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wellofdean · 30 days

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Hello there! I've happened to read this post of yours and I just loved it! You've brilliantly articulated what I've been trying to explain about Supernatural, specifically about one of its most fascinating (at least to me) themes, that is the contrast between the nuclear and the queer family. In the post you've also mentioned "the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling" and I got super curious since I've been trying to find some resources about alternatives to this type of storytelling. I was wondering if you could be so kind and share the names of some authors, or even some books/papers/articles about this "backlash". I just thought to take my chance and ask you but if it's not okay by you by no means ignore my request :)

thank you anyway for sharing your thoughts on that post, again it was brilliant! Have a nice day ^_^

Hello! Thank you so much for the compliment on my post!

When I say 'backlash against the monomyth', I am talking about conversations in the film school, and with other students, but some of them, as I mentioned, have gone on to make films that set out to subvert the Hero's Journey model of storytelling.

I personally love this piece:

Film Crit Hulk has a bit of a schtick that he's doing and yes, he writes in ALL CAPS, but he's kind of brilliant, actually, writes for some very serious publications, and this is a pretty brilliant summary of the kinds of conversations I heard and had in my University days and just after with members of the Lit and Crit fandom (which is what academics really are) and my then-aspiring filmmaker friends, and with people who were actively involved in shaping careers in Hollywood storytelling.

This is also good:

This is also really worth a read, and talks about the way the monomyth "displays ethnocentric, sexist, heteronormative, and cisnormative biases and it encourages people to ignore the ways in which stories are fundamentally shaped by the cultures and time periods in which they are produced."

As for alternatives, I will now tell you about a book I absolutely love, and cannot recommend highly enough, and that is Jane Alison's book Meander, Spiral, Explode.

EXTREMELY worth the read. Absolutely wonderful.

I also really like Relating Narratives by Adriana Cavarero, which you can read online, here, which is about selfhood and narrative, and actually is not fully relevant, probably, but it's awesome, so I include it.:

Enjoy!

#down with the monomyth!#and some alternatives #Enjoy!

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doctornerdington · 4 months

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I was tagged by @oldshrewsburyian to list current, recent, and future reads. Thank you!

Current: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (it’s very fun) and Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison (I’m taking it slow).

Recent: of course now my mind goes blank. Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue was recent, and it was lovely. The Casey Plett book On Community was very good. I dipped into it over Christmas.

Future: I just put Burial Rites by Hannah Kent on my list and it might be next. I bought Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice last month and immediately LOST it, so annoying. I feel stupid buying it again but I reallllly want to read it so I probably will.

I tag @unreconstructedfangirl @sassy1121 @hubblegleeflower @havingbeenbreathedout @pennypaperbrain @tiltedsyllogism @drgrlfriend @semiprofessionalmom @hedwig-dordt

#doc reads books

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rebeccadumaurier · 4 months

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2023 Books in Review

a tiered ranking of all the books i read in 2023! originally i was going to write up my commentary on each one but then i was like hahaha.....no, so below the cut is just a list of the titles/authors in each tier instead.

changed my brain chemistry

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang

The Borrowed, Chan Ho-kei (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier

Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang (trans. Ken Liu)

The Membranes, Chi Ta-wei (trans. Ari Larissa Heinrich)

Under the Pendulum Sun, Jeannette Ng

Severance, Ling Ma

He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan

Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Network Effect, Martha Wells

top-tier stuff

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell)

Brainwyrms, Alison Rumfitt

The Door, Magda Szabo (trans. Len Rix)

The Lover, Marguerite Duras (trans. Barbara Bray)

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

Strange Beasts of China, Yan Ge (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt

Bliss Montage, Ling Ma

How to Read Now, Elaine Castillo

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin

If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin

My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante

The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri

good, well-written

Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu

Life Ceremony, Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Assassin of Reality, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Witch King, Martha Wells

Tokyo Ueno Station, Miri Yu (trans. Morgan Giles)

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi

Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

The Pachinko Parlor, Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse (Murderbot #1-4, #6-7), Martha Wells

Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee

The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Frances Frenaye)

Gods of Want, K-Ming Chang

Paradais, Fernanda Melchor (trans. Sophie Hughes)

The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency, Chen Chen

The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon

Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie

An Unauthorised Fan Treatise, Lauren James

Upstream, Mary Oliver

The Art of Death, Edwidge Danticat

Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane Alison

alphabet, Inger Christensen (trans. Susanna Nied)

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

flawed, but enjoyable

The Wicker King, K. Ancrum

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters

Flux, Jinwoo Chong

Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood

The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Claudia Gray

Natural Beauty, Ling Ling Huang

The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Likeness, Tana French

The Cabinet, Un-su Kim (trans. Sean Lin Halbert)

The Kingdom of Surfaces, Sally Wen Mao

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, Franny Choi

good, well-written, but not my cup of tea

The Good House, Tananarive Due

The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera (trans. Lisa Dillman)

Roadside Picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (trans. Olena Bormashenko)

The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan

At Night All Blood Is Black, David Diop (trans. Anna Moschovakis)

Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Jenny McPhee)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo

The Kingdom of This World, Alejo Carpentier (trans. Harriet de Onís)

Against Silence, Frank Bidart

flawed, less enjoyable

Tenth of December, George Saunders

Counterweight, Djuna (trans. Anton Hur)

Authority, Jeff VanderMeer

Comfort Me with Apples, Catherynne M. Valente

Babel, R. F. Kuang

The Genesis of Misery, Neon Yang

Carrie Soto Is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid

not ranking

These are nonfiction and they aren’t literature-related, so it just felt weird trying to rank them.

Visual Thinking, Temple Grandin

On Web Typography, Jason Santa Maria

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (trans. Cathy Hirano)

#ange.log #ange.book

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alittlebitofwonk · 2 months

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A short list of ways to instantly improve your writing, from someone with a degree in writing. (Also this list is partly a reminder for me lol).

Also, some of these are beginner tips and some are more advanced, take them as you want!

Number one tip I can give you, every time— PROPER SPACING AND PARAGRAPH BREAKS. Purdue Owl is my go-to resource for formatting details, but the basics are this: break a paragraph at any new event, at scenery changes, or, and this is the most important, when a new character begins speaking in dialogue. Also, when dialogue is three words or longer, it should come at the end or beginning of a paragraph. Don’t sandwich it. Keeping your paragraphs broken and not creating text walls will immediately help retain readership.

Show, don’t tell. I’m guilty of this too, tbh. But here’s an example— instead of saying “the apple was crunchy” say “as they bit into the apple, it crunched beneath their teeth.” Pair a description with an action! Instead of “it was cold out” say “he shivered as the wind hit, tucking his hands deep in his pockets.” Also helps boost word count.

It’s okay to end your sentences. I’m guilty of this one a TON— instead of starting a new sentence, I’ll do a comma or semicolon or em-dash, and it’ll just… keep… going. It’s okay to break those sentences up completely with a period. I promise.

Don’t over describe. Some description is great, and helps your reader build a better image of what you’ve written. But too much is boring, and doesn’t give the reader the space they need to put the picture together in a way that is meaningful to THEM. Your reader is just as important as you are. Have some faith in them!

Take inspiration. As fanfic authors we do this with media all the time, but take inspiration from more than just your fandom— find it in other fandoms, find it in your own struggles, find it in the world around you. It’s there for the taking.

Practice! Practice writing when you can, and practice reading, too. You can only get better, I promise. I’ve come a long way with practicing my own writing and learning from others.

If you read deeper than the surface, you’ll write deeper than the surface. Be mindful of the content you consume, and what goes into it. Think about the Hunger Games, for example. Yes, it’s a book about dystopian America, but it’s also a heavy criticism of consumerism, the entertainment industry, and the lack of value we assign to our children.

And the antithesis, too— sometimes a blue curtain is just a blue curtain. Not every detail you put down needs to have some deeper meaning. Sometimes a character just has white hair because it’s cool— not because they’re stressed or a chosen one or something.

Finally— all the rules can and should be broken. Yes, even the paragraph breaks. Break the conventions as you please, so long as you’re mindful and intentional about it. If you aren’t breaking up dialogue breaks, why aren’t you? Is it because you forgot, or are you trying to make the dialogue frantic, trying to convey how difficult the conversation is to keep track of?

Anyway, that’s all I have right now, but my inbox is always open for more tips! Also, here’s some links to reference texts I particularly like that aren’t super dense. I’m particular fond of these two because you can jump between sections to find what you want rather than having to read the whole text. (Don’t read On Writing Well. It will come up as a recommendation with these two. It sucks. The author spends far too much of his time talking about the fact that he went to Yale.)

#writing tips #this is like 95% reminders for myself lol #but maybe you all will find useful tips too!#also turn off autocorrect for your first round #and then put it back on when you edit #it can catch mistakes yes but it can also make them

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leehallfae · 1 year

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“although we think of narrative as a temporal art, experienced in time like music, of course it’s interestingly visual, too; a story’s as much house or garden as song.”

— jane alison, meander, spiral, explode: design & pattern in narrative

#jane alison #my reading #quote #on writing #on art #writing tag #tell them stories #meander spiral explode

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whimsyqueen · 2 years

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Alternative Story Structures/Patterns (a.k.a how to avoid that damn triangle)

Disclaimer: these are all taken from Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode under the idea that we should draw more from patterns in nature when structuring works of fiction. Alison is a white woman, and a lot of non-western storytelling (especially utilizing different structures other than the triangle/wave) was pioneered by Authors of Color. I highly recommend you also research types of non-western nonlinear storytelling that Authors of Color have been utilizing and pioneering way before western storytellers even began to think about them. Here's a great article, and here's another one to begin your research there!

I'm gonna start each section with a quote from Meander, Spiral, Explode that I think explains them best, and then extrapolate where I can from there!

Waves

I've already discussed this one! If you wanna know my thoughts and feelings about the wave (a.k.a Evil Triangle That Might Have Some Uses, Maybe) you can check out this post here!

Wavelets

"Once I translated the dramatic arc to a wave, I began to think that energy in narrative might also flow in smaller waves, wavelets. Dispersed patterning, a sense of ripple or oscillation, little ups and downs, might be more true to human experience than a single crashing wave: I'm more likely to feel some tension, a small discovery, a tiny change, a relapse. The same epiphanies every week..."

I love the idea of this, and her comparison to the human experience. I feel like we sort of tried to accomplish this by adding various peaks to the original triangle, but sometimes a narrative can have multiple waves. She talks a lot about how this can show up as patterning in stories as well, moving back and forth between two different energies that could be important to a character, back and forth between motivations. I don't know if that makes any sense, wavelets aren't really my style, but I know they'll resonate with someone, because what are we doing if not trying to connect to the human experience?

Meanders

"A meander begins at one point and moves towards a final one, but with digressive loops. Italo Calvino says that "digression is a strategy for putting off the ending, a multiplying of time within the work, a perpetual evasion or flight. Flight from what? From death of course!" The Meander river in Turkey gave us the word, and speaking of how an actual river flows, Peter Stevens (in Patterns in Nature) says it "winds and turns in a quiet but seemingly desperate manner to avoid the straight schuss to the bottom"... In either case, there's deliberate slowness, a delight in curving this way or that, luxuriating in diversions, carving slow labyrinths of time."

OHHHHH THE MEANDERING NARRATIVE. I do enjoy this one, it isn't my favorite, but it is very very good. I specifically love the part she mentions about the narrative being afraid to reach its end. Sometimes characters meander, they want to experience the slowness, to stop and enjoy the things that are going on around them before moving forward with the plot. If you learn how to use the meander to your advantage, people who have a tendency to under-write could seriously be helped out by trying to do this. Also, sometimes people's minds just wander. Why should a narrative not wander too? A river will always end up spilling out somewhere, after all.

Spirals

"A spiraling narrative could be a helix winding downward– into a character's soul, or deep into the past– or it might wind upward, around and around to a future. Near repetitions, but moving onward. What gives a spiraling narrative a good sense of ending? Good question, for spirals could go on forever."

and also

"I wonder if first-person retrospective narratives– especially obsessive ones– might naturally follow a vortex."

Can you tell which quote gave me my epiphany about Verity and To Make a Fool of Death? Maybe it's mixed in with the radial narrative (right below this!!) but a spiraling narrative is truly a beautiful thing. This one and the radial one are both truly very deeply character focused, which makes me happy. The idea of telling a story based around a character, or just always coming back to the central of the character, is deeply fascinating. At another point in this chapter, she compares the spiral narrative to like the spiraling of a panic attack: you start thinking, and then you think more, and the problem becomes bigger, and you just keep going and then you cannot stop. Whether your spiraling narrative is fast, slow, or somewhere in between (not even gonna go off on a tangent about combining some of the patterns like a meandering spiral), it wanders around but remains true to the central core of what STARTED the panic attack, and will always have come from that true center.

Radials or Explosions

"Unlike in a spiral, the story itself– the incidents we see dramatized– barely moves forward in time. Instead, a reader might have a sense of being drawn again and again to a hot core– or, conversely, of trying to get away from that core. You might already know the end at the start and get many fractured views of things avoiding that moment. You might feel a sense of violent scatteration from a central point. Radials can be centrifugal or centripetal, but linear they are not."

This one might just be my favorite. Her example for it is truly perfect, too. She uses Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold to talk about the point of this one. The entire story revolves around the death of this one man, we know he's going to die from the beginning of the story, and everyone else knows it too. We get the reactions of people to the idea of his death, the effect his death has on others, the WHY of his murder, and so on and so forth. The entire story centers around the hot core of the death of the main character, and that is BEAUTIFUL. I don't know what else to say about this kind of narrative outside of that example, because it does exactly what the radial/explosive narrative requires of it. Vignettes that all center around a big, dramatic point. That kind of thing. I love it, I can't get enough.

Networks or Cells

"So, again, any complex narrative will be a little spatial: certainly the spiraling or radial ones we looked at are. I think the idea of spatiality becomes most clear in cellular texts made discrete parts that gain power through patterns of images or ideas rather than sequential incidents." [section removed where she's talking about three examples provided to prove her point] "In all three, no linear chronology makes the parts cohere; instead, you draw the lines."

and also

"Translating to natural patters, I think of Peter Stevens's words about honeycombs or foam: 'chunks of space, miniature rooms, each one different from its neighbors and yet perfectly interlocked with those neighbors'."

I feel like these really speak for themselves. Think like... a short story collection, right, where all of the stories are seemingly unrelated, but you're able to connect the dots in your own mind and realize how these narratives are actually entwined in some truly beautiful ways? This method places a lot of trust on the reader, and I think that's important. As long as you have readers who have an ounce of critical thinking skills, of course. Stories like this are particularly interesting, especially when you as a writer have to decide how to subtly connect them all, or how MUCH you even want them to be connected.

Fractals

"The most fractal works– meaning fractals of fractals– were stream-of-consciousness narratives, although it's not clear whether that style reveals depths of consciousness or the writer's imagination. But fractals forming the shape of a whole narrative are what interest me: Texts that start with a "seed" or blueprint that spawns several more."

and also, in reference to Caryl Phillips' Crossing the River, an example of a Fractal Narrative:

"Instead the book is polyphonic, taking the points of view of four characters and delivering them in different styles: letters, diary entries, mixtures of third person and first. Yet the stories all grow from a single seed..."

