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Famous writers and the books they can't live without

All these answers are taken from BBC's Podcast "Desert Island Discs", where famous artists share the one book they would take with them to a deserted island.

Neil Gaiman - The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Margaret Atwood - Stories from 1001 Arabian Nights

Maggie O'Farrell - Selected Stories by Alice Munro

Colm Toibin - The portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Stephen Fry - Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot

Tennessee Williams - Poetry by Hart Crane

Roald Dahl - The New Oxford Book of English Verse by Helen Gardner

Helen Fielding - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Patricia Highsmith - Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Zadie Smith -  Remembrence of Things past by Marcel Proust

To all theatre and book nerds out there: Who is your favourite play writer? (Expect for the good old Willy shakes of course) I need more recommendations.

I think Goethe is hugely underrated!

Mozart and his weird sense of humor

“I wish you good night, shit in your bed all your might.”

"Oh my ass burns like fire.” (To his cousin)

"Write to me and don't be so lazy. Otherwise I shall have to give you a thrashing. What fun! I'll break your head." - (To his sister)

"To every good friend I send my greet feet; addio nitwit. Love true true true until the grave, if I live that long and do behave." - (To his cousin)

In 1782, Mozart wrote a six-voice canon. The canon’s title translates to “Lick Me In The Ass” :

"Lick my ass nicely,

lick it nice and clean,

nice and clean, lick my ass.

That’s a greasy desire,

nicely buttered,

like the licking of roast meat, my daily activity.

Three will lick more than two,

come on, just try it,

and lick, lick, lick.

Everybody lick his own ass himself."

“Yesterday, though, we heard the king of farts/ It smelled as sweet as honey tarts/ While it wasn’t in the strongest of voice/ It still came on as a powerful noise.” (To his mother)

There is a whole wiki only dedicated to Mozart and his love for ass jokes:

Marvel Actors and the books they love

Chris Evans - Sapiens by Harari

"I’m halfway through what might be the best book I’ve ever read. Sometimes when I’m reading non-fiction I like to take notes. I’ve basically copied this entire book into my notepad. Every single page is eye-openining. Read it! It’s fantastic."

Mark Ruffalo - Citizen by Claudia Rankine

"This is a powerful book about what racism feels like. Very moving. “

Chris Hemsworth - The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse by Mackesy

Benedict Cumberbatch - Saturday by Ian McEwan

'Reading is one of the joys of life and, once you begin, you can’t stop and you’ve got so many stories to look forward to."

Scarlett Johansson- Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

“One of my mother’s favorite books. It’s such a beautiful, tragic story. Marjorie is so full of gusto and romance.”

Brie Larson - The magic mountain by Thomas Mann

Robert Downey Jr. - Don Quixote by Cervantes

"I loved the novel. I though it was brilliant, inspirational."

Elizabeth Olsen - All the light we can not see by Doerr

"Oh my god, I love it! I was on a road trip and listening to music got really boring, so I downloaded the book on tape. It's amazing."

10 Classic Book Recommendations

I’ve read a lot of non-English classics over the last couple of years (all translated into English because I am not bilingual) and I thought it’d be fun to share some of my favourites!

This post contains affiliate links and they're marked with an asterisk (*) - you obviously don't need to use them.

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The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (1002)

Originally written in Middle Early Japanese (translated by Meredith McKinney)

A collection of essays, anecdotes, poems, observations and musings from Sei Shōnagon’s time as court lady to Empress Consort Teishi in Heian Japan

This is one of my favourite classics because found myself relating to a woman who lived over 1,000 years ago and it was wonderful. Some things have obviously changed – we’re from different times and places – but this book reminded me of how similar we are to the people that came before us.

Bookshop.org UK*

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (1873)

Originally written in French (translated by William Butcher)

An adventure novel

There’s something wonderfully superficial about this book. By this, I mean that the book doesn’t look at anything in depth because Fogg is in a race against the clock and has no time to dwell upon things.

