#m elizabeth braithwaite

[unravellingsilencehq]

“Oh, Merlin, tell me, does THE SHADOW get what he deserves?” He is NEUTRAL & OPEN to finding out. 

— he walks through the world as ;

name → quirinus quirrell  pronouns → he/him identification → cis-male year of birth → september 1960 - september 1961 face claim → aramis knight blood status → half-blood sexual orientation → up to applicant occupation → researcher  for the daily prophet  future information → member of the death eaters, defence against the dark arts teacher at hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry

— he is best described as ;

MYSTERIOUS, he is quiet. The kind of person who doesn’t SPEAK UNLESS SPOKEN TO, though there is a FIRE in his eyes when he speaks with CONVICTION that would make the most unassuming SIT UP & TAKE NOTE. His scent is DARK yet EXOTIC & CHANGES each time you see him, a hallmark of his time spent TRAVELLING, but there always lingers the scent of OLD PAGES & INK as he furiously scribbles in the margins of his books he’ll not even let those closest to him read.

— his story starts with ;

tw: death

Quirinus Quirrell is a name not many care to recall despite its uniqueness, possibly because the wizard who holds it has faded into the background for most of his life. The youngest child of Janani Quirrel and her husband Cyril Quirrel, Quirinius felt like he had a great deal to live up to. His mother had held a position as a well respected barrister for The Ministry of Magic, whilst his father had worked in finance for The Department of Magical Sports and Games before they both retired. A good few years his senior, Quirinius’ brother and sister were impressive also, with Maira Quirrell, a Chaser for The Holyhead Harpies in her youth and his brother Tadeen Quirrell, a respected teacher at Ilvermony. Sitting amongst them, Quirinus felt as though he too would be destined for great things, it did after all run in his family. Much younger than Maira and Tadeen, Quirinius recalls his childhood as him always struggling to be heard above the noise. It was always in a moment Quirinius, after dinner Quirinius, I have a meeting Quirinius, isn’t it so wonderful your sister made the Hufflepuff team Quirinius! 

Whatever he accomplished was never quite important enough for his parents to pay much attention to. The day his letter to Hogwarts arrived was also overpowered by the ridiculous news his brother was getting married, which had happened to arrive on the same day; which his brother to this day swears was an accident. School felt like the first opportunity to set himself apart from his family legacy. A departure from the Quirrell family legacy, he was sorted into Ravenclaw, and breathed a sigh of relief he may finally be around more like minded folk. To his horror he found that whilst people in Ravenclaw did value reading books and cleverness, they did also value showing off and throwing other people under the Knight Bus in order to get the attention they so craved. The worst offender by far was GILDEROY LOCKHART [rival/boss], a boy who Quirinius might have felt sorry for if he hadn’t been so bloody irritating. Whilst Quirinius was intent on making a name for himself at Hogwarts, Gilderoy seemingly had the same intentions and preferred to do it all by making people feel as annoyed by him as possible. 

Each year working on the school newspaper Quirinius would be subjected to writing about the time breakfast was cancelled because Gilderoy was sent hundreds of Valentine’s cards, or how he took someone to the prefect's bathroom and flooded it with so many bubbles they spilled into the corridor. He had first assumed RITA SKEETER [colleague] handed him the pieces because he could execute them well through his hatred of Gilderoy, but having gotten to know her better later in life he now considers it was a wicked form of entertainment for her. One of the silver linings about working on “The Gilderoy Show” as he’d come to call it was the entertainment it also brought is best friend and fellow journalist IRIS HOOKUM [best friend/housemate] who enjoyed making jokes about Gilderoy he was always too self-obsessed to pick up on. Quirinius main friends came from working at The Hogwarts Gazette, including the beginnings of firmer friendships with EMILIA GREY [close friend/housemate/colleague], EDWARD TONKS [close friend/housemate/colleague], BENEDICT MISSLETHORPE [close friend/housemate/colleague] and ELIZABETH BRAITHWAITE [close friend/housemate/colleague], but everyone knew Quirinius enjoyed time to himself and he spent it on his passion project. 

Like any young wizard who grew up reading The Tales of Beedle The Bard and other such stories, Quirinius had very clear ideas about light and dark magic; which is why The Dark Arts became such a fascinating subject for him. At first his interest in it was most likely to establish himself above others, people who were known to perform well in Defence Against the Dark Arts were well liked and often became fine sorcerers working for The Ministry immortalised in print. By the time he had graduated, Quirinius had learned just about all there was to know about the Dark Arts, considering himself somewhat of an expert on the topic from a purely theoretical and academic perspective. Whilst his abilities and grades certainly qualified him for a job at the Auror’s Office, Quirinius interests lay in academia and he longed for the world to sit up and notice him due to his interests and talents. Straight out of the gate, Quirinius went travelling, learning all there was to know about the Dark Arts from various corners of the globe. He was gone for almost five years and was both shocked and appalled when publishers did not want to print his findings upon him returning back to Britain. 

Out of money and refusing to get a menial job or move back in with his parents, Quirinus took the spare room in Elizabeth’s house and tried to get a job working at The Daily Prophet with the rest of his friends. Due to his lack of experience due to travelling for all that time, the best he could land was a researcher's position working to Rita Skeeter, which was to him humiliating. Quirinius watched as Rita tried to pitch ideas for pieces which were inevitably handed over to ELIAS SPENSER-MOON [colleague] and his team, keeping her in her lane and him firmly in his also. Quirinius big break came finally when of all people, his former nemesis Gideroy Lockhart joined the paper as a contributing editor, with his head even larger than it had been before. Quirinius had been begrudgingly tracking Gilderoy’s success over the years, silently wondering how someone he remembered with not a great talent for defensive magic had managed to defeat so many evil creatures. Rivalry aside, Quirinius has breathed a sigh of relief to be away from gossip and finally on some real journalism, working on a special project trying to find the origins of the one they called The Dark Lord. 

He had been wondering about The Dark Lord for some time, silently researching and keeping notes, partly out of curiosity, partly out of that unacknowledged desire for importance. At the very least, Quirinius fantasised that he could be the man who tracked him down and wondered about what he might learn from him, or what story he could sell on him at the very least. Upon being ordered to work with Gilderoy, thanks to what he assumed was Benedict trying to be kind and mentioning he had done the research in the first place, Quirinius turned over everything he had worked on over the past two years, including why he considered the death of BOOKER BAGNOLD [person of interest] to have been caused by a spell rather than a werewolf attack as The Ministry had claimed. It was something he had pondered for a while, before being told by Rita to drop it, but upon reflection it now seemed more important. Now under the irritating and interfering gaze of Gilderoy, Quirinius is trying is best to find out all he can about the mysterious new wizard in town and is starting by attempting to get to know the people who are likely in his opinion to know something - the Black family, who always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

— he is a LEVEL 5 WIZARD & readied for war ;

[spicebiter]

Reading List (Latest Update Aug. 4, 2024)

The full list of books I'm interested in reading. Spoiler before you open the read-more: This list has 500+ entries so it's a tad long. The only reason it isn't numbered is because of tumblr's character limit on blocks of text, which this far exceeds. It is, instead, bulleted and separated into chunks of 50 after the cut.

I'm pretty much constantly adding things to all of my lists- hence why I'm amending when this was last updated to the title itself- and will update this post anytime I update the wheel I use to randomize my next choice, which usually happens after I've added or subtracted a significant number of options.

