[52327]

don’t let me be lonely by claudia rankine the sense of an ending by julian barnes the art of death by edwidge danticat johnny would you love me if my dick were bigger by brontez purnell the refugees by viet thanh nguyen defy the stars by claudia gray to all the boys i’ve loved before by jenny han the cruel prince by holly black the wicked king by holly black ps i still love you by jenny han pachinko by min jin lee

[52327]

the book of night women by marlon james desperate characters by paula fox the empathy exams by leslie jamison the turner house by angela flournoy just kids by patti smith brazilian is not a race by wendy trevino the agony of eros by han byung chul a wrinkle in time by madeleine l'engle the vegetarian by han kang human acts by han kang black wave by michelle tea lucy by jamaica kincaid everything i never told you by celeste ng the arab of the future: a childhood in the middle east, 1978-1984 by riad sattouf the arab of the future 2: a childhood in the middle east, 1984-1985 by riad sattouf future sex by emily witt the mothers by britt bennett

[52327]

the star side of bird hill by naomi jackson ordinary people by judith guest my brilliant friend by elena ferrante the silver kiss by annette curtis klause bluets by maggie nelson the wicked + the divine: the faust act by gillen mckelvie and wilson cowles the beauty of the husband by anne carson the argonauts by maggie nelson confessions of a mask by yukio mishima half a lifelong romance by eileen chang barbarian days by william finnegan the sympathizer by viet thanh nguyen

[52327]

Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.

Ken Liu

[melonatures]

His soul, stripped bare of all sceptic comfort, cowered, shivering, naked, abject; and the living clung to the dead out of piteous need for grace from the soul that had passed away.

Clemence Housman, The Were-Wolf

[52327]

"‘Why are you so cold Limoo?’ When he was overwhelmed with love for her, Chhamman switched from Haleema to Lima, from Lima to Limoo. He wrapped her lovingly in a quilt. Burying his face in her body, he took several deep breaths. How fragrant Limoo is! Like a fully ripe mango. Ever inviting. A bowl of cool water, full to the brim, drink from it every day and the thirst is everlasting. It was selfish of him to make so much love to her. She will wilt away with excess. No…from now on he won’t touch her. If only he could make time stand still! Don’t look ahead, don’t look back. Darkness has been left behind…but what lies ahead? Who can trust the future?"

— Ismat Chugtai, The Quilt and Other Stories, Scent of the Body

[captain-swan]

How as a young girl, Ismat Chugtai convinced her father to excuse her from learning how to cook, and give her instead the opportunity to go to school and get an education: “Women cook food Ismat. When you go to your in-laws what will you feed them?” he asked gently after the crisis was explained to him. “If my husband is poor, then we will make khichdi and eat it and if he is rich, we will hire a cook,” I answered. My father realised his daughter was a terror and that there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Ismat Chugtai (via rhysfeyre)

[poesizing]

intro to lit theory

Authorship: Barthes, Death of the Author; Foucault, What is an Author?

Formalism: Eichenbaum, The Theory of the “Formal Method”;  Brooks, from The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry

Structuralism: Saussure, Course in General Linguistics ; Barthes, from Mythologies

Psychoanalysis: Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams; Lacan, The Mirror Stage & The Significance of the Phallus

Ideology: Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses; Foucault, Truth and Power

Feminism & Queer: Sedgwick, from Between Men; Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa; Wittig, One Is Not Born a Woman; Butler, Gender Trouble

Deconstruction: Derrida, from Of Grammatology;

Postcolonial: Fanon, from The Wretched of the Earth; Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?

Cultural Materialism: Adorno & Horkheimer, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception; Williams, Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory  

these are about 2/3 of the readings for my intro to lit theory course, if you’ve ever wondered what one studies on such courses, the links lead to free pdfs  

[the-library-and-step-on-it]

I just think goodness is more interesting. Evil is constant. You can think of different ways to murder people, but you can do that at age five. But you have to be an adult to consciously, deliberately be good – and that’s complicated.

Toni Morrison (via et--cetera)

[52327]

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

[52327]

Drifting House by Krys Lee We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami An Untamed State by Roxane Gay I’ll Be Right There by Shin Kyung-Sook Saga Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Tramps Like Us Volume 2 | 3 | by Yayoi Ogawa Drowned by Therese Bohman Diary of the Fall by Michel Laub Life of Pi by Yann Martel Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (re-read) Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

[52327]

The Quilt and Other Stories by Ismat Chughtai War Trash by Ha Jin Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto  Mama Leone by Miljenko Jergovic  The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermout  Half World by Hiromi Goto  The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel   Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little The Patternist Series by Octavia Butler:       Wild Seed       Mind of My Mind The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner:       The Thief       The Queen of Attolia       The King of Attolia Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta The Gate by Natsume Sōseki Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki The Last Song of Dusk by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi  White Teeth by Zadie Smith On Beauty by Zadie Smith  Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell  The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwartz-Bart  Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi Gun Dealers’ Daughter by Gina Antopol The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Saga Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

[52327]

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks  After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood   The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins The Time Machine by H.G. Wells The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers The End of The Affair by Graham Greene Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami