read books. care about things. get excited.

bookie book book

[luanamurase]

man tumblr ate the quality of this one

[lobster-tales]

Books Read in 2025

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

“It’s the house," Francis murmured. By now the black gates with their snakes were in sight. The ouroboros, casting shadows upon the ground. “It wasn’t made for love, the house.”

[shinozaki-ayumi]

tfw your new in-laws have a bit of a mold problem (i just finished Mexican Gothic and i loved it)

[no-where-new-hero]

this might be a controversial statement but one thing i really respect about mexican gothic is that moreno-garcia wasn’t afraid to put noemi’s sexual attraction to virgil on the page. yes it’s a response to the fucked up enchantments of the house, but it’s still there. it’s still one more thing that noemi has to fight against to win out against the forces of colonialism.

because i think that so much of what bills itself as gothic in fiction nowadays forgets about the erotics of danger. the point of the gothic is seduction by darkness, and a darkness that is violent or harmful or dangerous. without the danger and the discomfort of morally ambiguous pairings, it’s just insufficiently lit romance (or like mafia romance or something).

[bookiebookbook]

Mexican Gothic | Home

Personal work. Fanart for the book MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

[odonism]

methods of organizing books alignment chart:

[irtenyev]

when w. h. auden said “evil is unspectacular and always human” and ursula k. leguin said “this is the great treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain”

[treethymes]

when toni morrison said “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.”

[azbukivedii]

when simone weil said “imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

[glazedeye-s]

carry on, rainbow rowell // the lamment of icarus, herbert james draper // apollo to icarus, nikita gill // sunlight, hozier // icarus, oscar wilde.

[exitwound]

when whitman said “i contradict myself. i am large… i contain multitudes” and wilde said “what are you? to define is to limit” and sumney said “i insist upon my right to be multiple”

[doubledenimbi]

it needs to be said

[berenshand]

it's been said before, but I'll say it again: every white male fantasy author since the 60s is trying to be Tolkien but they will never be Tolkien because they're out here writing tragedy porn and violence because they think that's what makes Lord of the Rings compelling but Lord of the Rings is actually about friendship and poetry and breakfast food and it never gives a gruesome description of a battle or a dead body. every white male fantasy author since the 60s has to give the hero in their basic hero's journey plot a super-tragic backstory with gory description when it's actually much more compelling to read a story about someone who's generally well-adjusted and has a pretty good life but does the right thing and sacrifices that pretty good life just cuz it's the right thing to do. in Lord of the Rings the tragedy comes at the end, when you realize the toll that violence takes, not at the beginning to trick you into feeling sorry for the protagonist

also, no fantasy authors should be allowed to invent languages unless they do it properly and actually know how languages work

(*please note Sir Terry Pratchett is exempt from the critiques in this post despite being post-Tolkien bc he is a) satirizing white man's fantasy and b) discworld is just weird as shit in the best possible way)

[godzilla-reads]

Classic Black Literature

I’m an avid fan of classic literature, but I feel like in the world of academia, people are very euro/white-centric and forget many amazing black authors of classic books, so here’s a small list!

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison

“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison

“Native Son” by Richard Wright

“Go Tell it on the Mountain” by James Baldwin

“The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

“Not Without Laughter” by Langston Hughes

“Cane” by Jean Toomer

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston

“Sister Outsider” by Audre Lorde

“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson

“Through the Ivory Gate” by Rita Dove

“A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry

“Passing” by Nella Larsen

“Amiable with Big Teeth” by Claude McKay

“Imperium in Imperio” by Sutton Griggs

“The Street” by Ann Petry

“The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas

“Narrative of Sojourner Truth” by Sojourner Truth

“The Curse of Caste” by Julia C. Collins

“Jazz” by Toni Morrison

[yijinheedo-deactivated20220316]

(x)

[wylansvaneck]

I’m reading this queer anthology and the first story is a fairytale about a queer Latina girl whose anger was so fierce it literally poisoned the rich white men who unfairly captured the transgender soldier she was in love with and my heart is literally bursting I’m going to cry

[wylansvaneck]

the second story is about two queer girls who leave their husbands-to-be at the altar and flee together on a boat to become pirates IM FUCKING SCREAMING THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF GAY CONTENT I SIGNED UP FOR

[wylansvaneck]

okay this is the anthology and it’s entirely written by queer authors and inspired by the stories of real queer teens in history and it’s the most wholesome and epic thing I’ve read in a long while

[biandlesbianliterature]

[image description: The cover of All Out: The No-Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell]

[coolcurrybooks-deactivated20230]

Some trans science fiction and fantasy books. You can find my earlier recs for f/f science fiction and fantasy here and my new recs for bi and pan books here. And ace book recs are here. Oh, and queer SFF by people of color.

Also I somehow totally blanked on this while making the powerpoint, but Charlie Jane Anders’ stuff should be in the last slide. Her two books are CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY. I’ll link to some of her short stories below the cut.

The queer SFF database’s tag for trans books is here. There’s more than I included in the rec post, so go knock yourself out!

I included the author identities because I figured people would want to know if the book was own voices. Disclaimer that gender is a weird nebulous thing and life isn’t easy or straightforward, so depending on when you’re reading this post (I’m writing 8/2/19), some of the authors I listed as cis might have had gender realizations. I literally saw this on Twitter this morning with one of the “more trans SFF” books, so figured it was worth saying. 

Below the text cut you’ll find the titles and authors, links to my queer SFF database (which includes links to trans reviewers and content warnings), and some of my favorite SFF short stories by trans people.

Keep reading

[theclassicsreader]

[coolcurrybooks-deactivated20230]

I did another post on this topic last year, but I thought it could use an update with some more books! And yes, the last post had people repeatedly adding on queer books by white people, so I’m a bit salty about it.

Other queer SFF PowerPoints:

Massive queer SFF rec post

Trans SFF

F/F SFF

Bi and Pan SFF

Ace SFF 

I’m not transcribing all the text, but you can find the titles, authors, information on TW, etc beneath the cut.

When possible, I’m linking to my database of queer books. The page for each book includes the synopsis, content warnings under spoiler tags, and links to reviews from queer readers. If it’s not in the queer database at the time of posting (8/24/19), I’ll link to Goodreads instead.

Keep reading