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lamphous · 2 years

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32 and 40

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

first things that come to mind for each. something I think all of them have in common, though, is that they're very simple, plain sentences of very few words, really, but that have such a specific sound in my head that makes them resonate and resonate

poem: "Much like god at the end." ("the tenor of your yes" by mary ruefle) — I love reading this poem aloud. the first two stanzas of this poem are utter bangers, and then the third is kind of like, okay, sure, up until this very last line that takes me the fuck out every time. it's that lull in part that makes it hit so hard, but also the simplicity of it. again, you gotta hear it out loud. the stanza break, the period, the fact that it's not even a full sentence. ugh.

novel: "I don't believe that" (women in love by dh lawrence) — idk you had to be there. no, seriously, I love this wretched little book, one of the best examples of "none of this would've happened if people could just be gay" and just— here, here's the whole thing

"But to make it complete, really happy, I wanted eternal union with a man too: another kind of love," he said. "I don't believe it," she said. "It's an obstinacy, a theory, a perversity." "Well—" he said. "You can't have two kinds of love. Why should you!" "It seems as if I can't," he said. "Yet I wanted it." "You can't have it, because it's false, impossible," she said. "I don't believe that," he answered. THE END

it just drives me truly insane. I mean, there's all sorts of things to be said for what it means for birkin to be able to confess a kind of uncertainty in a way, etc, but it's just. oh my god. an insane way to end a book. haunts my every day

and then I can't think of a fic one so here's a play instead lol: "I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?" (much ado) — just foundational. I don't remember specifically responding to it when I first read much ado in the 5th grade, but in middle school I saw it performed and it just wholly, wholly took me out. the actor just said it so plainly. like, holy shit, would you look at that. I love nothing more than you. isn't that wild?

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

bonus, bonus, bonus! here's just parts 8 + 9 of the very long "war of the foxes" by richard siken, which are my favorites:

8 The fisherman’s son knows nothing worth stealing. Perhaps, perhaps. He once put a cat in a cardboard box, but she got out anyway. He once had a brother he lost to the sea. Brother, dead brother, who speaks to him in dreams. These are a few things worth saying. He knows that when you snap a mast it's time to get a set of oars or learn how to breathe underwater. Rely on one thing too long and when it disappears and you have nothing—well, that’s just bad planning. It's embarrassing, to think it could never happen. It happens. You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to God. You can, but it does no good. Every spy knows this. Some say God is where we put our sorrow. God says, Which one of you fuckers can get to me first? 9 The spies meet at the chain-link fence and tell each other stories. A whisper system, a level of honesty. To testify against yourself is an interesting thing, a sacrifice. Some people do it. Some people find money in the street, but you can’t rely on it. The fisherman’s son is at the fence, waiting to see if he is useful. You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to happiness, it also does no good. The problem is figuring out which part is the path and which part is the happiness. It's a blessing: every day someone shows up at the fence. And when no one shows up, a different kind of blessing. In the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness.

send me a number!

#achievement unlocked: message answered #angelfishofthelord #i love how everyone sent me the poem one lol i appreciate it

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laraslandlockedblues · 6 years

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Writer Process Meme

Tagged by @jonogueira @inuy21 and @princessvicky01, thank you lovelies!

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Mostly novels, some short stories (I seem to have a problem writing anything short...whoops!) Poems tend to have too many rules for my style. Whenever I do write poetry it definitely shows off my chaotic neutral side, haha.

What genre do you prefer reading?

Any kind of fiction, really. I’m a sucker for classics, have a soft spot for historical romances, (Fun Fact: I’m actually related to Kathleen E Woodiwiss) and like mysteries and fantasy if they’re well done. But even any sort of general fiction - just give me beautiful words, complex characters, and an interesting plot and I’m good.

What genre do you prefer writing?

Turns out it’s romance, haha. For a while I struggled with where that left me, since I dream of writing best sellers and the next Great American Novel, but my best friend gave me some really wonderful, reassuring advice. Love and romance are such an important part of life for so much of humanity, that they’re just as important to write as any other kind of writing. After that I stopped doubting “just being good at romance writing” and embraced it.

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

I suppose I’m a write-as-I-go kind of person. It’s always all in my head - I know that I need to get from Point A to D to K and then fill in the bits in between as I go. Occasionally if I’m worried I’ll forget an idea I’ll jot down a loose plan, but normally I just sit and write. Some of my fics have been more planned out - Miss Grey had a pretty decent plan/outline up to a point to make certain I kept it all straight. Otherwise I just wing it.

