#mine is giovanni’s room by james baldwin

[mothprincess]

reblog with a book that you have read this year and would like to suggest 📚📖📗📑📔🍵☕

[llovelymoonn]

hey sweet pea, can we have a complication of poems/excerpts that make you fall in love with love and all mushy and gooey inside?

casey reiland my boss informs me that moose are dying \\ james baldwin if beale street could talk (via @morepeachyogurt) \\ virginia woolf the years (via @weltenwellen) \\ keaton st. james rural boys watch the apocalypse \\ sayaka saeki bloom into you \\ james baldwin giovanni's room \\ peter gizzi lines depicting simple happiness (via @typewriter-worries) \\ @typewriter-worries \\ lizzie cernik how we met: 'it's like waking up to sunlight every day. i yearned for a soulmate - and i've found her' (via @havingrevelations) \\ jules ryan gravecleaner: "bloodwater" (via @springmyth) \\ @nobaracore \\ ladan lakshiri what does love mean? see how 4-8 year-old kids describe love \\ svetlana alexeivich voices from chernobyl (tr. keith gessen) [lyudmila ignatenko speaking about her husband, deceased firefighter vasily ignatenko] (via @papenathys) \\ aimee nezhukumatathil lucky fish: "baked goods" \\ thomas campbell \\ @soracities \\ vladimir nabokov in a letter to his wife véra, jul 8 1926 (via @saintesorciere) \\ anne carson recreation \\ victoria hannan kokomo \\ victoria hannan kokomo

kofi

[n-jostcn]

red, white & royal blue — casey mcquiston

giovanni's room — james baldwin

blue lily, lily blue — maggie stiefvater

[clispectors]

james baldwin exploring the concept of home in giovanni’s room is heartbreaking.

[coffeebooksandmore]

“your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it.” 

I've always found love to be terrifying even though, all my life, it's all I've secretly desired. 

It's hard to believe someone will love you when you can't love all of yourself. When you're standing in front of the mirror and only hoping for change. When the ones closest to you spent most of your life picking every unlovable part and showing you. How do you have faith that if you reveal to someone every piece of you - every despicable, irritating, and repulsive part, that they'll still want to love you when you can't?

In Giovonni's Room you see David whose life is driven by fear and constant shame - a caged heart.

And you want to know what I learned once again? That love sets you free.  

Love will always set you free. 

IG: coffeeandbookss

[kashilascorner]

Read in 2023: Giovanni's room (James Baldwin)

“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”

[gazonartificiel]

Barely 15 pages in my first James Baldwin book (Giovanni's room) and I already took a gut punch. I'm just in awe.

[fromedennn]

on Home

Suzanne Siegel / Cecilia Rosslee / James Baldwin / Victoria Ryan / Amy Lowell

[foldedaces--paperbirds]

Just finished reading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and. Oh my god. I was going to try and make this spoiler free, but there's no way. It's beautiful. This has been said before, but I feel the need to say it again. The narration style made David's characterization as impersonal and terrified of his own feelings that much more real. The framing of having the novel told as a recollection after the events makes the sparse happy moments torturous. And then the end. So good. I didn't cry, mostly because I was at work but also because this book, similarly to The Stranger, made me feel sort of dead inside. In a good way?? I already bought it, so I'll probably reread it within the month.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

Hey so like many of you, I saw that article about how people are going into college having read no classic books. And believe it or not, I've been pissed about this for years. Like the article revealed, a good chunk of American Schools don't require students to actually read books, rather they just give them an excerpt and tell them how to feel about it. Which is bullshit.

So like. As a positivity post, let's use this time to recommend actually good classic books that you've actually enjoyed reading! I know that Dracula Daily and Epic the Musical have wonderfully tricked y'all into reading Dracula and The Odyssey, and I've seen a resurgence of Picture of Dorian Gray readership out of spite for N-tflix, so let's keep the ball rolling!

My absolute favorite books of all time are The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Classic psychological horror books about unhinged women.

I adore The Bad Seed by William March. It's widely considered to be the first "creepy child" book in American literature, so reading it now you're like "wow that's kinda cliche- oh my god this is what started it. This was ground zero."

