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#middlemarch: the series
spiritusloci · 9 months
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Dorothea Brooke, Middlemarch (2023)
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love-rats · 8 months
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it is a truth universally acknowledged that every popular classic novel must be in want of a vlog-style webseries.
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20genderchild · 1 year
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katebvsh · 1 year
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The BBC “Middlemarch” series (1994)
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ecoterrorist-katara · 2 months
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Hey bestie any zutara fic recs. I feel like I’ve read all the classics.
Hello anon! Oh boy have you come to the right place because I have read several million words of these two dorks falling in love and though I plan to read several million more, I am always down to screech about talented fanfic writers!!! Here are most of my faves, some of which you’ve probably read but my enthusiasm simply needs an outlet. No WIPs to minimize heartbreak.
In the spirit of not recommending too many classics, I’m not including anything from the first page of the Katara/Zuko tag on AO3 sorted by kudos, with one exception. Same rule does not apply to FF.net because nobody visits that site anymore, yet we mustn’t forget our roots!!! 
TL;DR of my Zutara Fic Recs: 
Half Asleep for a Miyazaki-esque adventure romance 
Southern Lights for a sweeping epic where A Song of Ice and Fire meets Middlemarch
Refraction for a swoon-worthy post-war political romance ft. Katara learning how to politick in a patriarchal world 
Stormbenders for a fun undercover romance that is a ZK classic for a very good reason 
Another Word for Alchemy and The Slow Path for hilarious yet emotionally compelling adventures with found family themes 
The Undying Fire for world-building, more Gaang shenanigans, and super satisfying slow canon divergence 
Katara Alone for our fave girl’s post-war Bildungsroman/travelogue/heroic tour
Simple Misunderstanding for a hilarious rendition of Ponytail Zuko capturing Katara and trying to not be a creep
Clothe Me in Seasons, Dress Me in Snow for a mostly canon-compliant (so, v angsty) story about the different ways that love can evolve 
And some one-shots and modern AUs I feel like deserve some more love 
Summaries, reviews, and general fangirling under the cut because holy shit this post is long lmao 
Long fics / series: 
Half Asleep, by crushinator | Rating: T | Word Count: 82,335
Summary: Five years after the Hundred-Year War, Fire Lord Zuko is hit with an assassin's dart, and falls into a coma from which he cannot wake. A week passes, and his prognosis is grim. But Katara could swear she hears him in her dreams.
My thoughts: this fic, in many ways, is novel quality. The pacing? Immaculate. The action scenes? Exciting and interesting yet super easy to visualize. The characterization? On point. Katara is peak Miyazaki heroine in this, setting out on a quest to the Spirit World to save her boy (who’s not really her boy) from whichever Eldritch horror has him in its clutches. I love the little glimpses we have of the mutual pining between Katara and Zuko, and there are no words to describe how much I love the resolution of Katara and Aang’s relationship in this story. And oh boy, is the climax of the fic super romantic. This is just a really well written, emotionally compelling, tight fic. Deserves to be a fandom classic. 
Southern Lights, by colourwhirled | Rating: M | Word Count: 769,274
Summary: A world where the Avatar has disappeared from memory. Where Sozin’s Conquest was successful. Where the unsteady order of the empire is threatened as members of the royal family are picked off one by one and lines are slowly drawn in the sand One last chance for peace forces an unlikely alliance between a homesick waterbender, a carefree Air Nomad, a runaway Earth Kingdom heiress, and the fire lord's inscrutable son. Together they must learn to shed old enmities and become the balance they seek to restore to the world.
OR:
The avatar has four heads.
My thoughts: Is it a Bildungsroman? Is it a war story? Is it a politics story? Is it a love story? Is it a friendship story? Is it a story about colonial violence and well-meaning complicity and finding justice in a world where it simply doesn’t seem to exist? Yes to all of the above, because at 700k+ words YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL. You know how Virginia Woolf once said that Middlemarch is one of the few novels written for grownups? Well, Southern Lights feels adult, not because of violence or sex or general grimness (looking at you, HBO), but because it’s fundamentally about having the courage to make choices, live with the consequences, and make more choices, and repeat that over and over again. If Katara is a Miyazaki heroine in Half Asleep, she is full on Daenarys (pre-character assassination) in Southern Lights, a heroine who gets put through her paces yet retains her unwavering resilience to find her place in the world. Katara can be pretty frustrating in this and I know a lot of the commenters on this fic wanted to smack her up the head halfway through, but I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs and her decisions make sense to me even when I also want to smack her for them, and isn’t that a symptom of good writing? I count my lucky stars that I joined the ATLA fandom after this fic is finished (which was only last year!) because I got to binge it in a few days and I have not been the same person since. Deserves classic status. 
