra by Sophocles, Los Reyes by Julio Cortázar, Angels in America by Tony Kushner, August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco, The Trojan Women by Euripides, Salome by Oscar Wilde, Girl on an Altar by Marina Carr, Fences by August Wilson, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond

Graphic novels: The Crow by James O'Barr, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, Eternals (2021) by Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and John Higgins, My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, Maus by Art Spiegelman, Tank Girl by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

[klimt7]

L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle

[ Dante, Paradiso XXIII, v.145 ]

Perchè dietro questa ragazza

[ Angelina Mango ]

c'è una grande STORIA

Sanremo 2007

LAURA VALENTE & PINO MANGO

I genitori di Angelina partecipano all'edizione di Sanremo 2007 e cantano il brano "Chissà se nevica"

Anno 2014, 8 dicembre

Pino Mango durante il concerto a Policoro ( Matera) viene colto da malore e muore.

Poche settimane prima aveva confidato alla moglie Laura: "Cosa c’è di più bello che morire mentre fai musica davanti alla gente, e cioè mentre fai la cosa che ami di più in assoluto ?"

Anno 2019

La moglie di Mango, Laura Valente, ex cantante ed ex voce dei Matia Bazar, rilascia alcune interviste in occasione della pubblicazione del cofanetto con un volume contenente diversi scritti di Pino Mango, e il disco che rende omaggio alla sua intera carriera musicale.

L'intervista alla madre, Laura Valente [2019]

Anno 2024

Angelina Mango dopo aver partecipato alla edizione 2022 di "Amici", partecipa al Festival 2024 e trionfa con pieno merito sbaragliando avversari molto più noti e affermati di lei (Annalisa, Loredana Bertè, Mahmood, Emma, Fiorella Mannoia).

Nella serata di venerdì 9 febbraio con una esecuzione da brividi, che ha commosso tante persone sia in tv che nel Teatro Ariston di Sanremo, Angelina tributa un omaggio molto particolare, al padre Pino, eseguendo il suo brano "Rondine", in una versione del tutto inedita e con un nuovo arrangiamento curato da lei stessa e dal fratello maggiore Filippo (1995).

Ecco, davanti ad una famiglia così, davanti ad un rapporto di questo tipo, davanti a una Storia del genere, le parole, tutte le parole possibili si diradano, rimpiccioliscono e infine scompaiono.

Resta solo un silenzio di ammirazione e commozione.

In ciò che ci è dato scorgere, io stesso, lo ammetto, fatico a trovare le parole.

Solo l'ascolto e il silenzio hanno senso.

Davanti a certi "miracoli'", ci si sente smarriti e disarmati. La commozione sommerge ogni cosa.

Una emozione che mi fa vedere la "magia" che sa trasformare le vite delle persone. Che può illuminarle!

E poi c'è la gratitudine per questa grande emozione che arriva a mostrarci, la trama di luce che attraversa ogni tempo e ogni spazio.

Le altre riflessioni e considerazioni, fatele Voi.

Io mi tengo stretta, questa emozione.

Pino Mango soltanto pochi anni fa cantava un brano: "L'amore è invisibile"...

Io per una volta, sento di doverlo smentire.

Se siamo attenti, se impariamo a leggere e decodificare la realtà esterna, lo vediamo e lo sentiamo perfettamente, che l'Amore è l'energia, che innerva l'intero Universo.

Pino Mango, Laura, Filippo e Angelina stessa, ci tolgono ogni dubbio e incertezza al riguardo.

No. L'amore non è invisibile.

Lo possiamo annusare, fiutare nel vento e nel tempo, dentro le persone, in tutte le epoche.

Come un profumo di buono e di pulito, come un tepore di primavera, un sapore unico.

La magia che brilla negli occhi di chi è stato toccato da questo prodigio, arriva ovunque. È qualcosa di potente. Arriva a contagiarci e a cambiare, il nostro stesso modo di guardare il mondo.

.

