“𝑈𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑑𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑡𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛”
- 𝑀𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑦𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝐹𝑎𝑡𝑒 -
taylor price

Product Placement

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祝日 / Permanent Vacation
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titsay
almost home
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Sweet Seals For You, Always
DEAR READER
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

Discoholic 🪩
🪼
NASA
Sade Olutola
Misplaced Lens Cap
Stranger Things
Three Goblin Art

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣

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@nohaymoralejas
“𝑈𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑑𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑡𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛”
- 𝑀𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑦𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝐹𝑎𝑡𝑒 -
the way you can resent your parents but also sympathise with and ache for them… so sick
it’s very embittering experience
I want to thank RF Kuang. The Poppy War trilogy was a constant companion during one of my toughest semesters, at least academically speaking. I loved loved loved her books.
“When you’re a trans woman you are made to walk this very fine line, where if you act feminine you are accused of being a parody and if you act masculine, it is seen as a sign of your true male identity. And if you act sweet and demure, you’re accused of reinforcing patriarchal ideas of female passivity, but if you stand up for your own rights and make your voice heard, then you are dismissed as wielding male privilege and entitlement. We trans women are made to teeter on this tightrope, not because we are transsexuals, but because we are women. This is the same double bind that forces teenage girls to negotiate their way between virgin and whore, that forces female politicians and business women to be agressive without being seen as a bitch, and to be feminine enough not to emasculate their alpha male colleagues, without being so girly as to undermine their own authority.”
— Julia Serano, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, p 28-9 (via goth-gallus)
So I just started reading The Secret History, and like, loads of people must have noticed how racist it is, right? Am I imagining things? I don’t think so, cause how is it that so many people have just taken to loving this book, when it seems to me, very clearly racist?
2.10.2020
30.09.2020
I have been trying to be motivated for virtual classes. I am doing extra credits, I am trying to do at least three times a week language practice, and just generally not get behind.
But I hate virtual classes.
I spend 9h a day watching a computer screen. And I can see how hard the teachers are trying, but it's just so hard. My green card application was denied, the country I live in is violent and chaotic, and every day it's horrifying news after horrifying news. Which is funny considering I'm a journalist.
Anyway, I can't stop cause ✨we got a scholarship to mantain✨.
If anyone has ideas on how to stay motivated, I'd appreciate any and all advice
Cultural Dark Academia
here’s pt. 2
After my last post about the lack of representation in academia, I felt it neccessary to provide some examples of what I’m talking about. Obviously there are more countries in the world than I can list and provide books for, so for a quick list this is what I got. !! Keep researching !! If you have any more books by POC please reply them !! If a country isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, this is just what I could get together real quick. If I made any mistakes, please let me know, we’re all learning. We need to help each other end eurocentrism in academia, so value representation and educate yourselves 💓💓💓
Chinese:
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Dream of the Red Chamber
The Water Margin
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Journey to the West
The Scholars
The Peony Pavilion
Border Town by Congwen Shen
Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang
To Live by Yu Hua
Ten Years of Madness by agent Jicai
The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong
Japanese:
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë
Haruki Murakami
Pakistani:
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
Ghulam Bagh by Mirza Athar Baig
Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm by K. C. Kanda
Irani/Persian:
Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji
Savushun by Simin Daneshvar
Anything by Rumi
The Book of Kings by Ferdowsi
The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam
Shahnameh (translation by Dick Davis)
Afghan:
Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Indian:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Aithihyamala, Garland of Legends by Kottarathil Sankunni
The Gameworld Trilogy by Samir Basu
Filipino:
Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca
The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai
Brazilian:
The Patriot and The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto
Broquéis by Cruz e Sousa
Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis
Colombian:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Delirio by Laura Restrepo
¡Que viva la música! by Andrés Caicedo
The Sound of Things Falling by Jim Gabriel Vásquez
Mexican:
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolf Anaya
Adonis Garcia/El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata
El Complot Mongol by Rafael Bernal
Egyptian:
The Cairo Trilogy by Nahuib Mahfouz
The Book of the Dead
Nigerian:
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Malian:
The Epic of Sundiata
Senegalese:
Poetry of Senghor
Native American:
The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
Starlight by Richard Wagamese
Almanac of the Dead by L. Silko
Fools Crow by James Welch
