#edits de jeffrey dahmer

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2020

My main takeaways:

I’m glad that I set certain reading goals this year (i.e., reading an even mix of different genres and writing about each book I read on this tumblr). I feel like it really expanded my horizons.

There are a lot of proper names on my Top 20 list this year, which possibly means something about identity? That, or I just tried to read more Victorian novels. 

Be horny, and be kind.

Now...

20. The White Mountains by John Christopher (1967)

In a world ruled by unseen creatures who roam the countryside in tall metal tripods, all humans are “capped” (surgically fitted with metal plates on their heads) at age fourteen. Thirteen-year-old Will Parker looks forward to becoming a man, but a conversation with a mysterious visitor to his village raises a few doubts. This early YA dystopia has gorgeous world-building (notably a trip to the ruins of Paris) and expert pacing. The choices Will has to make are also more surprising and complicated than I ever anticipated.

19. What Happened at Midnight by Courtney Milan (2013)

John Mason wants revenge on his fiancée Mary after she skips town following her father’s death...apparently with the funds that her father, John’s business partner, embezzled from their company. When he tracks her down, though, she’s working as a lady’s companion to the wife of a controlling gentleman who refuses to pay her wages, and John’s fury turns to sympathy and curiosity. This is a smart, well-plotted Victorian-set novella about a couple who builds a better relationship after a rocky start.

18. Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (1943)

It’s 1773, and fourteen-year-old Bostonian Johnny Tremain has it all: a promising apprenticeship to a silversmith, the run of his arguably senile master’s household, and...unresolved grief over his widowed mother’s death? When a workplace “accident” ruins his hand and career, though, he must “forge” a new identity. Despite its jingoism and surfeit of historical exposition, I fell in love with this weird early YA novel. It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking portrayal of disability and ableism, and, to be fair, Forbes was just jazzed about fighting the Nazis.

17. Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf by Hayley Krischer (2020)

After universally beloved jock Sean Nessel rapes starry-eyed junior Ali Greenleaf at a party, his queen-bee friend Blythe Jensen agrees to smooth things over by befriending his victim. Ali knows Blythe’s motives are weird and sketchy, but being friends with a popular, exciting girl is preferable to dealing with the fallout of the rape. This YA novel is a complex, astute exploration of trauma and moral responsibility.

16. The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (2017)

Rothstein details how the federal U.S. government allowed, encouraged, and sometimes even forcibly brought about segregation of black and white Americans during the early and mid-twentieth century, with no regard for the unconstitutionality of its actions. He brings home the staggering harm to black Americans who were kept from living in decent housing, shut out of home ownership for generations, and denied the opportunity to accumulate wealth for generations. It’s an impactful read, and I was honestly shocked to learn Rothstein isn’t a lawyer, because the whole thing reads like an expansion of an excellent closing statement.

15. My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (2012)

In this graphic memoir, Backderf looks back on his casual, fleeting friendship with future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, a high school classmate who amused Backderf and his geeky friends with bizarre, chaotic antics. Backderf brings their huge, impersonal high school to life, illustrating how the callousness and cruelty of such an environment allowed an isolated, troubled teen to morph into something much more disturbing without anyone really noticing. It’s a work of baffled, tentative empathy and regret that stayed with me long after I finished it.

14. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876)

Gwendolyn Harleth, beautiful and ambitious but with no real outlet, finds herself compelled to marry a heartless gentleman with a shady past. Daniel Deronda, adopted son of her husband’s uncle, finds himself drawn into her orbit due to his helpful nature, but he’s also dealing with a lot of other stuff, like helping a Jewish opera singer and figuring out his parentage. I love George Eliot and, although this bifurcated novel isn’t her most accessible work, it’s highly rewarding. The psychological twists and turns of Gwendolyn’s story are a wonder to experience, and Daniel’s discovery of his past and a new community is moving.

13. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)

The Roths, an ordinary working-class Jewish family in 1940 Newark, find their quiet lives descending into fear, uncertainty, and strife after Charles Lindbergh, celebrity pilot and Nazi sympathizer, becomes president of the United States. This alternate history/faux-memoir perfectly captures the slow creep of fascism and the high-handed cruelty of state-sanctioned discrimination, as well as the weirdness of living a semi-normal life while all of that is going on. Also: fuck Herman and Alvin for messing up Bess’s coffee table! She is a queen, and she deserves to read Pearl S. Buck in a pleasant setting!

12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

Young David Copperfield has an idyllic life with his sweet widowed mom and devoted nursemaid Peggotty, until his cruel stepfather ruins everything. David eventually manages to find safe harbor with his eccentric aunt, but his troubles have only begun. Although the quality of the novel falls off a little once David becomes an adult, I don’t even care; the first half is one of the most beautiful, funny, brilliantly observed portrayals of the joys and sorrows of childhood that I’ve ever read.

11. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt (2017)

Greenblatt examines the evolution and cultural significance of the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible to the modern day (but mostly it’s about Milton). I can’t speak to the scholarship of this book--I’m not an expert on the Bible or Milton or bonobos--but I do know that it’s a gorgeously written meditation on love, mortality, and free will. Greenblatt brought me a lot of joy as an unhappy teenager, and he came through for me again during the summer of 2020.

10. The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg (2019)

Self-conscious seventeen-year-old Jordan is mortified when his widowed mother hires Max, an outgoing jock from his school, to help out with their struggling food truck. As they get to know each other, though, they realize that they have more in common than they thought, and they end up helping each other through a particularly challenging summer. This is an endearing, exceedingly well-balanced YA romance that tackles serious issues with a light touch and a naturalness that’s rare in the genre.

9. Red as Blood by Tanith Lee (1983)

In nine wonderfully lurid stories, Tanith Lee retells fairy tales with a dark, historically grounded, and lady-centered twist. Highlights include a medieval vampiric Snow White, a vengeful early modern Venetian Cinderella, and a Scandinavian werewolf Little Red Riding Hood. Fairy tale retellings are right up my alley, and Lee’s collection is impressively varied and creative.

8. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (1908)

Unnerved by an impulsive make-out session with egalitarian George Emerson on a trip to Florence, young Edwardian woman Lucy Honeychurch goes way too far the other way and gets engaged to snobbish Cecil Vyse. How can she get out of this emotional and social pickle? This is an absolutely delightful romance that gave a timeless template for romantic comedies and dramas for 100-plus years.

7. My Ántonia by Willa Cather (1918)

Jim Burden, a New York City lawyer, tells the story of his friendship with slightly older Bohemian immigrant girl Ántonia when they were kids together on the late-nineteenth-century Nebraska prairie. It was a pretty pleasant time, give or take a few murders, suicides, and attempted rapes. This is one of the sweetest stories about unrequited love I’ve ever read, and it has some really enjoyable queer subtext.

6. Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn (2012)

In 1956 Maryland, gawky teen Nora’s peaceful existence is shattered by the unsolved murder of her friends Cheryl and Bobbi Jo right before summer vacation. Essentially left to deal with her trauma alone, she begins to question everything, from her faith in God to the killer’s real identity. Hahn delivers a beautiful coming-of-age story along with a thoughtful portrait of how a small community responds to tragedy.

5. The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France, with translation and introduction/notes by Robert Herring and Joan Ferrante (original late 12th century, edition 1995) 

In twelve narrative poems, anonymous French-English noblewoman Marie de France spins fantastically weird tales of love, lust, and treachery. Highlights include self-driving ships, gay (?) werewolves, and more plot-significant birds than you can shake a stick at. Marie de France brings so much tenderness, delicacy, and startling humor to her stories, offering a wonderful window to the distant past.

4. Maus by Art Spiegelman (1980-1991)

In this hugely influential graphic novel/memoir, Art Spiegelman tells the story of how his Polish Jewish parents survived the Holocaust. He portrays all the characters as anthropomorphic animals; notably, the Jewish characters are mice and the Nazi Germans are cats. I read the first volume of Maus back in 2014 and, while I appreciated and enjoyed it, I didn’t get the full impact until I read both volumes together early in 2020. Spiegelman takes an intensely personal approach to his staggering subject matter, telling the story through the lens of his fraught relationship with his charismatic and affectionate, yet truly difficult father. 

3. At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire (2010)

McGuire looks at a seldom-explored aspect of racism in the Jim Crow South (the widespread rape and sexual harassment of black women by white men) and the essential role of anti-rape activism led by black women during the Civil Rights movement. This is a harrowing yet tastefully executed history, and it’s also a truly inspirational story of collective activism.

2. In for a Penny by Rose Lerner (2010)

Callow Lord Nevinstoke has to mature fast when his father dies, leaving him an estate hampered by debts and extremely legitimate grievances from angry tenant farmers. To obtain the necessary funds, he marries (usually!) sensible brewing heiress Penelope Brown, but they face problems that not even a sizable cash infusion can fix. This is a refreshingly political romance with a deliciously tense atmosphere and fascinating themes, as well as an almost painfully engaging central relationship.

1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814)

Fanny Price, the shy and sickly poor relation of the wealthy Bertram family, is subtly mistreated by most of her insecure and/or self-absorbed relatives, with the exception of her kind cousin Edmund. When the scandalous Crawford siblings visit the neighborhood, though, it shakes up her life for good and ill. I put off reading Mansfield Park for years--it’s practically the last bit of Austen writing that I consumed, including most of her juvenilia--and yet I think it’s my favorite. Fanny is an eminently lovable and interesting heroine, self-doubting and flawed yet possessed of a strong moral core, and the rest of the characters are equally realistic and compelling. Austen really made me think about the point of being a good person, both on a personal and a global scale.

