#and orlando was also so great i feel like it's the only woolf novel that can actually be translated onto the screen

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Great Books About Gender Identity

Seeing some posts about how new-adult romance novels popularized by BookTok don't show genuine queer experience and largely tokenize queer characters. And look, the prose of these books is ass too. One of my reading interests is how themes of gender/masculinity/femininity interact with other elements in a novel, and with the culture from which the novel was written. I've read a lot of great books on the topic!

As a disclaimer, most of these books don't have explicit queer representation. I read a lot of old books where that wasn't a thing you could openly write about, but you could write about cultural perceptions of masculinity/femininity (a lotta people still didn't like this, but like, you usually weren't stoned for it), which is where modern queer theory and identity comes from! So if you want to feel understood by a novel, here are my book recs on gender, in no particular order:

The Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin: a series of children's fantasy novels that build the foundation for modern children's and YA fantasy (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, some Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson, etc.). Men and women's roles in society and relations with magic are a major theme in the series, and while no character is queer (though there's a reference late in the series about witches living together), characters are always bound or freed by the gender they express. Also, all the characters are black, which was unheard of at the time of the first book's publication (1968) and is frankly still unheard of today. And it's just a fun read!

The work of Virginia Woolf: My favorite author and one of the largest players in what we today call gender studies. Highly recommend Orlando, where the titular character changes inexplicably from a man to a woman halfway through the novel (it's tempting to call them "the first trans character," but the label feels disingenuous. Transsexuality as we know it didn't exist then, and Orlando didn't choose or want to switch genders. It just happened to them); A Room of One's Own, Woolf's essay on life as a woman author; and The Waves, a book less about gender identity and more about wholistic identity.

The work of Kate Chopin: Chopin is a huge player in starting the feminist literary movement of the 20th century, influencing the work of many authors on this list. If you can stomach Victorian prose, Chopin is for you!

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Plath's novel is written from an intimately feminine perspective and wrestles with questions of mental illness from such a perspective. A must-read.

The work of Oscar Wilde: Thrown in jail for a bit for likely being at least a little gay, Wilde's writing frequently riffs on and critiques gendered social customs. Highly recommend The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan, and definitely other stuff of his I haven't read yet.

The work of Madeline Miller: I think Circe is the only "BookTok book" I've read that I thought was good, and boy is it fantastic. Its ideas of gender feel a bit cliche or elementary at times (Circe sometimes reads like an "empowered girlboss" stereotype), but how it plays with this identity at the same time it plays with Circe's identity in her family and pantheon make this book special. And Miller really is a delightful prose stylist. Galatea is also pretty good, and I haven't read Song of Achilles yet.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham: based on Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham reprises Woolf's themes for a book set in the 90s! Great read, and another master of the craft.

The poetry of Sappho: The popular conception of Sappho is that she's this girlboss prodigal lesbian in a patriarchal society, which isn't true. There's definitely some truth there, but it's much more nuanced, and certainly Sappho couldn't conceive of the labels we put on her today and those labels' connotations. In any case, her poetry is some of the first, if not the first, love poetry from a feminine perspective.

Any piece of literature about slavery/colonialism written by a woman: This is a broad category, but the intersection of femininity and race is a broad topic which many writers fall into. You really can't go wrong here. My recs are Toni Morrison, Jean Rhys, Zora Neale Hurston, Oroonoko by Aphra Bein, and Jean Toomer. I still need to read Gwendolyn Brooks, Octavia Butler, and Alice Walker.

The work of Shakespeare: You can't go wrong here. Obviously not explicitly queer, but many of his plays deal with cultural gender perceptions and, of course, crossdressing! Twelfth Night is probably his strongest play on this front, but The Winter's Tale and Measure for Measure are both great here, and most of his plays have at least a little commentary on the gender front.

Leave other recs in the comments/rts! :)

#writeblr #writing #fanfic #bookblr #booklr #books #literature

[sunjoys]

finally started the promised brideshead revisited reread <3 some prelim thoughts :(under the cut bc i got a bit chattier than i was expecting):

i read brideshead for the first time in feb 2022, and i did "annotate" it (scribbled thoughts and notes in pencil along the margins), so i may post the notes i took from that first read during this revisit <3

i love the preface !! (written by waugh abt a decade after it was published) this bit in particular:

its def smth to keep in mind while reading, esp since brideshead is now considered one of The british-country-house novels (part of why saltburn is so compared to brideshead! the director said that brideshead was one of the books in that "genre" that served as reference for saltburn); the note abt the house being a sort of museum nowadays also reminds me of orlando (by woolf, 1928) vs orlando (film adaptation dir. potter, 1992) - a key setting of the story, the great house (an ancestral british home in the countryside, orlandos home) ends differently: in the 20s novel, orlando lives there with her husband. in the 90s movie, the house has been turned into a 'museum', orlando can only visit it from afar. def interesting, the way the british country house changes pre and post ww2!

also "a panegyric preached over an empty coffin" is interesting to keep in mind - waugh approached writing abt nobility w the mindset that it was basically gone - half mourning, half idolising. kinda reminds me of nick carraways approach to gatsby in the great gatsby ;; anyway i think this is interesting bc off the top of my head, most recent media abt the wealthy/nobilty is either satirical/critical or fluffy/idolising with no real teeth to it (rwrb, bridgerton?), or somewhere in between (whatever the fuck was going on in saltburn) ! so yeah this'll be refreshing ig for me ?? idk where im going with this.

also "these ancestral seats which were our chief national artistic achievement" makes me laugh a little when i remember charles, the narrator, becomes a painter, particularly of noble houses. like hmmm there's definitely something of the author in this narrator 🤔

i feel like i should have a third point and i can't think of any. um. oh yeah the prologue! I like how it starts with charles looking back at the military camp as he leaves it, its not a particularly striking first line but it def establishes that, well, charles has a thing abt looking back at places he can't really return to - a thing about revisiting places, you could say [studio audience boos as the drums chime sadly[

it's pretty bleak at the start tho; during my first read i probably wouldn't have gotten past this if i didn't have my pencil w me (the promise of being able to scribble jokes in the margin if it remained boring) (it did not remain boring, btw). ig that'll make the introduction of brideshead more striking?

i am very excited about this reread <3

#2023 jean revisits #<- my tag for this liveblog btw !! mute if u want to avoid spoilers / not b annoyed by me #brideshead revisited #probably won't tag everything w br unless it's like .... interesting #anyway sorry for bringing up saltburn a few times it got me thinking abt why a so unbrideshead story kept getting compared to brideshead #fundamentally brideshead and saltburn are just v different stories with the same initial setup!!!

[umass-digiturgy]

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

A prominent modernist writer best known for her novels, essays, diaries, and letters, and for her use of the stream-of-consciousness technique to weave the memories and interior thoughts of her characters into the narrative. As a result, her work is characterized by vibrant portraits of its main characters, and in particular for its nuanced and deep portrayals of the inner lives of women. Woolf wrote about the rapidly shifting technologies and gender roles of the time in which she lived. She also emphasized moving beyond framing experience in terms of binary oppositions, advocating instead for a “perpetual marriage of granite and rainbow” (“The New Biography”) and bringing a more imaginative approach to fiction.   

In particular, Virginia Woolf was interested in the idea of biography, and of exploring “an ordinary mind on an ordinary day” (from “Modern Fiction”) rather than people deemed “great” by society. In her essay “The Art of Biography”, Woolf wrote:

“The question now inevitably asks itself, whether the lives of great men only should be recorded. Is not anyone who has lived a life, and left a record of that life, worthy of biography – the failures as well as the successes, the humble as well as the illustrious.”

She ran Hogarth Press, a publishing house, with her husband Leonard Woolf, publishing writers like T S Eliot, Sigmund Freud, Katherine Mansfield, E M Forster, and of course the Woolfs themselves. The couple’s house was a hub for lots of intellectual activity, namely by the Bloomsbury Group, a group of artists, writers, and intellectuals who were massively influential in the early 20th century. 

In 1922, after the publication of her novel Jacob’s Room, the first of her more nontraditional works, she wrote in her diary: “There’s no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at forty) to say something in my own voice, and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.” Later that year, she notes further, “At forty I am beginning to learn the mechanism of my own brain – how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and work out of it.” Virginia’s most well-known novels are Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To The Lighthouse (1927), and one of her best-known essays is “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), a key work of feminist literary criticism that imagines a sister for William Shakespeare and examines the limitations placed on women who make art in comparison to men. She also originated the concept of the “Angel of the House” in her essay “Professions for Women”, a confined figure who must stay at home, perpetuate womanly virtues, and sacrifice for the men of the household; it is thought that this relates to her difficult  upbringing, with a father who was both a famous writer and also abusive to Virginia and her siblings. 

In terms of Virginia’s personal life, she struggled with depression throughout her life, experiencing multiple nervous breakdowns and periods of deep grief related to the death of her parents and brother. Virginia experienced romantic attachments to several women in her late teens and early twenties, including Madge Vaughan and Violet Dickinson (about whom Virginia wrote in her diary in 1922: “is love the word for these strange deep ancient affections, which began in youth and have got mixed up with so many important things?”). She met and began an affair with Vita Sackville-West around 1924, which eventually culminated in Orlando, a Biography (1928), frequently referred to as “the longest love letter in the English language.” 

Ultimately, as World War II’s threat to life in England grew, Woolf found herself unable to write any longer and took her own life in March, 1941. She left her husband, Leonard, this message: “I owe all my happiness in life to you. You have been so perfectly good.”

#Orlando

[all-drarry-to-me]

Queer book recommendations 📚

Okay, so I received this super nice ask, kindly requesting another list of book recommendations, but when I finally got around to answering it, Tumblr (being the hellsite that it is) ate the ask. Emi, I hope you know how thrilled I was to see that in my inbox — not only have you read some of my favorite books based on my recommendation, but you liked them enough to ask for more! I’m happy to put together another list, and please feel free to message me at any time to talk about books!

Without further ado (and in no particular order), here’s part two of some of my favorite queer books:

1. All for the Game trilogy by Nora Sakavic: I could talk about this series for ages. Listen, I know it’s problematic: they’re not the most well-written books, the plot is insane and there’s a whole host of trigger warnings that go with the series. It focuses on college athletes, who come together through Exy, a made-up sport that the mafia is involved in. Somehow, despite all of that, I managed to fall in love with the series quite quickly. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before, and the characters — even with their numerous flaws — really drew me in. The found family trope is so well executed (I couldn’t help but root for the Foxes throughout the series), then I absolutely love the way they handle consent. Of the core characters, there’s two who are gay and one who’s definitely on the ace spectrum, though it’s not outright stated in the book. And while I said they’re not the most well-written series, which I do stand by, there’s also a handful of BEAUTIFUL lines from the books.

2. “Running with Lions” by Julien Winters: This is the only other sports-themed book on the list, I promise! Some of my love for this book likely stems from my own years running around the soccer field — this takes place at a summer training camp, but that’s definitely not the only reason it’s on this list. I’m a big fan of enemies to lovers, and while this is more ex-friends to lovers, there’s definitely some animosity to be worked through when Emir unexpectedly shows up at the soccer camp. I love the way he and Sebastian bond, and the way their friendship evolves before becoming a more romantic relationship. There’s some standard coming-of-age vibes within the book, but the plot and the characters are interesting enough to help set it apart from others in the genre.

3. “Orlando: A Biography” by Virginia Woolf: This one is a little different than the others on the list, but I wouldn’t recommend it any less. I feel a little in love with Virginia Woolf over the past year and, of her books that I’ve read, this one really stands out. It’s from the 1920s and features a main character who lives for 300+ years — and who’s trans (Orlando is born male, then wakes up one day as female). With the way time works and the plot itself, it’s a bit strange, but I found it captivating, and the whole thing is a love letter to Vita Sackville-West, another writer with whom Woolf was in a relationship with. (Don’t get me started on their relationship — there’s a book of love letters between the two of them that’s achingly beautiful, but the book is hard to find.)

4. “Upside Down” by N. R. Walker: This is trope-y and wonderful and I would highly recommend. It has issues with pacing, but it made me genuinely happy as I was reading it. I finished it in a day, maybe two, because I couldn’t put it down — and I have two of the author’s other books in my Barnes & Noble cart as I’m typing this. In “Upside Down,” both of the main characters are ace; one is sure of his identity and the other is just starting to figure it out, and they work to navigate that together. It’s sweet and a quick read if you’re looking for something fairly fluffy.

5. Iron Breakers trilogy by Zaya Feli: If you take the plot from Captive Prince and mix it with the writing of All for the Game, that’s a close approximation of Iron Breakers. The main character is hard to like at times (he has a lot of growing up to do) and the plot isn’t groundbreaking — there’s a lot of similarities to Captive Prince — but there’s also a lot of positives the series has going for it. The world building is really interesting, the love interest is wonderful and the series has some compelling twists. The first book is free through Nook and I bought the second two immediately after finishing it, then could not put those down until I was done!

6. “Olivia” by Dorothy Strachey: There’s not enough wlw romance on here, which is one of the reasons I wanted to add “Olivia.” It’s another one that’s slightly different than the others on the list; it was originally published in the 1940s and is loosely based on the author’s own life, telling the story of a girl who goes to finishing school and falls in love with her teacher. It’s the story of first love, and forbidden love at that.

7. “Cemetery Boys” by Aiden Thomas: This book absolutely worth a read — Yadriel is trans, and is trying to prove to his family that he’s a “real” man by summoning a ghost to help solve his cousin’s murder. Instead, he summons Julien, then proceeds to fall for the ghost while trying to help Julien figure out how he died. Thomas creates such an interesting world within the book and the three main characters (Yadriel, Julien and Yadriel’s cousin/best friend Maritza) are so much fun together.

8. “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli: Look, I think most people have heard of, if not read, this book but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it on my list. It was actually recommended to me last time I made a queer rec list and it didn’t disappoint. In some ways, it’s a relatively standard coming out novel, but it has some really interesting differences. The way in which Simon is forced to come out makes the plot unique, and I love how supportive Simon’s family is — there are so many books where the character comes out and is subsequently kicked out, and it was nice to see a different take (I may have cried a little at that point, but that’s neither here nor there). If you haven’t read it, I’d definitely recommend.

9. Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo: This is like, “Ocean’s Eleven,” but with teenagers. I liked the first book slightly better than the second, but they’re both great — they focus on a group of six planning an elaborate heist, with Kaz as the leader of their little gang. Each character is really well-developed, and both the plot and the world-building are first class. There’s a mlm romance on the side, so this one’s a bit more subtly queer than some of the other recs, but they’re still great books.

10. “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by T.J. Klune: This book is wonderful in so many ways. It’s focused on Linus Baker, who’s sent on a classified mission to a magical orphanage, where six “dangerous” children live with their caretaker, Arthur Parnassus. The characters — all of them, big and small — are compelling and interesting; they’re well-thought out and unique, which I think is a huge strength of Klune’s, visible in this book and the others I’ve read by him. Linus and Arthur are a bit older (in their 40s) and I love the way that contributes to their relationship and their character development, then the plot is somewhat simple, but the characters and the world are compelling enough that you don’t need any major twists or turns.

Next on my to-read list is “The Mercies” by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, which I’m absolutely psyched about, and I’m counting down the days until “One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston is released.

(You asked if I've read anything by Seanan McGuire — I haven't; any recs for what to start with?)

Please let me know if you ever want more recs and I’ll be happy to throw some titles out there, and I'd love to know what you think if you end up reading any of these!

#dot posts #reading

[petruchio]

book recs!!!!!!! okay you never have to rec contemporary fiction ever if you prefer something else. i love some contemporary stuff but weird and strange pre-1900 fiction IS what we want and need. and so is early 1900s stuff like -- idk, virginia woolf. who can also be pretty strange, esp considering orlando. also genre fiction? ya and mg? yes. go for it! some of us are simply too cool to only care about cool books

OOOH yes i love some virginia woolf like you def have to be in the right headspace to read it but its so amazing if you can really get into it!! like once i read the waves on a flight and i had no distractions and the lights were low but it was so comforting and the hum of the airplane was buzzing all around me and i swearrrr i had like a transcendental experience reading that book like GOD

and YEAH you're so right!! i always feel like i get stuck telling everyone to read homegoing and there, there because those are the two pieces of contemporary lit that i read and i liked but i also feel like are ~cool enough~ to recommend to people BUT YEAH there is just so much out there to read

the problem is a lot of the things that i like reading, i feel like i like reading in a classroom setting or i like reading them for like really specific reasons that i'm not sure translate to "i think other people should read this too"

like ok for example i always say i love reading this translation of sir gawain and the green knight because it maintains a lot of the alliteration from the middle english and it really helps you understand why alliteration as a form is so unique and special SPECIFICALLY for the linguistic structure of english as a language. but that isn't me saying like "i think people should read this for pleasure" like i mean you CAN and i think honestly it's one of the more entertaining pieces we have from early english lit (like ok sure we've all read beowulf but sir gawain is a great poem TOO) and yeah like i love it but it's not necessarily something i would bring up as like a book rec??? idk if that makes sense but that's why i struggle to have coherent recommendations because i feel like the things i like are very context dependent

then the other problem a lot of the stuff i read in college was just like, the canon, which is terrible to recommend because 1 its the canon so everyone knows about it and 2 it upholds white male western supremacy in english lit and i DO support trying to dismantle that and the reason i ended up reading so much of it was because i was specializing in shakespeare so it just kind of happened that way (and plus i do think it was good for me personally to get at least some sense of the canon, i do think it's hard because so many modern works use those works as a frame of reference and so whenever you're trying to dismantle it it's frustrating because you end up still needing to read it -- it's like how you kind of have to know at least some basic bible stuff to get a lot of references in british literature even if you don't necessarily want to uphold that christian structure, you just kind of end up needing to know a lot of it. so it's so hard anyway this is just me rambling at this point so i will stop lol, but basically my point is i feel like i've spent the past few years doing more of a broad education in canonical literature so i wasn't really reading a lot of books that i feel like people wouldn't have heard of already. and when i was it was like weird offshoot works from the 18th century that were just bizarre)

anyway a book i read for pleasure recently that has like absolutely no significance or coolness but i just liked how it was written was a book called "miss you" by kate eberlen and it was just a fairly typical romance novel about these two people in italy and the uk. and it was cute that's literally it i didn't have any further thoughts about it i was just like that was nice! and i moved on lol

#answered #anonymous

[thecoleopterawithana]

When he wanted to, John could be an avid reader, and he decided to read every book in the house. In the afternoons we sat by the pool and read quietly. John became obsessed by two books Tony King had given him as gifts, Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Nigel Nicholson’s Portrait of a Marriage, which Tony said would remind John of his marriage to Yoko. John loved the Thompson book, a seamy study of a drug-involved journalist investigating the underbelly of America, and became obsessed with the notion of starring in a film version of the book. On the other hand Portrait of a Marriage really disturbed him. The book was an account of the fifty-year marriage of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, both of whom were bisexual and continually unfaithful to each other, yet were able to evolve a relationship of great depth and longevity despite the incompleteness of their marriage. John was very distressed by the theme of sexual incompatibility in the midst of great emotional attraction and the fact that no matter how hard one tries, a marriage may always remain incomplete.

In May Pang’s Loving John (1983).

-

[My profound gratitude goes to @eppysboys, who’s going through this insightful book and took the time to bring this gem to my attention.]

-

Regarding Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively.

The novel lacks a clear narrative and frequently delves into the surreal, never quite distinguishing between what is real and what is only imagined by the characters. The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race for an unnamed magazine. However, this job is repeatedly obstructed by their constant use of a variety of recreational drugs, including LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic experiences, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of both the "American Dream" and the '60s counterculture in a city of greed. 

The preface quotes Samuel Johnson: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." The quotation alludes to the protagonists' profuse drug use in escaping the coarse realities of American life; passages detail the failed counterculture, people who thought drug use was the answer to society's problems. The contradiction of "solace in excess" is thematically similar to The Great Gatsby. Thompson posits that his own drug use (unlike Timothy Leary's mind-expansion experimentation drug use) is intended to render him a mess; that he is the poster boy of a generation of "cripples and seekers..."; their erratic behaviour depicts the restless failure his generation feels. Throughout Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the protagonists go out of their way to degrade, abuse, and destroy symbols of American consumerism and excess, while Las Vegas symbolizes the coarse ugliness of mainstream American culture. [Source]

I've seen through junkies, I been through it all / I've seen religion from Jesus to Paul / Don't let them fool you with dope and cocaine / No one can harm you, feel yer own pain

LADD: What happened to the in-quotes “revolution”?

JOHN: Not the physical revolution, but the whole game that was going on? [pause] I think, in one way, all of us were under a slight illusion that we might… Maybe it wasn’t an illusion, and maybe had we pushed harder, we would’ve gotten what we wanted, but I’m not sure we – anybody really knew what we wanted. We knew we didn’t like what was happening, but nobody knew quite what – what it was that we wanted. ‘Cause we’d never had it.