[wri0thesley]

Hi I don’t know if you’ve mentioned it before but I would love to know what books you’ve read and what ones you really enjoyed. Seeing as I really like your writing i think I might like some of ur book recs!

i love love love talking about books, anon, so i never get sick of the question!!! <3

my own very personal fave books ever:

les miserables (victor hugo), the vampire chronicles series (anne rice), the discworld series (terry pratchett), the picture of dorian gray (oscar wilde), we have always lived in the castle (shirley jackson - i also love her short story collections a lot!!!), let the right one in (john ajvide lindqvist), the chrestomanci series (diana wynne jones), anything by laura purcell, the valdemar series (mercedes lackey)

books/authors i've read recently (slash within the past few years) and have really enjoyed:

the regency faerie tales series (olivia atwater), spinning silver (naomi novik), deathless (catherynne m valente), the bell at sealey head (patricia a mckillip - i've been reading a lot of mckillip and really enjoying it!), bitterthorn (kat dunn), the salt grows heavy (cassandra khaw).

if you want recs in specific genres or about specific things i can help with that too, these are just generic recommendations! my personal interests tend to be fantasy, horror, and especially historical variants in both! i love fairy tale retellings and gothic vibes and vampires and fae beings. (i also love recommendations from other people too!)

i am currently reading (and have been high key struggling with) silver nitrate by silvia moreno-garcia; i've been recommended her work a lot but if more of them are like this i'm not sure if i'll enjoy them! still, i will persevere!!!!

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

They're not necessarily capital H horror, but a few recs: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, The Drowning Summer by C.L. Herman, Things in Jars by Jess Kidd, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little, The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell, The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction by Amy Brashear, The Girl Who Slept With God by Val Brelinski, The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue, Little Egypt by Leslie Glaister, The Degenerates by J. Albert Mann, The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, The Seep by Chana Porter, Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, Black Water Sister by Zen Cho AND I haven't read them yet but: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf, Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth...

ooh thank you!! a couple of these are on my TBR

just wanna shout out The Degenerates by J Albert Mann. it's not a horror, just a horrifying look into the treatment of disabled and "undesirable" women and girls in the 1920s, but oh my god it remains one of my favourite books, I highly encourage anyone to pick it up, I love it so much

[tiramegtoons]

Top 10 favorite italian songs

Oooooh, this is a tough one, but here's a list:

Jazz:

Natalino Otto- Tornera' (Will Come Back) (he's like the Frank Sinatra of his time) https://youtu.be/PYPTLLJUMqY

Natalino Otto (feat. Trio Joyce) - Deciditi(Decide) https://youtu.be/Z89U-57O93E

Ceglie e la sua Orchestra- La Sedia a Dondolo(The rocking chair) https://youtu.be/LyoziaWKpwI

Quartetto Cetra- I Ricordi della sera(Memories of the Evening) (nothing like dreamy ballroom jazz) https://youtu.be/90_Go41IFrw

Quartetto Cetra - Baciami Piccina(Kiss Me Baby) https://youtu.be/oh0muFIoI5M

Pop/Dance:

Mon Amour- Annalisa (trust me its not french bfhdd also big hit rn) https://youtu.be/RzyD08-w-tk

sangiovanni- Farfalle(butterflies) https://youtu.be/75fwUd-lX_o

(883)- La Regina de la Celebrita(Queen of Celebrity) https://youtu.be/4fBo2NooAqk

Boomdabash- Tropicana (tropical vibes are strong with this one) https://youtu.be/qo9UmHJH0Mo

Rock:

Laura Pausini- La mia Banda suona Rock(My Band plays Rock) https://youtu.be/5sf3wsQD7ms

Måneskin - ZITTI E BUONI(Quiet and good) (this goes Hard also the lyrics speak)

Classics:

Lou Monte - Che La Luna Mezzo Mare (forget about the "pizza time" song, THIS is where its at) https://youtu.be/n9FMvfvkBro

Il Volo - 'O Sole Mio https://youtu.be/lw3c5d3aBSE

Domenico Modugno - Volare( THE ITALIAN ANTHEM) https://youtu.be/7wWiC0e3b2I

Bella Ciao https://youtu.be/4CI3lhyNKfo

Caterina Valente- Bongo Cha Cha(ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ♪) https://youtu.be/yQqR9jEacCY

Other:

Eros Ramazzotti- Terra Promessa(Promised Land) https://youtu.be/IKtEwPcImVc

Eros Ramazotti- Piu Bella Cosa(The most beautiful thing) (this one is dear to me) https://youtu.be/rc0JQsHIxJU

Massimo Ranieri- Rose Rosse(Red Roses) (If this doesn't make you want to serenade to your lover i dont know what will/j) https://youtu.be/sccEw_5P_1E

Biagio Antonacci - Non vivo più senza te(I won't live anymore without you) https://youtu.be/XxCso8WgvGg

Andrea Bocelli & Laura Pausini- Vivo per Lei(I Live for her) https://youtu.be/CNHL66K8S2I

oh um... i think i got carried away. huh.