Refraction, by caroe3725 | Rating: E | Word Count: 215,249
Summary: Making choices after the war was supposed to be the easy part. Her future decided and neatly packaged based on what everyone else wanted for her, what she should want, too. But Katara’s destiny had a funny way of being exactly what she wanted to run from. (As if anyone needed another Zutara post-finale slow burn after 15 years.)
My thoughts: YES WE DEFINITELY NEEDED ANOTHER POST-WAR ZK SLOWBURN OF SUCH IMMACULATE QUALITY. Both Katara and Zuko’s internal monologues are excellent in this, but I particularly love Zuko’s. The writer is so good at capturing his resolve, his earnestness, and his awkwardness. This is a very restrained fic — no great histrionics — but also incredibly romantic. The first kiss scene made me want to both sigh and screech. I’m also just a huge sucker for “Katara learns politics” which this fic has in spades, with a bonus of very thoughtful gender dynamics. Anyway, if you liked AJ Lenoire’s The Summit or andromeda13’s such selfish prayers, you’d probably like Refraction. Zuko and Katara are very much dumb teens in the beginning portions of this fic, which I personally like because it makes me nostalgic. Oh, and Katara is low key chaotic good in this, which is super in-character and hilarious.
Stormbenders, by Fandomme | Rating: T | Word Count: 171,000+ 
Summary: S3 AU from FBM. Deep in the Fire Nation jungle, the Gaang meets a group of rogue water ninja who send Zuko and Katara on a mission to retrieve Ozai's secret battle plans.
My thoughts: I’m aware that if you asked the average ZK shipper ten years ago what the ship classics are, the answers are probably Stormbenders, His Majesty Prefers Blue, and the Sparrowkeet series. The other classics are good (classics for a reason!), but Stormbenders remains my favourite. It’s funny. It’s exciting. It’s WELL PACED. The ZK relationship grows so organically, which is a huge feat considering this fic was started before we even got The Southern Raiders. The events are a little more adult than the show, but the tone remains very ATLA. There’s a lovely little animatic of the beginning of the scene on YouTube to show you exactly what I mean about the tone and the humour. I am always weak for a well-structured adventure romance, and Stormbenders stands the test of time because it’s just such a well-written fic. 
The Undying Fire, by Boogum | Rating: T | Word Count: 534,665
Summary: "He has the eyes, Princess Ursa." They were half-forgotten words, a whisper of fears never explained. Zuko had dismissed it all as nothing to worry about—until he somehow healed the Avatar. Fire healers weren't meant to exist, except he did. He'd saved the kid's life. Naturally, he wanted answers. Too bad finding them wasn't so simple...
My thoughts: This fic is mostly Gen, and Zutara shows up in the latter half of the series. Despite being a ZK shipper I like plenty of Gen fics too, and The Undying Fire gives me the best of both worlds. I love the world building, the humour, and the slow ramp up of the Gaang friendships. I absolutely love how the canon divergence is so subtle at first and gradually unfurls into something super different, yet retains much of its ATLA charm. Boogum’s written some other bangers too, and I have to give honorable mention to Zuko’s Tiny Dilemma (where a spirit transforms ponytail Zuko into his six-year-old self, and Uncle into a teapot, and somehow it becomes an emotionally compelling 100k word saga) and Following Blue (season 2 canon divergent Bluetara with a bigger focus on romance). 
Katara Alone & associated fics by cablesscutie | Rating: T | Word Count: 86,890
Summary: The war is over, and with it goes the only life she has ever known. In this era of love and peace, the world is becoming new, and Katara is unsure of her place in it. That's okay though. Katara has rebuilt her life from scratch before, and she will do it again.
My thoughts: I love post-war “Katara sets out to find herself and also finds Zuko” fics. Katara Alone is a fabulous coming-of-age story with some good old fashioned letter flirting during Katara’s solo travels. The sequel, Lady of the Tides, has some very thoughtful depictions of Katara’s place within the post-war Fire Nation, and the accompanying story from Zuko’s POV, The Fire Lord at Home, hits all my buttons. Like…Zuko is Fire Lord Good Boy! He passes legislation! There is political optimism! Swoon. 
Another Word for Alchemy, by FanPanda 13 | Rating: T | Word Count: 108,000+ 
Summary: Five years have passed since the Avatar defeated Fire Lord Ozai, and the members of the Gaang have all gone in their own direction. But when Aang invites them all to a Peace Summit at the North Pole and tells them of his new project, for which he will need their support, the group comes together again for adventure, fun and romance. AU. Zutara. COMPLETE.
