the shelf.
the list outgrows the shelf.
read
- Normal People telling each other everything is not the same as being known.
- Conversations with Friends everyone too clever to say the true thing.
- White Nights a man grateful for four days because he had nothing to compare them to.
- The Metamorphosis the horror was never the insect.
- Letters to Milena love letters from a man who asked for the rest to be burned.
- The Letters of Vincent van Gogh a painter explaining himself to his brother, in case it mattered later.
- The Raven grief that learned to knock.
- The Catcher in the Rye everyone grows out of it and pretends they were never in it.
- The Great Gatsby a whole life arranged to be seen by one person.
- Pride and Prejudice two people talking themselves out of it for three hundred pages.
- Wuthering Heights not a love story. a haunting they both agreed to.
- The Importance of Being Earnest the funniest way anyone has said nothing matters.
- The Fault in Our Stars it wants you to cry and you do.
- Chemical Hearts first love as a chemical accident.
- Thirteen Reasons Why small cruelties, and the sum of them.
- Fool Me Twice falling for someone again, which is harder than the first time.
- Origin a puzzle box. i finished it anyway.
- The Archer a small book about aiming that isn't about archery.
- Harry Potter the whole series. where the reading started.
- Meditations an emperor talking himself into getting up.
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck an obvious thing i needed said loudly.
- The Stories of Rumi god written about like someone who left.
- Rashmirathi karna, finally given the anger he was owed.
- Godaan the debt that outlives the man.
and many more i couldn't pin down on the shelf.
unread
- The Brothers Karamazov everyone says it will finish me. i believe them.
- Crime and Punishment i know the whole plot and still haven't opened it.
- A Little Life kept away on purpose. i've been warned.
- Intermezzo rooney again. saving it.
- Frankenstein the monster reads more than the doctor. that's the part i want.
- 1984 quoted to death. i'd like to actually read it.
- Animal Farm everyone read it in school. i didn't.
- The Alchemist the one everyone hands you. i keep not opening it.
- Sense and Sensibility more austen, when the mood comes back.
- The Art of War on the shelf to make me feel strategic.
- Old Roads, New Roads bond in the hills. for a quiet week.
and a longer list i keep meaning to finish.