— Interview w/ Jim Ladd. (October 10th, 1974) 

[John talking about waking up from the dream that was the idealism of the 60s as a metaphor for waking up from the dream of his own life]

-

About Portrait of a Marriage:

Vita Sackville-West, novelist, poet, and biographer, is best known as the friend of Virginia Woolf, who transformed her into an androgynous time-traveler in Orlando. The story of Sackville-West's marriage to Harold Nicolson is one of intrigue and bewilderment. In Portrait of a Marriage, their son Nigel combines his mother's memoir with his own explanations and what he learned from their many letters. Even during her various love affairs with women, Vita maintained a loving marriage with Harold. Portrait of a Marriage presents an often misunderstood but always fascinating couple. [Source]

The classic story of the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, and a unique portrait of the Bloomsbury Group. The marriage was that between the two writers, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the portrait is drawn partly by Vita herself in an autobiography which she left behind at her death in 1962 and partly by her son, Nigel. It was one of the happiest and strangest marriages there has ever been. Both Vita and Harold were always in love with other people and each gave the other full liberty 'without enquiry or reproach', knowing that their love for each other would be unaffected and even strengthened by the crises which it survived. This account of their love story is now a modern classic. [Source]

Even though I have not read this book, I can’t help but wonder if the assessment that the marriage was “incomplete” in the absence of sex and/or monogamy was perhaps not a feeling expressed by the participants, but rather a projection of John’s own anxieties. 

John was very distressed by the theme of sexual incompatibility in the midst of great emotional attraction and the fact that no matter how hard one tries, a marriage may always remain incomplete.

The phrasing of the issue is so on point, that despite May’s developed emotional intelligence, these ideas appear to me as having been expressed by John himself (whose indulging in deep introspecting often made him quite apt at identifying his feelings).

It’s just handy to fuck your best friend. That’s what it is. And once I resolved the fact that it was a woman as well, it’s all right. We go through the trauma of life and death every day so it’s not so much of a worry about what sex we are anymore.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Jonathan Cott for Rolling Stone: Yoko Ono and her sixteen-track voice. (March 18th, 1971)

It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists. [...] It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know? I mean, not counting love and all the things on the side, just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist and all the joint inspiration, and then we can hold hands too, right?

— John Lennon, interview w/ Sandra Shevey. (Mid-June?, 1972)

#John could be an avid reader #Thinking like a writer all the time #you may say i'm a dreamer #the dream is over #i still believe all you need is love #I need a fix cus I'm going down #i'm not a homosexual or we could have had a homosexual relationship #I'm just a jealous guy #the person i actually picked as my partner #johnny #macca #May Pang #the lost weekend #3rd verse #1974 #quote #meta #my stuff #Tony King #yoko ono

[wildeoaths]

LGBTQ Book & Film Recommendations

Hello! As someone who tries to read widely, it can sometimes be frustrating to find good (well-written, well-made) LGBTQ+ works of literature and film, and mainstream recommendations only go so far. This is my shortlist. 

Some caveats: 1) I have only watched/seen some of these, though they have all been well-received.

2) The literature list is primarily focused on adult literary and genre fiction, since that is what I mostly read, and I feel like it’s easier to find queer YA fiction. Cece over at ProblemsOfABookNerd (YT) covers a lot of newer releases and has a YA focus, so you can check her out for more recommendations.

3) There are a ton of good films and good books that either reference or discuss queer theory, LGBTQ history and literary theory. These tend to be more esoteric and academic, and I’m not too familiar with queer theory, so they’ve largely been left off the list. I do agree that they’re important, and reading into LGBTQ-coding is a major practice, but they’re less accessible and I don’t want to make the list too intimidating.

4) I linked to Goodreads and Letterboxd because that’s what I use and I happen to really enjoy the reviews.

Any works that are bolded are popular, or they’re acclaimed and I think they deserve some attention. I’ve done my best to flag potential objections and triggers, but you should definitely do a search of the reviews. DoesTheDogDie is also a good resource. Not all of these will be suitable for younger teenagers; please use your common sense and judgement.

Please feel free to chime in in the replies (not the reblogs) with your recommendations, and I’ll eventually do a reblog with the additions!

BOOKS

> YOUNG ADULT

Don’t @ me asking why your favourite YA novel isn’t on this list. These just happen to be the picks I felt might also appeal to older teens/twentysomethings.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - poetry.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender - trans male teen protagonist. 

Red, White & Royal Blue

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue

The Raven Boys (and Raven Cycle)

> LITERATURE: GENERAL

This list does skew M/M; more NB, trans and WLW recommendations are welcomed!

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. One of the most acclaimed contemporary LGBTQ novels and you’ve probably heard of it. Will probably make you cry.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. Portrait of a middle-aged gay man.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. M/M affair, British student high society; definitely nostalgic for the aristocracy so be aware of the context.

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. It’s somewhat controversial, it’s gay, everyone knows the film at least.

Cronus’ Children / Le Jardin d'Acclimation by Yves Navarre. Winner of the Goncourt prize.

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran. A young man in the 1970s NYC gay scene. Warning for drugs and sexual references.

Dorian, An Imitation by Will Self. Adaptation of Orscar Wilde’s novel. Warning for sexual content.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Two wlw in the 1980s. Also made into a film; see below.

Gemini by Michel Tournier. The link will tell you more; seems like a very complex read. TW for troubling twin dynamics.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Another iconic M/M work.

Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey. A queer punk reimagining of Peter Pan. Probably one of the more accessible works on this list!

Lie With Me by Philippe Besson. Two teenage boys in 1980s France.

Maurice by E. M. Forster. Landmark work written in 1914. Also made into a film; see below.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. An expansive (and long) novel about the story of Cal, a hermaphrodite, by the author of The Virgin Suicides.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Plays with gender, time and space. Virginia Woolf’s ode to her lover Vita Sackville-West. What more do you want? (also a great film; see below).

Oscar Wilde’s works - The Picture of Dorian Gray would be the place to start. Another member of the classical literary canon.

Saga, vol.1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Graphic novel; warning for sexual content.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg. An acclaimed work looking at working-class lesbian life and gender identity in pre-Stonewall America.

The Holy Innocents by Gilbert Adair. The basis for Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003). I am hesitant to recommend this because I have not read this, though I have watched the film; the M/M dynamic and LGBTQ themes do not seem to be the primary focus. Warning for sexual content and incestuous dynamics between the twins.

The Animals At Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey. Plays with gothic elements, set during WW2, F/F elements.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. References Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Probably a good idea to read Virginia Woolf first.

The Immoralist by André Gide. Translated from French.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline MIller. Drawing from the Iliad, focusing on Achilles and Patroclus. Contemporary fantasy that would be a good pick for younger readers.

The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. Gay life pre-AIDS crisis. Apparently contains a fair amount of sexual content.

What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell. A gay man’s coming of age in the American South.

> LITERATURE: WORLD LITERATURE

American and Western experiences are more prominent in LGBTQ works, just due to the way history and the community have developed, and the difficulties of translation. These are English and translated works that specifically foreground the experiences of non-White people living in (often) non-Western societies. I’m not white or American myself and recommendations in this area are especially welcomed.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. The memoirs and essays of a queer black activist, exploring themes of black LGBTQ experiences and masculinity.

A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian. Female communities and queer female characters in a Bangalore slum. A very new release but already very well received.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. Coming-of-age in post-WW1 Japan. This one’s interesting, because it’s definitely at least somewhat autobiographical. Mishima can be a tough writer, and you should definitely look into his personality and his life when reading his work.

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi. A family saga told against the backdrop of Iranian history by a queer Iranian woman. Would recommend going into this knowing at least some of the political and historical context.

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones. A coming-of-age story and memoir from a gay, black man in the American South.

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Another acclaimed contemporary work about the dynamics of abuse in LGBTQ relationships. Memoir.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Contemporary black British experience, told from the perspectives of 12 diverse narrators.

> POETRY

Crush by Richard Siken. Tumblr loves Richard Siken, worth a read.

Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich.

He’s So Masc by Chris Tse.

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson. The best presentation of Sappho we’re likely to get.

Lord Byron’s works - Selected Poems may be a good starting point. One of the Romantics and part of the classical literary canon.

Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. The explicitly lesbian poems are apparently in the les fleurs du mal section.

> MEMOIR & NONFICTION

And The Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. An expansive, comprehensive history and exposure of the failures of media and the Reagan administration, written by an investigative journalist. Will probably make you rightfully angry.

How to Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France. A reminder of the power of community and everyday activism, written by a gay reporter living in NYC during the epidemic.

Indecent Advances: The Hidden History of Murder and Masculinity Before Stonewall by James Polchin. True crime fans, this one’s for you. Sociocultural history constructed from readings of the news and media.

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker. It’s illustrated, it’s written by an academic, it’s an easier introduction to queer theory. I still need to pick up a copy, but it seems like a great jumping-off point with an overview of the academic context.

Real Queer America by Samantha Allen. The stories of LGBTQ people and LGBTQ narratives in the conservative parts of America. A very well received contemporary read.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. Gender, pregnancy and queer partnership. I’m not familiar with this but it is quite popular.

When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan. LGBTQ history of Brooklyn from the nineteenth century to pre-Stonewall.

FILMS

With films it’s difficult because characters are often queercoded and we’re only now seeing films with better rep. This is a shortlist of better-rated films with fairly explicit LGBTQ coding, LGBTQ characters, or made by LGBTQ persons. Bolded films are ones that I think are likely to be more accessible or with wider appeal.

A Single Man (2009) - Colin Firth plays a middle-aged widower.

Blue Is The Warmest Colour (2013) - A controversial one. Sexual content.

Booksmart (2019) - A pretty well made film about female friendship and being an LGBTQ teen.

Boy Erased (2018) - Warning for conversion therapy.

BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017) - Young AIDS activists in France.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Cowboy gays. This film is pretty famous, do you need more summary? Might make a good triple bill with Idaho and God’s Own Country.

Cabaret (1972) - Liza Minelli. Obvious plug to also look into Vincent Minelli.

Calamity Jane (1953) - There’s a lot that could be said about queer coding in Hollywood golden era studio films, but this is apparently a fun wlw-cowboy westerns-vibes watch. Read the reviews on this one!

Call Me By Your Name (2017) - Please don't debate this film in the notes.

Caravaggio (1986) - Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton are in it. Rather explicit.

Carol (2015) - Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are lesbians in 1950s America.

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) - Hard to summarise, but one review calls it “lesbian birdman” and it has both Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in it, so consider watching it.

Colette (2018) - About the bi/queer female writer Colette during the belle epoque era. This had Keira Knightley so by all rights Tumblr should love it.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - Lesbian love in 1920s/80s? America.

God’s Own Country (2017) - Gay and British.