My thoughts: Now this is a fic that thoroughly crept up on me. The first 3/4 is good old fashioned fluffy, funny, fourth wall-breaking Gaang shenanigans with plenty of Zutara. But the last quarter? Oh boy does it come right at you and slam you in the solar plexus with the platonic love and found family feels and the complexities of those feelings when you’re a teenager. The impact of Aang’s loss of the Air Nomads is treated very thoughtfully here, way more so than in the show. 
The Slow Path, by TazmainianDevil | Rating: T | Word Count: 125,723 
Summary: Eight years after the fall of Ozai, Aang returns to the friends he left behind.
My thoughts: This is actually a Taang story with a great ZK subplot. But what I love about it is that the whole Gaang (including Suki ALWAYS INCLUDING SUKI) is superbly characterized. The ZK banter is top notch. I could actually hear their voices in my head in some of the scenes. Their relationship is playful but has plenty of emotional heft. And the plot is exciting and well-developed. My favourite thing, though, is how the author treats Toph’s POV: it’s very thoughtfully written, with consideration towards how she perceives the world.
Simple Misunderstanding, by ShamelessLiar | Rating: T | Word Count: 80,965 
Summary: Katara was captured by Zuko, but there was a lapse in communication. Takes place after The Fortuneteller. Fierce Katara, honorable Zuko, and meddlesome Iroh. Also, music night
My thoughts: Generally I don’t love fics where Katara gets captured, especially by Zuko (just a personal preference, not here to judge). But! I love this one, because…well, the circumstances of Katara’s capture by Ponytail Zuko are simply hilarious. Katara is suspicious and stubborn; Zuko has a one-track mind and doesn’t understand why Iroh is treating his prisoner so nicely; oh, and Aang gets into an amazing side quest with some spiritual animals. The only thing about this story is that it ends a little abruptly since the author was considering a sequel, but it still reads as a standalone fic. The author also wrote His Majesty Prefers Blue and Call Me Katto, two ZK classics, but Simple Misunderstanding is far and away my favourite work. 
Clothe Me in Seasons, Dress Me in Snow, by sadladybug | Rating: T | Word Count: 62,026
Summary: It is not the memorial she deserves, nor the one she would want. But it can't be helped. He owns no property in the other nations, and he needed to keep her close. Closer than she was in life, anyway. Zuko's reflections on a life lived and a life that could have been.
Review: sadladybug lives up to the username by creating a sadness so contagious that I have yet to recover from it, and I cope by recommending this fic to other Zutara shippers so that more may suffer like I did. (Stop the cycle? No.) Look — I think there’s something extremely beautiful and poetic about a love that changes in nature and form and expression, but not in intensity and devotion, and that’s what this fic is about. Loved it. Never reading it again. 
One shots: 
There’s a category of canon-compliant Zutara one-shots that are all extremely painful, and I cannot get enough of them: in the next life by we-were-angels, taking place right before Katara’s wedding to Aang; water can heal, water can break by crazyache, about why Katara didn’t attend Yakone’s trial. 
To combat the above, here’s a few funny, fluffy ones that make me cackle: i am older now by ama (who wrote the banger that is The Blackfish and the Dragon), an old!ZK fic that I read to counteract the emotional damage inflicted by psychedelic_aya’s we hold our hearts in silence; all good things start with tea by yodalorian, where Zuko’s hapless Disney sidekick-esque advisors try to get him a wife; And Half at One Another’s Throats by songofhopeandhonor (whose account is deleted), about Zuko’s harebrained proposals to Katara; The Dragon of the West’s Guide to Flirting by bluesunflower44, which is exactly what it says on the tin and the awkward disaster you’d expect. Waiting on a Steady Sun, by nire, is a long version of my favourite tropes: fake marriage + idiots to lovers ft. pining for your spouse. 
I generally don’t love modern AUs, but akaiiko’s talk is cheap (and i’ve got expensive taste), where Katara meets Zuko at a frat party, is a whole damn delight; my old aches become new again by jamesstruttingpotter is a wonderfully indulgent modern AU based on Our Beloved Summer. 
And finally, some season 3 character studies: don’t tell me how to feel by paintingcranes, ft Katara at the Western Air Temple being increasingly incensed at both Zuko trying to be helpful and how other people react to his helpfulness; the other side of mercy by crazyache, where Sokka calls Katara “high-strung and crazy” and that really makes Zuko think; The Silent Garden by romilley (whose WIP The Horizon is also fabulous), where Katara and Zuko avoid their feelings through a reluctant-allies-with-benefits arrangement (ft a way of depicting intimacy and sex that makes me think of Normal People); a deep delight of the blood by eruthros, where Zuko asks Katara to practice bloodbending on him out of pragmatism but also a little bit of guilt (it’s unrated, but that “Kink Without Sex” tag is there for a reason). 
