Intricate Worlds

Megan. Enthusiast. Read books! Isn't it pretty to think so?

[odysseyinink]

finally made a tik tok! it’s going to be book recommendations, stationery, & cooking

[intricateworlds]

Summer Reading List 2018

Nonfiction

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy by Elizabeth Winder

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath by Diane Middlebrook

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Fiction

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Emma by Jane Austen

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Macbeth by Shakespeare

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Poetry

Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Another Time by W.H. Auden

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

Graphic Novels/Comics

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenburg

like if you want more lists like this, message me if you want personalized recommendations or have any books that I should add to my list! 

[intricateworlds]

The dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears.

Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler 

[intricateworlds]

April Book Haul (part 1) 

1. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler 

2. By the Book: Writers on Literature and the literary Life from The New York Times Book Review edited by Pamela Paul

3. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit

4. Reborn: Journals & Notebooks 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag

5. A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

6. The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (used) 

[intricateworlds]

March Poetry Review 

Falling Awake by Alice Oswald 

★★★★★

Opinion: As I read the first few poems in this collection, I found myself disappointed. I had expected something great and found myself instead reading poems which I conceived to be somewhat trite with a few I enjoyed. It was when I reached the poem “Tithonus” that my opinion of Alice Oswald’s work took an 180-degree turn. It is one of the most incredibly beautiful and, more importantly, unique pieces I have ever experienced (yes, “experienced” is the right word); I could not be more taken with this collection after completing the entire work and I highly recommend it. 

Bluets by Maggie Nelson 

★★★★

Opinion: This work was extremely interesting. While there were some sections I was not entirely fascinated by, there were others parts which resonated deeply with me. I really enjoyed the overarching focus of the poem: blue. It was a deep study in the emotional value of a color and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Auguries of Innocence by Patti Smith 

★★★★★

Opinion: Perhaps it is just because I adore everything Patti Smith does, but this is one of my favorite poetry collections I have read in a long time. I would not recommend it to people who are just getting into poetry because some of her work can be slightly harder to access if you are unfamiliar with poetic thought. Patti Smith is just such a smart writer. I cannot praise her work enough or encourage more people to read it. 

[intricateworlds]

Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly in a mounted case.

Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

[intricateworlds]

What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund 

[intricateworlds]

Just Kids and M Train by Patti Smith 

-- This is a joint review of the memoirs written by the artist, poet, and musician Patti Smith. Just Kids was published in 2010 and M Train was published in 2015. I read both this month (March 2017). -- 

Just Kids

Rating:  ★★★★★

M Train

Rating:  ★★★★★

Genre: nonfiction, memoir

Synopsis: Just Kids focuses on Patti Smith’s formative years as a writer and musician, as well as her deep, complicated relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. M Train focuses on the more recent years of Smith’s wanderings, her travels, and the loneliness of aging. She writes about her life with honesty, and though she uses prose these writings can only be described as poetry. 

Opinion: I accidentally read M Train before I read Just Kids and was absolutely taken by the way Patti Smith writes about her personal world. She is eloquent, witty, and raw; her way of seeing and living astounded me from page to page. When I finished M Train, I hurriedly ordered Just Kids, falling further in love with Patti Smith. In her, I have found an artist who just gets it. 

Recommendation: I knew very little about Patti Smith before I read these books. I recommend both to anyone who is an artist of any sort, who loves poetry, or who just wants to learn a little bit more about the counterculture movements of the 1960s and 70s. To me, Just Kids and M Train have become required reading. 

“But what else do I believe in? Sometimes everything. Sometimes nothing. It fluctuates like light flirting over a pond. I believe in life, which one day each of us shall lose.” - Patti Smith, M Train

[intricateworlds]

I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.

Patti Smith, Just Kids

[intricateworlds]

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Rating:  ★★★★★

Genre: nonfiction, political, memoir

Synopsis: Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a letter to his son about his own experiences growing up black in America. 

Opinion: This one of the most eloquently written pieces of nonfiction I have ever read. It is raw and real. It offered me insight into a world I do not belong to. I find it difficult to do this book justice in words. 

Recommendation: Everyone should read this book. Not only is it beautifully written and moving, but it captures and articulates things about American culture and the treatment of black individuals in the U.S. that everyone should be working to understand. 

“So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.” - Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

[intricateworlds]

Why is it that we lose the things we love, and things cavalier cling to us and will be the measure of our worth after we're gone?

Patti Smith, M Train

[intricateworlds]

City Lights Booksellers and Publishers 

San Fransisco, California | 2017

[intricateworlds]

Salt by Nayyirah Waheed

Rating:  ★★★★★

Genre: poetry

Synopsis: Published in 2013, this collection is notable for its powerful and accessible poems. Waheed gracefully deals with the topics of race, feminism, love, and a variety of other subjects in concise, free-flowing prose. 

Opinion: Salt is a refreshingly contemporary collection that is elegant without pretension. Its ideas are insightful and empowering, truthful and beautiful. I rushed through and, though I felt a certain amount of satisfaction upon completion, immediately looked to see if Nayyirah Waheed has any other poetry collections (she does, but I do not yet own it) to feed a craving for more. 

Recommendation: This collection is perfect for anyone who appreciates contemporary poetry. I would recommend Salt as a good starting place for someone interested in poetry and looking for somewhere to start. It is also reminiscent of Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey (published a year after Salt) and anyone who enjoys Rupi Kaur’s poetry will love Nayyriah Waheed’s as well (and vice versa). 

Suggested Poems (if you aren’t interested in the entire collection): Just read the whole collection--it’s fast. 

“if we must both be right. we will lose each other. 

-- exile” - Nayyirah Waheed, Salt 

[intricateworlds]

I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

[intricateworlds]

February Book Haul

1. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (used)

2. The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (used)

3. So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood by Patrick Modiano

4. M Train by Patti Smith

5. Tenth of December by George Saunders

6. Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith

[intricateworlds]

 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Rating:  ★★★★★

Genre: fiction, classics

Synopsis: Mrs. Dalloway is throwing a party and this novel is the chronicle of a single day in central London as perceived by the minds of several people whose lives are intertwined in fascinating ways. It is a study of life, the individual mind, religion, and a perfectly timed snapshot of the early twentieth-century. 

Opinion: This novel is an incredible piece of artwork. I marveled at each individual line and felt continuously stunned at how articulately feeling is captured by Woolf. Each character is marvelously developed by their thoughts, actions, and how they are perceived by others. By the end, I was brought to tears. 

Recommendation: I recommend this book highly and without reservation, but particularly to anyone of a poetic or introspective mind. 

“She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.” - Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

[intricateworlds]

Would you suggest me a book? I haven't read something as engrossing as the secret history or the goldfinch in a long time.

Yes! Okay here’s a few: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (just in case you haven’t read it yet - BEAUTIFUL EVERYTHING), Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (super intriguing and beautiful prose but much less of a plot driven novel), the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (again just in case you haven’t read), Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (again more about the language than plot but very interesting), the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (dark themes, gorgeous writing), let me know if you have read any of these/your opinion!