I cut off the last one, but to give some context: Phillips' Crossing the River is the point of view of four characters across time periods that are stories that are inherently related to each other, in that they all stem from the same fractured point, but the linear plot lines do not connect. That's why it's so interesting. It kind of reminds me of the butterfly effect, right, but in a narrative sense. One action that someone takes will fracture, splitting across the story and creating so many smaller, new stories that are just as integral and wouldn't have happened without that first fracture. Will it all come together and will the fracture heal and reconnect at the end? Idk, maybe, it can. It's more of an exercise in seeing what happens based off of one simple event.

Additionally...

She has an entire chapter at the end called "Tsunami?" where she talks about David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which is like... a wave, right, a symmetrical wave, but SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. Remember in "networks or cells" where I was talking about stories that don't seem to be connected but then there's a beautiful through line that somehow magically connects them all? And then in the wave post, when I talk about symmetry and traveling up the wave and down the wave so that the end reflects the beginning again? Cloud Atlas does all of that and more. I couldn't recommend this book enough. It's impossible to explain. It's perfectly written. I honestly don't even really consider it one of my favorite books, but I know that it has FEW rivals for how actually good it is. And, again, PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE.

If anyone wants extrapolation on any of these specifically, I'd be happy to talk about them in their own individual posts, if you've got something specific you want to know more about!! I mean fuck, I might write more about them later on just because I want to and I have feelings. All I really did here was just kinda explain them. And, once again, I encourage you to seek the perspectives of Authors of Color for this one as well. Countries that aren't North American/European have been doing this way longer than us, and those formats deserve some fucking respect.

I also of course have a few people that have asked to be tagged in my posts like this, and if you'd like to add yourself to this list, please let me know! I'll be posting a bunch of these as I go through grad school, so there's a lot to learn! @approximately20eggs @faeriegutz @moonscribbler @marigoldispeculiar

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the-resurrection-3d · 4 months

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Anon, I will get to you after I go do a favor for a family friend, BUT I just wrote up a little thread on sound-patterning in fiction, so I figured I'd share it. The context was being asked for techniques/discoveries that really shaped my writing, and I responded that focusing on the way my use of sounds/grammar was conveying meaning over simply trying to find synonyms for every pronoun and character name (as is often a hallmark of fanfiction writing).

Resources mentioned:

"The Sentence is a Lonely Place" (skip the first section because it doesn't really matter)

Robert Frost's collected letters and lectures on "sentence sounds" (it's been awhile since I taught with this and I don't remember if I finished all of it, but the first half especially was very helpful)

the first two chapters (sans intro) of Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode.

"The Science of Scientific Writing" by George Gopen and Judith Swan-- you don't need to read the whole thing, really just their sections on the topic and stress positions and where readers look for information within a sentence. It's focused, obviously, on academic writing, but I've still found it incredibly helpful.

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psalmsofpsychosis · 3 months

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tell me about your favorite movies and books!! i wanna dissect your brain (lovingly) (affectionate)

Choccy my belovedest you broke in through my bedroom window at 3am with the hardest question asked of mankind huh 😭❤️❤️ i have so many favs!!! i dont remember any of them!! but. i will try to make an effort because i love you 💕 so! 5 movies/tv shows and 5 books ayy

For Media,

• City of God!!!

the pace of this movie is insane, i call it the movie that never sleeps, both narrative wise and production wise. It's constantly in motion and a whirlwind of a wild story but it never loses its ground and its significance, which is not something i can say about

• Shameless US

jesus. listen, Shameless US is as wonderful as it's shit, in equal measures. It's a story that feels like the best unprotected sex of your life that also gave you Hepatitis B. ShU travels into territories noone dares to tread, and sometimes it's a cheap hitch in the back of a junkie's stolen van, and sometimes it's a first class experience in Bono's private jet; no inbetween. It's insanely creative, insanely unapologetic and honest, hits like an unexpected 2am urge to go scream from the rooftop of your house, and it's quite frankly unforgettable, both in its bad and good moments.