Thank you for asking me for my recs, anon, because I needed an outlet to rave about fanfiction and my irl friends have heard enough. Feel free to ask me questions about specific fics that aren’t on this list: I always love talking to people about fic and I’m always looking for new ones to read!
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youcouldmakealife · 4 months
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Books of 2023
I missed a year, but I’m back with my books of the year. This year there was a pretty big dip in reading from me (75% of my reading in 2022, and only 60% compared to 2021), partly because, well, eye recovery, but also, you know. Life.
I’m just going to do a top 10 this year — unfortunately I hit a bit of a slump in how many standouts I read as well as how much I read, but I do heartily recommend everything in that top 10. They’re in no real order, except for the first, which is a cheat in the form of a series.
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
So this is a weird thing where I rated the first 3 stars, but figured it was good enough to read the second, which got 4 stars, as did the third. Finally the fourth, which was my only 5 star novel of the year, and made me weep like a baby. So if you read the first and didn’t bother with the rest — this gets so much better as it goes.
The Trees - Percival Everett
This is actually the first book I finished in 2023, and it set a tone that the rest of the year sadly did not match. I mean, other than the tone of the book, which is razor sharp, over the top satire, which this year did, in fact, live up to. I just discovered Everett in 2022 with Telephone, which I also enjoyed, and am looking forward to going through his many works.
Time Shelter - Georgi Gospodinov
Really enjoyable literary fiction that reminds me of a lot of my favourite works to come out of Eastern Europe in the 70s and 80s.
How to Survive History: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes - Cody Cassidy
This is the kind of highly specific and irrelevant barring time travel information I need (not sarcasm).
Middlemarch - George Eliot
It took me like 5 months to read this monster and I enjoyed every minute of it. Eliot is so fucking good at characterisation. Absolute masterpiece of a book. Only thing that kept it from being 5 stars was, well, see; five months.
Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World - Naomi Klein.
As surreal as it is fascinating.
Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin
A reread. Still absolutely devastating. Still has some of the sharpest lines I’ve ever read.
Ultra-Processed People - Chris Van Tulleken
Should have changed my eating habits. Did not change my eating habits.
Strong Female Character - Fern Brady
Not much of a memoir gal, but this was an exception.
Gentle Writing Advice - Chuck Wendig
My favourite book of writing advice from a horror author. Genuinely a lot of shit that I needed to hear.
Speaking of advice, I read a whack ton of self-help adjacent books for various reasons this year, and these are a few standouts:
How to Keep House While Drowning, The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity, Unbroken: The Trauma Response is Never Wrong.
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13eyond13 · 1 month
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How many of these "Top 100 Books to Read" have you read?
(633) 1984 - George Orwell
(616) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
(613) The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
(573) Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(550) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
(549) The Adventures Of Tom And Huck - Series - Mark Twain
(538) Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
(534) One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(527) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
(521) The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
(521) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
(492) Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
(489) The Lord Of The Rings - Series - J.R.R. Tolkien
(488) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
(480) Ulysses - James Joyce
(471) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
(459) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
(398) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(396) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
(395) To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
(382) War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
(382) The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
(380) The Sound And The Fury - William Faulkner
(378) Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Series - Lewis Carroll
(359) Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(353) Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
(352) Middlemarch - George Eliot
(348) Animal Farm - George Orwell
(346) Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(334) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
(325) Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
(320) Harry Potter - Series - J.K. Rowling
(320) The Chronicles Of Narnia - Series - C.S. Lewis
(317) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
(308) Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
(306) Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
(289) The Golden Bowl - Henry James
(276) Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
(266) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
(260) The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
(255) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Series - Douglas Adams
(252) The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne
(244) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
(237) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery
(235) The Trial - Franz Kafka
(233) Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
(232) The Call Of The Wild - Jack London
(232) Emma - Jane Austen
(229) Beloved - Toni Morrison
(228) Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
(224) A Passage To India - E.M. Forster
(215) Dune - Frank Herbert
(215) A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce
(212) The Stranger - Albert Camus
(209) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
(209) The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(206) Dracula - Bram Stoker
(205) The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
(197) A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
(193) Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
(193) The Age Of Innocence - Edith Wharton
(193) The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling - Henry Fielding
(192) Under The Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
(190) The Odyssey - Homer
(189) Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
(188) In Search Of Lost Time - Marcel Proust
(186) Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
(185) An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
(182) The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
(180) Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
(179) The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
(178) Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
(178) Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller
(176) The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
(176) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
(175) The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(173) The Giver - Lois Lowry
(172) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
(172) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
(171) Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
(171) The Ambassadors - Henry James
(170) Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
(167) The Complete Stories And Poems - Edgar Allen Poe
(166) Ender's Saga - Series - Orson Scott Card
(165) In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
(164) The Wings Of The Dove - Henry James
(163) The Adventures Of Augie March - Saul Bellow
(162) As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
(161) The Hunger Games - Series - Suzanne Collins
(158) Anne Of Greene Gables - L.M. Montgomery
(157) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
(157) Neuromancer - William Gibson
(156) The Help - Kathryn Stockett
(156) A Song Of Ice And Fire - George R.R. Martin
(155) The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
(154) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
(153) I, Claudius - Robert Graves
(152) Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
(151) The Portrait Of A Lady - Henry James
(150) The Death Of The Heart - Elizabeth Bowen
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magicaltear · 1 year
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How many have you read?
