#with a daily 3+ hr commute so i was just eating books hahah

[sothischickshe]

I’m on a reading kick. Do you have any novels or short story collections you’d recommend?

!!!!!! omg yes i deffo do, ty for asking!

my major problem is that i give basically all my books away haha so im sure ive forgotten a lot of what i liked but anyhoooo!!!

short stories

daphne du maurier: ive read several of her short story collections & they were all great! don’t think you can go wrong whatever you pick

kelly link - pretty monsters

philip k dick: i read a 5 volume set of all (or most? idk) his short stories in chronological order & no regrets! don’t think you can go wrong whatever you pick

alice munro - runaway

nadine gordimer - the soft voice of the serpent

neil gaiman - smoke and mirrors (i find his short story collections to be a bit of a mixed bag cos im not into like sestinas or lovecraft ff, but there’s also always some gems!)

angela carter - the bloody chamber

roald dahl: ive read a few of his short story collections (for adults, though tbf i remember revolting rhymes being a lot of fun too) and they were great! assume you can’t go wrong whatever you pick

novels

dh lawrence - st mawr (i think this is technically a novella, you might only be able to find it in a collection...? it’s really fucking good though)

william morris - news from nowhere (or, an epoch of rest: being some chapters from a utopian romance...yes this is essentially socialist propaganda, and wot?)

aldous huxley - the island (60s huxley!!)

david mitchell - ghostwritten (first novel, structurally pretty similar to cloud atlas but i think this is probs both better AND a better intro, especially cos it’s kinda worth reading his bks in chronological order bc they’re loosely connected & that pays off later)

sarah waters - fingersmith (the novel the handmaiden is based on; set in victorian britain)

cs lewis - the screwtape letters (epistolary demon pov)

jane austen - lady susan (epistolary novel, extremely fun villain)

jasper fforde - the eyre affair (first in a series, super meta, welcome to literary crime!)

kurt vonnegut - cat’s cradle

jd salinger - franny and zooey (probably a novella? the sequel novellas & short stories are also excellent)

daniel defoe (?) - moll flanders (published 1722 but it feeeeels way more modern than, say, dickens)

lev grossman - the magicians (first in a series, sort of a realistic hogwartsy universe, with in-universe narnia-esque books but with clocks....im not explaining this well but it’s sooo good)

franz kafka - the castle (unfinished but still)

richard matheson - I am legend (will make you hate the film though, if you don’t already)

umberto eco - foucault's pendulum

robin sloane - mr penumbra's 24-hour bookstore

g willow wilson - alif the unseen

xiaolu guo - a concise chinese-english dictionary for lovers

milan kundera - the joke

diana wynne jones - howl's moving castle (an american made me read this, so i assume the joke lands with a non-british audience, haha)