academia oscura

xxii | i’ll die as a king

[thelostfilesofstudents]

[academiaoscura]

Top Books of 2022

Hello, beautiful people.

Long time, no see! It’s been crazy on my end. I hope you are all well and safe. I figured I’d share a little blogpost I wrote about my top books of 2022. What havr you read, friends? What are your reading plans for 2023?

Read blogpost here: https://bia-reads.blogspot.com/2023/01/i-read-80-books-this-year-here-are-my.html

[academiaoscura]

2021 in books

Here is my 2021 reading wrap-up! The titles in italics are the ones I’m emphasizing as recommendations.

january:

1. “Christmas Days” by Jeanette Winterson

2. “Antigone” by Sophocles, translated by our Lord and Savior, Anne Carson

3. “The Undiscovered Islands” by Malachy Tallack

4. “The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts” by Baba Ifa Karade

5. “Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg” edited by Corey Lang Brettschneider

6. “The Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery

7. “World of Wonders” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

8. “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara

9. “Magickal Mermaids” by Flavia Kate Peters

february:

1. “Dear Juliet” edited by the Juliet Club

2. “Memorias de mis putas tristes” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3. “Midnight Sun” by Stephenie Meyer

4. “Infinite Country” by Patricia Engel (DNF)

5. “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery 

6. “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer (re-read)

7. “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer (re-read)

8. “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake

march:

1. “The Dumb House” by John Burnside (TW)

2. “Hope Never Dies” by Andrew Shaffer

april:

1. “150 Glimpses of the Beatles” by Craig Brown

2. “The Passion” by Jeanette Winterson

3. “The Satanic Bible” by Anton Szandor LaVey

4. “A Coney Island of the Mind” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

5. “The Final Revival of Opal and Nev” by Dawnie Walton

6. “Leave the World Behind” by Rumaan Alann

may:

1. “The Invention of a Murder” by Judith Flanders

2. “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” by Tom Standage

3. “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss

4. “God is Not One” by Stephen R. Prothero (DNF)

5. “Written on the Body” by Jeanette Winterson

6. “Loki: Agent of Asgard″ by Al Ewing (re-read)

7. “Loki: Agent of Asgard #2″ by Al Ewing (re-read)

8. “Poesia de Amor” by Pablo Neruda

9. “Modern Greek Poetry” edited by Kimon Friar

10. “Of Blood and Magic” by Shayne Leighton

11. “In Focus Reiki: Your Personal Guide” by Des Hynes

12. “Beneath the Moon” by Yoshi Yoshitani

13. “Tales of a Korean Grandmother” by Frances Carpenter

14. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera

15. “Mercy, Unbound” by Kim Antieau

june:

1. “Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life” by William Finnegan

2. “The Falling in Love Montage” by Ciara Smyth

3. “Butterflies of North America” by Jeffrey Glassberg

4. “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo

5. “King John” by William Shakespeare

6. “Girl Crushed” by Katie Heaney

july:

1. “The Death of Vivek Oji” by Akwaeke Emezi

2. “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer

3. “Wonderful Tonight” by Pattie Boyd

4. “An Oresteia” by Anne Carson

august: 

1. “Crazy Brave” by Joy Harjo 

september:

1. “The Carrying” by Ada Limón

2. “A Queer History of the United States” by Michael Bronski

3. “The Maidens” by Alex Michaelides

4. “The Black Arts” by Richard Cavendish

5. “Soiled Doves” by Anne Seagraves

october: 

1. “A Dowry of Blood” by S.T. Gibson

2. “Books of Blood” by Clive Barker

3. “We Are Not From Here” by Jenny Torres Sanchez

4. “Playing in the Dark” by Toni Morrison

5. “Deep and Dark and Dangerous” by Mary Downing Hahn (Re-Read)

november:

1. “Collected Poems” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

2. “Green Witchcraft” by Paige Vanderbeck

3. “Medicine Women, Curanderas, and Women Doctors” by Babette Perrone et al.

4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky (Re-Read)

5. “I’ll Take You There” by Greg Not (DNF)

6. “Upstairs Girls” by Michael Rutter

7. “Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters (DNF)

8. “Once Upon a Quinceanera” by Julia Alvarez

9. “Sabrina and Corina: Stories” by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

10. “The People We Keep” by Allison Larkin

11. “Besom, Stang, Sword” by Christopher Orapello

12. “Ute Tales” by Anne M. Smith

13. “The Age of Entitlement” by Christopher Caldwell (DNF)

14. “The History of Torture” by Brian Innes

15. “Kaleidoscope” by Brian Selznick

december:

1. “Resistencia: Poems of Protest and Revolution” by Mark Elsner

2. “A Touch of Darkness” by Scarlett St. Clair

3. “David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music” by Darryl W. Bullock

4. “Ordinary Girls” by Jaquira Díaz

5. “Postcolonial Love Poem” by Natalie Diaz

6. “Gods Behaving Badly” by Marie Phillips

7. “Future Home of the Living God” by Louise Erdrich

8. “Winter” by Ali Smith (DNF)

9. “The Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo

Here’s to another year of reading! DM if you’d like more personalized reading recommendations. 

-bia

[academiaoscura]

baby, accanto a te

io morirò da re

-må

[ell-hs]

no one's coming to save you

.

.

//Crush, Richard Siken / Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 1, Simone de Beauvoir / Giudizio universale - Universal judgment, Roberto Ferri / original //

[academiaoscura]

be my mistake

[academiaoscura]

To the girl at Starbucks who called me a Manic Pixie.

Thank you, earnestly.

[antoniettabrandeisova]

Walter Crane The Swan Maidens, c. 1894. oil on canvas

[draculasswife-deactivated202212]

L'ala nera o Il tocco dell'angelo by Roberto Ferri.

[academiaoscura]

Currently reading “On Writing” by Stephen King, and I’m regretting ever reading this book in the first place.

[brigantias-isles]

Swan and Cygnet  ❀

[academiaoscura]

All I want is a pen pal.

[sunbathe]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtC5QqmjMrD/

[da-da-sk]

© da-da-sk

[academiaoscura]

Fuck men. I was in the queue to fill out my paperwork at the dentist’s office. THE DENTIST’S OFFICE! And this old guy in a Vietnam Veteran’s cap says to me, “What a nice view. Turn back around.” I said “no” and he laughed. I was at the dentist’s office, in yoga pants and a t-shirt, waiting to fill out my paperwork. This is an example of how men feel entitled to harass women and make a joke out of them when they tell them “no.”

[detailedart]

Detail, edit, 3 ٭ Spirit of the Night ٭ by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893).

[chewbacca]

Dead Poets Society (1989), quoting Henry David Thoreau.

[duckflyfly]

How I love being a woman!