The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Bold the titles you’ve read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
As found in the original post I saw by @macrolit
My total: 43/100
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p1325 · 6 months
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The 'Timeless Classics' series by RBA stands as a commendable collection of 85 literary masterpieces, predominantly drawn from English literature, with notable inclusions such as Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina from diverse cultural landscapes. This curated anthology transcends geographical boundaries, making its enriching content accessible not only in various European countries under the names of ''Storie Senza Tempo'', ''Romans Eternels'', and ''Novelas Eternas'' but also in South America. RBA's commitment to delivering these cultural gems on a global scale reflects a dedication to fostering a profound appreciation for literature across diverse audiences.
Here are all the titles of the following collection: Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence
Jane Austen - Emma
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth
Jane Austen - Persuasion
Louisa May Alcott - Good Wives
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter
Charlotte Bronte - The Professor
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (Part 1)
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (Part 2)
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Anne Bronte - Agnes Grey
Thomas Hardy - Far from The Madding Crowd
William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (Part 1)
William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (Part 2)
Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons Alexandre Dumas fils - The Lady of the Camellias
Henry James - Washington Square
Louisa May Alcott - A Garland For Girls
Henry James - The Portrait of A Lady (Part 1)
Henry James - The Portrait of A Lady (Part 2)
Jane Austen - Lady Susan. The Watson. Sanditon
Anne Brontë - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D’Urbeville
Edith Wharton - The Mother’s Recompense
Daniel Defoe - Moll Flanders
Henry James - The Wings of the Dove
Edith Wharton - The Customs of the Country
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
Jane Austen - Juvenilia
George Eliot - Middlemarch (Part 1)
George Eliot - Middlemarch (Part 2)
George Sand - Nanon
Henry James - The Ambassadors
Elizabeth Gaskell - Cranford
Thomas Hardy - Under The Greenwood Tree
Edith Wharton - Summer
George Sand - Indiana
Henry James - The Bostonians
George Eliot - Silas Marner
Henry James - The Golden Bowl (Part 1)
Henry James - The Golden Bowl (Part 2)
Edith Wharton - The Twilight Sleep
Emily Eden - The Semi-Attached Couple
Edith Wharton - The Glimpses of the Moon
Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Lady Audley’s Secret
George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss
Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton
Fanny Burney - Evelina
George Sand - Little Fadette
Emily Eden - The Semi-detached House
Charlotte Brontë - Shirley I
Charlotte Brontë - Shirley II
Daniel Defoe - Lady Roxana
Theodor Fontane - Effie Briest
Edith Wharton - The Cliff
Thomas Hardy - Two on a Tower
Frances Hodgson Burnett - A Lady of Quality
Louisa May Alcott - Moods
Lucy Maud Montgomery - The Story Girl
Elizabeth Gaskell - Ruth
Thomas Hardy - The Woodlanders
Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South
Matilde Serao - Fantasy
Thomas Hardy - A Pair of Blue Eyes
Emilia Pardo Bazán - Sunstroke
Ann Radcliffe - The Romance Of The Forest
Louisa May Alcott - A Long Fatal
Charlotte Bronte - Villette
Sybil G. Brinton - Old Friends and New Fancies
Edith Wharton - The Bunner
Sisters Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out
Margaret Oliphant - The Chronicles of Carlingford
Edith Nesbit - The Incomplete Amorist
Virginia Woolf - Day and Night
Guy de Maupassant - Our Heart
Frances Trollope - The Widow Barnaby (Part 1)
Frances Trollope - The Widow Barnaby (Part 2)
Elizabeth Gaskell - Half a Lifetime Ago
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brasideios · 6 months
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10 Characters/10 Fandoms/10 Tags
Thank you for thinking of me my dears @krankittoeleven & @ainulindaelynn
Lemme see. This is long, sorry about that. I’m in a rambling mood. These are just the characters that came wandering into my noodle in no order - at least, that was intended.