Beowulf

Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism; Third Edition

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Andersen’s Fairy Tales by H.C Andersen

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Animorphs Series by K.A Applegate

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Emma by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

Bunny by Mona Awad

Borderline by Mishell Baker

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Just Above My Head by James Baldwin

Crash by J.G Ballard

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

I’m With the Band by Pamela Des Barres

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M. Bartlett

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear

Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone De Beauvoir

The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir

Art of Fiction by Walter Besant and Henry James

Pushkin; A Biography by T.J Binyon

The Etched City by K.J Bishop

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette De Bodard

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

Sonnets From The Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

The Serpent and the Rose by Kathleen Bryan

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Notes of a Dirty old Man by Charles Bukowski

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess

Song of the Simple Truth by Julia de Burgos

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Parable of the Sower Octavia E. Butler

American Predator by Maureen Callahan

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

Through the Woods by Emily Carrol

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The Vorrh by B. Catling

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Moliere Biography by H.C Chatfield-Taylor

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng-en

Wicket Fox by Kat Cho

The Awakening by Kat Chopin

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Finna by Nino Cipri

The Divinity Student by Michael Cisco

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark

Pranesi by Susanne Clarke

Parasite by Darcy Coates

The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Swimming With Giants by Anne Collet

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Inherit the Wind by Linda Cushman

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Dreadnought by April Daniels

The Devourers by Indra Das

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

The Collected Stories by Welty Eudora

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Introducing Evolutionary Psychology by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate

A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Sanctuary by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Time and Again by Jack Finney

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

A Passage to India by E.M Forster

The Diary of Anne Frank

Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) by Al Franken

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

At Fear’s Altar by Richard Gavin

Count Zero by William Gibson

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

The Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Marathon Man by William Goldman

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin

Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

My Life in Orange by Tim Guest

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J Hackwith

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

Empire of Light by Alex Harrow

The Little Locksmith by Katherine Butler Hathaway

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He

Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Dune Series by Frank Herbert

Cover-Up by Seymour M. Hersh

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Rule of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman

The Iliad by Homer

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Songbook by Nick Hornby

To Escape the Stars by Robert Hoskins

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Warrior Cats Series by Erin Hunter

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Daisy Miller by Henry James

False Bingo by Jac Jemc

The City We Became by N.K Jemisin

The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin

Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson

Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan

The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Out of Control by Kevin Kelly

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Liu Ken

Ironweed by William Kennedy

You By Caroline Kepnes

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Very Best of Caitlin R Kiernan

Carrie by Stephen King

Christine by Stephen King

Cujo by Stephen King

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

The Shining by Stephen King

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Sir James Knowles and Sir Thomas Malory

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Gidget by Frederick Kohner

The Cipher by Kathe Koja

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Extravagance by Gary Krist

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

Babel by R.F Kuang

The Poppy War by R.F Kuang

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

False Hearts by Laura Lam

The Wide, Carnivorous Sky by John Langan

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Changeling by Victor Lavelle

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by David Herbert Lawrence

Lies of the Fae by M.J Lawrie

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Jade City by Fonda Lee

Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee

The Dirt; Confessions of the Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

The Complete Pyramids by Mark Lehner

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Human Errors by Nathan H. Lents

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Small Island by Andrea Levy

A Ruin of Shadows by L.D Lewis

Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Let the Right One In by John Lindquist

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Hike by Drew Magary

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gregory Rabassa

A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin

Property by Valerie Martin

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald

Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Rapture by Claire McGlasson

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Quattrocento by James McKean

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

Terms of Endearment Larry McMurtry

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi

A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L Mencken

My Life as Author and Editor by H.L Mencken

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyer

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

The Life of Edna by St. Vincent Millay

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Sexus by Henry Miller

Slade House by David Mitchell

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Barrington Moore Jr.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Jazz by Toni Morrison

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

The Ritual by Adam Nevill

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng

The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Vurt by Jeff Noon

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Bernard Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Twelve Nights at Rotter House by J.W Ocker

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver

Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen

How To Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

Certain Dark Things by M.J Pack

The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

How the Light Gets In by Jolina Petersheim

The Song the Owl God Sang by Benjamin Peterson

A Mankind Beyond Earth by Claude A. Piantadosi

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodie Piccoult

We Owe You Nothing by Punk Planet

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe

Witchmark by C.L Polk

Complete Novels by Dawn Powell

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Truth and Beauty by Ann Pratchett

Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

High Moor by Graeme Reynolds

Sybil by Schreiber Flora Rheta

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Stiff by Mary Roach

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry M. Robert

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder

The Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Lisa and David by Theodore Isaac Rubin, M.D

The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Sallinger

Franny and Zooey by J.D Sallinger

The Man Who Collected Machen by Mark Samuels

Ariah by B.R Sanders

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Shane by Jack Schaefer

Vicious by V.E Schwab

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Bhagavad Gita by Graham M. Schweig

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Love Story by Erich Segal

The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Unless by Carol Shields

City Come A-Walkin’ by John Shirley

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Crush by Richard Siken

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Terror by Dan Simmons

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Flinch by Julien Smith

Chlorine by Jade Song

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

Last Breath by Peter Stark

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

City Under the Moon Hugh Sterbakov

Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susane

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Walden by Henry D. Thoreau

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

Secrets of the Flesh by Judith Thurman

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima

The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne

The Last Empire- Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal

Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Candide by Voltaire

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Fire in the Sky; The Walton Experience by Travis Walton

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L Wang

The Graduate by Charles Webb

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

The Invisible Man by H.G Wells

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

Prophesy Deliverance by Cornel West

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

The Code of the Woosters by P.G Wodehouse

Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

The Electric Koolaid Test by Tom Wolfe

Old School by Tobias Wolff

John Dies at the End by David Wong

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dolloway by Virginia Woolf

Bitch; In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel

The Black Tides of Heaven by Jy Yang

Negative Space by B.R Yeager

Beneath the Moon by Yoshi Yoshitani

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Tomorrow, and Tommorow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

[ms-rampage]

Old Friends, New Lovers - Chapter 4

Red Dead Redemption series

Jack Marston and Cristina Winchester-Smith reunite after 15 years. 

Warnings: Some language, drunk Jack and Cristina. Also some fuff 

Word Count: 1.4k

Blackwater, West Elizabeth - 1914

A week has passed since their conversation at The Broken Tree. Jack and Cristina continue to track down Edgar Ross. 

Other than that Cris has been focused on work, trying to make some money and put some away. Planning on moving back in with her family, or move away, she's not sure yet. She's been thinking about this for awhile now, even prior to reuniting with Jack. This just put her plans on hold temporarily. 

Wanting to get the revenge game outta the way first. She notices her feelings for him are growing everyday, and she tries to avoid them. 

But reuniting with him again is making her rethink her choices about moving away. Slow day at the saloon and working a late shift, Jack stops by while she works. 

"First time seeing you behind the counter" he jokes, as he approaches her. 

"First time seeing you drink here" she responds. 

"Never seen you as a working girl" he says, leaning against the bar.

Letting out a short laugh, "Yeah well neither did I". Just the 3 men playing poker and the man playing the piano. There's really no one in the saloon that night.

"Slow day?" he asks. 

She lets out a groan, "Painfully slow. Blackwater is… dead tonight". She pulls out a couple of shot glasses and some Kentucky bourbon. 

"Drinking on the job?" he jokes. 

"It's not the first time I've done this" she tells him

Several shots later, Jack and Cristina start reminiscing about the old days from when they were 4 years old and are both in a drunken state, close to passing out.

"R-remember that one time, I-I think m-my family were, uhhh, camped out in Dew-Dewberry Creek in Scarlett Meadows" she tells him, her speech slurred, "An-and those rich fuck-wits. The Brathewrites, no wait Brandywine. Toothbrushes". 

"Thee...uhh, Braithwaites??" he asks, his speech slurred as well. 

"Yeah those asshats, kidnapped us because uhhh that one guy and that old man stole some of their moonshine or some shit like that, I dunno I was 4". 

"Arthur and umm... Hosea??" he tries to remember. 

"Yeah, yeah them, and that Italian fucker... Angelo Bronte gave us spaghetti". 

Jack lets out a loud laugh remembering that moment in their lives, the first time seeing him with a wide smile and showing teeth "Oh my good lord. I remember that. Didn't you bite him??".

Cristina lets out a thunderous cackle, "Oh my god. Yes! I bit him because he easily won you over while I was s-skepti-cal of him". 

She starts remembering the times when she was a young child, meeting Jack, the Van der Linde gang and all the times they had to relocate to a different campsite every month or so. The alcohol is really starting to get to her, she can handle her liquor, sometimes it makes her emotional and sometimes stare off into space, remembering moments in her life. 

The moment she's remembering is when she first met the young man in front of her. Hearing their young voices in her head, when both gangs met up at Horseshoe Overlook. 

