The Dark Academia Book Tag

I first saw The Wolf and Books do this tag and it looked fun! It seems to be (partly) made by emmie.

1. What is your favourite “academia” or “dark” book + movie?

I truly have yet to watch a dark academia movie I like (at least as I can remember right now)

2. What dead poet would you like to have a drink with?

I would say Mary Oliver, who rather recently died. But she does not seem like a person who would spill her secrets or innermost thoughts in one meeting. It would still be nice though. I could ask life advice in general, hahhha. Her life seemed calm and filled with love as she got into old age.

3. What is your favourite painting and/or sculpture?

As a norwegian I think I was over-exposed to “Skrik”/ Scream (1910) by Edvard Munch, but then I slowly also fell in love with it and the expressions through the colours and the motive.

4. What is your favourite architectural marvel?

The pyramids of Giza. I mean, they were built in 2550 to 2490 B.C. and that has always fascinated me, as everyone else. I think ancient egyptian civilization as a whole takes up a certian part of my brain just for being mindblowing and existential about how long humans have been very intelligent.

5. What Shakespeare play would you want to be the lead in?

I know too little of Shakespeare, but obviously Hamlet.

6. How many languages do you speak and which language would you most like to learn?

First language norwegian, fluent english, very much not fluent in spanish as I took it at school for five years, but truly only two somewhat-productive ones at that. I would like to learn spanish better at some point. At one point in my life I want to learn Northern Sami because my grandmother, who started her life as a sea-sami, spoke it. Mainly to learn more about that culture from sources in their own language, because that’s a barricade I’ve met researching even a small bit sometimes. Other than that, I don’t take to languages easily and while it would be really cool to know russian or something with a completely different alphabet than mine, it just won’t happen anytime soon.

7. What is your favourite quote (from poetry, prose, plays, etc.)?

Lately it’s been –

You don’t want to hear the story

of my life, and anyway

I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it’s the same old story –

a few people just trying,

one way or another,

to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.

And nobody, of course, is kind,

or mean,

for a simple reason.

Quote from Dogfish by Mary Oliver

8. Which fictional character’s death is your ideal way to go?

Immortality, of course.

9. What university/college would you most like to attend?

I am at university, so this feels like cheating. But then again my university has handled corona badly this autumn, so I don’t feel that bad. I truly considered Edinburgh university for a while, pre-corona, as exchange or further into my degree. But it was definitely more for the city than the university.

Where I truly would want to go is Bennington College back in 1982 which Esquire described as “Among the druggies, rebels, heirs, and posers: future Gen X literary stars Donna Tartt (The Secret History), Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and Jonathan Lethem.” The article is fascinating, if kind of unbelievable. It’s not got the same reputation for eccentricity today, unfortunately. Or fortunately?? I think if that image was real, places like that make or break people; a few truly achieves a potential, a lot end up with drug problems and similar things.

10. What is your murder weapon or murder method of choice?

Poison is a classic

11. What mythology would you most like to apart of?

I’m guessing we’re thinking as if a god in this “universe” type of scenario; Norse, because of Loke and the shit he’s up to. I just want to see the reactions of that family as they realize.

12. If you had to do a PhD what would you choose to do it on?

I’m in physics, so hopefully physics?

13. Which fictional character would you die for?

No. Something the characters of the books I read have in common is that they often make choices that leads them to uncertain situations, and it’s most likely their fault? And they’re fictional.

Rapid-Fire: Pick One

1. Leather bound or cloth bound books

Cloth – no ethical things to research.

2. Dog-earing pages or highlighting pages

Highlighting

3. Sculptures or paintings

Paintings

4. Piano or violin

Piano – I claim to be able to play it, but none I live with have yet to hear it because I’m so out of practice.

5. Films or theatre

Films

6. Poetry or prose

Poetry

7. Museums or bookshops

Bookshops

8. Smell of books or smell of coffee/tea

Smell of tea

9. Fountain pen or typewriter

Fountain pen – I own one

10. New or used books

Used has extra charm, but I don’t have easy access to good used book stores.

End of Year TBR (2020)

Last year, 2019, I made a TBR for the whole year, with very varying results as I did not take enough into account the fact that I was going to university for the first time, hahha. I knew I would have less time, but the actual time I did have to myself, let alone to read for fun, was still so much less than expected.

This year I’ve only made two smaller TBR lists; Spring TBR! & Queer TBR of June for #PrideLibrary20. I want to make a summary update of this years TBR posts at the end of the year as well, but before that – why don’t I make another TBR with the books I might read between now and next semester start in early january? Take into account that it’s exam season, but it finished up early for me this year. So I don’t think any of these books will get started before 10th of December, at the very least. I’ll probably need even more downtime to recover, as I expect the time until exams to be extra dramatic this covid-riddled year.

The End of Year TBR

Audiobooks

  • We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman (memoir, nonfiction; history, war, politics)
  • We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai (nonfiction; memoir, feminism, politics)
  • Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (poetry, YA contemporary, lgbt; queer girls)

Poetry & graphic novels

  • Sweetdark by Savannah Brown (poetry)
  • Paper Girls vol. 3 – 6 (graphic novel)
  • On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (graphic novel, lgbt; f/f, sci-fi)

Science

  • The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here by Hope Jahren (science; climate change)
  • Love and Math by Edward Frenkel (science; math)
  • Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku (science; physics)
  • Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction by David C. Catling (science)
  • The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry (was also on 2019 TBR oops, philosophy; disability)

Fantasy & sci-fi

  • Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett (fantasy)
  • The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2) by Philip Pullman (fantasy)
  • Dune by Frank Herbert (read for bookclub, a classic sci-fi)

Etc.