Indigenous Australian:
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
First Footprints by Scott Cane
My Place by Sally Morgan
American//Modern:
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Internment by Samir’s Ahmed
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson
Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch
cultural academia pt. 2
here’s pt. 1
This is a continuation of spreading cultural books to end eurocentrism in academia. There’s definitely more “dark academia” books that fit the aesthetic this time around! Thank you to everyone who added books in the notes of the first post- I just put all those suggestions together in this list so complete credit to everyone who made these suggestions <3
Chinese:
Shen Congwen
Geling Yan
From Emperor to Citizen
Life and Death in Shanghai by Niem Cheng
Jin Ping Mei by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
Japanese:
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Sonezaki Shinju by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
Works of Oe
Tosa Nikki by Ki no Tsurayuki
Torikaebaya Monogatari
Ise Monogatari by Ariwara no Narihira
A Fool’s Love by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro
The Golden Death by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro
Hell Scene
I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Edogawa Ranpo
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
The Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Flower Tales by Yoshiya Nobuko
Books of Hayashi Fumiko
Books of Enchi Fumiko
The Demon’s Sermon on the Marrial Arts by Issao Chozanshi
Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Fool’s Life by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Thai:
Garin’s Uncanny Files
Irani/Persian:
Disoriental by Negar Djavadi
Mesopotamia:
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Pakistani:
Poetry of Allama Iqbal
Works of Saadat Hassan Manto
My Feudal Lordand Blasphemy by Tehmina Durrani
The Reluctant Fundmamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Raja Gidh by Bano Qudsia
Four Tragic Romances of Punjab (Heer Ranjha, Mirza Sahiba, Sassi Punnun, and Sohni Mahiwal)
The Crow Eaters by Bapsi Sidhwa
Indian:
Ramayana by Valmiki
Nonviolent Soldier of Islam by Eknath Easwaran
The Wildlings by Nilanjana Roy
Sivagamiyin Sapatham by Kalki Krishnamurthy
Chitralekha
Chandralekha
Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories
Works of Satyajit Rai
Byomkesh Bakshi
Munshi Premchand (Godan, Gaban, Nirmala)
The River Sutra
Mehlua
(comics)
Nagraj
Chacha Choudhary
Lotpot
Champak
Nandan
Vikram Betal
(poets)
The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu
Gitanjali
Works of Ruskin Bond
Mahadevi Verma
Hajari Prasad Divedi
Arabian:
Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail (he lived in Al-Andalus but was Arab I believe)
Filipino:
Works of Nick Joaquin
Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
The Eight Muses of the Fall By Edgar Calabia Samar
Isabelo’s Archive by Resil B. Mojares
Noli Me Tangere by Dr. Jose Rizal
El Filibusterismo by Dr. Jose Rizal
Indonesian:
Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Saman by Ayu Utami
The Years of the Voiceless
Beauty is Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
(poets)
Sapardi Djoko Darmono
Chairil Anwar
Sustardji Calzoum Bachri
W.S. Rendra
Taufik Ismail
Wiji Thukul
NH Dini
Dee Lestari
Mira W.
Malaysian:
Garden of Evening Mists
Brazilian:
O Ateneu by Raul Pompeia
Ursula by Maria Firmino
The Hidden Cause; The Alienist by Machado de Assis (short stories)
The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto
Barren Lives by Graciliano Ramos
Child of the Dark by Carolina Maria de Jesus
Rebellion in the Backlands by Euclides da Cunha
Macunaima by Mario de Andrade
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
Captain of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuna
City of God by Paulo Lins
Budapest by Chico Buarque
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis
Poems by Vinicius de Moraes
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Antologia Poetica by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Senhora by Jose de Alencar
Colombian:
Works of William Ospina
Chilean:
Works of Isabelle Allende
Mexican:
Poems by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
Laura Esquivel
El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata Quiroz
(authors)
Gerardo Murillo
Ruben M Campos
Maria Enriqueta Camarillo de Pereya
Aura by Carlos Fuentes
El Llano by Juan Rulfo
La Casa Junto Al Rio by Elena Garro
Amparo Davila
Guadalipe Duenas
Ines Arredondo
Fransisco Tario
Max Aub
Bernado Couto Castillo
Amado Nervo
Adriana Diaz Enciso
Emiliano Gonzalez
H. Pascal (poetry of vampires and ghosts)
Tequila Gotico: Literatura Gotica en Mexico (published in magazine/good intro to gothic lit in Mexico)
Argentinian:
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato
Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
Nigerian:
Americanah by Chimamanda Adiche
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Malian:
Fatoumata Keita
Senegalese:
Amadou Kane
Cheik Anta Diop
Sudanese:
Season of Migration to the North
Native American:
Works of Leslie Marmon Silko
Canadian:
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Ghanan-Canadian)
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (Indigenous Canadian-Ojibwe)
Birdie by Tracie Lindberg (Indigenous Canadian-Cree)
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican-Canadian)
British:
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (Jamaican-British)
American:
Works of Gwendolyn Brooks
Works of Langston Hughes
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava (Colombian-American)
Once again, if your country wasn’t included, that doesn’t mean it’s not important!! Please continue to add more books with their countries in the notes and correct me if I’ve made a mistake!!
I know someone isn’t in academia when they’re into the whole academic aesthetic bs.
“Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren’t tears. She wasn’t crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.”
— Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
Started The Vegetarian by Han Kang yesterday. I am disgusted
But in a good way???
book recs in the time of the coronavirus
by popular demand! (i count six people commenting on my post as popular demand). remember to try to find these digitally at your local library, or maybe ORDER THEM FROM YOUR LOCAL INDIE? they’re coming on hard times my friends. i suggest indiebound if you dont wanna look up what your local indie book store is. let’s try not to give amazon anymore money, yeah?
so you’re living during an pandemic. do you want to read…
BOOKS ABOUT PAN/EPIDEMICS? yes you do, here’s my rec list for that
wanderers - chuck wendig. don’t follow this dude on twitter he’s so fucking annoying but he’s a good writer. this follows a group of people whose family members/friends have been struck by a fast-spreading sleepwalking disease that causes them to all move towards the same mysterious location. it’s a big book at around 800 pages but it’s good as hell
wilder girls - rory power. a young adult book that’s like annihilation meets lord of the flies, where a disease called the TOX has ravaged what could be the world, but all we know is the isolated maine island where an all girls boarding school once stood. wildly grotesque, creepy, and gay as fuck. had a good time with it!
the southern reach trilogy (annihilation, authority, acceptance) - jeff vandermeer. don’t watch the movie it fucking SUCKS. this maybe pushes the term pandemic/epidemic, but the series broadly follows a group of scientists trying to figure out why there’s a spot in the world called area x is transforming nature, and it is creeping forward, ready to swallow the earth whole.
a people’s history of the vampire uprising - raymond a. villareal. what it says in the title! told in an oral history format, through interview transcripts, newspaper articles, radio interviews, etc. has been compared to world war z but for vampires, but i’ve never read that so you know, do with that what you will.
SO YOU DON’T WANNA READ ABOUT DISEASES? FINE THEN.
SCIFI
the vanished birds - simon jimenez. this book made me WEEEEEP. whew. talk about the power of chosen families. it’s hard to summarize, but generally the book is about a boy, with a power that is connected through music. and it’s about a woman, who takes him in and raises him and loves him. and it’s about another woman, brilliant and callous and terrible, whose love for another woman saves her in the end.
the luminous dead - caitlin starling. creepy and fun! it follows a woman named gyre who is hired to explore a cave. of course, all is not what it seems, and the only person she has to help her is em, the woman in her ear guiding her through each level of the cave. it’s gay, it’s scary, it’s weird!
this is how you lose the time war - max gladstone and amal el-mohtar. a thrilling and beautiful novella that takes place during a strange scifi world where red and blue, two enemy combatants, fight and fall in love through letters.
bonds of brass - emily skrutskie. this is that finnpoe book people on twitter were freaking out about. it comes out in april, and it is escapist fun nonsense. i read it in two days and my roommate read it on our first quarantine day and thoroughly enjoyed it. it is about a hotshot pilot whose in love with a prince, and a scrappy slip of a girl who latches onto them both.
red rising series - pierce brown - now ive only read two, but i did enjoy them! it’s very epic scifi that has to do with how being from a different planet is dependent on your class system and those from mars are all fucked. and our intrepid hero is from mars and they decide to use him as a weapon to destroy the entire class system. it’s fun!
FANTASY
the starless sea - erin morgenstern. i have talked this up a lot on here. so quick summary, a book about books! a book about stories and libraries and a boy who falls into the lush, imaginative world of stories within stories, and who falls in love with a beautiful, broody storyteller.
silver in the wood - emily tesh. an extremely short novella about the wild man of the woods and the beautiful folkorist named silver who falls for him, and the creature of the woods who threatens to tear them apart.
lost boy: the true story of captain hook - christina henry. what if captain hook was peter pan’s first lost boy? that’s the premise of this wonderfully grotesque book, where peter pan is more like a god than a playful child, cruel and compelling at the same time.
gods of jade and shadow - silva moreno garcia. when a young woman accidentally wakes up the mayan god of death, she binds them together (also accidentally) and must accompany him to take back the throne from his twin brother
robbergirl - s.t. gibson - based off of…a fairytale i do not know, but it’s a super charming f/f novel about the princess of the robbers and a charming girl-witch she tries to rob, but then gets drawn into helping her find her missing brother
the girl who drank the moon - kelly barnhill. this book still makes me just feel so WARM when i think about it. it is such a lovely piece of fiction about magic and family and love. there is a witch in the woods, so everyone says, and once a year a baby is sacrificed to her so that the town does not fall into bad luck. but all is not what it seems, and we get to see one of the sacrificed babies grow up, and the real truth about the witch in the woods and the town behind the wall.
the devourers - indra das. gay werewolves in kolkata. a woman getting revenge on her rapist. earthy, gorgeous writing that makes you feel like you can smell everything that’s happening. what’s not to love?