"What's your name?!" 4 year old Cristina asks 4 year old Jack. "I'm Jack! What's yours?" he asks. "I'm Cristina." she responds, "Do you wanna borrow some of my toys?" she asks, holding a wooden train cart in her hand. "Sure!" he joyfully responds. Being the only other child around, other than her younger siblings. Jack immediately became her best friend. 

Zoning out, and staring at the floor, not noticing Jack saying her name, trying to get her attention. "Cris? Are you okay?". Touching her arm snaps her outta her trance. "Yeah, I'm fine… just zoned out for a moment. Reminiscing about the past." 

Finishing off 2 bottles of Kentucky bourbon, both of them drunk, mainly Cristina drinking more than she intended to. Jack is drunk, not able to walk straight. Like he hit the reverse button, and forgot how to walk, making Cristina crack up. 

"Walk much?!?" she laughs. 

"I'm fine." he slurs, "I'm o-okay." He immediately falls back onto the dirty saloon floor, letting out a short scream of pain. Luckily the saloon is closed for the night, so no one is there to witness their drunken stupidity. 

"Are you okay??" Cris laughs, trying to hold back her laughter but failing. Struggling to get up, she helps him up. Neither of them are able to go home even on their horses. She takes him upstairs to the rooms up there. Guiding him up the stairs while still very drunk herself, Jack is very handsy while intoxicated, one of his hands trying to go under her shirt. The moment they get through the door, she sets him on the bed. Head hitting the pillow. 

"The room is spinning" he mumbles, staring up at the ceiling. Closing the door, locking it as well so no one comes in while they sleep off their drunken state. Cristina takes off her boots, she sits on the opposite side of the bed, and drunk Jack becomes handsy again, his hand going around her waist. 

"Jack, you're drunk." she tells him, "Sleep it off."

He mumbles something, but she is unable to understand him. He pulls her closer to him, she resists but is unable to fight back her intoxicated state and gives in. Leaning back against Jack, as one hand is around her waist and the other on her back. 

He doesn't even know what he's doing, he blacks out on the bed, arms going limp. Cris looks over at him, and moves his arm off her. It's late, probably after midnight, he is completely passed out, deep asleep. She does the same thing, going to sleep while her best friend is next to her. 

Falling asleep as soon as she closes her eyes, drifting off asleep. 

A few hours later, around 2am, Jack wakes up, head feeling heavy, the room is dark with the only source of light coming from the street light outside the window. He looks to his right and sees Cristina asleep in a fetal position, looking so adorable and peaceful. He puts the blanket over her, covering her up, it's pretty chilly in the room. 

Letting out a sigh, resting his arm against the wall near the window, staring out of it. Not wanting to wake her up. He's not sure about having her by his side. She's a great person and all, but he feels like he's gonna get her killed, and that's the one thing he doesn't want. He knows he has to track down Edgar Ross, not only did he kill his father John, but he also killed her father Kenneth and to top it off he was sick and probably only had a few months left to live. 

He thinks about leaving and going back to the ranch, but doesn't want to leave Cris by herself, thinking he just got up, and left her there. 

Lost in his thoughts, Cris turns to face Jack, snapping him out of his thoughts. Still asleep, he sits on his side of the bed. The sudden extra weight wakes up Cris. 

"Jack?." she mumbles, half asleep. 

"I'm here." he responds softly. Laying back down, his hand on top of hers, unintentionally, he moves it but Cris holds it with her other hand. 

Laying back down, Cris cuddles up to him, resting her head on his shoulder. 

He has never had this kind of affection before, but he likes it, especially coming from someone he knew for a long time. They sleep in that position until the sun comes up, and the bar reopens in which they'll have to leave since no one is allowed in the bar overnight when it's closed. 

Forcing them to sneak out before the bar even opens to avoid being seen by the locals and the owner Oliver Phillips. Once gone, they stop by Beecher's Hope. 

"Well that was quite a night." she says, staying on her horse. 

"It sure was." Jack responds, "Do you wanna come in?." 

"I would, but I have to get back home. The owners will notice that I'm not home, but I'll come by later since I'm not working today." 

"See you around." he says, and Cris rides off the property. 

Jack spends the rest of the day working around the ranch, trying to keep it up. Feeding the cattle, fixing the fences and chopping wood. Hoping Cris would come by, even though the sun is a few hours away from setting. 

[anonil88]

Abbey Lee for The Sunday Times (June 2021)

Can you tell she's modeled for Gucci?

Styling: Alicia Lombardini

Photography: Claire Rothstein

[Quick personal thoughts, I have realized I 1000 percent am vampire bait. Tick off the boxes of tall kinda scary Gemini and I'm like yea sure count me in. First of the long format fashion things I do that I'm posting here.]

“I can’t stand the constant sunshine... I’m a moody person and sometimes I just like the weather to reflect what’s going on on the inside.”

"That sulky intensity paired with an icy beauty has tended to dictate her acting roles. From the vicious (read: carnivorous) ageing model Sarah in the fashion horror The Neon Demon, to the vengeful clone in Elizabeth Harvest and the bigoted Christina Braithwaite in the HBO series Lovecraft Country, Lee often plays the high-class villain. Why does she get offered these parts? “I’ve worked as a model since I was 15, I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been to the edges of my darkness and I’m not afraid to access those parts of myself,” she says. “Or maybe I’m just a bitch and I don’t know it!”"

From what I've heard she really isn't so bad and she makes most putfits look very good. Even when they aren't to my personal liking, or anyone else's. Anyhow I really like the cover image for this shoot, she looks comfortable in a suit which not everyone does. Some people look like they are cosplaying as someone's father or guidance counselor. My favorite outfit/piece is the one with the Bottega coat. All of the Veneta coats are so nice and cost way too much for my wallet to ever agree on. Even on sale.

***************

It is actually a pretty short article so I'm going to share some quotes and summarize. Just in case anyone was interested but doesn't want to deal with the pay gap. There is a lot about needing a change of pace even before lockdown in the rainy London weather. She touches on being known as a pillar in an industry but being bored of said industry. Wanting more from a career started at the age of 15, needing a challenge. Her scouting was by chance, as she walked on a beach near her home in Australia. A tomboy looking for a chance to get out and see the world by stepping on a runway. Which she's done for ,as of several days ago, 19 years and she's walked or shot for almost everyone.

"At her busiest she starred in Gucci campaigns, appeared on the covers of numerous international editions of Vogue and took the coveted role of bride to close Chanel’s spring 2010 couture show. She hasn’t completely given up modelling — she fronted last year’s Bottega Veneta campaign, for instance — but she felt she had more to give."

In recent years she's taken up acting, one of her first roles was in Mad Max: Fury Road. And this year, she will be starring in The Forgiven "co-starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain." And the horror comic turned movie "Old" directed by M. Knight Shyamalan.

"Lockdown in London — spent alone, recovering from a break-up — brought lots to the surface. She filled ten diaries with poetry, drawings, observations, and began writing a one-woman play — then burnt them all one morning in a pot on her windowsill. “It felt ritualistic,” she says, laughing. “It ended up being a positive experience [but] I was having to process some pretty deep shit.”

Part of her process has also been processing the questions other people ask in your 30s as a woman. Hell they ask it in your 20s too and then you start asking yourself the question too. "....well, everyone kind of is having babies. I do really want kids. It’s really difficult being a woman. My sister made a decision, family was more important to her, and for me it was always work first. But we have a biological clock and as that clock starts ticking, you know…"

For now though she has got a puppy, well does a giant Cane Corso count as a puppy ?

**********************************

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

2020 reading roundup

feat: every book I read this year!