Well, do what you will with this!

[electram1]

Brava Angelina, con un patrimonio genetico d'eccellenza!

Pino Mango e Laura Valente .....ma che te lo dico affà.

[digitalfountains]

Laura Regaz by Adolfo Valente

[reluctanthurricane]

#24 for the end-of-year book meme, please!

Did you DNF anything? Why?

I sure did! I read a lot and I try not to make myself finish things if I could be reading a book I'd like more. I'm bad at it and I'm also bad at tracking but here are the ones I did track/can remember

Under a cut because apparently I have more than I realized

Queen of Sorrow, by Sarah Beth Durst -- I was enjoying this trilogy well enough. Like nothing ground breaking but I was having a good time. And I thought I knew where it was going! The premise of the world was that humans and these like, nature spirits shared the world and some female humans had the ability to control the nature spirits and each land has a queen that controls the nature spirits of the whole land and it was framed in a way that the nature spirits needed the human queen to control them and in the first book we find that some of the spirits are way smarter than the protagonist knew was possible, so I thought oh, I know where this is going, in the last book we're going to find out that this White Man's Burden style subjugation is actually bad, but then I picked it up and that didn't seem to be where it was going and I talked to some folks who read it and apparently that doesn't get addressed??? So that felt icky so I gave up on it.

Octavia's Brood, this is a short story collection that marries the themes of Octavia Butler's work with the imaginations of social justice activists, which is a cool concept! Except I read the first two stories and both of them were ... not good. I was told there was one really good story in there but I gave it back to the friend who lent it to me without reading it so that was on me, but yeah, not for me.

Nudge, I was reading this and then it seemed uh, internally inconsistent with its argument and then I remembered the executive level coworker who recommended it to me got fired and then If Books Could Kill did an episode on it while I was reading it and I was like "Okay, I don't need to finish this"

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. I just wasn't vibing with it. It was good but idk, I think I read it too close to Seanan McGuire (writing as A. Deborah Baker) doing a very similar concept and I needed more space between them. I may pick it up again. some other time

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett - oh my, okay. So. I know a lot of people adore this book, and I'm so happy for them and I wish I could be one of them. But the prose is excruciating and I say this as someone who loves flowery bullshit. I think my biggest problem with it is that it felt to me like it was supposed to read academic or even maybe bloviating academic, which makes sense! But instead it was overwrought in a way that did not match at all with Emily Wilde as a character. She is an old school anthropologist who is so focused on her work that she doesn't think to do anything to personalize her long-term-temporary home. This is her journal/field notes, I just cannot imagine her taking the time to describe the natural world around her in all that much detail, let alone describe the sky as a "cerulean canopy". If she were in the humanities, I'd be here for it, if she were especially extra as a person sure! But she is neither and I got mad about it.

Castles in Their Bones, by Laura Sebastian - Another book that I was having a perfectly fun time with, but I think I just didn't have patience for YA at the time and then my library loan lapsed and I didn't put any effort into getting it back.

The Terraformers, by Annalee Newitz. I am planning on picking this one up again! I have it on my list of books I am going to prioritize this year! But somehow again! Timing has conspired against me with finishing one of their books! This is the fourth time!!! I have started one of their books and through no fault of the book!!! I have failed to finish it!!!! :( I am going to break the pattern this year!!!!

How to Keep House While Drowning, by K C Davis. Listen I know this book helps a lot of people. It wasn't for me.

Stiff, by Mary Roach - loan lapsed, I'll pick it up again at some point maybe but I don't have any real plans to do so in the immediate future.

The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine Chan. I heard good things about this book and I get why! But I am not like, invested in stories about parenthood, and the first bit of the book that I did read was rough (in a like, intentional way that was impressive from a craft perspective) and I wasn't able to get past that part.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson. I found this book boring, and I think that is entirely my fault. I am not a mystery reader and I got the vibe that this book was in conversation with the genre in a way that I just wasn't going to appreciate because I was missing all of it! I may pick it up again if I ever become more well versed in the genre or maybe I will try reading it with my ears some time.