I remember the feelings of validation I got when people realized Dracula wasn't actually a love story. For further feelings of validation, please read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. There's a lot the more popular adaptations missed out on.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is an absolute gem of a book. It's a slow-build psychological study so it may not be for everyone, but damn do the plot twists hit. It's a really good book to go into blind, but I will say that its handling of abuse victims is actually insanely good for the time period it was written in.

Moving on from horror, you know people who say "I loved this book so much I couldn't put it down"? That was me as a kid reading A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Picked it up while bored at the library and was glued to it until I finished it.

Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie was also a childhood favorite of mine. Next time someone bitches about Woke Casting, tell them that the original 1911 Peter Pan novel had canon nonbinary fairies.

Watership Down by Richard Adams is my sister Cori's favorite book period. If you were a Warrior Cats, Guardians of Ga'Hoole or Wings of Fire kid, you owe a metric fuckton to Watership Down and its "little animals on a big adventure" setup.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was a play and not a book first, but damn if it isn't a good fucking read. It was also named after a Langston Hughes poem, who's also an absolutely incredible author.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book I absolutely adore and will defend until the day I die. It's so friggin good, y'all, I love it more than anything. You like people breaking out of fascist brainwashing? You like reading and value knowledge? You wanna see a guy basically predict the future of television back in 1953? Read Fahrenheit.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are considered required reading for a reason: they're both really good books about young white children unlearning the racial biases of their time. Huck Finn specifically has the main character being told that he will go to hell if he frees a slave, and deciding eternal damnation would be worth it.

As a sidenote, another Mark Twain book I was obsessed with as a kid was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Exactly what it says on the tin, incredibly insane read.

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin is a heartbreaking but powerful book and a look at the racism of the time while still centering the love the two black protagonists feel for each other. Giovanni's Room by the same author is one that focuses on a MLM man struggling with his sexuality, and it's really important to see from the perspective of a queer man living in the 50s– as well as Baldwin's autobiographical novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain.

Agatha Christie mysteries are all still absolutely iconic, but Murder on the Orient Express is such a good read whether or not you know the end twist.

Maybe-controversial-maybe-not take: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a good book if you have reading comprehension. No, you're not supposed to like the main character. He pretty much spells that out for you at the end ffs.

Animal Farm by George Orwell was another favorite of mine; it was written as an obvious metaphor for the rise of fascism in Russia at the time and boy does it hit even now.

And finally, please read Shakespeare plays. As soon as you get used to their way of talking, they're not as hard to understand as people will lead you to believe. My absolute favorite is Twelfth Night- crossdressing, bisexual love triangles, yellow stockings... it's all a joy.

and those are just the ones i thought of off the top of my head! What're your guys' favorite classic books? Let's make everyone a reading list!

[vechter]

robin: year one (2000) #3 // der hund, hermann dittrich // robin: year one (2000) #3 // bluets, maggie nelson // nightwing (1996) #101 // eat, pray, love, elizabeth gilbert // batman (1940) #416 // giovanni’s room, james baldwin // batman (1940) #416 // deathless, catherynne m. valente // batman (1940) #416 // bluets, maggie nelson // nightwing (1996) #103 //  tiny beautiful things: advice on love and life from dear sugar, cheryl strayed // action comics (1938) #613 // nightwing (1996) #106 // new titans (1984) #61 // my love mine all mine, mitski // tales of the teen titans (1984) #44 // postcard from gone, leila chatti // teen titans spotlight (1986) #14 // little fires everywhere, celeste ng

dick & bruce + leaving robin (pt 2)

[llovelymoonn]

james baldwin giovanni's room \\ august rodin two hands (1909)

buy me a chai latte

[trans-xianxian]