Happy Together (1997) - By Wong Kar Wai. No further explanation needed.

Heartbeats (2010) - Bi comedy.

Heartstone (2016) - It’s a story about rural Icelandic teenagers.

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015) -  Queer teens and religious themes.

Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974) - Early Chantal Akerman. Warning for sexual scenes.

Kill Your Darlings (2013) - Ginsberg, Kerouac and the Beat poets.

Love, Simon (2018)

Lovesong (2016) - Lesbian and very soft. Korean-American characters.

Love Songs (2007) - French trio relationship. Louis Garrel continues to give off non-straight vibes.

Mädchen In Uniform (1931) - One of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality. A piece of LGBTQ cinematic history.

Maurice (1987) - Adaptation of the novel.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) - Heavy gay coding.

Milk (2008) - Biopic of Harvey Milk, openly gay politician. By the same director who made My Own Private Idaho.

Moonlight (2016) - It won the awards for a reason.

My Own Private Idaho (1991) - Another iconic LGBTQ film. River Phoenix.

Mysterious Skin (2004) - Go into this film aware, please. Young actors, themes of prostitution, child ab*se, r***, and a lot of trauma.

Orlando (1992) - An excellent adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, and in my opinion far more accessible. Watch it for the queer sensibilities and fantastic period pieces.

Pariah (2011) - Excellent coming-of-age film about a black lesbian girl in Brooklyn.

Paris is Burning (1990) - LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY piece of LGBTQ history, documenting the African-American and Latine drag and ballroom roots of the NYC queer community.

Persona (1966) - It’s an Ingmar Bergman film so I would recommend knowing what you’re about to get into, but also I can’t describe it because it’s an Ingmar Bergman film.

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) - Cult classic queercoded boarding school girls.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) - By Celine Sciamma, who’s rapidly establishing herself in the mainstream as a LGBTQ film director. This is a wlw relationship and the queer themes are reflected in the cinematic techniques used. A crowd pleaser.

Pride (2014) - Pride parades with a British sensibility.

Rebel Without A Cause (1955) - Crowd-pleaser with bi coding and James Dean. The OG version of “you’re tearing me apart!”.

Rocketman (2019) - It’s Elton John.

Rent (2005) - Adaptation of the stage musical. Not the best film from a technical standpoint. I recommend the professionally recorded 2008 closing night performance instead.

Rope (1948) - Hitchcock film.

Sorry Angel (2018) - Loving portraits of gay French men.

Talk To Her (2002) - By Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar.

Tangerine (2015) - About trans sex workers. The actors apparently had a lot of input in the film, which was somehow shot on an iPhone by the same guy who went on to do The Florida Project. 

The Duke of Burgundy (2014) - Lesbians in an S&M relationship that’s going stale, sexual content obviously.

The Gay Deceivers (1969) - The reviews are better than me explaining.

The Handmaiden (2016) - Park Chan-wook makes a film about Korean lesbians and is criminally snubbed at the Oscars. Warning for sexual themes and kink.

The Favourite (2018) - Period movie, and lesbian.

Thelma And Louise (1991) - An iconic part of LGBTQ cinematic history. That is all.

The Celluloid Closet (1995) - A look into LGBTQ cinematic history, and the historical contexts we operated in when we’ve snuck our narratives into film.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) - Adaptation of the YA novel.

The Neon Demon (2016) - Apparently based on Elizabeth Bathory, the blood-drinking countess. Very polarising film and rated R.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012) - Book adaptation. It has Ezra Miller in it I guess.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - No explanation needed, queer and transgressive vibes all the way.

They (2017) - Gender identity, teenagers.

Those People (2015) - They’re gay and they’re artists in New York.

Tomboy (2011) - One of the few films I’ve seen dealing with gender identity in children (10 y/o). Celine Sciamma developing her directorial voice.

Tropical Malady (2004) - By Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His is a very particular style so don’t sweat it if you don’t enjoy it.

Vita and Virginia (2018) - Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West biopic

Water Lilies (2007) - Celine Sciamma again! Teenage lesbian coming-of-age. 

When Marnie Was There (2014) - A Studio Ghibli film exploring youth, gender and sexuality.

Weekend (2011) - An indie film about young gay love.

Wilde (1997) - It’s a film about Oscar Wilde.

XXY (2007) - About an intersex teenager. Reviews on this are mixed.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) - Wonder what Diego Luna was doing before Rogue One? This is one of the things. Warning for sexual content.

#dark academia #book recommendations #film recommendation #lgbtq fiction #lgbtq film #lgbtq books #queer fiction #queer film #lgbtq #lgbt fiction #lgbt representation #queer representation #lgbt film #bookblr #filmblr #mlm #wlw #nblm #nblw #trans representation #richard siken #sappho #oscar wilde #lord byron #poc representation #lgbtq poc representation #literature #the library #mine #wildeoaths masterpost

[morningsound15]

I confess I've not watched most of the movies that u reblog gifsets of, but I'd like to; I just don't know where to start. What would ur top 5+ movies for the cinematically uneducated be? Best conditions for watching? Which should I start with, for any arbitrary reason? Hope ur day will be full of endorphins--endorphin anon

GOD i love this question so fucking much holy shit

y’all might not know but i minored in film studies so i am a true Film Hoe at heart. a problem w/ film studies (historically) has been that the movies ppl study tend to be primarily centered around white men. so u are not going to see any white male directors on this list! someone else can talk to u about them but i will not

         1. In the Mood for Love — Wong Kar-wai (2000)

Probably my fav movie of all time. The cinematography is beautiful, the story is aching and tragic, the musical suite that persists throughout the film will make you feel like time has been suspended. In Hong Kong in the 1960s, a man and woman discover that their spouses are having an affair together. Slowly, as they try to uncover the affair, they develop feelings for each other.

Idk that’s kind of a terrible summary I just love this movie so so much. Watch it late in the evening when you don’t have anywhere else to be. Watch it on a TV; turn off the lights and wrap yourself in a blanket and let the story carry you. Have snacks nearby because there is a LOT of food in this movie and you will want to eat it.

        2. Orlando — Sally Potter (1992)

Loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando. I love this movie because I love Tilda Swinton and I love how weird the music is and how beautiful the costumes and sets are and also because I love a little gender-fuckery in a movie. Basically a young androgynous nobleman named Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is given a large tract of land and a castle by Queen Elizabeth I, along with a shit ton of money, but only if he obeys her command: “Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old.” So he doesn’t. He lives for the next several centuries. One morning, in the 1800s, he wakes up to discover that he has transformed into a woman. And that’s all I’ll say about that!

Watch this movie during the daytime, in the winter, when there’s snow on the ground. Watch this movie with your friends, and split a couple bottles of wine. It’s sometimes funny and sometimes serious but always fun, and you’ll be surprised how invested in the story you get.

         3. The Handmaiden — Park Chan-wook (2016)

I mean this one goes without saying but it is potentially the greatest queer film every made. It’s absolutely stunning, South Korean cinema is extraordinary. This is a tale of conmans and high society and double-crossings and a woman falling in love with her maid and then having unbelievably hot sex with her… I’m not going to spoil anything more. It’s a loose adaptation of Fingersmith and you should just go right now and watch this movie immediately. Watch it 100 times.

         4. Howl’s Moving Castle — Hayao Miyazaki (2001)

This is a great movie. Hayao Miyazaki only really makes great movies. You might know Spirited Away — his most famous film — but my personal favorite has always been Howl’s. The world that Miyazaki is able to craft is vibrant, rich, and a fantastical steampunk dream. There’s magic, witches, a talking fire, and a house that walks through the countryside on its own.

Truly my recommendation for this is smoke a little weed and watch it for the art/animation. Watch it on a Saturday morning when the sun is out and you’re already feeling joyful. Watch it on a TV, if you can; it slaps harder that way.

         5. Daughters of the Dust — Julie Dash (1991)

It took until 1991 for a feature film directed by a black woman to be distributed theatrically in the U.S. For that reason and that reason alone we should all watch Daughters of the Dust (and everything Julie Dash ever makes). But it’s also a really stunning movie. It’s set in the early 1900s, and tells the story of 3 generations of women who live at Ibo Landing on St. Simons Island as they’re preparing to leave their homeland and migrate North. (Ibo Landing was the setting of a mass-suicide in the 1800s. Enslaved Igbo people from Africa refused to submit to slavery in the U.S. According to folklore + the story when they saw the fate that was awaiting them, all of the enslaved people from the boat turned around and walked together into the water to drown).

The storytelling is non-linear, the dialogue is sometimes hard to understand (there’s heavy use of the Gullah language and unusual sentence structure), the visuals are lush.

This movie is on Netflix! You can watch it right away! This is a good movie to watch on your computer (turn the subtitles on).

Honorable Mentions:

Cléo from 5 to 7 (dir. Agnès Varda, 1962) — The movie that birthed the French New Wave! Also I’d die for Agnès Varda. Also it’s in French so have subtitles on lol

Roma (dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2018, Netflix) — A movie reminiscent of the French New Wave! Almost certainly inspired by Agnès (the main character’s name is Cleo). Cuarón’s use of long-takes (which u might know from another great movie of his, Children of Men,) and ability to set up a shot that is layered in complexity for miles within the frame will leave you stunned and breathless.

#THANK YOU I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MOVIES #endorphin anon #asks #movies #these are some of my favorite movies of all time!!! holy shit

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

18 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018: Part 2 of 2

See Part 1 HERE

Little Woods dir. Nia DaCosta

This is the debut film of DaCosta’s but I was drawn in by the promise of the cast (the always wonderful Tessa Thompson and Lily James playing sisters) and the concept of siblings who smuggle in prescription drugs through the Canadian-American border. Sounds like it has a Frozen River type vibe and will hopefully have as much success as that movie did.

The Nightingale dir. Jennifer Kent

The Babadook was one of my favourite films of 2014 and I found it so original wonderful and terrifying that I’ve been eagerly stalking Kent’s IMDB page hoping for news of whatever she was going to deliver next. Her followup film is a tale of bloodthirst and revenge (yay!) a period piece set in Tasmania in 1825 when a young convict hires an Aboriginal man to help her avenge her family after they’ve been murdered.

Private Life dir. Tamara Jenkins

I really feel for women directors who got their start pre 2010. For some reason (well, let’s be real, the reason is sexism) they consistently seem to have huge gaps in their filmographies, a problem that is less likely to plague their more social-media savvy younger successors. Jenkins directorial debut came out in 1998. Two decades later she’s finally releasing her third film.