Favorite fiction:

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) 

Kindred (Octavia E. Butler) 

Fledgling (Octavia E. Butler)

The Killing Moon (N.K. Jemisin)

The Shadowed Sun (N.K. Jemisin) 

Circe (Madeline Miller) 

Freshwater (Akwaeke Emezi) 

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune) 

My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) 

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (Alexis Hall) 

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson)

Further fun/fabulous/fruity fiction:

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Stormsong (C.L. Polk)

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home (Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)  

Rat Queens, vol. 1-4 (Kurtis J. Wiebe)

The Deep (Rivers Solomon)  

The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller) 

Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) 

Books that left me furious at death for taking Octavia Butler before she could write another sequel and tell us just what the hell Earthseed was getting up to out there in space:

Parable of the Talents (Octavia E. Butler)

Books that gave me a new appreciation for the short story as an art form:

Falling In Love with Hominids (Nalo Hopkinson)

Books that I didn’t get into right away but then they REALLY picked up and by the time the Big Reveal happened I was screaming like a howler monkey and feeling like a fool for not catching on sooner:

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin)

Novellas that made me cry in record time, which is entirely unsurprising given the author:

To Be Taught, If Fortune (Becky Chambers) 

Books that frankly took me by surprise and made me think I should be reading more horror, or at least more Stephen Graham Jones:

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) 

Sequels that were good but also made my head hurt because Jesus Christ, oh my god, WHAT is going on:

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)

Books that I LIKED but wanted to like more than I actually did:

The Taste of Marrow (Sarah Gailey)

The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) 

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) 

Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey)

The Devourers (Indra Das) 

Sister Mine (Nalo Hopkinson) 

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) 

Axiom’s End (Lindsay Ellis)

Totally respectable literary fiction that I cannot in good conscience lump into literally any other category:

Real Life (Brandon Taylor)

It was fine and I feel bad for not having anything particularly positive or negative or interesting at all to say about it, but it really and truly was just kind of alright:

My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel (Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris)

Favorite nonfiction:

In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado)

How We Fight for Our Lives (Saeed Jones)

An Autobiography (Angela Y. Davis)

Feed (Tommy Pico)

Ace: What Aseuxality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen)

Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage (Dianne M. Stewart)

Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon)

Notable nifty nonfictions: 

The Dark Fantastic: Race and Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Ebony Elizabeth Thomas) 

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death (Caitlin Doughty)

So You Want to Talk About Race (Ijeoma Oluo)

A Curious History of Sex (Kate Lister)

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (Anna Merlan) 

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (Kim T. Gallon) 

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot (Mikki Kendall) 

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (Brittney Cooper) 

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (Jane Ward)

Other people’s lives that I happily devoured:

Dear America: Notes From an Undocumented Citizen (Jose Antonio Vargas)  

Wow, No Thank You (Samantha Irby)  

I’m Afraid of Men (Vivek Shraya)

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Esmé Weijun Wang) 

Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman (Laura Kate Dale) 

Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson)

When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (Patrisse Khan-Cullors) 

Poetry & personal essays that I wanted to Get but didn’t quite:

Homie (Danez Smith)

Something That May Shock and Discredit You (Daniel M. Lavery)  

More Than Organs (Kay Ulanday Barrett) 

Junk (Tommy Pico)

Nonfiction that was interesting but also incomprehensible in many places because I don’t have a degree in biology, which I guess is my bad:

Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation (Olivia Judson) 

Nonfiction that was interesting but also felt lacking in its analysis, perhaps as an inevitable side effect of trying to publish it quickly enough to stay topical:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger (Soraya Chemaly) 

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (Rebecca Traister)

Sweet graphic novels:

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang) 

Shadow of the Batgirl (Sarah Kuhn)

Books that are significant for various reasons and good to read but sort of felt like homework:

Stone Butch Blues (Leslie Feinberg) 

Are Prisons Obsolete? (Angela Y. Davis)

Books I reread during quarantine even though I am not generally much of a rereader:

Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 

A Small Place (Jamaica Kincaid)

Books that weren’t really for me but probably would have rocked my socks if I read them when I was like 14:

Internment (Samira Ahmed) 

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (Mona Eltahawy) 

Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity (Jennifer Weiss-Wolf) 

The Bone Witch (Rin Chupeco) 

Pet (Akwaeke Emezi) 

[books-in-media]

Masterlist of books mentioned & read by Emma Roberts

—A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit (2005)

—A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, Lara Williams (2016)

—A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York, Anjelica Huston (2013)

—Abandon Me: Memoirs, Melissa Febos (2017)

—After This: When Life Is Over, Where Do We Go?, Claire Bidwell Smith (2015)

—Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales, Ali Wentworth (2012)

—An American Marriage, Tayari Jones (2018)

—An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris, Stephanie LaCava (2012)

—And Now I Spill the Family Secrets: An Illustrated Memoir, Margaret Kimball (2021)

—Ask the Dust, John Fante (1939)

—Audition: A Memoir, Barbara Walters (2008)

—Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, Peter Evans, Ava Gardner (2013)

—Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust, Ina Garten (2012)

—Battleborn, Claire Vaye Watkins (2012)

—Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter (2012)

—Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert (2015)

—Bluets, Maggie Nelson (2009)

—Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, Susannah Cahalan (2012)

—Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson (1977)

—Carthage, Joyce Carol Oates (2014)

—Chanel Bonfire, Wendy Lawless (2013)

—Chelsea Girls, Eileen Myles (1994)

—Cities I’ve Never Lived In, Sara Majka (2016)

—Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, Viv Albertine (2014)

—Crystal Ball Reading for Beginners: Easy Divination & Interpretation, Alexandra Chauran (2011)

—Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession , Alice Bolin (2018) 

—Dear Mr. You, Mary-Louise Parker (2015) 

—Different Seasons, Stephen King (1982)

—Doctor Sleep, Stephen King (2013)

—Driftwood, Elizabeth Dutton (2014)

—Emma, Jane Austen (1815)

—Emily Dickinson: Letters, Emily Dickinson (1894)

—Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.  (2013)

—Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins (1976)

—Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953)

—Faking It: The Lies Women Tell about Sex–And the Truths They Reveal , Lux Alptraum (2018)

—Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson (1971)

—Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles, Ron Currie Jr. (2013)

—Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes (1959)

—Girl in a Band, Kim Gordon (2015) 

—Girlchild, Tupelo Hassman (2012)

—Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins (2015)

—Grace: A Memoir, Grace Coddington (2012)

—Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide, Frédéric Lenoir (2011)

—Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality, Jacob Tomsky (2012)

—Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs, Sally Mann (2015)

—Honey Girl, Lisa Freeman (2015)

—How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti (2010)

—I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Interviews, Andy Warhol (2004)

—I’ll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell  (2016) 

—In Praise of Messy Lives: Essays, Katie Roiphe (2012)

—Into the Valley, Ruth Galm (2015)

—Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling (2011)

—Jane: A Murder, Maggie Nelson (2005) (X)

—Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins (1984)

—Joy Enough, Sarah McColl (2019)

—Kitchen Revelry: Fun, Fearless and Festive Ideas to Inspire You to Take a Bite Out of Life, Ali Larter (2013)

—Laura & Emma, Kate Greathead (2018) 

—Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Joan Didion (2021)

—Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris (2013)

—Levels of Life, Julian Barnes (2013)

—Little Known Facts, Christine Sneed (2013)

—Luster, Raven Leilani (2020)

—M Train, Patti Smith (2015)

—Marlena, Julie Buntin (2017) (X) 

—Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit (2014)

—Motherest, Kristen Iskandrian (2017)

—My Life on the Road, Gloria Steinem (2015) 

—My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite (2017)

—My 1980s and Other Essays, Wayne Koestenbaum (2013)

—Neverworld Wake, Marisha Pessl (2018)

—Nine Inches, Tom Perrotta (2013)

—Not That Kind Of Girl, Lena Dunham (2014)

—November 22, 1963 , Adam Braver (2008)

—Of Things Gone Astray, Janina Matthewson (2014) 

—One Last Thing Before I Go, Jonathan Tropper (2012)

—Outlawed, Anna North (2021)

—Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953, Elizabeth Winder (2013)

—Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett (2015)

—Psychos: A White Girl Problems Book, Babe Walker (2014)

—Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (1938)

—Riding in Cars with Boys: Confessions of a Bad Girl Who Makes Good, Beverly Donofrio (1990)

—Robert Frost’s Poems, Robert Frost, Louis Untermeyer (1930)

—Robogenesis, Daniel H. Wilson (2014)

—Run River, Joan Didion (1963)