[bluebeardsbride-archive]

current reading list for 2019

crossed = finished bolded = currently reading plain = to read

CURRENTLY READING Erotism: Death and Sensuality by Georges Bataille Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire Violence and the Sacred by René Girard Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist

TO READ to resume The Horror Reader edited by Ken Gilder The Collected Works of Clarice Lispector Là-Bas by J.K. Huysman On Touching by Jacques Derrida Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection by Julia Kristeva

novels The Border of Paradise by Esmé Weijun Wang Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (reread) Justine by Lawrence Durrell Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (reread) I’m Starved For You by Margaret Atwood The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood The Name of the Rose (reread) by Umberto Eco The Letters of Mina Harker by Dodie Bellamy Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille Sunshine by Robin McKinley Nightwood by Djuna Barnes Malina by Ingeborg Bachman The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride Enfermario by Gabriela Torres Olivares Monsieur Venus by Rachilde The Marquise de Sade by Rachilde

Hannibal Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris Monsters of our own Making by Marina Warner “Monsters of Perversion: Jeffrey Dahmer and The Silence of the Lambs” by Diana Fuss

short stories The Wilds by Julia Elliot The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt Severance by Robert Olen Butler

poetry Extracting the Stone of Madness by Alejandra Pizarnik The Complete Poems by William Blake Unholy Sonnets by Mark Jarman collected works of Charles Baudelaire collected works of Arthur Rimbaud

theatre Faust by Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

nonfiction (history, biography, memoir) Love's executioner and other tales of psychotherapy / Irvin D. Yalom. Countess Dracula by Tony Thorne The Bloody Countess by Valentine Penrose Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsebet Bathory by Kimberly L. Craft Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schmutt Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middles Ages by Nancy Caciola Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici Blake by Peter Akroyd The Trial of Gilles de Rais by Georges Bataille The Marquis de Sade by Rachilde  Blake by Peter Akroyd Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind's Oldest Taboo by Carole A. Travis-Henikoff The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan Emily Brontë by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson  Lives of the Necromancers by William Godwin A History of the Heart by Ole M. Høystad In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

essays When the Sick Rule the World by Dodie Bellamy Academonia by Dodie Bellamy The Body of Frankenstein's Monster by Cecil Helman

academia Monsters of Our Own Making by Marina Warner Monster Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader edited by by Marina Levina and Diem My Bui Essays on the Art of Angela Carter: Flesh and the Mirror edited by Lorna Sage The Routledge Companion to Literature and Food edited by Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Donna Lee Brien

the gothic Woman and Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth by Nina Auerbach Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by J. Halberstam Perils of the Night: A Feminist Study of Nineteenth-Century Gothic by Eugenia C. Delamotte Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic by Anne Williams Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film by Xavier Aldana Reyes On the Supernatural in Poetry by Ann Radcliffe The Gothic Flame by Devendra P. Varma Gothic Versus Romantic: A Reevaluation of the Gothic Novel by Robert D. Hume  A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke Over Her Dead Body by Elisabeth Bronfen The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology by Kate Ellis Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook, 1700-1820 by E. Clery Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic edited by Fred Botting  The History of Gothic Fiction by Markman Ellis The Routledge Companion to the Gothic edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy  Gothic and Gender edited by Donna Heiland Romanticism and the Gothic Tradition by G.R. Thompson Cryptomimesis : The Gothic and Jacques Derrida's Ghost Writing by Jodie Castricano

religion The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore by Piero Camporesi Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages by Nancy Caciola “He Has a God in Him”: Human and Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus by Albert Henrichs The Ordinary Business of Occultism by Gauri Viswanathan The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity by Peter Brown

cannibalism Eat What You Kill: Or, a Strange and Gothic Tale of Cannibalism by Consent Eat What You Kill: Or, a Strange and Gothic Tale of Cannibalism by Consent Charles J. Reid Jr. Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe by Merrall Llewelyn Price Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature by Heather Blurton Eating Their Words: Cannibalism and the Boundaries of Cultural Identity edited by Kristen Guest

crime Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

theory/philosophy Life Everlasting: the animal way of death by Bernd Heinrich The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays by René Girard Interviews with Hélène Cixous Symposium by Plato Phaedra by Plato Becoming-Rhythm: A Rhizomatics of the Girl by Leisha Jones The Abject of Desire: The Aestheticization of the Unaesthetic in Contemporary Literature and Culture edited by Konstanze Kutzbach, Monika Mueller The Severed Head: Capital Visions by Julia Kristeva