Project Gutenberg (tr. G. M. Towle) | Bookshop.org UK*

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō (1702)

Originally written in Early Modern Japanese (translated by Yuasa Nobuyuki)

A travelogue interwoven with poetry

The opening lines are stunning and reading this book made me feel free in a time when everyone was restricted.

Bookshop.org UK*

Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1862)

Originally written in Russian (translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)

Semi-autobiographical philosophical fiction

Bleak and depressing and so, so interesting. Dostoevsky gives us a real insight into what life was like in exile in Siberia.

This isn’t the translation I read but, apparently, this one is much better and I intend to pick it up myself very soon.

Bookshop.org UK*

The Odyssey by Homer (c. 8th century BCE)

Originally written in Homeric Greek/Ancient Greek (translated by Emily Wilson)

Epic poem

It follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca and Greek hero, and his journey home after the Trojan War.

I have read many a translation of the Odyssey over the years and I love (almost) all iterations of it but Emily Wilson’s translation is beautiful.

Bookshop.org UK*

Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1320)

Originally written in Italian (translated by C. H. Sisson)

Poetry and religious philosophy

Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise with Virgil and Beatrice as his guides. Inferno will always be my favourite section of the poem but I really love Paradisio too.

Bookshop.org UK*

Poetic Edda (c.985)

Originally written in Old Norse (translated by Carolyne Larrington)

A collection of anonymous Old Norse narrative poems that tell mythological and historical stories.

This is the only translation I’ve read because I wanted something relatively accessible for my first foray into the Poetic Edda but I’ve also heard good things about the Hollander translation.

Bookshop.org UK*

Metamorphoses by Ovid (8 AD)

Originally written in Latin (translated by Rolfe Humphries)

A narrative poem that chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar. It includes various myths, such as Diana and Actaeon, Arachne, and Orpheus and Eurydice.

Although I’ve recommended the Humphries translation, you could pick up any verse translation and still enjoy it. I personally love Arthur Golding’s translation* from 1567 because it was the first direct translation from Latin to English and it’s a reflection of the poetry of its time.

Bookshop.org UK*

The Outsider by Albert Camus (1942)

Originally written in French (translated by Sandra Smith)

Also published as The Stranger in English

A philosophical novel

Camus wrote the best absurdist novels and this one is fantastic. I can’t really describe it but it had a great impact on 18-year-old me and it was my introduction to absurdism and existentialism (but don't tell Camus I described his novel as existentialist).

Bookshop.org UK*

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)

Originally written in Russian (translated by Bela Shayevich)

Dystopian novel – inspired Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984

The book depicts a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. Everyone is a number and the city’s buildings are constructed almost entirely of glass. It’s such an unnerving book.

Bookshop.org UK*

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If you pick up any of these books based on this post, please let me know what you think!

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Books I purchased this month

Unknown Book Recommendation:

The Last March by Robert Falcon Scott - a horrifying true story

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale."

This is a book that every history buff and Fan of "the Terror" should read. Robert Falcon Scott was one of the very first people that set foot on the South Pole. His personal diary tells the horrifying and fascinating Story of his last expedition: it is a moving tale of a man, who kept his will to survive until his very last breath. Scott was found dead over 100 years ago with this diary beside him, frozen in the antarctic ice.

Five incredible memoirs to add to your tbr

These books have thought me more about life and human relationships than anything else, they are of universal importance.

- Trigger Warning (Themes of sexual and psychological abuse)

1. Instrumental by James Rhodes

In this thought provoking and eye opening story James Rhodes, now a famous concert pianist, reflects on the sexual abuse he had to endure as a child and how classical music safed him from his severe depression and drug addiction. A must read if you want to understand the harsh reality and consequences of sexual abuse, but also a touching manifestation about the powers and meaning of classical music. "This is a memoir like no other: unapologetically candid, boldly outspoken and surprisingly funny".

2. The last expedition by Robert Scott

"In November 1910, a ship called Terra Nova left New Zealand on its way south to Antarctica. On board was an international team of explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, a man determined to be the first to reach the South Pole. A year and a half later, Scott and three members of his team died during a brutal blizzard.Even in his final hours, Scott found the strength to continue the journal he'd started at the beginning of his adventures; the diary was found beside his frozen body."

3. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

A heartwrenching memoir about the troubles writer Jeanette Walls had to face growing up with an alcohol-dependent father: "When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family." 4. The blinding abscence of light by Tahar Ben Jelloun

This technically isn't a memoir but I included it because it was highly based on real life events: "Ben Jelloun reveals the horrific story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies in underground cells with no light and only enough food and water to keep them lingering on the edge of death. He delivers a shocking novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will."

5. In the dream house by Carmen Maria Machado

"In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing experience with a charismatic but volatile woman, this is a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse."

Booklist for all the Dark Academics:

[Dark Academia book recs of all the different kinds I could think of. It's a long journey. Buckle up.]

The Classic Dark Academic :

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Anything by the Brontë sisters

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (this book birthed Dark Academia)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe

Bram Stokers Dracula

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

Maurice by EM Forster

Madam Bovary by Gustav Flaubert

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Good Man is Hard to Find

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Macbeth by Shakespeare

Othello by Shakespeare

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Poetry-lover Academic:

Poetry of Baudelaire

Odes of Keats (ALL OF THEM ARE A MUST READ)

Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe (especially The Raven)

Shelley's Alastor, Prometheus Unbound, Masque of Anarchy

Kubla Khan by Coleridge

T.S Elliott's Wasteland

all Emily Dickinson poetry but especially 'I felt a funeral in my brain', 'Because I could not stop for death' (read them a thousand times already)

Pablo Neruda's Nothing but Death

Langston Hughes

Tennyson's Lotos eater (underrated gem)

Sylvia Plath poems but special mentions to Lady Lazarus and the Bell jar

Paradise Lost by Milton (if you want to include something about the Devil in your list)

Poems by Sappho

The Contemporary Dark Academic:

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (the origin of Dark Academia)

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Ace of Spades by Amanda Foody (could recommend it a hundred times)

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

If We Were Villains by ML Rio

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Girls are all so nice here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Likeness by Tana French

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

One of us is lying by Karen Mcmanus

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Plot by Jean Hanff

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Conversion by Katherine Howe

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Quaint and Curious Volume

We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Lying Games by Ruth Ware

Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

The Furies by Fernanda Eberstadt

The Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Bad Habits by Charleigh Rose

Good Girls Lie by JT Ellison

Queer Dark Academic:

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (yes, yes, yes it's the gay shit)

Notes on a Scandal (What was she thinking?) by Zoë Heller

Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (lesbian vampire, hell yeah!)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Maurice by EM Forster

Christabel by Coleridge

Poems by Sappho

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Ace of Spades by Amanda Foody

The Dark Romantic Academic:

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Likeness by Tana French

The Temple House by Rachel Donohue

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Mythological Dark Academic:

(pardon me for my cluelessness)

I have not really read much about mythology but if Norse mythology is the area of your interest, Neil Gaiman is the God of it. (aka not only Good Omens and American Gods, but also the book 'Norse Mythology')

The Furies by Fernanda Eberstadt

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller

[Remember: Some of these books have dark academia as their major aspect but most of them have dark academia as their minor aspect, and many of them have been put into the list because I got a dark academia kind of vibe from them. This list is entirely created out of my own reading researches, friendly recommendations, and book recs from reddit, pinterest and the internet in general. If I have gone wrong somewhere or if you want me to add something new, feel free to drop an ask.]

Actors and their favourite Books II

These answers are taken from BBC's Desert Island Discs

George Clooney - War and Peace by Tolstoy

Anthony Hopkins - The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

Martin Freeman - Animal Farm by Orwell

Lin Manuel Miranda - Moby Dick by Melville

Christopher Lee - The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White

Hugh Grant - King Ottokar's Sceptre by Herge

Nicole Kidman - Poems of Emily Dickinson

Chris Evans - A Christmas Carol by Dickens

Emma Thompson - Homer's Odyssey

Mark Gatiss - The complete Sherlock Holmes

Great classic Books under 200 pages

1. The turn of the screw by Henry James (108 pages)

One of the must read gothic horror tales: The story begins when a governess arrives at an English country estate to look two young children, Miles and Flora. At first, everything appears normal then one night a ghost appears before the governess.

2. Letters to a young poet by Rilke (80 pages)

A must read for everyone who loves poetry and writing: In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, requesting an assessment of their value. The older artist, Rainer Maria Rilke, replied to the novice in this series of letters

3. The Aleph and other stories by Borges (200 pages)

A great collectio of magical storys full of phlosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises: "The Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping, or confusion."

4. Hunger by Knut Hamsun (180 pages)

Hunger has been hailed as the literary opening of the 20th century and an outstanding example of psychology-driven literature. Set in late 19th-century Kristiania, the novel recounts the adventures of a starving young man whose sense of reality is slowly fading away.

5. The Sandman by E.T.A Hoffmann (40 pages)

A classic short story for every gothic horror lover. Read it and be prepared to get your mind blown.

6. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (120 pages)

Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis, Dr B, a securities expert hiding valuable assets of the nobility from the new regime, maintains his sanity only through the theft of a book of past masters' chess games which he plays endlessly, voraciously learning each one until they overwhelm his imagination to such an extent that he becomes consumed by chess. Chess Story is Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942.

7. Bartleby, the scrivener by Herman Melville (70 pages)

Another great short story that will really make you think about capitalism and a man's free will: Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it is, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce and overworking finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?

8. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (160 pages)

This haunting and controversial novel is Baldwin's most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature. In a 1950s Paris an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses: After proposing to a young woman, he falls into an affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two.

9. The Stranger by Albert Camus (123 pages)

Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."

10. We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson (160 pages)

Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. 'Her greatest book ... ... the deeper we sink, the deeper we want to go' - Donna Tartt

I just started my instagram Feed about literary and cultural themes. Would be very glad, if some of you would be interested in checking it out. It would be so helpful to me, since it would be my dream to be an independent journalist one day. It is in german though but i think with google translate there will be no problems. I post similar stuff to the things i post on Tumblr.

@illiskulturblog is my name. Thank you!!!

Hi, I’m abi and here are some facts about me ;)

• I’m a new writer (I’ve been writing for about 5 yrs)

• I specialize in fan fictions, sci-fi, comedy and all thing superhero-y

• My favorite show is get even

• My birthday is in late summer

• I wear glasses -.-

• My favorite subjects are: ela, geography, math, and history

• I’ve been to 10 out of the 50 states

• I want to be a doctor of writing

• My favorite season is spring

• I’m a stan of the following: Mighty med, mcu, lab rats, awae, espionage movies/shows, funko pops, Hamilton, west side story, writing (duh) and hsmtmts.

Okay, that’s all I could think of- bye-bye!!!!!

𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺! 🙌🏻🥹

I've started writing on, and dog earing the books that I'm reading. I hadn't been doing so before not for the lack of thoughts but I was afraid to do so, as though some "devine retribution" awaited me if I did xD

But recently, I read on a nice Tumblr post on annotating books, "you owning them is what gives them meaning". And since then, I've been looking at my books in a new light.

I've read countless books and have had a wealth of opinions on them, but not one to flip through and reminisce. Sad, don't you think?

So now, with love, I now scribble my raw thoughts on them, I make them "mine". Hoping maybe someday, a few good decades down the road, some fresh mind will find my books in a thrift store, flip through them and agree.