What music do you listen to while writing?

Any music, I just have to have something going at all times. I have a massive writing playlist (maybe 600+ words?) that I just continually add new songs on to when I discover new music/remember old songs I like. Certain fics have had designated playlists - Even Doves Have Pride had its own, for example. But otherwise I just turn on my favorite music and write. I’ll admit to having a weird soft spot/habit of listening to Eminem sometimes when I write. No clue why, I just do.

Fave books/movies?

Oh dear. I’ll try to narrow it down to only three each, otherwise the list will be wayyyyy too long.

Fave Books: Dracula by Bram Stoker, Lady Chatterly’s Lover by DH Lawrence, and Shanna by Kathleen E Woodiwiss

Fave Movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Fountain, and Moonrise Kingdom

Any current WIPs?

Is this question supposed to be funny? It’d be easier to list my completed works, haha. Right now I’ve been really in the zone with my Abby/Ry fics, so mostly Just Like Heaven (my TGiM fic), Wicked Game (a companion piece to Just Like Heaven that has very little to do with DA, haha), and Your Arms Feel Like Home, my joint fic with @dismalzelenka. I’ve also been trying to throw in updates for Miss Grey and Beautiful Disaster when I can. I’m hoping to get back to After Rain soon as well as a few others of my Cullen/Evelyn fics. Hopefully.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

A long sleeve black shift dress and some cute little combat boots, too much black eyeliner, and rings.

Create a character description for yourself:

The trend seems to be a gif, which I think I’ll go with since I hate talking about myself xD

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

I don’t directly insert anyone I know, but I definitely draw inspiration from people I’ve met. Grayson is a combination of every “Nice Guy(TM)” that I’ve met, every guy who’s been upset when they realized I had “Friend Zoned” them. But he’s not based on one person, just stories and traits from people I’ve interacted with or heard stories about from girlfriends. John has characteristics from people I’ve met in different places, including businessmen who chatted me up when I was a bartender. But I’ve never written someone who was a direct copy of anyone I’ve known.

Are you kill-happy with characters?

I’m kill happy in my character’s back stories (sorry Evelyn, Abby, and Cecilia!) but so far my main fics haven’t really had any actual character deaths. I prefer happy endings.

Coffee or tea while writing?

Wine. And I guess coffee when I write during the day.

Slow or fast writer?

Possibly too fast, haha. I’ve been trying to make myself take my time with it recently instead of the way I was obsessively writing too much too quickly before. Trying to get back to fleshing everything out and getting into detail and context. But in general, I’m definitely more of a Stephen King type than a George RR Martin type of writer.

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Anywhere! Music definitely, shower thoughts, and then of course the writer trademark of drifting off during conversation with someone when a new idea strikes. My poor hubby has had to deal with me stopping him mid-sentence to jot down an idea real quick before he can continue his story waaaaaay too many times. Poor guy.

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

Being some sort of mage/sorcerer/warlock/witch something would be amazing. Being an alchemist or healer though would be fun as well.

Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

Most: Besides a happy ending, I’ll admit I’m a sucker for the “misunderstanding” romance where one or both of them misunderstand the other’s feelings/intentions/actions and think they could never be together/reciprocate their feelings. Until they realize they were wrong and get together, of course, hehe.

Least: Love triangles (for no reason other than drama, occasionally a love triangle makes sense) and poorly written female love interests (the kind who could be replaced by a lamp and the story would be the same). Ugh.

Fave scenes to write?

Smutty smut smut! Although pining and angst are both fun as well, but...I do love me some smut.

Most productive time of day for writing?

Late at night.

Reason for writing:

My brain is constantly going and going and going coming up with ideas and characters and scenes and stories. Before I started channeling it into fic I was struggling to focus it into a single story. But writing like I have been has helped me better channel the disquiet of my imagination into something productive. Plus I love it - creating makes me happy and insanely fulfilled.

Tagging (sorry for repeats and no obligation as always!): @windysuspirations @ladymdc @dismalzelenka @kagetsukai @shannaraisles @a-shakespearean-in-paris @shakespeareinthepark @amaranthine-daydream @felorinbailenshield2 @kawakaeguri @hylianblues @lechatrouge673 @fereldenpeach

#writer process meme #tag meme #thanks for the tag!