a single log bridge til its dark is indeed not bad

stray italian greyhound, vienna teng / I hear a symphony, cody fry / agua viva, clarice lispector / handle with care, jodi picoult / summer, safia elhillo / pride and prejudice, jane austin / always, spellling / love like ghosts, lord huron / @/filmnoirsbian / the carnivorous lamb, agustín gomez-arcos / I'm not calling you a liar, florence and the machine / samson, regina spektor / jamie anderson / angnes, glass animals / the color of pomegranates, dir. sergei parajanov / turtles all the way down, sammy copley / the night we met, lord huron / mouth full of forevers, clementine von radics / the epic of gilgamesh, trans. herbert mason / caitlyn siehl / questions for ada, ijeoma umebinyuo / grief lessons: four plays by euripides, trans. anne carson / night lement in hergla, leila chatti / salma deera / love song, rainer maria rilke, trans. stephen mitchell / it's only time, the magnetic fields / your love finds its eay back, sierra demulder / art of style, jean cocteau / work song, hozier / the collected poetry 1968-1998, nikki giovanni / coffee and cigarettes, sade andria zabala / ticket taker, the low anthem / little dogs rhapsody in the night, mary oliver / giovanni's room, james baldwin / writing prompts for the broken hearted, eden robinson / essays in love, alain de botton / ono no komachi and izumi shikibu, translated by jane hirshfield and mariko aratani / my love love mine all mine, mitski / beast at every threshold, natalie wee / yves olade / @/ojibwa / last words from montmartre, qiu miaojin / I've been waiting for you, abba / the orange, wendy cope / george macdonald

[vlindervin7]

“Love him,” said Jacques, with vehemence, “love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, hélas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty—they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty; you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.” (…) “Somebody,” said Jacques, “your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour—and in the oddest places!—for the lack of it.”

- Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

[bikananjarrus]

for the ask game, top ten book recommendations?? (can be sw or non-sw since ik you’ve gotten a lot of sw asks already 🫶🏻)

thank you for this question! 💙 (meant to answer this sooner but then i really had to think about some book recs). i will split it 50/50 and do 5 sw books and 5 non-sw books!

five sw books:

light of the jedi by charles soule. life-changing, showstopping, spectacular, will never be the same etc etc. (best place to start if you want to get into the high republic books!)

lost stars by claudia gray. my first sw book i ever read back when it was published in *pauses to look up* 2015. imo it is an EXCELLENT book to begin with if you're looking to get into sw books and are overwhelmed with where to start.

a new dawn by john jackson miller. for the rebels fans out there, and especially the kanera fans, this one's for you <3

not a traditional novel, but going off the last one, the kanan: the last padawan comic run. two volumes, 12 issues total. so so SO good! a must-read (imo) for rebels fans!

revenge of the sith novelization by matthew stover. if you're a prequels fan, or an anakin fan, or an obiwan fan, this book WILL hurt you. in the best way possible lol.

(quick honorable mention for the ahsoka book, but specifically the audiobook bc it's narrated by ashley eckstein and it felt like watching a clone wars arc)

five non-sw books:

i mean who would i be if i didn't mention the percy jackson books. i recognize i am biased bc they've been part of my life for so long now, so i have the nostalgia factor. but also that's my number one guy percy jackson!

what you're looking for is in the library by michiko aoyama. this book felt like a hug, and i definitely recommend for anyone who is feeling a bit lost or unsure of what they want to do with their life, where they are in life right now. it was a really great reminder that you can keep growing and change your mind and do something different with your life no matter what age you are.

a study in drowning by ava reid. a more recent read of mine, so maybe a bit of recency bias here, but it's about an architecture student who gets tasked with redesigning her favorite author's estate. she ends up working with her academic rival, and they discover secrets about the late author's life along the way. i remember (personally) having a few minor gripes with how the end all came together, but overall it was really atmospheric with lots of seaside imagery (which i love), and the setting and certain mystery elements made it enjoyable for me!

giovanni's room by james baldwin. read this for the first time when it was assigned to me in high school, and while i don't think i appreciated it much then, i reread it later on my own and really enjoyed it, so i'm grateful for my 12th grade english teacher for introducing it to me!

hani and ishu's guide to fake dating by adiba jaigirdar. this is just a really cute ya wlw romance! i listened to the audiobook for this and there were two separate narrators for hani and ishu, and i thought they both did a fantastic job! i read it last year and still think about it from time to time, so for anyone looking for an easy romance read, it's a good one!

still up for doing more of these, so feel free to ask me my top 5/top 10 anything!

[flodaya]

Pretty sure the red book they're reading in the photos from yesterday is a special edition of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin – I have the same cover but mine is hardback. And if it is, we say TASTE.

OHHH TASTE for real, that book broke my heart