—Salt Slow, Julia Armfield (2019)

—Searching for Sylvie Lee, Jean Kwok (2019)

—Selected Poetry, John Keats (1921)

—Sex & Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time, Eve Babitz (1979) (X) 

—Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion (1968)

—Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.: Tales, Eve Babitz (1977)

—South and West: From a Notebook, Joan Didion (2017) (X)

—Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (2014) (X)

—Stay With Me, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (2017)

—Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins (1980) 

—Swimming Sweet Arrow, Maureen Gibbon (2000)

—Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Carol Rifka Brunt (2012)

—Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship, Kayleen Schaefer (2018)

—The Adults, Alison Espach (2011)

—The Answers, Catherine Lacey (2017)

—The Astor Orphan: A Memoir, Alexandra Aldrich (2013)

—The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild, Hannah Rothschild (2012)

—The Best Things to Do in Los Angeles: 1001 Ideas, Joy Yoon (2012)

—The Book of V, Anna Solomon (2020)

—The Children Act, Ian McEwan (2014)

—The Chocolate Money, Ashley Prentice Norton (2012)

—The Elementals, Francesca Lia Block (2012)

—The End We Start From, Megan Hunter (2017)

—The Girls, Emma Cline (2016)

—The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Melissa Bank (1998)

—The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) 

—The Guineveres, Sarah Domet (2016)

—The Illusion of Separateness, Simon Van Booy (2013)

—The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin (2018)

—The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, Andrew Sean Greer (2013)

—The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day, David J. Hand (2014)

—The Kitchy Kitchen: 200 Recipes for the Young and Hungry, Claire Thomas (2014) 

—The Last Days of California, Mary Miller (2013)

—The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion, Tracy Daugherty (2015)

—The Light We Lost, Jill Santopolo (2017) 

—The Lightness, Emily Temple (2020)

—The Love Song of Johnny Valentine, Teddy Wayne (2013)

—The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury (1949)

—The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories, Marina Keegan (2014)

—The Poems of Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1944)

—The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy (2017), (X) (X) 

—The Shining, Stephen King (1977)

—The Story of My Teeth, Valeria Luiselli (2013)

—The Universe of Us, Lang Leav (2016)

—The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, Meghan Daum (2014)

—The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, Alan W. Watts (1951)

—The Woman I Wanted to Be, Diane Von Furstenberg (2014)

—Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country And Other Stories, Chavisa Woods (2017) 

—This is It & Other Essays on Zen & Spiritual Experience, Alan W. Watts (1960)

—This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper (2003)

—This One Summer, Mariko Tamaki, Jillian Tamaki (2014)

—Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots, Jessica Soffer (2013)

—Touch, Courtney Maum (2017) (X) 

—Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer (2003)

—Valley Fever, Katherine Taylor (2015)

—Veronica, Mary Gaitskill (2005)

—Visible Empire, Hannah Pittard (2018)

—Watch Me, Anjelica Huston (2014)

—We Were Liars, E. Lockhart (2014) 

—We Wish You Luck, Caroline Zancan (2020)

—West of Eden: An American Place, Jean Stein (2016)

—What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Henry Farrell (1960)

—When Watched, Leopoldine Core (2016)

—Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple (2012)

—Widow Basquiat: A Love Story, Jennifer Clement (2000)

—Wildflower, Drew Barrymore (2015) 

—Writers & Lovers, Lily King (2020)

—Your Voice In My Head, Emma Forrest (2011)

—200 Women: Who Will Change The Way You See The World, Geoff Blackwell, Ruth Hobday (2017)

—365 Style, Nicky Hilton (2014)

[nitrosplicer]

Since high school, I’ve had a strict policy on pleasure reading: if I’m not enjoying a book, I will stop reading it after trying for an hour. It’s been oddly cathartic. I wanted to post my list of books read in 2020, with the caveat that this is a non-exhaustive list and does not include most of the academic books I’ve read across the year. I’m also including re-reads, marked with an asterisk.

1. Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

2. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

3. My Sister The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite

4. Future Home of the Living God, Louise Erdrich

5. Colonel Barker’s Monstrous Regiment, Rose Collis

6. How To Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan

7. Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado

7. The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

8. The Body Papers, Grace Talusan

9. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern

10. Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

11. The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead

12. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood

13. Tentacle, Rita Indiana

14. I’ve Got A Time Bomb, Sibyl Lamb

15. Catspaw, Joan D. Vinge*

16. My Meteorite, Harry Dodge

17. Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli

18. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust

19. The Dreaming Jewels, Theodore Sturgeon

20. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon

21. Venus Plus X, Theodore Sturgeon

22. Such A Fun Age, Kiley Reid

23. Life Beyond My Body, Lei Ming

24. The Topeka School, Ben Lerner

25. Something That May Shock And Discredit You, Daniel Lavery

26. Good Neighbors: Gentrifying Diversity in Boston's South End, Sylvie Tissot

27. Fear, Gabriel Chevalier

28. Regeneration, Pat Barker

29. The Fellowship of the Ring*

30. The Two Towers*

31. The Return of the King*

32. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson

33. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, Elizabeth Catte

34. Written On The Body, Jeanette Winterson

35. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan

36. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan

37. Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin

38. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin

39. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, John Carreyrou

40. The Madwoman In The Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

41. Out of Salem, Hal Schrieve

42. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys*

43. The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman

44. Redefining Realness, Janet Mock

45. Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi

46. Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes

47. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

48. The Secret History, Donna Tartt*

49. The Red Dragon, Thomas Harris

50. The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris

51. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf*

52. House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski*

53. Life On Mars, Tracy Smith

54. HERmione, H.D.

55. Nature’s Remedies: Healing Herbs by Jean Willoughby

56. Winter Botany by William Trelease

[booksociety]

Book Society presents its June reading event! The members have selected Out of the Ordinary as the theme and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid as the optional book of the month. We invite you to step outside the box and pick up books that are different or unique in some way. They can be unusual in format, narration, premise, etc. where elements on the page or in the story would not be expected in a typical book. This event is open to everyone, not just our members.

✧ how to participate:

optional: reblog this post; check out our network and members

read (or reread) either The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (adult, historical, romance, lgbt+; 391 pages) or a book of your choice that fits this month’s theme

share what book you’ve chosen, thoughts, reactions, and/or creations

use the tag #booksociety in your posts, and include “@booksociety’s Out of the Ordinary Event: [insert book title here]” in the description of your creations

the event starts on June 1 and ends on June 30

✧ reading recommendations (under the cut):

format

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (adult, historical; 355 pages)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (classic, horror, fantasy; 488 pages)

Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul by Nikita Gill (short stories, poetry, fantasy, retelling; 176 pages)

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (adult, mystery, thriller, horror; 709 pages)

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio (adult, mystery, dark academia; 368 pages)

Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (young adult, scifi; 602 pages)

Night Film by Marisha Pessl (adult, mystery, thriller; 640 pages)

My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel by Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris (romance, historical, humour; 352 pages)

Replica (Replica #1) by Lauren Oliver (young adult, scifi; 520 pages)

Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure by Ryan North (romance, historical, humour; 400 pages)

S. by J.J. Abrams & Doug Dorst (adult, mystery, fantasy; 456 pages)

Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) by Sylvain Neuvel (adult, scifi, mystery, thriller; 320 pages)

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness (young adult, scifi, dystopia; 479 pages)

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan (young adult, poetry, romance; 211 pages)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (young adult, contemporary, romance; 231 pages)

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (young adult, contemporary, poetry; 361 pages)

The Slant Book by Peter Newell (children, poetry; 56 pages)

Verity by Colleen Hoover (thriller, romance; 333 pages)

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (young adult, historical; 640 pages)

5 to 1 (5 to 1 #1) by Holly Bodger (young adult, scifi, dystopia; 244 pages)

narration

Atonement by Ian McEwan (classic, historical, romance; 351 pages)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (fantasy, scifi, historical; 509 pages)

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (young adult, scifi, fantasy; 464 pages)

Rhapsodic (The Bargainer #1) by Laura Thalassa (new adult, romance, fantasy; 417 pages)

Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi (young adult, scifi, romance; 338 pages)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (classic, scifi; 275 pages)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (young adult, historical, classic; 552 pages)

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles (classic, historical, romance; 470 pages)

premise & plot

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland (young adult, historical, fantasy, horror; 455 pages)

Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire (young adult, fantasy, mystery; 173 pages)

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (adult, contemporary, thriller, mystery; 226 pages)

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (adult, contemporary, mystery; 288 pages)

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (graphic novel, fantasy; 272 pages)

Pivot Point (Pivot Point #1) by Kasie West (young adult, scifi, fantasy; 343 pages)

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (adult, historical, romance, paranormal; 390 pages)

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (adult, historical, retelling, feminism; 198 pages)

The Power by Naomi Aldreman (adult, scifi, dystopia, feminism; 341 pages)

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang (graphic novel, retelling, lgbt+; 277 pages)

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (young adult, contemporary, lgbt+; 373 pages)

Space Opera (Space Opera #1) by Catherynne M. Valente (adult, scifi, humour; 352 pages)

mixed & other

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman & Brendan Shusterman (young adult, contemporary, mental health; 320 pages)

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia (young adult, contemporary, romance, mental health; 385 pages)

Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun (graphic novel, science fiction; 256 pages)

Half Bad (The Half Bad Trilogy #1) by Sally Green (young adult, fantasy; 380 pages)

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (adult, fabulism, slipstream; 467 pages)

Shadows of Asphodel (Shadows of Asphodel #1) by Karen Kincy (adult, romance, dieselpunk, paranormal; 350 pages)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (adult, historical, fantasy, romance; 387 pages)

The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic #1) by Amanda Lovelace (poetry, feminism; 156 pages)

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (scifi, romance, lgbt+; 209 pages)

[formulahigh]

for the book rec thing - contemporary literary fiction by authors of colour? (think, james baldwin; zadie smith; chimamanda ngozi adichie)

hi! here are some books you might enjoy

- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett; it’s a 2020 release about twin sisters, one black and one white, and the lives they choose to live. it’s absolutely beautiful.

- Real Life by Brandon Taylor; coming of age story of a queer black man leaving his hometown in Alabama.

- The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan; YA contemporary. it’s been on my tbr for years I hope I can pick it up soon.

- The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo; one of my all-time favorite books. it’s written in verses. here’s the Goodreads page. 10/10

- The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta; I already talked about this book but it’s so so good

- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite; a thriller set in Nigeria. explores the relationship between two sisters. it’s funny while being provocative and unique.

- All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson; nonfiction. I haven’t read this book yet but it sounds really good.

- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah; I recommend listening to the audiobook

- if you like Japanese literature I would suggest picking up Haruki Murakami

- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara; by now everyone and their mothers know the premises of this book.

I don’t know if you read horror but I’ll leave this here because i need to talk about this book but no one i know has read it and i still think about it every day months after i read this, just in case

- Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica; the most unsettling book I’ve ever read. gruesome and violent. set in a dystopian world where men have resorted to eating human “special” meat after a virus has eradicated animals. it’s relentless and challenging.

tell me what kind of books you read and i’ll give you a recommendation 📚✨  

[study-feels]

52 Weeks 52 Books

Yes, I know I just posted my 2020 Reading Challenge Books bu hear my out. I tend to read the same genres over and over again (mainly fantasy sprinkled with a bit of fiction sometimes) so I am now trying to get out of my comfort zone by joining the 52 books a year challenge set by Goodreads (add me btw lets be friends). So here are my 52 chosen book for this year. 

A book with a title that does not contain the letters A, T or Y: Circe by Madeline Miller

A book by an author whose last name is one syllable: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A book you were prompted to read because of something you read in 2019: Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey

A book set in a place or time you wouldn’t want to live in: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The first book in a series that you have not started: The Diviners by Libba Bray

A book with a mode of transportation on the cover: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

A book set in the southern hemisphere: I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

A book with a two-word title where the first word is ‘The’: The Piano by Jane Campion

A book that can be read in a day: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A book that is between 400 to 600 pages: Deception Point by Dan Brown

A book originally published in a year that is a prime number: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

A book that is a collaboration between two or more people: Mindhunter by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker

A prompt from a previous around the year in 52: Easternisation by Gideon Rachman

A book by an author on the Abe List of 100 Essential Female Writers: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

A book set in a global city: Normal People by Sally Rooney

A book set in a rural or sparsely populated area: Lions by Bonnie Nadzam

A book with a neurodiverse character: When All is Said by Anne Griffin

A book by an author you have only read once before: Hold Still by Nina LaCour

A fantasy book: The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan

The 20th book on your TBR: The Odyssey by Homer

A book related to Maximillian Hell, the noted astronomer and Jesuit Priest who was born in 1720: The Italian by Ann Radcliff

A book with the major theme of survival: The Chain by Adrian McKinty

A book featuring an LGBT+ character or by an LGBT+ author: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

A book with and emotion in the title: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

A book related to the arts: Verity by Coleen Hover

A book from the 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards: The Huntress by Kate Quinn

A history or historical fiction: The Iliad by Homer

A book by an Australian, Canadian or New Zeland author: The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

An underrated book, a hidden gem or a lesser-known book: The Child Next Door by Shalini Boland

A book by from the New York Times ‘100 Notable Books’ list for any year: Becoming by Michelle Obama

A book inspired by a leading news story: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

A book related to the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Japan: The TRavelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

A book about a non-traditional family: With Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

A book from a genre of sub-genre that starts with a letter in your name: One of Us is Lying by Karen M. MacManus

A book with a geometric pattern or element on the cover: Recursion by Blade Crouch

A book from your TBR that you don’t recognise, recall putting there or put there in a whim: The Only Story by Julian Barnes

Two books that are related to each other as a pair of binary opposites #1: Blindness by Jose Saramago

Two books that are related to each other as a pair of binary opposites #2: I See You by Clare Mackintosh

A book by an author whose real name you are not quite sure how to pronounce: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A book with a place in the title: Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 

A mystery: Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

A book that was nominated for one of the 10 Most Coveted Literary Prizes in the World: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

a book related to one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

A book related to witches: The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent

A book by the same author who wrote one of your best reads in 2019 or 2018: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

A book about an event or era in history taken from the Billy Joel song ‘We Didn't Start the Fire’: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

A classic book you have always meant to read: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

A book published in 2020: One Of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus

A book that fits a prompt from the list of suggestions that didn't win: Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume

A book with a silhouette on the cover: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

A book with an ‘-ing’ word in the title: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

A book related to time: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

[cheshirelibrary]

GoodReads Choice Awards 2019: Best Books of the Year

[via GoodReads]

4,659,701 votes were cast, here are some of the books that readers chose as the best of 2019:

FICTION:

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

MYSTERY/THRILLER:

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides 

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

FANTASY:

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History, #1) by George R.R. Martin

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

ROMANCE:

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 

Verity by Colleen Hoover

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

GRAPHIC NOVELS:

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell

Heartstopper: Volume Two  by Alice Oseman

The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

YA FICTION:

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

[unravellingsilencehq]

“Oh, Merlin, tell me, does THE ADVOCATE get what he deserves?”  He was NEUTRAL & is sadly DECEASED.“

— he walked through the world as ;

name → Booker Bagnold pronouns → he/him identification → cis-male year of birth → 1957-1958 face claim → jordan bolger blood status → pure-blood sexual orientation → heterosexual occupation → representative for the department for the regulation and control of magical creatures future information → n/a deceased  → 31st October 1982

— he was best described as ;

The EARTHY smell of heavy RAIN hitting dirt, mixed with SWEETNESS of freshly cut FLOWERS and the warm secent of PARCHEMENT. He is the ECLECTIC music playing from a RECORD as an echoing laugh brings joy to the room. He is the CARING & LOYAL shoulder to cry on, offering SUPPORT & ENCOURGEMENT. The OPTIMISM of those ready to break the mould, INSPIRING those around him to strive for GREATNESS.