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timespakistan · 3 years

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I know why the caged bird sings | Art & Culture Nightingale With Lock. A young unkempt boy, paper in hand, utters an incomprehensible word, and weavers pick a certain shade of wool, and start adding it to the half-woven rugs on their looms. Different sounds – rather commands, make them replace colours, tie more knots, modify design, till an entire piece of the tapestry is complete. Anyone who has ever visited such a place is intrigued by this form of communication – a secret dialect shared by workers at carpet-weaving units across the Punjab, if not the entire country. Besides this mundane but practical and professional language, there is another language attached to carpets. Floral patterns and geometric motifs are actually codes for complex meanings and refer to faith, spirituality and sublimity. What we step on could be a garden, even Eden; and what we hang on the wall could be the Tree of Life. In both cases, extremely stylised, and with a rich chromatic scheme possible due to indigenous dyes. A number of artists have been inspired by the tradition of carpet making, but Parviz Tanavoli’s interest in this conventional method/imagery is more than cursory. Belonging to a society known for manufacturing rugs of high aesthetics, he collected carpets, and wrote several books on this practice including Kings, Heroes and Lovers; Lion Rugs and Persian Flatweaves. Tanavoli has also created works based on the vocabulary of carpet, screen prints from 1974, shown recently at Grosvenor Gallery London. A person familiar with Parviz Tanavoli’s art is aware that his inquiry into the Persian carpet is not a surface infatuation. Tanavoli’s entire corpus of work is rooted in the cultural expression of this region. He is known internationally for his sculptural work and referred to as the Father of Modern Iranian Sculpture. He has also produced paintings and scholarly works. One of his most celebrated sculptures consists of Persian word heech, which means ‘nothing’. He says, “the shape of this work, which is composed of three letters, fascinated me so much that for four or five years I worked on it, making many, many heeches.” At the Grosvenor Gallery, Tanavoli’s screen prints, intended as layouts for rugs and tapestries woven in Iran, were on display from April 26 to May 8. Though all these prints are almost 47 years old, they do not appear outdated just as traditional carpets do not date easily and sometimes acquire more meaning, significance and worth with the passage of time – not as antique pieces, but as part of everyday existence. A carpet by its essence, is not to be used as a museum exhibit, but handled as an essential possession of the household – to sit, step, recline and sleep on. It is only for outsiders that these rugs are exotic pieces, purchased and preserved like precious items; because to a traveller, a cultural tourist, a European connoisseur – who is unable to crouch, or comfortably sit cross-legged, and eat and hold conversation – these rugs have more decorative importance than any practical value. On the other hand, Parviz Tanavoli, born in 1937 in Tehran, investigates the practice from an insider’s position. With this privilege, he is able to deviate from the standard sensibility of a carpet. His prints recall the language of pop art, since these rugs, in a sense, are ‘popular art’ of the Near East and Central Asia. Tanavoli, admirably, has not followed the typical colour scheme, traditional motifs and conventional content. Employing a chromatic order that ranges from bright blues, greens, scarlet, yellows, vibrant turquoises, pinks, peaches and greys to stark black, has assembled a new narrative. Eventually, they were fabricated by tribal weavers, all interpreting original design differently and supplying their unique responses. Talking about this and his travel in the region from early ’60s to early ’70s, Tanavoli recalls: “I noticed that they weave their rugs by looking at another rug, and do not use cartoons like city weavers. This is how I decided to make my own rugs”. Purely because of this observation, preliminarily ideas of rugs – his screen prints, are open to manipulation, alteration and addition. In any case, when an image (or for that matter a text) is translated into another diction/medium, it is bound to change its contours – and context. Parviz Tanavoli’s pieces had potential for elaborations; and the exhibition catalogue documents how one print, Farhad and I, (originally a painting of the same title from 1973) was modified separately by Qashqa and Lori weavers. Probably the greatest contribution of Tanavoli is not continuing with a rich heritage, but bringing artisans into the realm of contemporary art, and recognising their aesthetic choices and respecting their pictorial solutions. In a sense, the intervention Tanavoli accepted in his work, is what he has done to the tradition of rug making. Tanavoli travels between intervention and invention in his art, particularly his 1974 prints. Proportions of these screen prints conform to the conventional rectangle of rugs; but it is the imagery that determines how an artist converses with tradition, and morphs it. His visuals are ingrained in the cultural history of Persia, but his approach is that of a modern, fearless, yet reverent painter. Akin to traditional mode of weaving stories in patterns, he also infuses a narrative in his art, a narrative that deals with language, love, and freedom. An important – and readable ‘picture’ in his ‘carpet-prints’ (or car-prints) is of the nightingale. Either caged in a block of buildings, or with a locked beak. This state of the bird signifies restrictions (one recognises the prophetic power of Parviz Tanavoli here. He was envisaging a scenario of repression and curbs on speech five years before it was witnessed after/with the 1979 Revolution in Iran. The nightingale also announces the presence of love, because in historic Persian (and Urdu) poetry, it is associated with passion, love songs and longing. Besides drawing the bird in profile, Tanavoli writes its Farsi name, bulbul. In another print, a poet – stylised to an unbelievable height – is holding the fowl. Another work, Oh, Nightingale, is filled with a composite figure, partly a human form with feet and legs, and partially modulated head of the bird, with windows and locks. Farhad Squeezing Lemon. For Tanavoli, the poet and the bird are companions, as witnessed in Poet & Bird, with its variation of human-type figurine holding a simplified version of birds. The artist recounts: “The poet… was the freest of all humankind. I consider him to be like birds in the sky, belonging everywhere”. His Last Poet of Iran looks like a document, of poet’s multiple variations, without names/identities. A print from the same series, Disciples of Sheikh San’an, with its architectural structures – and the caged bird – refers to a story from The Conference of Birds, the poem penned by Faridoddin Attar in the twelfth century. Regardless of the detail of his subject, characters, references, it is his way of transforming a living being and objects in delightful patterns that connects him to the tradition of carpet weaving – as well as to the convention of modern art. Mostly evident in his lion series (Lion and Sword, 2008; and Lion and Sun 2010), in which the ferocious animal (a symbol of political power, the king) is rendered like a simplified toy. In their colour, shapes and arrangement, Tanavoli’s people, birds, things, are at once traditional and modern. Created by an individual, who taught sculpture in Tehran and Minneapolis, and lived in Iran and Canada, the imagery is one of the most convincing proposal for a marriage between the past and the present. Because both the historic Persian rugs and Parviz Tanavoli’s prints made in 1974 are works of art that in the words of DH Lawrence, “will be for ever new”. The writer is an art critic based in Lahore. https://timespakistan.com/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings-art-culture/18742/