LITERARY FICTION
home fire - kamila shamsie. a modern retelling of antigone that takes place in great britain during the height of islamophobic hate. i love retellings of greek shit but i dont actually know the source stuff very well, so if you’re like me you’ll probably love it! if you are very into the source material, you might like it less!
less - andrew sean greer. a middle-aged gay writer living post AIDS crisis has no idea how to get old, since all the older gay people he ever knew died. when his ex invites him to his wedding, he’s basically like, fuck THIS, and cashes in on all the invitations he has ever received to travel away long enough that he misses the wedding. i found this book just really beautiful and achy and stunning.
the house of broken angels - luis alberto urrea. this follows the dying patriarch of a mexican-american family who wants to celebrate one last birthday before he goes. really really loved this book.
melmoth - sarah perry. probably more gothic than literary but i dont read much gothic so it’s going in here. it follows a creature who roams the globe, haunting those who have been complicit in tragedies big and small. it chronicles four stories, the main one being in prague. unsettling and wonderful.
the water cure - sophie mackintosh. fragmented, non-linear, and horrifying, this chronicles the story of three sisters raised in isolation with their cruel father, and complicit mother. one day their father disappears, and men wash up on their shore, and these sisters find their presence both disturbing and thrilling. it’s a fucked up look at abuse in the hands of men and the women complicit in it.
naamah - sarah blake. the untold story of noah’s (of the biblical ark and the floods) wife. follow her journey in isolation, her strange relationship with an angel who may or may not be real, her struggle to keep a level head for her family, and her fragmented feelings about god. super weird but i loved it.
on earth we’re briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong. a poet’s debut novel, definitely semi autobiographical, but it tells the story of a boy we just know as little dog. it is told through letters to his mother, his mother who cannot read. it talks fraught familial relationships, budding sexuality, and that good old immigrant trauma
bunny - mona awad. this literally defies genre so i’m putting it here. it’s like if stephen king and donna tartt had a baby, and that baby smoked crack and wrote this. it follows a girl getting her mfa in creative writing, and how she falls into this group who calls themselves the bunnies. that’s like….all i can say lol it is fucking WILD
MEMOIR/NONFICTION
crux: a cross border memoir - jean guerrero. follows a journalist as she tries to figure out why her dad is the way he is, and how to find him. it took me a long time to read this but i found it extremely compelling.
the undocumented americans - karla cornejo villavicencio. out 3/24! this is about the undocumented immigrants nobody talks about. not the dreamers, not the model minorities, but the regular people. the construction workers, the delivery people, the hair stylists. it talks about the undocumented people who were on the front lines helping at 9/11, during hurricane sandy, in flint, michigan. definitely a book to read
in the dream house - carmen maria machado. heavy trigger warnings here bc it is about domestic emotional abuse. it chronicles machado’s relationship, and her first one with a girl, and the severe emotional abuse she experienced during her time with her. it’s written in experimentally and i loved all of it.
SHORT STORY
sabrina & corina - kali fajardo-anstine. stories that all center chicana indigenous women in colorado, written by a chicana indigenous woman herself. not a bad story in here
lot - bryan washington. somewhat interconnected stories that all take place in houston and center around afro-latino men dealing with poverty, gentrification, machismo, and sexuality.
HISTORICAL FICTION
the mercies - kiran millwood hargrave. a tale based on the true story of a town where every single able-bodied man died during a freak ocean storm while fishing, and the women learned to care for themselves. they sent a man to the town, a god-fearing man to save these women from the devil, which leads to a horrific time of witch trials and burnings, and one of the town girls and the man’s wife fall in love. just. really stunningly written
cantoras - carolina de robertis. i have shoved this into so many people’s hands at this point. READ IT. it centers five uruguayan women who call themselves cantoras (which was slang for queer woman). they come together to buy a beach house on an isolated island where they can be themselves, and the book follows their lives as they get older, always coming to that beach cottage as a touchpoint. IT’S SO GOOD.
ok that’s all i got for now. go forth and have fun!
“Felise”, from Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne by Harry Clarke (1928)
As with many other book lovers, seeing ornate bookshops, old world libraries, and sprawling personal bookshelves make we shiver. There’s something magical and powerful about so many books in one place. You know that the wall(s) of books can topple you both mentally and physically.
But at the same time, it also feels kind of elitist seeing so many books shelved away in a single place. Who gets access to these books? When I see beauty-and-the-beast-esque libraries in mansions and castles, I wonder if it’s fair for one person or family to own so many books. Would they be able to read them all, or is it just for display? It seems that many books in personal libraries are left unread.
Most book lovers should know: we acquire books faster than we can read them.
Book owning just feels like another way of flaunting privilege.
I don't want to be the person who says piracy is ok. But if we can't afford to buy books are we also forbidden from getting the knowledge within?
It's also why I don't understand people who won't lend books. Is the physical book more important than the words inside?