sweet disposition

kyra tracking #userkyra i follow from my main

[perfectquote]

“I think if what you’d do for your last day on Earth doesn’t look like a pretty normal day for you, you probably need to reexamine your life.”

— Jeff Zentner, Goodbye Days

[penny-anna]

Hello hello, off the back of the recent book polling i decided to put together a little reclist i'm calling:

Literary Fiction I really enjoy as someone who is mostly an SFF reader

some of these have speculative elements; others are books that I just think go hard. here we are:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell:

most of David Mitchell's books are simply a blast IMO if you're only going to readone it has to be Cloud Atlas. if there was ever a book that has everything it is Cloud Atlas. as a word of warning I will say: if you are unfamiliar it consists of 6 nested stories and the opening section (The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing) is a bit dense but if you power through it you will get to other sections like the 1930s doomed gay romance and the fast food clone dystopia that are a great time.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino:

I would warmly recommend reading this one if you are into writing fantasy in particular. a breezy 165 pages where each chapter is a description of a different fictional city.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark:

we now enter into 'books that simply fuck'. I feel like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is potentially a tough sell if you are not already into the classics given that the premise does not sound very exciting but i gotta say: dude trust me. this one ranks on '100 books to read before you die' or whatever lists over and over for a reason. probably the most perfectly constructed novel i have ever read. and under 200 pages.

Fictions by Jorges Luis Borges:

this is another one i would recommend if you are into writing fiction. "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" in particular has been living rent free in my mind for years. im always wanting to reference it. i wanna be like 'wow this is a real Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' situation but i worry no-one will know what I'm talking about and i will sound like the Gregory Berrycone guy. anyway Borges is really good.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood:

i've read a good chunk of Margaret Atwood and this is solidly my favourite. just an absolutely banging read. the sections about the titular blind assassin are extremely cool. the plot creeps along to this like slow-burning reveal that will have you like ohh... OHHH!!

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson:

as w Blind Assassin this is another one that will slow burn you into a big oh... OH NO?? i read it in a single day (it's under 200 pages) (I like a book that is short) and it really cracks along.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden:

i would just like to say that Rumer Godden is a wildly underrated writer. i came across her first via her children's books and subsequently sought out her adult fiction and was like FUCK me. anyway: Black Narcissus is about a group of English nuns trying to set up a convent in the Himalayas and instead get into some messed up psychological horror. has a movie adaptation that offended the Catholic Legion of Decency.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier:

this is one of ur classic books where everyone says its really really good and then you read it and are like wowie that was really really good.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka:

look u have probably already read this one bcos we all love it but if you haven't then you definitely should. its only 70 pages. big bugge.

[yellow-cat]

abandon shame. theres more interesting emotions to be felt

[yellow-cat]

unless its getting you off. in that case keep going

[worstgirlintheworld]

Jenny Holzer, Living, 1980-82

[and-fishing-equipment]

in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

and don't forget to stay silly

[borderepisteme-deactivated20260]

"Anyone who has ever tried to recount a dream to someone else is in a position to measure the immense gap, the qualitative incommensurability, between the vivid memory of the dream and the dull, impoverished words which are all we can find to convey it: yet this incommensurability, between the particular and the universal, between the vecu and language itself, is one in which we dwell all our lives, and it is from it that all works of literature and culture necessarily emerge."

Fredric Jameson, Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan

[smartlovingunitedtough]

Wood block color prints by gustave baumann

[unamccormack]

“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed. The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

[meanbuddhist]

well well well if it isn’t the obvious truth which i have been running away from as fast as i possibly can all this time

[petaltexturedskies]

How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe also troubled –roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

Mary Oliver, from “Heavy” in Thirst: Poems

[maureen2musings]

The moon will guide you through the night with her brightness, but she will always dwell in the darkness, in order to be seen

pc.koublis

[archivearchangelica]

traffic jam in memory lane, 2014

[hyperions-fate]

I was pessimistic when I was younger. But over time, I came to see pessimistic philosophy for what it was: an elaborate cope, an intellectual crutch for living in bad faith. You need to have an almost mad, reckless passion for connection and the unfurling of life's potential - despite and because of winter's pains. Believe in Spring, and forget the rest.

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

chat reminder to just write whatever the fuck you want. write that overused trope. write that obscure shit that no one will have heard of. just. do it. your writing is yours stop depriving it of that.

[sadboybrigade]

honestly in the era of AI slop it is more important than ever for you to write or draw that incredibly niche/strange/unpalatable thing you want to make. the world needs the unique weirdness of people more than ever

[pastperfectcontinuous]

I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us! Write it for children, if that’s the way you can give yourself permission to do it. Write it for your ancestors. Use any narrating voice you like. If you’re familiar with a dialect or accent, use it instead of vanilla English. Be very noisy, or be hushed. Try to reproduce the action in the jerky or flowing movement of the words. Make what happens happen in the sounds of the words, the rhythms of the sentences. Have fun, cut loose, play around, repeat, invent, feel free.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering The Craft

[seaphine]

The moon smiles, darkness fades...

[theinternetarchive]

from 'bird by bird: some instructions on writing and life,' anne lamott, pub. 1994.