Like Nicole Holofcener, Jenkins is a great writer-director whose films hit hard because they dig deep into the character’s lives. While the plot of Private Life, about a middle aged couple struggling with fertility treatments, doesn’t necessarily set my heart on fire I still can’t wait to see what Jenkins does with the characters and I hope that I won’t have to wait another decade to see a new film by her after this one.  

The Souvenir I & II dir. Joanna Hogg

It took me a few tries to get into the work of Joanna Hogg, but once I saw Unrelated I was sold on her as a filmmaker. After a long-ish break (her last film was released in 2013) she’s back with a semi-autobiographical tale of a young film student who has an unhealthy relationship with a predatory man. It also stars Robert Pattinson who had quite a great run lately picking indie darling auteurs to work with. Hopefully his collaboration with Hogg will be as fruitful as his other recent work.  

The Tale dir. Jennifer Fox

I don’t even remember how I found out about this movie, but I first heard of it a couple of years ago and have been anticipating it since then. A loosely autobiographical film, the movie stars Laura Dern as Jennifer Fox, a woman who gradually realizes that the “relationship” she had with her coach as a child was actually sexual abuse. 

I spent last year frustrated that this film wasn’t being released earlier but maybe it was kismet that it only is getting a release in 2018 as Americans grapple with sexual harassment and the #metoo movement.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before dir. Susan Johnson

Look I’ll be honest. I’m getting really sick of teen movies. I’ve just seen way too many, most of them mediocre, and after awhile you can’t help wondering, why are there so many movies about what it means to be a teen girl but fewer ones about adult women? Are women just supposed to drop dead after 30? Are they supposed to lose all sense of personality, fun or individuality after motherhood? This got depressing fast, but I will say that I read the book for  TAtBILB and I got sucked into it despite my lack of interest in teen books. It was absolutely adorable and cute. The book is about a half-Korean half-white girl who ends up fake dating a boy in her class to prove that she is ABSOLUTELY not interested in her sister’s ex-boyfriend. You can tell where this is going.

All I can say is that I sincerely hope that the movie manages to capture how sweet the book was. It’s tropey and conventional for sure, but it has heart.

Vita & Virginia dir. Chanya Button

I’ve been tracking this movie for years since Romola Garai (one of my favourite actresses) was supposed to star in the film as Vita as in Vita Sackville-West, a writer who is best known for being the lover of Virginia Woolf and for inspiring the character of Orlando in West’s novel Orlando: A Biography. Since I’ve been tracking the films there have been so many casting and directing changes, but at last it’s being made! For real! There are set photos! Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki will play the titular lovers (Arterton will be Sackville-West and Debicki Woolf).

I’m rooting for this one so hard. The costumes are so lovely and the actresses are so talented. Every year it seems like only one lgbtq film is embraced by the mainstream. Could Vita & Virginia be that film for 2018? I hope so.

Where Hands Touch dir. Amma Asante

The story of how this came to be is actually quite sweet. Asante wrote the story over a decade ago but after a career slump caused by the 2008 financial crisis she had to let go of this film for awhile until she was able to build her career up again by directing two indie hits (Belle and A United Kingdom) before she finally got to film the movie she had wanted to do all along.

The film is about a young biracial (half black half white) girl living in pre-WWII Germany. There were a lot of negative reactions to the film because early press releases indicated that there would be a love story between the young biracial character (played by the always solid Amandla Stenberg) and a Nazi officer which turned out to be untrue (her love-interest in the film is a member of Hitler Youth which was mandatory at the time). Anyway I really hope people actually give this a shot instead of making knee jerk assumptions. I’ve enjoyed the films by Asante I’ve seen so far and I trust her to treat the characters in her film with sensitivity and compassion.    

A Wrinkle In Time dir. Ava DuVernay

Do I need to explain this one? I have long been an admirer of Ava DuVernay, but what really makes me excited about this one is the source material. A Wrinkle In Time is a book I adored as a kid, and I cannot wait to see it on the big screen for the first time.

#Lists #Little Woods #Nia DaCosta #A Wrinkle In Time #Ava DuVernay #Where Hands Touch #Amma Asante #Chanya Button #Vita & Virginia #To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #Susan Johnson #The Tale #Jennifer Fox #The Souvenir #Joanna Hogg #Private Life #Tamara Jenkins #The Nightingale #Jennifer Kent #Tessa Thompson #Lily James

[sapphicscholar]

hi so I didn't know who to ask but in my psych class we're learning about adolescent psychology, & there was this unit on developing interest in relationships. It went way into detail on how the brain changes during that time, which was interesting, but ofc my gay ass couldn't relate. at the end all it said was 'it's different for homosexuals.' I guess I'm wondering if you know of any way to learn about psychology relating to LGBT people? srsly im thirsty for anything in academia I can relate to

(same psych anon) that was a pretty specific question so I guess like do you have any info or know of any links/ websites/places to learn about lgbt history and lives and stuff like that in an academic way? bc I love school & learning but I’ve always wanted to learn more about myself and people like me, but they never teach that in schools.

Oh my gosh SO MANY THINGS! Okay, so, the psych stuff is pretty outside of my knowledge but I asked my gf (she does the science in this relationship while my gay ass just reads a whole lot of books), and she recommends Helen Fisher and looking at the researchers at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality or the Kinsey Institute, as well as The Sage Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies (it’s an online resource a lot of universities subscribe to). But I’d also say that as far as thinking about developmental narratives, LGBTQ memoirs are a great place to start, especially since so many of them go through their own experiences of having to confront this heteronormative, cis-centric narrative that just doesn’t fit them and their lives. 

So some good queer history authors are: John D’Emilio (comprehensive, if a bit male-centric), Lillian Faderman (writing all about lesbian history, including more recent history; very well-respected; she’s got some issues in her scholarship that by no means discount it as a whole, but I’m happy to talk more about if you want), Michael Bronski (his Queer History of the United States is really accessible), George Chauncey (it’s just of NYC, but still fun), Estelle B. Freedman, Foucault (though it’s not quite “history,” it’s a kind of history meets theory of regimes of power and how sexuality got tied up in that), Martha Vicinus (I adore her), Valerie Traub (goes all the way back to the early modern period), and so many others who really focus more on niche history, so I won’t list them here. There are some web resources, but I know a lot of them are databases that are subscription-based. I’ll see what I can’t dig up in the next couple of days as far as free websites. I know they exist; it’s just a matter of having the time to look…

Okay, you didn’t specifically say you were interested in literature but bc I taught literature and think it’s a great way to learn about the history of a group, I’m gonna list some anyway and you can feel free to disregard!

Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt (or Carol, depends on the year it was printed) – you can also check out the movie! I find the two to be complementary (the book gives you Therese’s POV almost exclusively, whereas the movie shows much more of Carol’s story) 

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home is her graphic novel/memoir that’s really excellent, but the comic strip that sort of launched her as a public persona (at least within the lesbian community) was Dykes to Watch Out For, quite a bit of which is available for free online

Henry James, The Bostonians – one of the first recognizable depictions of a queer female character in literature (not really…I’d trouble that as a professor, but that’s how it gets taught in general, and it was one of the first books where even contemporary reviewers were quick to note that there was something “wrong” or “morbid,” which was 19th C. code for what would come to be understood as lesbian sexuality, about Olive Chancellor) – free online, though it’s James at his most….Jamesian, which means it’s not that accessible

The poetry of Emily Dickinson! It’s all free online. There’s a ton of it, though much of it isn’t obviously queer

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room – gets into bisexual identity in a way a lot of works don’t do; on the sadder side…fair warning 

Virginia Woolf! Especially Orlando or Mrs. Dalloway – the former has been called “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature” (to Woolf’s longtime friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West) and deals with the fluidity of gender and time; the latter has quite a few flashbacks to the brief childhood romance of the protagonist and her friend. Both of them are great, but Woolf, as a modernist, can have a writing style that’s difficult to get into at first (for instance, time really isn’t stable or linear, which is something I adore about her, but definitely takes some getting used to). They’re both available free online through Project Gutenberg

Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness – it’s a classic, in the sense that it’s one of those books people sort of expect you to have read if you do lesbian literature. It’s certainly an interesting story and told well, but it’s not even close to a happy ending and is rather conciliatory to prevailing norms (though even still it was taken to the courts under the  obscenity laws) - free online, though!

Sarah Waters – a contemporary novelist who writes almost all historical fiction about queer women! Some of her stories are better known (e.g. Tipping the Velvet), but they’re pretty much all great. Varying degrees of angst, but definitely an accessible read

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts – sort of experimental in form (it’s fiction with footnotes!); it deals with a lesbian woman coming to terms with her partner’s transition and her own identity during the process 

E.M. Forster, Maurice – even though it was first drafted in the 1910s, Forster edited it throughout his life, and, given the subject matter, which was also autobiographical, and the prevailing attitudes at the time, the book was only published posthumously in the 70s

Colette’s Claudine series – it’s long (multi-volume) but sort of a classic – they’re all old enough to be free online, though the English translation is harder to come by 

Eileen Myles – lesbian poet and novelist – I’d recommend Inferno but some of her poetry is free online 

Rita Mae Brown – Rubyfruit Jungle and Oranges Are not the Only Fruit are both quite good, though, especially the latter deals with religiously-motivated homophobia, so I know at least my girlfriend, who dealt with a lot of that from her family, opted not to read it for her own mental health. 

Tony Kushner, Angels in America – this two-part play deals with the AIDS crisis in America – it’s been turned into a TV miniseries, a Broadway play, and a movie, some of which are available online

Really anything by David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs – both are gay authors who deal a lot with short stories (a ton of memoir/autobiographical stuff) – the former is a bit funnier, but they both have enough sarcasm and dry wit even in dark situations to make them fast reads 

Alan Ginsburg’s poetry 

Walt Whitman’s poetry (though it can be really fucking racist) 

Binyavanga Wainaina, One Day I Will Write About This Place – does deal with issues of sexual abuse as a warning 

Anything by Amber Hollibaugh (she writes a lot about class and butch/femme dynamics – quite a bit of her stuff has been scanned and uploaded online) 

Michelle Tea – was a slam poet; recovering alcoholic; fantastically funny and talented author and delightful human being if you ever get the chance to meet her or go to one of her readings

Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On – more a work of investigative journalism than anything, the work is a stunning indictment of the indifference of the US government during some of the worst years of the AIDS crisis, but it also provides a good bit of gay history 

Terry Galloway Mean Little Deaf Queer – deals with one woman’s experience of losing her hearing and navigating the world and the Deaf and deaf communities as a once-hearing person – she’s sort of acerbic and always funny;

Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex – grapples with intersex identity in a way that’s still far too rare in literature 

Theodore Winthrop, Cecil Dreem – just rediscovered about two years ago, this is one of the few pretty happy gay novels from the nineteenth century! Free online!

Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues – pretty clear from the title, but deals with a butch character’s struggles with gender identity (takes T to pass for a while, but then gets alienated from the lesbian community; eventually stops taking T, but still struggles with what that means for her) – Feinberg’s wife made it free online for everyone after Feinberg’s death (the book had a limited print run, which made finding copies both hard and expensive) 

Harvey Fierstein, Torch Song Trilogy – trilogy later adapted for film about an effeminate gay man (who also performs as a drag queen) and his life and family   

Oscar Wilde – his novels aren’t explicitly gay, but they often dance around it thematically, at least; his heartbreaking letter, De Profundis, which he wrote to his lover while imprisoned for “gross indecency,” is available online 

Anything by Dorothy Alison 

Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name - great as a memoir and a cultural history  

There’s so many more but this is so my jam I suspect I’ve already rambled too long

If you’re interested in film, here are a few: 

Paris Is Burning (a film about drag ball culture in NYC) 

Fire – Deepa Mehta (it’s on YouTube in the US) 

Boys Don’t Cry – there is a lot of homophobia and transphobia in the film, so it’s definitely one you’ll want to be in the right mindset to watch (I, for one, have only watched it once) 

But I’m a Cheerleader – over-the-top mockumentary-esque film that satirizes conversion therapy and the Christian “documentaries” that claimed to showcase their successes (RuPaul is in it as well) 

Desert Hearts – one of the earliest films to leave open the possibility of a happy ending for the lesbian couple 

Hedwig and the Angry Itch – deals with gender identity and feelings of not belonging (also a fabulous musical) 

Philadelphia – about one man’s experience of discrimination while dying of AIDS 

There are plenty of lighter films, but I figure these tend to also talk more seriously about some issues as well

I don’t know if anyone but me made it to the end of this post, but there’s also so much fun queer theory out there that I won’t get into here, but I’m always up for giving more recommendations!

#ask me #anon #professor rambles #lgbtq history #lgbtq literature #book recommendations #film recommendations

[theboywhocriedbooks]

Orlando by Virginia Woolf 

[Goodreads]

Virginia Woolf described "Orlando" as "an escapade, half-laughing, half-serious; with great splashes of exaggeration," but many think Woolf's escapade is one of the most wickedly imaginative and sharply observed considerations of androgyny that this century will see. Orlando is, in fact, a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, he is a young male aristocrat at the beginning of the story - and a modern woman four centuries later. The hero-heroine sees monarchs come and go, hobnobs with great literary figures, and slips in and out of each new fashion. Woolf presents a brilliant pageant of history, society, and literature as well as subtle appreciation of the interplay between endings and beginnings, past and present, male and female. 

Thoughts: 

This was a wild read. I read it for my queer literature and film class but I have been meaning to get my hands on it for a while before this actually. I’m qualifying it as a queer read because it’s so... queer?? It was hard to get through for me because even though I thought the writing was beautiful, it was also not something I’m super familiar with and also the format of the timeline had me a bit confused at times. That being said, I sort of loved it? I honestly am a little taken by surprise at the actual plot and how the story goes because it still blows my mind that this was published in the 20′s. Virginia really did that. I think it’s a fascinating, funny and wild examination of gender and sexuality, as well as time, love and writing. So if thats something you’re down with then go check it out! Because I shall now go on about it in spoiler-y detail below: 

I’ve been so swamped with school work that I haven’t gotten around to writing this review so here I am doing it a month later. I feel like that was a bad idea because then the detail becomes fuzzy. Overall, I really loved the story but I feel like the writing could be a little difficult to get through at first. It’s done well though because once I know whats happening I’m like oh wow this is feels almost like it could have been written a few years back yet also feels classic.

I think the overall concept is pretty ahead of its time, obviously. I mean, how often were people in the late 20’s writing so much about gender, let alone a character who starts the novel one gender and ends it another. With that comes many different opportunities to compare the experiences of men vs that of women. The idea of the sleep/coma that Orlando being a transformative moment, similar to that of a butterfly cocoon. It is still unclear to me just how this all occurs though. What exactly caused Orlando to transform genders and not age? I didn’t really get a single answer.

One of the interesting things my professor talked about was that the character of Orlando was based off of the woman Virginia Woolf had a long affair with. The woman name was Vita and she was a writer as well, and so the bits about Orlando writing were reference to her. The funny thing is that we were told that she did not think her lover was a good writer, and so the fact that Orlando works on the same poem for about 400 years is a jab at her. When I learned this I both cracked up but also found it fascinating because I couldn’t believe Woolf wrote a novel based on the personality of her female lover in the late 20’s. I was very intrigued with this actual real world basis for the story and it’s characters but also the house that Vita lived in that apparently had  365 rooms.

I didn’t have any deep connections with any of the romantic prospects, but I felt like it was very queer in that way too. One character that liked her, the Archduchess/Archduke who pretended to be a woman but was actually a man and has that gender change in a less literal way. That was strange yet wild and queer. Then theres the masculine, if only in demeanor, Russian princess. And also the man that Orlando marries does not represent the most masculine of qualities, where as Orlando at this point is a perhaps immortal woman with wealth. The most interesting of the bunch is Queen Elizabeth, THE Queen Elizabeth. It becomes all even queerer with the fact that Orlando is somewhat of an androgynous character, in turn making all of these connections a little more complex.

I thought the film was interesting but I don’t think it could have topped the novel. The fact that Tilda Swinton played Orlando was probably a good choice but I think it also changed the way the audience perceived Orlando’s experiences in each gender. I thought the film tried it’s best but also I don’t think the audience had any idea what was going on, even less than that of the novel. There were many good things: Seeing the story come alive in general, the casting of a man as the queen, the maze scene, the child, etc. I just preferred the novel, obviously.

#ahh it was wild - really enjoyed it tho it was a lil rough getting thru for me personally #orlando #virginia woolf #review #2017

[zodiacfilmclub]

The Zodiac Guide to Female Filmmakers

Sarah and Jordan of Zodiac Film Club sent us some film recommendations to keep you going until our triple bill of female friendship movies happening in our Dalston store from Weds 6th - Fri 8th March. Celebrate Women’s Month by seeking out these female-directed films and giving them some much-needed love and attention!

Just Another Girl on the IRT (1993)

Sarah: This is an amazing gem of a film about a Brooklyn African American teenager and her plans for her life ahead. She talks to camera Clarissa Explains it All style, and that’s just one of the many reasons it deserves a place in 90s teen classic history. But here’s a sobering fact about the film industry, director Leslie Harris has never managed to secure the financing to make a follow-up. 

Daughters of the Dust (1991)

Jordan: Despite the hard subject matter Daughters of the Dust is a soft, dreamscape set in the south of America, telling an ancestral story of three women. Not only is it written, directed AND produced by Julie Dash, it's also the first feature film made by an African-American woman to be shown in American theatres. Beyonce likes it too. 

Holy Smoke (1999)

Sarah: Jane Campion is great, and has so much more to offer than The bloody Piano. This strange cult deprogramming movie with Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel gets forgotten about but is basically just two hours of a power struggle between machismo and femininity that ends in Keitel clutching Winslet’s ankles while wearing her red dress. I just don’t know how to aim higher in life. 

We Need to talk about Kevin (2011)

Jordan: A haunting look at motherhood, We Need To Talk About Kevin explores the estranged relationship between mother and son. Kevin (hot Ezra Miller) becomes increasingly more psychopathic and eventually murders half his classes mates, father and sister. Which makes us feel much better about our teenage strops.

American Psycho (2000)

Sarah: Apparently it takes a woman to mine the depths of toxic masculinity. It may surprise you to be reminded that everyone’s favourite psychopathic satire is directed by Mary Harron. If you feel like deep diving into her work also check out I Shot Andy Warhol, her 1996 biopic of Valerie Solanas. 

Bend it like Beckham (2002)

Jordan: I've always wished that Jess (Keira) ended up with Jules (Parminder), but she ends up getting her heart broken over the football coach. It's cute, inspiring and easy to watch on a hangover. Guilt-free. 

Mustang (2015)

Sarah: Full disclosure, I WEPT in the cinema after this one for so long that the Picturehouse workers were politely cleaning up around me. The story of sisters who are confined to the house until marriage, it’s got Virgin Suicides vibes but is far more grounded in the sad realities of the world. Some uplifting moments though I promise. 

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

Jordan: A queer classic, But I'm A Cheerleader is a part dark comedy/part romance. Jamie Babbit untangles the topic of 'gay conversion' therapy and gender stereotypes with sickly sweet colours, over the top characters and a cameo from Ru Paul. The critics hated it but we love it (and we're showing it on the 19th of March at The Castle Cinema!)

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Sarah: There’s a ton of great female directed horror out there recently (Raw, The Babadook, The Lure, The Invitation, Silent House… really it was difficult not to make this list an entirely horror filled one). But you can go further back to find women in the genre. SPM is pretty silly, featuring a murderer with inexplicable motives and a big ol’ drill, but also some girls with names who talk to each other like actual humans, which is often too much to ask even of films in the 21st century.

Orlando (1992)

Jordan: Based on the well-known novel by Virginia Woolf, Orlando is a visually beautiful and ethereal escape into another time. Sally Potter keeps true to the book and we more than fall in love with Orlando as they move through time and gender. 

Read the original article over at Beyond Retro.

#articles

[its-just-like-the-movies]

July 2017 Viewing Log

I beat my previous record!! 43 motherfuckers!! And so many 2017 features to boot, too. It’ll be neat to see what happens to my viewing patterns once school starts. Moving in the 10th, semester starts the 22nd. It’ll be a jam.

The Beguiled (17, B): I miss some of the 71′s psychosexual mess but this is a legit interpretation with its own interesting tone and style. - 07/01/17

 Mulholland Drive (01, A): Getting better acquainted with Lynch and seeing this a second time have done wonders for me. I’m in a dream place. - 07/02/17

Practically dares you at all times to question its unreality, its presentation, sometimes beats you to the bunch. But fuck is it real.

XX (17, B): As uneven as any respectable horror anthology, with admirably singular approaches. Clark & Lynskey, Kusama & Kirk stand tallest. - 07/03/17 (review)

Black Christmas (74, A-): Nasty atmosphere has room for zesty textures. Conveys potent thesis on misogyny without prurience. Fuckin’ scary. 07/05/17

The Forbidden Room (15, B-): Never as much fun for me as it was for everyone making it. Impressive as an exercise but I can’t get too worked up. - 07/05/17

Orlando (93, A): How much does & doesn’t change over 400 years? As much Potter’s, Powell’s, Swinton’s as it is Woolf’s. - 07/05/17

Can I say my other favorite thing about Orlando is that is possesses an economy that Woolf, wonderful as she is, clearly did not have.