1. Dorothea from Middlemarch (by George Eliot). She’s probably my fave character ever. I think in a mostly abstract way, she’s come nearest to mapping out how I perceive the feminine part of myself. She starts out so so idealistic - wanting to do something to change the world, to matter, but society has its own rules that eventually beats her down, but she’s so stoic, enduring, and self-denying, that her happy ending is earned… but then the epilogue is so melancholy so was it happy? and… I don’t know. There’s something in it all that I’ve never found a better version of.
2. My brain is on D names now lol so Daphnae from AC Odyssey. The more I think about her story, as little as we’re given of it, the more I find something tragic and fated in it, and then there’s the possibility of changing that fate, or embracing it. Something, something doomed by the narrative, unless…?
3. Demosthenes from my pdfs lol listen - ancient history RPF is a fandom (apparently) so this is valid. I have been down some serious rabbit holes with this man of late - I won’t even start on why or this will be an essay. I could also have put Thucydides in this position - but I’m on D names.
4. Daria. No seriously. I loved this show when I was a teen, and she’s honestly my spirit animal. It was my nickname because I was unfortunately very much like that. I adore her deadpan, acerbic remarks and many of them will live on in my brain forevermore. I wasn’t as witty btw - but the vibes were the same.
5. Hedwyn from the vg Pyre (woot! My brain releases me from the letter D!). I’ve played it several times now, and he’s my fave. Just a sweet guy - so sweet, you always want to free him first, but then you also very much wanna keep him with you - and sometimes I’ve been selfish enough to send everyone else instead. I also like Volfred a lot but that has everything up do with the VA 🙈
6. Alfie from Peaky Blinders. I have no excuses - the character is an unhinged maniac but Tom Hardy just brought something (a twinkling eye) to the role that makes him a very likeable, back-stabbing psychopath.
7. Caesar from HBO Rome. Ciaran Hinds has been a fave of mine since Persuasion - and I liked how he acted this part / how he was written. That’s all I’ll ever say about Caesar - character or historical figure. There are at least another half a dozen characters in this series I might’ve mentioned too. I must rewatch it one of these days.
8. Gannicus from Starz Spartacus. Dustin Clare is an old time favourite from waaaay back when I was persuaded to watch McLeod’s Daughters - really bingeable but quite trashy Aussie TV - sorry to any fans - but it really is. I so enjoyed his vibes and he brings all of that to Gannicus and it just works so well for the character. Pure cheekiness, and when he does this face 🥺 chefs kiss. Side note - I will pretty regularly say some variation of ‘my cock rages on’ about the most random stuff so - thanks to this character for that gem lol.
9. Johnny Spit from the movie Gettin Square. Yeah this is left field and I seriously doubt there’s a fandom for it - but what a character - quintessentially Australian deadbeat, (played by David Wenham). There’s a courtroom scene that kills me every time. I hope he got square, for good this time.
10. Kenny from Mad Men. I don’t even know how to explain it, I just want to protect him and he doesn’t even deserve it, and he wouldn’t have thanked me for it - maybe it was just the way everyone else was just an asshole about his writing. I want to know more about the short story about the egg. I could’ve picked almost any other character from this show though. They’re all so good/bad for their own reasons.
I made it! Haha! I have no idea who to tag - I think the only people who usually join in have already been tagged - so I’ll just add a few and call it ten. Sorry for any double ups.
No pressure at all - @nemo-of-house-frye @theinkandthesea @liminalspacecowboah @cyrus-the-younger @myriath
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20genderchild · 1 year
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highladyluck · 5 months
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Tag Game: 9 Favorite Characters
I was tagged by @anyboli, @asha-mage, and @spectrum-color (Stop! stop! I’m already tagged!)
Aladdin (Disney’s Aladdin)
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This is definitely where my love of the rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype started. Lay the blame squarely at his bare feet. I watched all the sequels including the direct-to-VHS Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
2. Mat Cauthon (the Wheel of Time series)
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He’s 12 different literary/historical/mythological references slapped together, chained to a lovable rogue archetype, rolled in accessories, doused in foreshadowing, and given #vampireproblems. He probably has ADHD and dyslexia and definitely has anxiety. I’m obsessed with him and I have the essays to prove it.
3. Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag (the Wheel of Time series)
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Liking Mat is the gateway drug to liking Tuon, at least in my case. She’s so fucking weird and mysterious and infuriating and I really wanted to understand her and her role in the story. Then I wanted to figure out how to fix her. Now I still want all that but also I want to make her worse, make her make other people worse, and just generally Put Her In Situations. She is endlessly fascinating to me and I want to chew on her until I rip out her squeaker. Then I will put in another squeaker and the process will begin again. My username, originally chosen because somebody else snagged matrimonycauthon, has very appropriately become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
4. Ael i'Mhessian t'Rllalielu (the Rihannsu series)
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No one should be surprised that I love Diane Duane’s take on the Romulans, and Ael is the archetypal honorable Romulan type that Star Trek originally introduced. As the aunt of the Romulan Commander in the Enterprise Incident (the Federation steals technology from the Romulans) she has good reasons to hate Captain Kirk and the Federation personally- but as the tagline says, when there is no help from her friends, she turns to her enemies. She’s the star of the Rihannsu Star Trek novels: start with either My Enemy, My Ally for the first book or the omnibus Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages.
5. Tertius Lydgate (Middlemarch)
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I was trying to sum up what I like about him and I think it’s something about the quiet tragedy of good intentions and ambition getting banally corrupted by unquestioned systems, practical considerations, and bad but personally inevitable choices. If you’ve ever worked in nonprofits or a b-corp, you may recognize yourself in Lydgate in a way that will make you uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s just me? Anyway, go read Middlemarch. It is always the right time in your life to read Middlemarch.
6. Tau-Indi Bosoka (The Masquerade series)
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I’m love them! Tau-Indi is such a sweet person, and they follow a favorite character arc of mine: characters whose assigned or chosen role is to be the best representative & highest expression of their specific ethical and political milieu, and then they experience or learn something that forever disqualifies them from their former role, and then they have to keep on existing and build their sense of morality and place in the world from the ground up, on firmer foundations than the ones they started with. Also an excellent foil to Baru.
7. Miriam Beckstein (the Merchant Princes series)
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Merchant Princes is basically an isekai story where a biotech journalist finds out she’s a long-lost heir to a group of alternate-universe-teleporting refugees. It’s not actually very fun for her at first, but she’s making it work. I love competence porn and she definitely delivers, and there’s also a very sweet slow-burn romance tied up with her funding and leading the socialist revolution of yet another alternate universe.
8. Glimmer (new She-Ra)
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Glimmer? She’s just my bisexual teleporting deeply morally questionable power fantasy, it’s not that deep. Also she’s hot and I love her hair.
9. Mark Pierre Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan series)
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What an incredible foil! Every time I read him I’m so impressed by how fucked up he is and how hard he’s working to figure out who he is and develop in a direction he chooses. Control issues, daddy issues, sexuality issues, identity issues… he’s an entire wall of magazines and I think he’s just great.
Tagging: @unmarkedcards @veliseraptor @ameliarating @gunkreads @liesmyth and anyone else who wants to do it
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thelonelybrilliance · 4 months
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2023 Reads: thelonelybrilliance
Final count 72! I set a goal of 52 originally but raised the bar when I realized that would only bring me into early November.
Decided it would be fun to share some stats and recommendations along with the full list.
First, ten recommendations:
The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner (best completed series)
Gregory Orr, The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write (best new poetry read)
Minka Kelly, Tell Me Everything (best memoir)
E.B. White, Here Is New York (best short read)
Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist (best journals)
Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind Family (best children's lit)
Laurie Halse Anderson, Shout (best poetry memoir)
George Eliot, Middlemarch (best classic)
Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart (best food writing)
Red Rising series by Pierce Brown (best sci-fi/ongoing series + best audio drama (Red Rising (Book 1))
Of my 72 reads, 31 were rereads, 41 new . Four were audiobooks, the rest print (primarily e-books). My longest read was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. My shortest read (I think? A lot of poetry collections are short) was the longform essay, Here Is New York by E.B. White. I read the most books in December (15) and the least in June (2). 50 authors were women, 21 were men, and one poetry collection was multi-author. My most-read authors were as follows:
Megan Whalen Turner (7 books)
Lucy Maud Montgomery (6 books)
Louise Glück (5 books)
Elizabeth Wein (5 books)
Jane Austen (3 books)
Pierce Brown (3 books)
Full list organized by month under the cut!