perfume & alchemy Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent by Jean-Claude Ellena The Perfume Lover: A Personal Story of Scent by Denyse Beaulieu Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell by Jonathan Reinarz Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent by Mandy Aftel Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind Scents and Sensibility: Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture by Catherine Maxwell “The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Perfume”

medicine Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery by Richard Hollingham Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris

articles “The Dread Gorgon” by Caroline Alexander “Ruggiero’s Deceptions, Cherubino’s Distractions” by Mary Reynolds “A Thing of Shreds and Patches” by J’Lyn Chapman “Dissection” by Meehan Crist

unsorted Dwellings of the Philosophers by Fulcanelli Mysteries of the Cathedrals by Fulcanelli Jean Cocteau, from ‘Orphée’ The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio*

FINISHED Red Dragon by Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris Hannibal by Thomas Harris Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (reread) Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez (reread) Painting Their Portraits in Winter: Stories by Myriam Gurba The Sadeian Woman by Angela Carter the collected poems of Emily Brontë Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye A Monster’s Notes by Laurie Sheck Cain by José Saramago House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (reread) Such Small Hands by Andres Barba House of Incest by Anaïs Nin Macbeth by William Shakespeare Hannibal Lecter and Philosophy: The Heart of the Matter edited by Joseph Westfall The Body: An Essay by Jenny Boully A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu Cabinet of Curiosities by Guillermo del Toro John Donne’s Holy Sonnets Surfacing by Margaret Atwood Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi Richard III by William Shakespeare The Dead Seagull by George barker Power Politics by Margaret Atwood

[bookfactory00]

Descrição

SERIAL KILLERS, ANATOMIA DO MAL - O DOSSIÊ DEFINITIVO SOBRE ASSASSINOS EM SÉRIE O que faz gente aparentemente normal começar a matar e não parar mais? O que move – e o que pode deter – assassinos em série como Ed Gein, o psicopata americano que inspirou os mais célebres maníacos do cinema, como Norman Bates (Psicose, de Alfred Hitchcok), Leatherface (O Massacre da Serra Elétrica, de Tobe Hooper) e Hannibal Lecter (O Silêncio dos Inocentes, de Jonathan Demme). Como explicar a compulsão por matar e o prazer de causar dor, sem qualquer arrependimento? De onde vem tanta fúria? As respostas estão no livro da editora DarkSide® Books: SERIAL KILLERS: ANATOMIA DO MAL, dossiê definitivo sobre o universo sombrio dos psicopatas mais perversos da história. Escrito por Harold Schechter – que pesquisa o tema há mais de três décadas e já publicou, inclusive, a biografia de Ed Gein, Deviant (1998) -, o livro é referência fundamental a todos os que se interessam pelo universo da investigação e da criminologia. Pontuado por curiosidades macabras, dados científicos e fatos pouco conhecidos sobre a trajetória dos principais criminosos em série dos Estados Unidos, SERIAL KILLERS: ANATOMIA DO MAL abrange desde a criação do termo serial killer no início do Século XX (conforme exibido na série MINDHUNTER, da Netflix) até o fascínio exercido por matadores seriais na cultura pop (cinema, música e literatura). Com clareza, ritmo e muita informação, Harold Schechter traça perfis psicológicos impressionantes de criminosos que desafiaram a polícia, viraram notícia e continuam a nos assombrar nas telas da TV e do cinema. Além de Ed Gein, a galeria de personagens sinistros inclui o cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, que chegou a matar e devorar uma pessoa por semana no verão de 1991; a ex-prostituta Aillen Wuornos (inspiração para o filme Monster), que, depois de confessar seis assassinatos, pediu para ser condenada à morte para interromper a matança; o assassino Zodíaco (cuja verdadeira identidade é desconhecida até hoje); Charles Manson, o lunático que comandou o assassinato da atriz Sharon Tate em um ritual macabro; e Green River Killer, principal assassino de prostitutas da história, só capturado pela polícia com a ajuda de outro serial killer. Em SERIAL KILLERS: ANATOMIA DO MAL você vai descobrir como eles matam e por que matam. Por prazer, dor, amor ou desespero. Por conta de famílias disfuncionais e infâncias perturbadoras. Em nome do demônio ou para o jantar… Histórias reais, assassinos reais, de uma maneira que você nunca viu, estudados com profundidade, rigor científico e conhecimento psicológico. Um livro fundamental para quem se apaixonou por MINDHUNTER, CSI, Dexter, Criminal Minds e para quem acompanha o canal Discovery Investigation e quer entender o que se passa na mente dos assassinos mais temidos e cruéis de todos os tempos. Sem dúvida, oriundos de um sociedade que precisa repensar urgentemente como cicatrizar essas feridas abertas.

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