The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery - Montgomery started out the book framing how cool octopodes are through her own experience that was just so obnoxiously saccharine that, I, a person who already thinks cephalopods are cool as heck was rolling my eyes right out of my head. Another example of a book that's probably fine but just not for me

The Last Heir to Blackwood Library, by Hester Fox. I don't remember this book at all, it just had a cool concept and I felt like it kept falling short of how good it should have been.

Tesla, by Richard Munson - I would love to read a biography of Tesla but somehow all the ones I haven't really vibed with any of them. I mean I think biographies of dead genius men are frequently written in a way that is obnoxious. This one was the best of them so far but also my loan lapsed and I have not found my way to caring enough to check it out again.

And finally this is the year I discovered that most romance novels work for me for about 80-90% of the book but once we get to the third act breakup (annoying) or the resolution (even worse), I frequently cannot bring myself to care. And like, I read and finished romance novels I like! But I read 80-90% of probably half or slightly more of the romance novels I picked up. I do think this has to do with me being on the aromantic spectrum. I like romance, I just think that when we start to see the priorities of our protagonists change, the book loses me a little. And I think that's yet another example of not all art being for all people and that being okay.

[geryone]

Have you ever tried reading The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente or A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb? For a series I would recommend Realm of Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. All great books.

I have not read any of those!! I’ll add them to my list!

[stygiusfic]

10 books to know you better

snagging this from the lovely @coffee-writes because: what do we do when we don’t feel like working? we do memes on tumblr.

so, in no particular order, ten books that have stuck with me throughout the years!

Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) - Gabriel García Márquez I read the final paragraph of this masterpiece in a textbook in school and it haunted me for years until I finally read the novel. It’s a delight of magical realism and the prose is so expertly crafted that every line hits with perfect cadence (in the original, at least; I haven’t read any translations). This book is an experience.

Carmilla - J. Sheridan le Fanu People say Dracula is the height of the vampire novel, and they are wrong. Carmilla is where it’s at. Through the eyes of her victim, Carmilla’s predatory nature and her apparent affection for Laura get blended in such a way that you can see why she’s so charming at the same time as you feel the underlying wrongness of it all. Goals.

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison The comfort read of all time. Here’s a novel based around courtly intrigue that doesn’t hinge on the protagonist being more twisted than everyone around them, or becoming corrupted by the environment. Maia struggles to be forthright and true to himself in a court that despises him, and it’s so wholesome to watch—and also very exciting when he has to get out of the traps laid for him. Also, the prose is gorgeous.

Momo - Michael Ende I read this book numerous times as a child, but it’s felt very relevant as an adult too. Momo is a little girl who is able to find joy in her surroundings, and the only one who can stop the Gentlemen in Grey, strange shadow beings that manipulate people to put their time in a “bank” with the promise that it’ll be returned later, but it never is; it only feeds the Gentlemen in Grey and their neverending greed. The novel criticizes consumerism and the trappings of a fast-paced society (and it very much applies to capitalism as we know it now too).

The Terracotta Bride - Zen Cho This novella has made me cry every time I’ve read it. It’s about a young girl who’s been so used to having her needs come second to everyone else’s that she only really starts to figure out who she is once she’s dead and in the Chinese afterlife. There, made once again to be an object for a man’s convenience, she meets the terracotta bride, a construct shaped like a beautiful woman that makes her question who she is and what she wants. The writing is poignant and beautiful at every turn.

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier Another one for the “pervasive wrongness” vibes. It’s remarkable how deeply Rebecca’s influence is felt throughout the novel even though she is dead by the time it starts; she’s almost more of a protagonist than the point-of-view character, who isn’t even named. It’s a masterpiece of subtext and so so vivid in the way it frames its characters and scenery.

Queenpin - Megan Abbott This book rewired my brain when I read it for the first time. It’s a noir-ish tale of a young girl becoming involved in the mob’s business and becoming obsessed with the approval of her mentor, the ruthless mob queenpin Gloria Denton. It’s short but it packs a punch.

Annihilation - Catherynne M. Valente Another comfort read! This is a Mass Effect spin-off novel, but it’s so much better than any other spin-off novel I’ve ever read. It’s fast-paced, incredibly engaging and with characters that feel alive on the page. All three times I’ve read it, I’ve finished it in a day of feverish reading. It also has one of my favorite wlw romances of any book I’ve ever read.

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-García I have a paperback of this on my shelf and anytime I think too long about how good this book is I feel a primal need to cut it into pieces and eat it. It does a fantastic job of creating that atmosphere of being trapped that is essential to horror stories, where you understand why the protagonist isn’t leaving but you wish they would because you know the other shoe is going to drop soon, and when it does all you can do is scream and hold on for dear life. It’s perfectly paced and gorgeously written, and I love it.

Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir Respectfully: this book is insane. If you know, you know. I love how Muir’s background in fanfic shows off here, in the sense that fanfic is absolutely fucking bonkers and always does whatever it wants, not what it “should”, and Muir takes that principle and makes it work so hard for her. I love it.

[erstwhilesparrow]

sparrow's short story and poetry recs (incomplete)

@desultorydenouement requested some recommendations for [generally stuff i've read that inspires / influences my writing]. i don't know if these all fit that requirement exactly, but. i sure do think about these ones a lot. here you go, hope you enjoy!

poetry:

Per Fumum by Jamaal May - My father was an astronomer / for forty minutes in a row / the first time a bus took us so far / from streetlights he could point out constellations / that may or may not have been Draco, / Orion, Aquila, or Crux. Sometimes I still catch myself using the phrasing of "[someone] was [a role / profession] for [some number of units of time] in a row" in my own writing. I like... the idea of curiosity / wonder / experimentation as something that puts you in a tradition of all the scientists and thinkers that have come before you.

Evolution by Linda Bierds - You know that feeling when it occurs to you for maybe the first time ever that hey, you're an adult now and you can decide what to do about your [fashion / food / leisure time] and you pick something you like that you wouldn't have tried to pick before and now that thing is special to you specifically? This poem is that, for poetry, for me. Alan Turing, and life, and all the dark mares on their dark shadows.

A Toast To The Alchemists by Laura Gilpin - Look, I like when people do poetry about science, and I love love love talking / thinking about the history of science, I don't know what to tell you. Last stanza makes me vaguely achy.

The Fish by Marianne Moore - If I had to pick a favourite poem ever, it'd be this one. First learned about it How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas Foster and it fills me with delight. I like how it looks on the page, I like its rhyme scheme, I like its language and imagery, I like the whole act of digging around in it. Did one of my favourite high school presentations on this poem.

NUMBERS by Mary Cornish - A joy to read out loud. I said this to a friend of mine and she immediately called me and demanded I read it to her and it was delightful! Highly recommended experience. It's... fun! Playful. Appreciative of something I think we are not appreciative of enough.

Rick Deckard Comes Home by Kanami Ayau - Even if this poem was just the phrase 'syncopated two-step dog-tag paramour' I would still love it. Have you ever heard anything condensed so perfectly well? Can you hear the drumbeat of it? I will never stop thinking about this.

Second Street Drifting by Austin Walker - You may have noticed this link takes you to a wiki page. I'm cheating with this one because the poem is from a podcast (Friends at the Table) and the podcast, really, is the thing that's a huge inspiration / influence for me, but this poem on its own, too: perfect. It is delicious to read out loud and delicious to hear read out loud -- Austin savours every syllable in his reading, and it is completely justified.

Catastrophe is Next to Godliness by Franny Choi - Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Just. Yeah. Big fan of Franny Choi in full generality. More of their work here!

Beautiful Short Loser by Ocean Vuong - Joy? Gender? Brilliance and confidence and that one interview he gave where he was like, and this is paraphrasing badly, "I insist on being a man and on using he/him specifically to complicate what those things can / should mean" ?

The Melancholy of Mechagirl by Catherynne M. Valente - Part of a collection of poems and short stories by the same name. I love this poem; it is fun and bright and touches things I care about (mechs, bodies, sci-fi concerned with the individual and the personal). The short stories I don't tend to feel as strongly about but some of them are stick-in-your-brain-for-days-after great. Recommend taking a look at the whole book!

I can't pick a Mary Oliver one. I simply cannot do it. But read her poems. They're excellent.

short stories:

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges - I love weird architecture. I love buildings and structures that make no fucking sense. I love infinity. I love finding horror or wonder or despair or meaning in those things. This story is about more than that, but mostly it's about an infinite library that our narrator moves through and describes to us. Don't ask me why it's on genius dot com of all places.