• Tokyo Godfathers

MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!! MOVIE OF ALL TIME I TELL YA!!!!

• Doukyuusei

This bitch here is SO dear to me, i dont even know how to describe it. It's quite different from the manga, and i love the manga so much i think about it more than 3 seconds and i die, but the story feels more fluid in movie format. To me Doukyuusei is the best example of how you can tell the richest and most fascinating and intriguing story without ugly shock value or Angst TM or stupid twists; just life as it happens. The Manga's characterizations are so intricate and complex and distinct it blows your mind, not a single stereotype in sight. I really need Doukyuusei to be some kinda food so i can eat it for the rest of my life.

• Corvette Summer

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have no excuses. This is my trademark movie, the Farimah TM movie, i've claimed it and i bite anyone who gets close. It's so saccharine it rots half of your tooth halfway in and i love a good "take of life all you can; for the love of gods want something, anything, take what is yours and never apologise twice" story. I adore how flirty and sweet and soft this movie is. Plus, yeah, Mark Hamill and Annie Potts. The dream sandwich.

• Honorary mention: Blue Eye Samurai

Simply the most intelligent piece of media i have seen in the last 5 years, holy fucks. It works your brain on 99 different subtle levels to the point that it makes you glad to possess a brain and being able to comprehend stories. It's a challenging watch, intellectually, emotionally— solid makes you proud to understand it the way you'd be proud after finishing a 6k piece puzzle.

And as for books, i've mostly been indulging my fiction thirst with fanfic and flash fiction, and been mainly reading nonfiction in terms of published stuff, so, yeah, it's gonna get a bit technical. sorry.

• Tara Campbell's "Angels and Blueberries"

This story healed 15 years of my childhood trauma with 30% discount.

• Anne Waldron Neumann's "Monologues with Euphemisms"

There's something about flash fiction that forces people to get creative and by gods creative they get. The structure of this piece is so unconventional and sturdy it makes my brain sing 99 motown tunes. Speaking of story structure though,

• Jane Alison's "Meander, Spiral, Explode"

This is a book about story structure. I read it in pieces the way you read poetry and philosophy essays. Take of that what you will. Like, this is such meta read; you can analyse the book itself on its narrative flow and rhythm. I think i learnt more about Aristotle's idealogies reading this book than i learnt by reading Aristotle's essays. and this is the second "nonfiction that reads like poetry" book on this list. The first one is,

• Carlo Rovelli's "The Order Of Time"

Yep. Quantum physics is art to me by nature, but Rovelli really drives the art part home, and he's so sexy for it. This book is so lyrical and it plays with your heartstrings as much as it plays with your brain, i dont care about what category it falls under; this is top notch fiction to me.

• John Luckovich's "The Instinctual Drives And The Enneagram"

an older read i keep picking up every other half year, since i got into Luckovich's theories back in 2017, but yeah, this book is basically the foundation of majority of my worldviews, the spine of it. Luckovich is such thorough and unconventional thinker, getting into his stuff uprooted my brain in uncomfortable ways, and it's been an exhilarating journey.

• Honorary mention: Peter A. Levine's "Waking The Tiger"

Honestly? if i had to give someone one single book to read in their lifetime and nothing else, this would be it. I reference this book mentally in my everyday life so goddamn much i think it's etched into my DNA at this point, this book and Luckovich's theories on human instinct.

Thank you for picking my brain love, be sure to drop the diagnosis in my inbox later 🤣❤️

#wanted to throw in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel for media and Carlos Fuentes' Aura fir books too #but ayy the list got a weird number as it is #anyway i love you hope you're doing wonderful and thank you for the ask bae 💓💞💖✨️#tell me some of your fav stuff too 🥰#Farimah answers

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