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finishinglinepress · 4 years

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FINISHING LINE PRESS BOOK OF THE DAY:

Naming the Invisible by Barbara Branch Bates

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/naming-the-invisible-by-barbara-branch-bates/

RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

Naming the Invisible explores the role that words play in keeping what makes life beautiful from disappearing into the everyday battles that stain the world with sorrow.

Barbara Branch Batesgrew up in San Francisco and graduated from University of California in Berkeley with a degree in Comparative and Italian Literature during the Free Speech Movement in the Sixties. She has worked for the Modern Language Association in N.Y.C. and for the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Center. She has one previous book of poems and some essays on DH Lawrence published in Italy where she resided for several years. She recently completed a collection of short stories, entitled, Missed Connections. She currently lives in Santa Barbara, Ca.

#lit #read #book #poetry

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a-bit-of-lit-blog · 7 years

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i noticed y’all have been enjoying my novel masterposts. so im just going to keep posting because im obsessed with books like that T.T

for my study-like-rory studyblr friends who want to read all the books mentioned in gilmore girls (because hello?? who doesn’t??), here’s a list! pls let me know if i missed a book, but i think it’s quite a complete list! enjoy!!

1984 – George Orwell

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser

Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank

Archidamian War – Donald Kagen

The Art of Fiction – Henry James

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

Atonement – Ian McEwan

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Autobiography of a Face – Lucy Grealy

Babe – Dick King-Smith

Backlash – Susan Faludi

Balzac & the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Beloved – Toni Morrison