— his story started with ;

Booker Bagnold was a truly remarkable individual, whose kind and loyal nature endeared him to all who had the pleasure of knowing him. His heart was so deep and giving that it was impossible for him to stop spreading inspiration wherever he went. The younger child of MILLICENT BAGNOLD [mother], the then-Senior Undersecretary to The Minister for Magic, and Rutherford Bagnold, a wizarding tech genius, Booker's childhood was one of pure bliss. Although his older brother, HARRISON BAGNOLD [sibling], was a bit of a brooder and didn't spend much time with him, Booker still held him in high regard. They lived in a modern home in Wimbledon, and Booker cherished his room – his safe space – which had a breathtaking view of the green belt that ran behind their house. He would spend hours gazing out the window, watching the animals frolic in the forest and occasionally catching sight of a magical creature. The Bagnold family had a penchant for travel, and they frequently embarked on adventures to international Quidditch games and Millicent's birthplace in Ireland.

During the summer holiday before Booker was set to embark on his first year at Hogwarts, he vividly recalled a conversation with Harrison. The latter was preparing for an event, and let out a heavy sigh before revealing that when he was Booker's age, their parents were hardly ever present in his life. Unlike Booker, he was compelled to attend numerous events and they never went on any trips together. However, Harrison pointed out that their parents had a complete change of heart after Booker's birth. Booker, being the compassionate person he was, tried to consolidate him, but despite his efforts Harrison vehemently disagreed, insisting that their parents simply loved Booker more. Unfortunately, this remark struck a chord with Booker, and he began to feel guilty for how his parents treated him. Booker began to blame himself for Harrison not having the same childhood experiences as him and became more in on himself in their presence, declining their offers to enjoy himself instead standing by his brother’s side dutifully in the hope to make it up to him.

Sorted into Hufflepuff, he was ushered to his dorm deep within the castle. It was there that he met his soon-to-be best friend, EDWARD TONKS [best friend], they connected instantly and their friendship stayed strong throughout Hogwarts and into adulthood. Being a loyal friend, along with his disliking of injustice, Booker often found himself standing up for Ted against bullies like RABASTAN LESTRANGE [adversary] and his group of friends, CAIUS BURKE [adversary], XERXES ZABINI [adversary], AURELIA ROOKWOOD [adversary] and KERVENS BORGIN [adversary]. His stance and advocacy lead to him making other friends along the way including ELIZABETH BRAITHWAITE [close friend], MARIANNE MACMILLAN [friend], LAURENCE ABBOTT [friend], and CELIA ABBOTT [friend/potential love interest]. But he found a real friend in LANA CROUCH [best friend] though his interests. He saw a lot of himself in Lana, she was a bright girl lost in a big family trying to find her way, which he noticed she did when she began taking an interest in magical creatures, much to Booker’s delight. When he wasn’t caring for magical creatures in the forest with Hagrid or reading up on them in the library with Lana, he was pouring himself over Celia, their relationship blossoming into something more than just a friendship.

Booker Bagnold's infatuation with Celia lingered beyond the walls of Hogwarts, and into their twenties. Meanwhile, Booker's passion for magical creatures had paid off, and he landed a position in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures alongside Lana, and it wasn’t long before Booker found himself in the being division which dealt with magical creatures that possessed human-like intellect, including werewolves, vampires, giants, and centaurs. However, Booker was quickly disillusioned by the rampant discrimination he encountered in the wizarding community towards these creatures. He was appalled by the way his colleagues, like WALDEN MCNAIR [adversary] treated injured werewolves and altered centaur testimonies to fit the wizarding community's expectations. These creatures were sentient beings who deserved to be treated with respect and dignity, and Booker reported these incidents to Aurors such as HESTIA JONES [acquaintance] and barristers like RODOLPHUS LESTRANGE [acquaintance]. Unfortunately, their responses were unsatisfactory, always too busy to listen to him and tied up in other projects. Soon Booker realised that he needed to take more drastic measures to aid magical beings in the wizarding community. 

Fortunately, his mother had been appointed Minister for Magic at this time, and he arranged a meeting with her to voice his concerns and suggestions. While she was receptive, she requested that Booker gather the signatures required for the Wizengamot to consider a law that prohibited the discrimination of magical beings in the wizarding community. She warned him that not everyone would share his views, and he would need to gather a significant number of signatures. Booker began by approaching his colleagues, but while some refused to sign, such as Walden, while others signed without hesitation. He then turned to his friends, including Celia. To his surprise, Celia disagreed with his views, which caused their budding romance to falter. Despite this setback, Booker remained committed to his mission to make the wizarding community more inclusive, collecting as many signatures as he could. The night of the Halloween ball in 1982 is when Booker's tale came to its tragic end. Booker moved through the ballroom with vigour, trying to persuade as many guests as possible to sign his petition. The pure-bloods snarled at him, and those who were aware of his intentions avoided him. His brother, was particularly angry at Booker bringing his petition, snatching it from him and ripping it up in front of his very eyes. 

Enraged, Booker fled the ballroom, smacking into Rabastan Lestrange upon his exit to the balcony by mistake. Always game for a fight, Rabastan quickly dug his teeth into Booker, mocking him and his cause and a wand battle broke out between the two. As Rabastan wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, Booker noticed something change in his face. Before Booker could even call for help, Rabastan cast a spell that tore a ferocious, werewolf-like gash through his chest. The world fell silent as he tumbled over the balcony railing, with the wind rushing past him and screams echoing through the air, narrowly missing MARLENE MCKINNON [potential love interest] who he had hoped to meet later that evening for a kiss and a dance in the darkness. After his untimely death, Rabastan framed SILAS CRUMP [acquaintance] for the murder. As the mystery surrounding Booker's death unfolded, his petition lay neglected on Harrison’s desk, pieced back together, gathering dust as the ink slowly faded from its pages. Would his legacy perish with him, or would someone pick up the mantle of his cause, fighting for the rights and equality of creatures in the wizarding world?

— he was a LEVEL 5 WIZARD & is now at peace ;

[tobedeletedx]

books read in 2019

bold = top ten

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon 

White as Snow by Tanith Lee

A Card from Angela Carter by Susannah Clapp 

The Women by Ashley Farmer 

In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente 

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon

The Good Women of China by Xinran 

A Very Private Eye by Barbara Pym 

Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages 

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

Shadow Dance by Angela Carter 

Women Invent the Future, edited by Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale 

Guardians of the Galaxy by Chris Wyatt 

The Comforters by Muriel Spark

Vicious by V.E. Schwab 

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson 

Short Stories in Japanese, edited by Michael Emmerich 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 

Lily Alone by Jacqueline Wilson 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin 

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin 

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker 

The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark 

Face/Off by Clark Carlton

The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff 

Darth Maul by Cullen Bunn

Son of Dathomir by Jeremy Barlow 

Fifteen to Infinity by Ruth Fainlight 

Reborn by Susan Sontag 

Khorne by Richard Williams 

Lady Windemere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde 

The Mound by H.P. Lovecraft 

Gentleman Jack by Angela Steidele 

After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys 

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard 

Path of the Renegade by Andy Chambers 

Path of the Incubus by Andy Chambers 

Path of the Archon by Andy Chambers 

Useless Magic by Florence Welch

Fashion Cats by Takako Iwasa 

The Masque of Vyle by Andy Chambers 

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston

The White Book by Han Kang

Cherry Ingram by Naoko Abe 

The Country You Have Never Seen by Joanna Russ

Helen of Troy and Other Poems by Sara Teasdale 

Black Easter by James Blish

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Inside the Wave by Helen Dunmore 

[audikatia]

Considering my goal this year was 50 books, not too shabby! My full list (and my ratings) is under the read more for anyone interested.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling *****

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling *****

Sleep Demons: An Insomniac’s Memoir by Bill Hayes ****

The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown ***

The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby ****

The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera by Sandra Hempel **

Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu by Philip Alcabes *****

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh ***

The Matter of the Heart: a History or the Heart in Eleven Operations by Thomas Morris ***

The Chick and the Dead: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors by Carla Valentine ****

Pulse by Michael Harvey **

The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It by Dr. W. Chris Winter *****

The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die by Katherine Ashenburg ***