🌸❤

So, I bought the remaining volumes of the series CHEW I needed plus the first two volumes of CHU. But like, man. They sent them all in SEPARATE PACKAGES.

Like man. These books aren’t that thick. They all came from the same place. Why ship them separately?

I just really love this series though. I’m just glad I got them.❤️

Nothing better than an amazing library to have your love read to you 😍❤️

I would just love a library!!

Trinity College Old Library, Long Room Spiral Staircase, Dublin, Ireland

A dress of books!! I love it!!

⚜️

📚 Mis lecturas del 2023 📚

¡Hola!

Lo venía haciendo en Twitter y decidí darle un mejor formato y mayor espacio, así que acá están mis lecturas de este año, en el orden en que fui terminando los libros.

Algunos los arranqué antes pero los pausé y continué con otro. Están clasificados y ordenados según la fecha en la que los terminé.

Enero:

Le Guin, Úrsula K. (1976) El Nombre del Mundo es Bosque. Editorial Minotauro

Albertalli, B. y Silvera, A. (2018) What if it's us

Klune, T. J. (2020) The House in the Cerulean Sea

Klune, T. J. (2020-2022) The Extraordinaries, Flash Fire, Heat Wave

Febrero/Marzo:

Continué lecturas, pero no terminé ningún libro, estaba preparando finales.

Abril:

Hall, Alexis (2020) Boyfriend Material

Doyle, Arthur C. (1902) El Sabueso de los Baskerville. Editorial Salvat.

Dick, Philip K. (1988) Cuentos Completos I: Aquí Yace el Wub

Hall, Alexis (2022) Husband Material

Mayo:

Marcos, Álvaro (2021) El Mago Merlín y el Poder del Dragón

Hall, Alexis (2022) Paris Daillencourt is about to Crumble

El-Motar, Amar, Gladstone, Max (2019) This is How you Lose the Time War

Miller, F., Janson, K., Varley, L. (1986) Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Editorial OVNI.

Lewis, R., Mazzuchelli, D., Miller, F. (1988) Batman: Año Uno. Editorial OVNI.

LeBlanc, Maurice (1907) Arsène Lupin: Caballero Ladrón. Editorial Salvat.

Junio:

Dick, Philip K. (1989) Cuentos completos II: La Segunda Variedad.

Julio:

Silvera, Adam (2022) The First to Die at the End

Jemas, B., Bendis, B. M., Bagley, M., Thibert, A., Buccellato, S., Javins, M. (2001-2002) Spiderman, Poder y Responsabilidad. Marvel Comics. Editorial Salvat.

Álvaro, Marcos (2021) El Mago Merlín en la Torre Oscura

Agosto:

Machado, Antonio. (1899-1939) Poemas Esenciales. Selección de Jesús García Sánchez. Editorial Salvat.

Septiembre:

Stevenson, Robert Louis (1894) El Club de los Suicidas. Editorial Salvat.

Octubre:

Wells, Herbert George (1897) El Hombre Invisible.

Shelley, Mary (1818) Frankenstein, o el Moderno Prometeo

Capullo, G., Kubert, A., Lee, J., Snyder, S., Romita Jr., J. (2017-2018) Dark Nights: Metal. DC Comics. Editorial OVNIPRESS.

Noviembre:

Dick, Philip K (1989) El Padre-Cosa

Diciembre:

Millar, M. Kubert, A. & A. (2001-2002) Marvel Ultimave: X-Men. Men of Tomorrow. Return to Weapon X. Editorial Salvat.

Rothfuss, P. (2007) The Name of the Wind. DAW Books.

Cortázar, J. (2023) Historias de Cronopios y de Famas. 9a Edición. Buenos Aires, Punto de Lectura Editorial.

Arlt, R. (1926) El Juguete Rabioso. CAPÍTULO Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Centro Editor de América Latina.