Beowulf – Seamus Heaney

The Bhagava Gita

The Bielski Brothers – Peter Duffy

Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women – Elizabeth Wurtzel

A Bolt From the Blue & other Essays – Mary McCarthy

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Brigadoon – Alan Jay Lerner

Candide – Voltaire

The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer

Carrie –Stephen King

Catch – 22 – Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

The Celebrated Jumping Frog – Mark Twain

Charlotte’s Web – EB White

The Children’s Hour – Lilian Hellman

Christine – Stephen King

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

The Code of the Woosters – PG Wodehouse

The Collected Short Stories – Eudora Welty

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

A Comedy of Errors – William Shakespeare

Complete Novels – Dawn Powell

The Complete Poems – Anne Sexton

Complete Stories – Dorothy Parker

A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Cousin Bette – Honore de Balzac

Crime & Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Crimson Petal & the White – Michael Faber

The Crucible – Arthur Miller

Cujo – Stephen King

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon

Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende

David and Lisa – Dr. Theodore Issac Rubin

David Coperfield – Charles Dickens

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

Deal Souls – Nikolai Gogol (Season 3, episode 3)

Demons – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller

Deenie – Judy Blume

The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson

The Dirt – Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mark, & Nikki Sixx

The Divine Comedy – Dante

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells

Don Quijote – Cervantes

Driving Miss Daisy – Alfred Uhrv

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

Complete Tales & Poems – Edgar Allan Poe

Eleanor Roosevelt – Blanche Wiesen Cook

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn

Eloise – Kay Thompson

Emily the Strange – Roger Reger

Emma – Jane Austen

Empire Falls – Richard Russo

Encyclopedia Brown – Donald J. Sobol

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

Ethics – Spinoza

Eva Luna – Isabel Allende

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathon Safran Foer

Extravagance – Gary Kist

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 911 – Michael Moore

The Fall of the Athenian Empire – Donald Kagan

Fat Land:How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World – Greg Critser

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson

The Fellowship of the Ring – J R R Tolkien

Fiddler on the Roof – Joseph Stein

The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom

Finnegan’s Wake – James Joyce

Fletch – Gregory McDonald

Flowers of Algernon – Daniel Keyes

The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathon Lethem

The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Franny and Zooey – JD Salinger

Freaky Friday – Mary Rodgers

Galapagos – Kurt Vonnegut

Gender Trouble – Judith Baker

George W. Bushism – Jacob Weisberg

Gidget – Fredrick Kohner

Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen

The Ghostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels

The Godfather – Mario Puzo

The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

Goldilocks & the Three Bears – Alvin Granowsky

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford

The Gospel According to Judy Bloom

The Graduate – Charles Webb

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

The Group – Mary McCarthy

Hamlet – Shakespeare

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Helter Skelter – Vincent Bugliosi

Henry IV, Part 1 – Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 2 – Shakespeare

Henry V – Shakespeare

High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbons

Holidays on Ice – David Sedaris

The Holy Barbarians – Lawrence Lipton

House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III

The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende

How to Breathe Underwater – Julie Orringer

How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Dr. Seuss

How the Light Gets In – MJ Hyland

Howl – Alan Ginsburg

The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo

The Illiad – Homer

I’m With the Band – Pamela des Barres

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Inferno – Dante

Inherit the Wind – Jerome Lawrence & Robert E Lee

Iron Weed – William J. Kennedy

It Takes a Village – Hilary Clinton

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan

Julius Caesar – Shakespeare

The Jungle – Upton Sinclair

Just a Couple of Days – Tony Vigorito

The Kitchen Boy – Robert Alexander

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 – Gore Vidal

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

The Legend of Bagger Vance – Steven Pressfield

Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis

Letters to a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – Al Franken

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens

The Little Locksmith – Katharine Butler Hathaway

The Little Match Girl – Hans Christian Anderson

Little Woman – Louisa May Alcott

Living History – Hillary Clinton

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

The Lottery & Other Stories – Shirley Jackson

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

The Love Story – Eric Segal

Macbeth – Shakespeare

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

The Manticore – Robertson Davies (Season 3, episode 3)

