Books And Literature - Tumblr Posts
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."
Silas Marner - George Eliot ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(4/5)
“𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘧𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩𝘴, 𝘦𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮.”
What a little gem this book is. George Eliot was quite revolutionary in her time for writing the peasantry into existence (rather than being perceived only as Other in contrast to the wealthy). People often forget this while reading her novels from a 21st-century perspective.
It’s a beautiful story that questions the nature of belief and religion, as well as the status of myth.
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.
Reblog if you're a booklr
Please, I want to follow more of you because you’re all amazing.
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.]
Classical Composer's and their last words
Mozart: "The taste of death is upon my lips...I feel something, that is not of this earth"
Bach: "Don't cry for me, for I go where music is born"
Beethoven: "Pity, pity, too late!"
Mahler: "Mozart! Mozart!"
Chopin: "Now is my final agony. No more." (while listening to Mozart's Requiem)
Bartok: "The sad thing is that I leave with so much to say"
Berg: "But I have so little time"
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
Poll: Which Stephen King Book is the best?
To all book nerds out there: I want to start reading Stephen King and that's why i am interested about your opinions. Take the poll below and let me know your favourite King novels. I will read the top 3!
The Reader by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who knows him, this one, whose own face
sinks away out of its being into a second one,
that only the quick turning of whole pages
sometimes forcibly interrupts?
Even his own mother would be uncertain
if that were him, who, together with his shadow, was drenched with reading.
And we, hours to spare, what do we know, how much he fades away, until,
in fatigue, he stops: raising up everything
into himself which has happened in the book below,
with eyes, which, instead of taking, nudge up
against the full and finished world as they give:
like quiet children, who, playing alone,
suddenly experience that which is at hand;
and yet his features, ordered as they were,
remain now forever rearranged.
Underrated Period Romances
1. A Royal Affair (2012)
A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.
2. Portrait of a Lady on fire (2019)
In 1770 the young daughter of a French countess develops a mutual attraction to the female artist commissioned to paint her wedding portrait.
3. Brooklyn (2015)
Young Irish immigrant Eilis Lace navigates her way through 1950s Brooklyn. Lured by the promise of America, Eilis departs Ireland and the comfort of her mother's home for the shores of New York City. The initial shackles of homesickness quickly diminish as a fresh romance sweeps Eilis into the intoxicating charm of love. But soon, her past disrupts her new vivacity, and Eilis must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within.
4. Birdsong (2012)
As an English soldier fights in the horrific trenches of northern France, he is haunted by the memories of his forbidden love affair with a French woman.
5. Carol (2015)
Therese Belivet spots the beautiful, elegant Carol perusing the doll displays in a 1950s Manhattan department store. The two women develop a fast bond that becomes a love with complicated consequences.
6. The new World (2005)
Arriving with a British expedition in Virginia in 1607, Capt. John Smith is captured by Native Americans. His life is spared thanks to Pocahontas, daughter of the tribe's chief. Smith and Pocahontas fall in love, to the mutual dismay of the Native Americans and the British.
7. The world to come (2020)
In this powerful 19th century romance set in the American Northeast, Abigail, a farmer's wife, and her new neighbor Tallie find themselves irrevocably drawn to each other. A grieving Abigail tends to her withdrawn husband Dyer as free-spirit Tallie bristles at the jealous control of her husband Finney , when together their intimacy begins to fill a void in each other's lives they never knew existed.
8. Miss Austen Regrets (2007)
This is a lovely Film starring the young Tom Hiddleston: Novelist Jane Austen (Olivia Williams) nears her 40th birthday, unmarried and reflecting on her past suitors
9. Belle (2013)
The illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a British admiral plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England.