Dolores Claiborne (95, C+): Script, actresses strive for poignancy that Hackford isn’t dexterous enough to fully match. Flawed, but compelling. - 07/06/17

(talking to someone about Judy Parfitt) So amazing with Bates! And I’m impressed with how well she handled old age. She coulda contended if it was released in November.

Coquette (29, D-): Awkward, garish, strenuous, smacks of inconceivable bullshit applied on every conceivably level, cranked way past eleven. - 07/06/17

Atlantic City (81, A): Whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Perfect city to refract its characters. Perfect performers to realize them. - 07/06/17

Terms of Endearment (83, B/B+): Winger/Daniels stuff so my favorite, but the humor & emotional currents of each scene work like a charm. - 07/07/17

Jupiter Ascending (14, D+): Imagination abound, comfy with nonsense mythology, but fuck does it get boring. Badness isn’t even that novel. - 07/07/17

Hustle & Flow (05, A-): So comfy with a seedier protagonist than any music biopic in recent memory. Colorful, vulgar, ace cast, great beats. - 07/07/17 (review)

Godzilla (54, B): Can’t survive most dated effects but still carries plenty of raw power. Photography, score, sound invaluable assets. - 07/08/17

Get Out (17, A-): Look, I’m sure the fall will be stacked, but from here I can’t imagine not putting this goddamn gem in my top ten. - 07/09/17

Marnie (64, A-): Dangerously, perversely unpredictable, in character and plotting, right until the very last minutes. Lord, what the fuck. - 07/11/17

The Void (17, B): Grosser than I’m used to but gory, monstrous, ball-to-the-wall insanity the perfect antithesis for It Comes At Night - 07/12/17

The Bling Ring (13, B+): Crimes as commodified and celebrated as fashions, friendships, fuck ups. Hilarious, stylish, nasty as its characters. - 07/12/17

Bird (88, B-/B): Struggles to do right by other black characters, lighting iffy. But Whitaker and Venora take it a long way. Glad I saw it. - 07/13/17

The Interrupters (11, A-): Honors a group of people who deserve all the praise and attention we can give them. Powerful, brave material. - 07/13/17

That still feels like I’m grasping at straws for how to praise the film. I hope it did wonders for the Violence Interrupters.

Happy Together (97, A): I could just list everything this film did right or how its dangerously oversaturated red says everything. - 07/14/17

Viscerally might’ve been better. Passionately? The way that technically imperfect camera captures and shows the film’s story is such a marvel.

How To Survive A Plague (12, A-): Galvanizing, angry, properly honoring another group of people who deserve all the respect we can give them. - 07/14/17

Shadow of a Doubt (43, A): No wonder Hitchcock loved this one so much, even with all the perfect films he made. Wright, Cotten so perfect. - 07/14/17

A Quiet Passion (17, B+): Meek prologue gives way to an increasingly potent, electric, unwavering dive into Dickinson’s life and mind. - 07/14/17

Davies is a great director, but this film would not work without Cynthia Nixon’s prickly, intelligent, verbally and physically astute performance.

Like Hopkins in Nixon, she dives so deeply into her character she pulls off that rare feat of making the real person look alien next to her work. 

Whip It! (09, B+): Melina has decided her roller derby name will be Hermione Danger and that is that. Also why were Ellen and Alia gays. - 07/16/17

Endlesssly fun. Cast fills the film’s lovingly sketched cliches with warmth, heart, humor. Can’t wait to make all my friends watch it and love it.

Ah!!!!! I loved every minute of it.

In the Loop (09, B+): All the ways it shouldn’t be funny - all the ways it’s sort of terrifying - only make it funnier, and more powerful. - 07/16/17 (review)

Sounder (72, A): As light, tender, and thorough an examination of a family as I’ve ever seen, especially under these circumstances. Tyson!! - 07/17/17

I kept thinking about Cicely Tyson’s big open-armed, open-hearted run in Sounder and fuck if that wasn’t the most I smiled all night (7/23/17)

The Savages (07, B): Entertaining yarn, especially between siblings. Trips a bit. Linney and Hoffman add more texture, warmth than Jenkins. - 07/17/17

Last Men in Aleppo (17, A-): So these are what heroes look like, what survival is in a place like that. Its very existence feels dangerous. 07/19/17

Bottom of the World (17, D-): Hateful, especially around Scarlett. Nonsense logic turns it into a weird object. Bottom of the pile. - 07/20/17

Lovesong (17, C): The kind of pleasant, adeptly-made lightweight that’s as hard to criticize as it is to recommend. Leads help. Neat kid. - 07/20/17

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (10, B): Lapses, sure, but deliriously fun, and a feast for the ears. Such fun edits, cast. My favorite Wright. - 07/21/17

I do think it honors such dense source material, and I can’t even fathom how influential Wallace Wells was on my personality/gayness

The Salesman (17, A-): What’s the gulf between public and private humiliations? Ambiguities give way to even more powerful finalities. - 07/22/17

Dunkirk (17, B): So technically prepossessing it becomes a distraction to the film’s emotional currents. Completely affecting. - 07/23/17

The Lure (17, B-): Delightfully off the wall, with indelible peaks. But frequently feels more like riffs than a fully formed idea. - 07/23/17

The Big Sick (17, B): Would you believe it’s more charming and fun than Dunkirk? Messy, feels longer than it is, but so so worth it. - 07/23/17

Arsenic and Old Lace (44, B-): Works so very hard at fun, zany, and perverse that it has a hard time being any of those things. - 07/25/17

The Act of Killing (13, A-): As terrifying a recreation of history as 12 Years A Slave. And when history is alive, how does it see itself? - 07/27/17

War for the Planet of the Apes (17, B): Handsome. Over-scored but scored well. I like what it’s doing, but doesn’t engender much to add. - 07/28/17

The Player (92, A-): Satire that drowns its Hollywood send-up with such a light, finessed touch. Essential Altman, Robbins, Peroni. - 07/28/17

My Fair Lady (64, C): Wonderfully dressed, set, and scored, but lord is this a misogynistic dinosaur of a film. Every song long in the tooth. - 07/28/17 (review)

So deadly low on energy, and uncinematic. Almost every man a creep, almost every song awful. I liked Hepburn and Nixon. That horrid ending!!!!

Dog Day Afternoon (75, A): Look I’ll think of something more sophisticated later but that’s one of the most perfect films I’ve seen. - 07/29/17

Excitingly interacts with eveyr mode of filmmaking, genre it touches. Packed with energy. Hard to think of anyone realizing it better.

Pacino is astounding, but so it Durning Sarandon, Allen. And, of course, John Cazale. What a run he and Pacino had!

Right Now, Wrong Then (16, A-): Unbroken cuts, rich script, earnest leads and direction create real tension of lives being lived. - 07/30/17

Strange Weather (17, B): Desperate tale of maternal validation compellingly crafted, well-spun, acted to gold by Hunter & co. Great finale. - 07/30/17

[kismet-at-the-library]

A-Z BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

I’ve seen a few of these lists floating around as per @macrolit‘s idea (you can find their original post here) and obviously I had to spend the past few hours compiling a list of my own. It’s definitely harder than it looks! I was trying to go for some less obvious choices while also paying homage to all the books that have struck a chord with me, but I must admit I had to cheat a little by including a few titles from my TBR pile. In my defense, I have an excellent feeling about all of these – plus, what better motivation to finally get started on reading them? (If only grad school weren’t in the way... but a girl can still dream.)

A - Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)

A superbly well-written and incredibly touching novel, featuring one of the children characters I’ve related to the most in my reading life. (Yes, I relate to Briony! Not for what she does, of course, but the way she experiences and describes the world is just so so familiar to me.)

B - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2007)

I think I’m still a little heartbroken over this one. It wasn’t always perfect, but it’s stayed with me in a way that other books I’ve read in the past few years haven’t. Plus, I still can’t get over a narrator using footnotes to explain historical details about the Dominican Republic. If you’ve read Díaz before, you’ll definitely fall for Yunior’s voice all over again. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

C - La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits) by Isabel Allende (1982)

I already got one for H (this list was not compiled in alphabetical order) so I’m “cheating” by using the title in the original language (which is also the one I read it in).

D - Du côté de chez Swann (The Way by Swann’s) by Marcel Proust (1913)

...because lately I’ve been mildly (she says) obsessed with Proust and you should be too <3 This is the first volume in the monumental In Search of Lost Time. I went in knowing hardly anything about it other than ~Proust~ and was incredibly surprised by how accessible it was. (If you’re still feeling intimidated, I definitely recommend reading Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life to help break the ice!)

E - Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes (1981)

A poetry collection by the author on whom I wrote my bachelor’s thesis. Lorna Dee Cervantes writes about growing up as a working-class Chicana in the U.S. Southwest. In her poems as in her life, gender, race, and class intersect to make up the experience of a powerful woman and gifted poet who uses incredibly lyrical language.

F - Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant by Michelle Cliff (1993)

Now, if you want some good, kickass, well-researched alternative historiography featuring Black historical lady figures, then this is the book for you. It’s an account (fictional, yes, but in no way less significant than the ‘authorized’ history) of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and the women that took part in it (for non-U.S. readers, John Brown was a white abolitionist who tried to start an armed slave revolt). One of those women was Mary Ellen Pleasant, a black woman and entrepreneur who helped fund John Brown’s raid. So, yep, you should definitely get to this one straight away. It’s not the most accessible kind of writing because it moves across time, space, and characters, but if you pay enough attention you’ll have no problem following it until the end, and you’ll be immensely enriched because of it. <3

G - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. That’s the first line of the book, by the way. If you like unreliable narrators and morally-dubious characters, you’ll definitely enjoy this one.

H - Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006)

Adichie is very well known right now because of her booklet We Should All Be Feminists (and with good reason), but this is the one that made me fall in love with her. I don’t even remember what led me to buying this book when I basically knew nothing about her, but I’m so glad I did. I love historical fiction and this novel about the Biafran War just broke my heart in all the right places. One of my best on-a-whim purchases.

I - If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (2017)

This is one of the latest books I’ve read but more importantly one I’ve been excited to read for at least two years. The stakes were high but wow, did it deliver. It’s been marketed as a mystery/literary thriller but I get the feeling that this kind of description could turn away readers who are not into mysteries but who would have plenty of other reasons to enjoy this novel. Yes, there is a mystery (and the pacing is excellent!) but the story is really about the characters, who are really well-developed. Rio ( @m-l-rio) has the incredible ability to set a scene with great economy of words and make each of them count. And, oh, that ending was absolutely perfect.