Pantomime by Laura Lam ****

Shadowplay by Laura Lam ****

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson ****

Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth ***

I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamera ****

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum ****

Frida Kahlo, 1907-1954: Pain and Passion by Andrea Kettenmann ****

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin **

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert ****

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen **

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (recommended by Genevieve Senechal) **

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker ***

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together In the Cafeteria?: and Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum ****

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur *****

Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl - A Woman’s Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationships by Sherry Argov  (recommended by Arielle Ridolfino) ***

The Elizas by Sara Shepard ***

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard ***

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas *****

Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas *****

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston ***

Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather ***

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black ****

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ****

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs ***

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown ****

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black ***

The Vegetarian by Han Kang ***

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris (recommended by Eileen Streeter) ****

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz ***

Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz ***

Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz ***

The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz ***

Trial of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz ***

The Last Word: A Spellman Novel by Lisa Lutz ***

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz ***

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale ***

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman ****

The Murder Business: High Profile Crimes and the Corruption of Justice by Mark Fuhrman **

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong (Lauren Duguid) ****

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham ***

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan ***

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon **

The Winter Sister by Megan Collins **

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly ****

The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini (recommended by Joseph Guillen) ****

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs **

Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham ****

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins ***

Bossypants by Tina Fey ****

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in American by Nancy Isenberg ****

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus ****

The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum *****

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep  *****

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston *****

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green ***

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes ****

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty (recommended by Rachel Dunn) *

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore *****

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus ****

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray ****

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson ****

The Mermaid by Christina Henry ****

Fruits Basket, Vol 1 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 2 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 3 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 4 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 5 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 6 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 7 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 8 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 9 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 10 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 11 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 12 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 13 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 14 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 15 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 16 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 17 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 18 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 19 by Natsuki Takaya *****

Fruits Basket, Vol 20 by Natsuki Takaya *****

The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (recommended by Julia Stenard) *

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman *****

Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia *****

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen ****

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green **

Yes Please by Amy Poehler ***

Say Nothing: a True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe *****

The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television by Evan L. Schwartz ***

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris ***

You by Caroline Kepnes ****

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz ***

The Silent Patient by Alexander Michaealides ***

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz ****

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz ***

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (recommended by Sarah Mullersman) *****

She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge ***

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater *****

Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color by Philip Ball **

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins **

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton ****

The Whisper Man by Alex North *****

The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor *****

Unsub by Meg Gardiner *****

Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner ****

Noir by Christopher Moore ***

Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig ****

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith/J. K. Rowling (recommended by Caitlin Markey) ***

The Hunger by Alma Katsu ***

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (recommended by Kiersten Spence) ****

As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner ***

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (recommended by Sheyla Ruiz) ****

The Pursuit of Miss Heartbreak Hotel by Moe Bonneau ***

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum ****

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite ****

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith/J. K. Rowling ****

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith/J. K. Rowling ***

[anonil88]

Abbey Lee for The Sunday Times (June 2021)

Can you tell she's modeled for Gucci?

Styling: Alicia Lombardini

Photography: Claire Rothstein

[Quick personal thoughts, I have realized I 1000 percent am vampire bait. Tick off the boxes of tall kinda scary Gemini and I'm like yea sure count me in. First of the long format fashion things I do that I'm posting here.]

“I can’t stand the constant sunshine... I’m a moody person and sometimes I just like the weather to reflect what’s going on on the inside.”

"That sulky intensity paired with an icy beauty has tended to dictate her acting roles. From the vicious (read: carnivorous) ageing model Sarah in the fashion horror The Neon Demon, to the vengeful clone in Elizabeth Harvest and the bigoted Christina Braithwaite in the HBO series Lovecraft Country, Lee often plays the high-class villain. Why does she get offered these parts? “I’ve worked as a model since I was 15, I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been to the edges of my darkness and I’m not afraid to access those parts of myself,” she says. “Or maybe I’m just a bitch and I don’t know it!”"

From what I've heard she really isn't so bad and she makes most putfits look very good. Even when they aren't to my personal liking, or anyone else's. Anyhow I really like the cover image for this shoot, she looks comfortable in a suit which not everyone does. Some people look like they are cosplaying as someone's father or guidance counselor. My favorite outfit/piece is the one with the Bottega coat. All of the Veneta coats are so nice and cost way too much for my wallet to ever agree on. Even on sale.

***************

It is actually a pretty short article so I'm going to share some quotes and summarize. Just in case anyone was interested but doesn't want to deal with the pay gap. There is a lot about needing a change of pace even before lockdown in the rainy London weather. She touches on being known as a pillar in an industry but being bored of said industry. Wanting more from a career started at the age of 15, needing a challenge. Her scouting was by chance, as she walked on a beach near her home in Australia. A tomboy looking for a chance to get out and see the world by stepping on a runway. Which she's done for ,as of several days ago, 19 years and she's walked or shot for almost everyone.

"At her busiest she starred in Gucci campaigns, appeared on the covers of numerous international editions of Vogue and took the coveted role of bride to close Chanel’s spring 2010 couture show. She hasn’t completely given up modelling — she fronted last year’s Bottega Veneta campaign, for instance — but she felt she had more to give."

In recent years she's taken up acting, one of her first roles was in Mad Max: Fury Road. And this year, she will be starring in The Forgiven "co-starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain." And the horror comic turned movie "Old" directed by M. Knight Shyamalan.

"Lockdown in London — spent alone, recovering from a break-up — brought lots to the surface. She filled ten diaries with poetry, drawings, observations, and began writing a one-woman play — then burnt them all one morning in a pot on her windowsill. “It felt ritualistic,” she says, laughing. “It ended up being a positive experience [but] I was having to process some pretty deep shit.”

Part of her process has also been processing the questions other people ask in your 30s as a woman. Hell they ask it in your 20s too and then you start asking yourself the question too. "....well, everyone kind of is having babies. I do really want kids. It’s really difficult being a woman. My sister made a decision, family was more important to her, and for me it was always work first. But we have a biological clock and as that clock starts ticking, you know…"

For now though she has got a puppy, well does a giant Cane Corso count as a puppy ?

**********************************

[livinglikebritishroyalty]

𝒟𝒶𝓃𝒾𝑒𝓁 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓉𝓉𝑜

♕ 𝐹𝓊𝓁𝓁 𝒩𝒶𝓂𝑒: Daniel St George (neé Sproule) Chatto

♕ 𝐵𝓸𝓇𝓃: Monday, April 22nd, 1957 in London, England

♕ 𝒫𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈: Thomas Chatto St George Sproule (Father) & Rosalind Joan (neé Thompson) Chatto (Mother)

♕ 𝒮𝒾𝒷𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: James Chatto (Brother)

♕ 𝒮𝓅𝓸𝓊𝓈𝑒: Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth (neé Armstrong-Jones) Chatto (M. 1994)

♕ 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹𝓇𝑒𝓃: Arthur Chatto (Son) & Samuel Chatto (Son)

♕ 𝐼𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒲𝓸𝓇𝓀: Interest: The Arts (Acting & Art). Work: The Marquise (1980) as Guy (The Duke’s Son), Quartet (1981) as Guy, Dick Turpin (1981 - 1 Episode: Dick Turpin’s Greatest Adventure - Part 3) as Manservant, Priest of Love (1981) as Aquitania Officer, To The Manor Born (1981 - 1 Episode: Back to the Manor) as Heatherington-Poole, Nancy Astor (1982 - 2 Episodes: 1. The First Lady & 2. A House in Buckinghamshire) as Billy Grenfell, Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story (1982) as Prince Andrew Duke of York, A Shocking Accident (1982) as Paul, Juliet Bravo (1983 - 1 Episode: Who Says The War Is Over?) as Billy Braithwaite, Heat & Dust (1983) as Party Guest, The Razor’s Edge (1984) as Wounded French Soldier #1, A Christmas Carol (1984) as William, The Shooting Party (1985) as John, Dutch Girls (1985) as Fforde, The Death of the Heart (1987) as Eddie, Little Dorrit (1987) as Tip Dorrit, & Elizabeth at 90: A Family Tribute (2016).