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
6. 84 Charing Cross Road (1987): I watched this movie a few days ago and totally fell in love with it. It is a love letter to reading and the importance of words: Based on true events this moving film tells the story of an incredible friendship between the american writer Helen Hanff and an antique's bookshop employe in London
Some of my favourite literary/ academic movies
1. The Oxford murders (2008): This one is great for people who love mathematics, mysteries and murders. A suspenseful thriller for all admirers of the dark academia aesthetic.
2. Me and Orson Welles (2008): This one unfortunately is a lesser known movie. A big recommendation for everyone who has a love for Shakespeare, theatre and period dramas.
3. My afternoons with Margueritte (2010): This is a heartwarming french movie about a unique friendship between an old book-loving lady and a younger, poor educated craftsmen. She shares her wisdom with him and introduces him to the world of literature: A touching ode to loving books and bringing people together with literature.
4. The words (2012): This one is a touching and highly underrated movie about the power of words and books. It is a beautiful love story, thriller and drama all in one and tells the story about a writer during different timelines and dimensions. It is basically a book within a movie where the protagonist (a famous author played by Bradley Cooper) bears a big secret.
5. A beautiful mind (2002): This has to be one af the most beautiful movies of all time. Telling you to much about it would only take something away from the experience of watching it for the first time. Just watch it for yourself and be prepared for a huge twist and one of the most heartwarming, intelligent films ever produced.
Omg lol that was unintentional😅 kinda true though.
The most beautiful theatres from around the world
1. Minack Theatre, Cornwall
2. Seebühne, Bregenz Austria
3. Winter Garden, Toronto Canada
4. Opera City Hall, Tokyo Japan
5. Palau de la Musica, Barcelona Spain
6. The Tampa Theatre, America
Where the crawdads sing
Book to movie Recommendation
Sony just released the new Trailer for an upcoming adaptation to "wheren the crawdads sing". It looks amazing. It also features a breathtaking soundtrack by Taylor Swift. So excited.
Movies to watch if you love art
1. Loving Vincent (2017)
Mystery surrounds the death of famed painter Vincent van Gogh in 1890 France: This movie is a stunning visual masterpiece. It is the first animated film, that is fully painted.
2. Frida (2002)
This is the true story of Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) and her husband Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), the larger-than-life painters who became the most acclaimed artists in Mexican history.
3. Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
When her father goes blind, Griet (Scarlett Johansson) must go to work as a maid for painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth). While cleaning the house, Griet strikes up an unlikely friendship with Vermeer.
4. At eternity's Gate (2018)
Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.
5. The mill and the cross (2011)
Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel (Rutger Hauer) creates his 1564 masterpiece "The Procession to Calvary. This movie literally is a moving, talking painting.
6. Midnight in Paris (2011)
While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously transported to 1920s France. There he meets some of the greatest writers and artists of their time.
Hats off to whoever had to decipher Beethoven's Handwriting
That is wild😂
Just for reference...this is what it should look like:
One of Mozart's scores
The best books involving classical music
Julian Barnes - The noise of time
A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich: Barnes elegantly guides us through the trajectory of Shostakovitch's career, at the same time illuminating the tumultuous evolution of the Soviet Union.
Haruki Murakami - Absolutely on music
A deeply personal, intimate conversation about music and writing between the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author and his close friend, the former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Leo Tolstoy - The Kreutzer Sonata
When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder.
Thomas Mann - Doctor Faustus
Thomas Mann's last great novel is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility.
Douglas Hofstadter - Goedel Escher Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
Vikram Seth - An Equal Music
Michael Holme is a violinist, a member of the successful Maggiore Quartet. He has long been haunted, though, by memories of the pianist he loved and left ten years earlier, Julia McNicholl. Now Julia, married and the mother of a small child, unexpectedly reenters his life and the romance flares up once more.
The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein
The varied forms of Leonard Bernstein's musical creativity have been recognized and enjoyed by millions. These lectures, Mr. Bernstein's most recent venture in musical explication, will make fascinating reading as well.
Daniel Levitin - Your Brain on music
This explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.
I need that Teapot! 😍
teapots!