Favorites: Bold | Rereads: Underline
Fiction: Blue | Non-Fiction: Red | Poetry: Purple | Audiobook: *
JANUARY
Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief
2. Annie Chagnot & Emi Ikkanda (eds.), How Lovely the Ruins
3. Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
FEBRUARY
4. Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
5. Richard Siken, War of the Foxes
6. Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility
MARCH
7. Rita Dove, Playlist for the Apocalypse
8. Louise Glück, The Seven Ages
9. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
APRIL
10. Megan Whalen Turner, Moira's Pen
11. Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
12. Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia
13. Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings
MAY
14. Megan Whalen Turner, Thick as Thieves
15. Megan Whalen Turner, Return of the Thief
16. Elizabeth Wein, The Winter Prince
17. Elizabeth Wein, A Coalition of Lions
18. Elizabeth Wein, Sunbird
19. Elizabeth Wein, The Lion Hunter
JUNE
20. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
21. bell hooks, Applachian Elegy
JULY
22. Michael Gibney, Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line*
23. C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
24. Elizabeth Wein, The Empty Kingdom
25. Dorothy Dunnett, Spring of the Ram
26. Michael Bazzett, You Must Remember This
27. Lisa Ampelman, Romances
28. Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
29. Natalie Diaz, Post-Colonial Love Poem
AUGUST
30. Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty
31. Jenny Han, It's Not Summer Without You
32. Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec
33. Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother
34. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
35. Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds
SEPTEMBER
36. Gregory Orr, The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write
37. E.B. White, Here Is New York
38. Minka Kelly, Tell Me Everything
39. P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves
40. Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist
41. Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase*
42. Tobias Wolff, Old School
OCTOBER
43. Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance*
44. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
45. R.F. Kuang, Yellowface
46. Louise Glück, Vita Nova
47. L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon
48. L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs
49. L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest
50. Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind
NOVEMBER
51. Ron Rash, Poems
52. Louise Glück, Meadowlands
53. Tom Perrotta, Election
54. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
55. Louise Glück, Averno
56. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
57. Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep
DECEMBER
58. Tom Perrotta, Tracy Flick Can't Win
59. Pierce Brown, Red Rising*
60. Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle
61. Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess
62. Pierce Brown, Iron Gold
63. Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind Family
64. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
65. George Eliot, Middlemarch
66. Louise Glück, Ararat
67. Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
68. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
69. Kate Baer, And Yet
70. Marguerite de Angeli, The Lion in the Box
71. Pierce Brown, Golden Son
72. Laurie Halse Anderson, Shout
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The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.
1. Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen
2. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
4. Harry Potter series
5. To kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering heights - Emily Brontë (TBR)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His dark material - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
12. Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (DNF)
14. Complete works of Shakespeare (TBR)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffeneger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (DNF)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (TBR)
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (TBR)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yan Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (DNF)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (TBR)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (TBR)
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (DNF)
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (DNF)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker (TBR)
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (TBR)
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (DNF)
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🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
Does this mean I post 5 snippets?! Let’s do this! These are all from the same WIP.
He looked away, uncurling his fingers and looking at the inscription on the charm again. Three simple words he remembered painstakingly agonising over for weeks, trying to determine the perfect words to adorn on the necklace, when really the perfect words didn’t seem to exist. He’d eventually settled on something simple, something he thought was meaningful but now as he looked at it again, it seemed quite trite.
Aeternum, Spencer Reid.
~~~
“Never thought I’d be the kind of guy parents didn’t let date their daughter.” He sighed too and released you from his hold.
“Yeah, well…you know.” You shrugged taking a step backwards.
“I’m staying at the Sunset Motel out on the two-fifteen.” He blurted out.
“Ew why?” You frowned at him, causing him to laugh.
“Because I’m a starving PhD student who spent all their money on gas to drive here. It’s forty bucks a night, it has a bed and a shower. It’ll do.”
~~~
“The rental car she was found in was in her name. But no one checked into the Blue Lantern under that name. The innkeeper told the Franklin County sheriff that a woman checked in matching her description under the name Dorothea Brooke. Does that mean anything to you?” Emily spoke again, causing Spencer’s eyes to quickly land on her.
He had something akin to a smile toying at the corner of his lip and a wistfulness to his eyes. He clutched the necklace tighter.
“George Eliot’s Middlemarch.” He sighed. “Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw. They were perfect for each other except life kept getting in their way. The book details a series of false starts and misunderstandings between the two of them. But, uh, in the end they realise they just fit, they were both a little quirky and misunderstood. We adopted those monikers, Dorothea and Will, in the hopes we’d get our happy ending one day, just like they did.”
~~~
The truth was he’d missed the signs that night. He’d gone along to your party with you and seen you have a few drinks which was nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until much later when he had you back at the motel and you were naked on top of him when he saw it. You were high. He should have noticed it in your erratic behaviour, it wasn't as though it was the first time he'd seen you on drugs.
~~~
“When was the last time you saw her?” She asked as soon as they were alone.
“Six years, four months and two days ago.” Spencer replied without skipping a beat. “I was back home visiting my mom.”
“You haven’t seen her since?”
“No.”
Send me a 🌹 and I’ll share a random snippet from a random WIP.
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