(Special mention: If This Is a Man by Primo Levi.)

J - Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot (1796)

A novel about subverting the reader’s expectations (and I mean that). I read this one some 6 years ago but I still think about it as one of the funniest novels (or non-novels?) I’ve ever read and I can’t wait to read it again one day. It gets very, very meta and I remember lots of (subtle or not-so-subtle) criticism on the art of the novel as practised by Diderot’s contemporaries.

(Special mention: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Because, do I even need to explain? <3)

K - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

Well, this one is a bit obvious. Didn’t have a lot of K-titles to choose from... But also, this was one of the first books I read in English, at a time when my love of literature fully-blossomed, and that makes it even more special.

L - The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (1956)

I loved the writing in this novel about the life of West Indian immigrants in London in the 1950s. Such a strong narrative voice. Its only flaw is that it only focuses on the male immigrant experience, but that’s no reason not to love it anyway.

M - Manual of the Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho (1997)

The book that made me get into Paulo Coelho quite a few years ago. I’m less into him now, but this is still among my favourites <3 A book one can turn to in times of hardship, always ready to offer much-needed words of wisdom.

N - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)

I think @dukeofbookingham once described this as “Pride and Prejudice with a social conscience” and I don’t think I can top that description. If you’re still unsure about this, why not watch the 2004 BBC adaptation with Richard Armitage?

O - Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)

Sometimes a bit difficult to get through, but so beautifully written that it makes it totally worth it. Also, such an imaginative read!

P - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1913)

Maaaaan I love this play. My inner linguistic nerd can’t resist Higgins’s endavours to train Eliza to speak like a “proper lady”, and the feminist in me is ever in awe of Eliza’s strength of character. (Don’t trust the ending they gave her in My Fair Lady. Shaw was much smarter than that.)

Q - Regina di fiori e di perle (Queen of Flowers and Pearls) by Gabriella Ghermandi (2011)

Now this is a double cheat because 1) I’m using the translation to make it work, and 2) I took it from my TBR pile, but this is one I’m really excited about, and it’s by an Italo-Ethiopian author, so... <3

R - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1966)

There were plenty of more obvious choices for this one and I’ve actually only ever seen the film adaptation, but I love the idea for this play so much I couldn’t resist. Plus, I’ve been meaning to get my hands on a copy since forever...

S - Sillabari (Abecedary) by Goffredo Parise (1972-1982)

Going again by the title in the original language. Honestly, I keep trying to recommend this wonderful book to my English-speaking friends but it’s so frustrating because only the first part of this (...novel? collection?) has been translated into English. “Collection” doesn’t seem like the right word because there is such a strong thematic unity to this book, but it is certainly made up of vignettes, each of which is meant to describe a human feeling, something that is achieved with great economy of words and often in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Incidentally, this is a particularly fitting title for this list because the vignettes are organized in alphabetical order (Abecedary, anyone?) –the first one is “Amore”, love. If you can read Italian, I cannot recommend this enough!

(Special mention: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde.)

T - The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

This doesn’t look like cheating but it feels like cheating. :P There were plenty of other titles to choose from but none that was giving me as strong a feeling. Plus, it feels good to pay homage to one of the books that started it all for me <3 (and I actually first discovered Tumblr by looking for LOTR-related content, so it's even more appropriate.)

U - Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid by Nikki Giovanni (2013)

I was trying to go for something that wasn’t Ulysses (which I haven’t read yet, by the way). Now, I haven’t read this whole collection, but I remember reading some of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry in one of my American literature classes and I definitely liked her work. Plus, I love that title! I had kind of forgotten about this one, so now might be the right time to go and actually check it out from the library.

V - Il visconte dimezzato (The Cloven Viscount) by Italo Calvino (1951)

Wow, was it difficult to find a worthy V-title! (Or one that is not in my TBR pile.) I haven’t read the books in this unconventional ‘trilogy’ in so long, but I still remember liking them a lot (although my favourite was always The Nonexistent Knight).

W - Waiting in the Twilight by Joan Riley (1987)

This is a more obscure title and probably not as easy to get a hold of (AbeBooks would be your best option) but this immigrant story about a Jamaican woman and her dream of building a better life for herself told from the perspective of her disenchanted old self is incredibly powerful and just... my heart breaks for Adella.

X/Y - I got nothing. :(

Z - Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (1982)

Another one that I haven’t read (yet), but this is Audre Lorde, so. <3

#and now on with the tags #recommendations #my reads #Ian McEwan #Junot Díaz #Isabel Allende #Marcel Proust #Lorna Dee Cervantes #Michelle Cliff #Ford Madox Ford #Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie #M.L. Rio #Denis Diderot #Harper Lee #Sam Selvon #Paulo Coelho #Elizabeth Gaskell #Virginia Woolf #George Bernard Shaw #Gabriella Ghermandi #Tom Stoppard #Goffredo Parise #J.R.R. Tolkien #Nikki Giovanni #Italo Calvino #Joan Riley #Audre Lorde #books #reading #literature

[unhallowedarts]

A couple weeks back I asked the internet for help finding something to read, and man did the internet pull through! This is a masterpost of answers I got. If you’re tagged in it, it’s just so I can tell you this: thank you for responding! I got some recommendations I’ve already read, some that have been on my list for ages, some I’ve never heard of before and am excited to have learned about! It was fun seeing such a variety, and now I have a nice list here to come back to next time! If you’re wondering which I ended up reading, the answer is actually that my wife reminded me that I’d been meaning to read Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, so I played favorites and took that suggestion. But I just finished it, so, I’ll try to pick one of these for the next thing!

@metalpannda​ answered: John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series.

@vivaciouscactus​ answered: Jewels of the Rebellion is one of my favorite fantasy novels. Its only $3 on Amazon, too.

@theneuroknight​ answered: The Fionavar Tapestry. Recommended by a friend. Not sure what I think of it yet. You might like.

@rabiastudies​ reblogged this from suchprettypride and added:

The Catcher in the Rye

@janeandthehivequeen​ reblogged this and added:

The giver series by Lois Lowry maybe? It’s kind of quiet fantasy, the plot can’t really be described as action at all. Death does enter the plot at one point but it doesn’t dwell on it. You can start at any book in the series and read any of them as a stand-alone as well.

But like, everyone has read that so you probably already have too lol

Oh, there’s the princess bride, which is hilarious and fantasy. There’s action but it’s not action packed, and it’s self-aware and campy and fun. If you’ve seen the movie, it’s like that, but with a very self-aware frame narrative.

Howl’s Moving Castle is like a subversion of different fantasy tropes, also very funny and also relatively light-hearted. The main character has been turned into an old lady so there’s little action.

@jannhpps​ reblogged this from youthbookreview and added:

Little Women by Louise May Alcott is one of my favorites.

@linguist25  reblogged this and added:

I have few palate cleanser books for you @suchprettypride. You might like….

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, Roz Chast (Illustrations)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre #1) by Gail Carson Levine

The Unicorn Sonata by Peter S. Beagle

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Castle Waiting, Vol. 1 by Linda Medley, Jane Yolen

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories by Kelly Link etc.

The Wizard’s Promise (The Hanna Duology #1) by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Spirit’s Key by Edith Cohn

Alistair Grim’s Odditorium (Odditorium #1) by Gregory Funaro (Goodreads Author), Vivienne To (Illustrator)

Magical: An Anthology of Fantasy, Fairy Tales, and Other Magical Fiction by Kelly Ann Jacobson etc.

Flunked (Fairy Tale Reform School #1) by Jen Calonita

Cranky Ladies of History by Tehani Croft Wessely etc.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Newt’s Emerald by Garth Nix

The Marvels by Brian Selznick

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Topper (Topper #1) by Thorne Smith

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales by W.B. Yeats

Plain Kate by Erin Bow

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Foxheart by Claire Legrand (Goodreads Author), Jaime Zollars (Goodreads Author)(Illustrations)

My Lady Jane (The Lady Janies #1)  by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton (Goodreads Author), Jodi Meadows

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Arabian Nights by Anonymous, Richard Francis Burton (Translator)

The 10th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland #1-2) by Lewis Carroll

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

Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables #1) by L.M. Montgomery

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (Folktales) by Robin McKinley

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket #1) by Roald Dahl

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

East by Edith Pattou

I hope one of these books serves as a good in-between read. Happy reading to you!

@12minutestomidnight​ reblogged this and added:

This book is pretty well-known, but if you haven’t yet read it: try Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami. It’s fantasy, and it’s a contemporary book - so it might be post-modern, though I’m not sure what counts as a post-modern book to you.

@readingbooksinisrael​ reblogged this and added:

I just took out a bunch of Edward Eager books because I needed exactly what you are talking about. They are children’s books about groups of kids who suddenly find magic. They are all great.

Recommended reading order:

Half-Magic-summer of 1924, four kids find a magic coin on the ground that only grants wishes in halves.

Magic By the Lake-summer of 1925, same four kids go to vacation at a summer house near a lake, and find a talking turtle who can grant wishes

Knight’s Castle-the children of the four in the two previous books have to spend a summer together, and end up adventuring much of it when they are turned tiny

The Time Garden-same children go vacation at a summer house near a lake with a thyme garden. they discover the thyme can take them through time

Seven-Day Magic-five kids from a different universe discover a book that takes them on hazardous adventures when they make a wish on it

Magic or Not?-two kids move to a new neighborhood during the summer, and discover a wishing well and try to do Good Deeds

The Well-Wishers-same kids come upon a magic desk, and immediately lose it to the bully of the street

And these sound generic, but they’re not, and every chapter is action-packed, and the characters are great. If you like E. Nesbit’s books, these are based on those. And the illustrations are great! (at least in my copies)

@anassarhenisch​ reblogged this and added:

Orlando by Virginia Woolf - Modern, not post-modern, with a definite fantasy slant and slower pace; about an Elizabethan immortal who slides between genders Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon - About a twelve-year-old girl auditioning to be the Wicked Witch of a castle, with a fair bit of whimsy and humour; fast-paced because it’s a kids’ book but it doesn’t feel frantic in the same vein, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede, about a princess who volunteers as a Dragon’s Princess because it’s the only accepted role that allows her independence Uprooted by Naomi Novik - slow burn of a fantasy, occasionally creepy and with fast sections and side character deaths, but the focus is on friendship and saving the kingdom and fighting evil Robin McKinley’s fairy tale retellings if you’re looking for something big, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which is basically Austen does fantasy; there are deaths and depression but again, I wouldn’t say they’re the focus; it’s two wizards fighting Napoleon, reinventing magic, and messing with forces they can’t control

#literature #booklr #classic literature #fantasy #cool shit to read