Marathon Man – William Goldman

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

Memoirs of Dutiful Daughter – Simone de Beauvoir

Memoirs of General WT Sherman – William Tecumseh Sherman

Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris

The Meaning of Consuelo – Judith Ortiz Cofer

Mencken’s Chrestomathy – HR Mencken

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare

The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

The Miracle Worker – William Gibson

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

The Mojo Collection – Jim Irvin

Moliere – Hobart Chatfield Taylor

A Monetary History of the US – Milton Friedman

Monsieur Proust – Celeste Albaret

A Month of Sundays – Julie Mars

A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

Mutiny on the Bounty – Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall

My Lai 4 – Seymour M Hersh

My Life as Author and Editor – HR Mencken

My Life in Orange – Tim Guest

My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult

The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

The Nanny Diaries – Emma McLaughlin

Nervous System – Jan Lars Jensen

New Poems of Emily Dickinson

The New Way Things Work – David Macaulay

Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich

Night – Elie Wiesel

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen

The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism – William E Cain

Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

Notes of a Dirty Old Man – Charles Bukowski

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Old School – Tobias Wolff

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

On the Road – Jack Keruac

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life – Amy Tan

Oracle Night – Paul Auster

Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood

Othello – Shakespeare

Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War – Donald Kagan

Out of Africa – Isac Dineson

The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton

A Passage to India – E.M. Forster

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition – Donald Kagan

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

Peyton Place – Grace Metalious

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Pigs at the Trough – Arianna Huffington

Pinocchio – Carlo Collodi

Please Kill Me – Legs McNeil & Gilliam McCain

The Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

The Portable Dorothy Parker

The Portable Nietzche

The Price of Loyalty – Ron Suskind

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Property – Valerie Martin

Pushkin – TJ Binyon

Pygmalion – George Bernard Shaw

Quattrocento – James McKean

A Quiet Storm – Rachel Howzell Hall

Rapunzel – Grimm Brothers

The Razor’s Edge – W Somerset Maugham

Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi

Rebecca – Daphne de Maurier

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm – Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant

Rescuing Patty Hearst – Virginia Holman

The Return of the King – JRR Tolkien

R is for Ricochet – Sue Grafton

Rita Hayworth – Stephen King

Robert’s Rules of Order – Henry Robert

Roman Fever – Edith Wharton

Romeo and Juliet – Shakespeare

A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf

A Room with a View – EM Forster

Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin

The Rough Guide to Europe

Sacred Time – Ursula Hegi

Sanctuary – William Faulkner

Savage Beauty – Nancy Milford

Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller – Henry James

The Scarecrow of Oz – Frank L. Baum

The Scarlet Letter – Nathanial Hawthorne

Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand

The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvior

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

Secrets of the Flesh – Judith Thurman

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell (1913-1965)

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

A Separate Place – John Knowles

Several Biographies of Winston Churchill

Sexus – Henry Miller

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafron

Shane – Jack Shaefer

The Shining – Stephen King

Siddartha – Hermann Hesse

S is for Silence – Sue Grafton

Slaughter-House 5 – Kurt Vonnegut

Small Island – Andrea Levy

Snows of Kilamanjaro – Ernest Hemingway

Snow White and Red Rose – Grimm Brothers

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy – Barrington Moore

The Song of Names – Norman Lebrecht

Song of the Simple Truth – Julia de Burgos

The Song Reader – Lisa Tucker

Songbook – Nick Hornby

The Sonnets – Shakespeare

Sonnets from the Portuegese – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

Speak, Memory – Vladimir Nabakov

Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach

The Story of my Life – Helen Keller

A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams

Stuart Little – EB White

Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust

Swimming with Giants – Anne Collett

Sybil – Flora Rheta Schreiber

A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Tender is the Night – F Scott Fitzgerald

Term of Endearment – Larry McMurty

Time and Again – Jack Finney

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffeneggar

To Have and to Have Not – Ernest Hemingway

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

The Tragedy of Richard III – Shakespeare

Travel and Motoring through Europe – Myra Waldo

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

The Trial – Franz Kafka

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

Truth & Beauty – Ann Patchett

Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom

Ulysses – James Joyce

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (1950-1962)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Unless – Carol Shields

Valley of the Dolls – Jacqueline Susann

The Vanishing Newspaper – Philip Meyers

Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

Velvet Underground – Joe Harvard

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides

Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Walt Disney’s Bambi – Felix Salten

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

We Owe You Nothing – Daniel Sinker

What Colour is Your Parachute – Richard Nelson Bolles

What Happened to Baby Jane – Henry Farrell

When the Emperor Was Divine – Julie Otsuka

Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee

Wicked – Gregory Maguire

The Wizard of Oz – Frank L Baum

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

OTHER RESOURCES:

19th Century Novels Masterpost

20th Century Novels Masterpost

21st Century Novels Masterpost

Rory Gilmore’s Reading List

Series Masterpost

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