I Am In Eskew Episode 1: Correspondence - This is cheating because it's a podcast transcript. It's not cheating because this first episode is entirely stand-alone, really excellent, and caters to (almost) all of the interests I like to talk about on Tumblr: architectural horror, unusual intimacies, meat, locations that are alive and have a lot of feelings about you. A man named David, a relatively recent arrival in the city of Eskew, chases down the source(s) of a series of bizarre exchanges in the correspondences section of the local paper.

The Narrative Implications of Your Untimely Death by Isabel J. Kim - Judging by where I remember seeing your username around, you will also care about this. Get fucked up about characters that know they are characters with me. Get fucked up about people who are constantly putting on a performance, forever aware of where the audience is and what they might inflict on you, intentionally or not. (Second person POV story about someone signing on to a reality TV show and trying to play the part just the right way to get to leave.)

Exhalation by Ted Chiang - A thoughtful, melancholy, wonderful exploration of a different world, where people explode into showers of gold when they die, and the narrator learns about and comes to terms with how utterly temporary and completely doomed their people are. Makes me sad, but in a slow and gentle way, you know?

A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad - Two robots become friends by bonding over the following: dogs, killing, and the horrors of capitalism. Very sweet, very [sunshine x storm cloud] pair of characters. I feel fondly about it and managed to make me very sad by shuffling some numbers around in a list of unread notifications. (Also, I've found Tor.com has a lot of cool SFF stuff in general?)

A Very Special Pigeon by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Helen Wang - Pigeons. Friendship. Something complicated and difficult to describe but nevertheless recognizably sad. Reading this definitely Did Something to my writing style, but it's hard to tell what. Two boys somewhere in China are joined by the fact of pigeons, and the racing thereof.

Alien Hand Syndrome (Nth Street) by Molly Ofgeography - Utterly charming. When I say I want to write characters that are strange and specific and charming and alive, I mean like this. Cavendish Grotto (what a name, right!!) does not control his left hand; it does what it will. Cavendish Grotto lives his life.

[“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully.] by inkskinned - Written for a prompt, about how someone with a fairly mediocre superpower gets to be considered one of the top ten most powerful superheros. There's plenty of stuff on Tumblr that's in this wheelhouse or adjacent to it that I also really enjoy, but this is one of the first I read and it still sticks in my brain.

The Magician's Apprentice by Tasmyn Muir - Power and hunger and eating people. Welcome to All Of My Interests. A magician teaches his apprentice the utterly laborious art of performing magic. It's horrifying, it's glorious.

The Hydraulic Emperor by Arkady Martine - That vaguely sick feeling of trying to tally up some numbers and realizing, as you redo the calculations with increasing desperation, that it doesn't add up, that you're going to fall short? You can assume I'm being metaphorical or literal, but this story is like that. It's gorgeous, it's terrific, it's about how much you are willing to give up and for what. (It's about a collector on the hunt for a film that is effectively lost media. To win access to a print of it, they go to an auction where people are made to sacrifice irreplaceable parts of themselves or of history.)

Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven by M. H. Cheung - This one just feels good to read? Wild and lovely. It doesn't feel like it tries very hard or wants very much to explain itself, just drags you into its world and makes you keep up. I think the title gives you enough of a premise. I couldn't offer anything better, sorry.

A Farce to Suit the New Girl by Rebecca Fraimow - A new girl joins a Yiddish theatre troupe travelling through Russia right after the Tsar has been killed. (I don't know / recall which Tsar.) Everyone's trying to get through in one piece and help each other out, and everyone is so insistently themselves in a way I wish I could do more.

Texts from the Ghost War by Alex Yuschik - There's a war, because there are ghosts. People fight them in mechs. One of those mech pilots accidentally strikes up a friendship with a prince. This story is the development of that relationship, as told through texts. Describing it as sweet feels insufficient, though it is that. I like when things are true in SFF worlds without trying to explain themselves, I think.

L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente - I did just say I am not particularly taken by some of her short stories. HOWEVER. THIS ONE IS VERY GOOD. Orpheus succeeds in getting Eurydice back. This is what happens after, and it sucks massively for everyone involved. Graphic depictions of decomposing bodies, which is both content warning, and reason I am so admiring of it.

[A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river.] by sadoeuphemist - I think about this one frequently. The scorpion and the frog, across many iterations.