  • Kant: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton (nonfiction; philosophy – preparing for obligatory philosophy class in spring)
  • The Trial by Franz Kafka (reread for bookclub, classic)
  • A norwegian collection of debut poets – Signaler 2019
  • Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (politics)
  • A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (nonfiction; poetry writing)
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

new tbr books; mythology, queer, science | Bi-Weekly Update

New book posts:

Other books I’ve been reading:

  • Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic, author is familiar with Navajo culture through her husband & the protagonist is Navajo) & the second book Storm of Locusts
  • Sweetdark by Savannah Brown (poetry)
  • Elysium by Nora Sakavic (urban fantasy, lgbt characters)

Added to TBR:

  • Mythology by Edith Hamilton (mythology, classics)
  • The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (mythology, historical fiction)
  • What We See in the Stars: An Illustrated Tour of the Night Sky by Kelsey Oseid (mythology, graphic novel)
  • Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik (science)
  • World Without Fish by Mark Kurlandsky (science, graphic novel, middle grade)
  • The Art of Heikala by Heikala (nonfiction: art)
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (sci-fi, time travel, enemies to lovers, lgbt: f/f)
  • Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (fantasy, lgbt: m/m, short story)
  • Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin (fantasy, sci-fi, anthology)
  • Middlegame by Seanan McGuire (urban fantasy, sci-fi, time travel)
  • Anyone by Charles Soule (sci-fi; tech, thriller)
  • The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht (horror, gothic, lgbt; m/m)
  • Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes (fantasy)
  • Gravity by Tess Gerritsen (thriller, sci-fi)
  • Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen (sci-fi, time travel)
  • Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria (fantasy, heist, lgbt; asexual, bi)
  • Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire (urban fantasy)
  • The Future of Humanity, Physics of the Future, The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku (science)
  • Ironheart vol. 1 by Ewing, Libranda, Vecchio, Geoffo (graphic novel, sci-fi; superhero)
  • Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World by Rachel Swaby (science, biography, feminism)
  • Reaching for the Moon by Katherine G. Johnson (biography, science; space)
  • Goddess of the Hunt by Shelby Eileen (poetry, mythology, lgbt; ownvoices aromantic-asexual)
  • The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore (high fantasy, lgbt; asexual mc, lesbian assassins)
  • Slayer by Kiersten White (urban fantasy, vampires, supernatural boarding school)
  • A Vampire’s Redemption (The Inquisition Trilogy #2) by Casey Wolfe (fantasy, vampires, lgbt; m/m romance)
  • Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (fantasy, sci-fi, political, lgbt)
  • The Hidden Girl and Other Short Stories by Ken Liu (short stories): the author’s other book The Paper Menagerie is my all-time favourite collection of short stories!

Three things on my mind:

  • Wine nights brings me too much joy. At least when you have them with one of your roommate’s adorable family who is visiting, then after they leave (and leave four bottles of wine behind) just end up talking with the rest of the roommates far into the night; I might’ve woken up at 5 am for once, but I was certainly going to sleep at 6 am, like the night-creature I truly am. On exactly that topic I’m going to apply to be the leader (there’s always two; night and day-shift) of our math/physics students wine club, because there’s minimal work and a maximum of finding out strange traditions and making people feel welcome, no matter if they drink alcohol/wine or not. I love the vibe of that group. And I will not take slander that I should not be the nightly leader if I get it; the night is always my time.
  • The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix is such a fantastic show. I have so many thoughts, but no time to write them all out – maybe I’ll do a round-up of tv series/movies I loved at the end of the year. But a chess-but-truly-personal story of a genius orphan girl that grows up and struggles with navigating abandonment issues, drug-problems, friendship and any type of relatioship. It has its problems, but I would’ve watched it just for the great actors, the fashion and the lighting to be honest.

  • I’ve been writing more again, on the too-long project that never seem to end. I’ve got a lot of exams around the corner (if my physical health is up to it, that is), so I find myself not being able to turn off my brain for a break without going to these already-known methods; creating stories being one of them. It’s strange how that works. Hopefully, over christmas break even though I have a lot of other projects planned, I can get it edited into at least a coherent work in progress as there’s a lot of blank scenes needed for some type of plot to make sense. I think I would truly feel some type of achievement just having finished it, even though no one is going to read it for a long long time, if ever.

Maybe Reads #2 | Declutter my TBR

I did this last time about a year ago, but I do aquire more books that find themselves on the “maybe” shelf I’ve created on goodreads. So let’s clean it out again? There’s currently twenty books to decide on, so I’ll pick out some of the more interesting ones.

The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes

we’re starting off with one of last year’s contenders …

Goodreads

Positives: Main character is a young autistic boy. And trees?

Negatives: Very confusing synopsis.

This year I’m in the mood to read about trees. Keep!

Stiletto (The Chequy Files #2) by Daniel O’Malley

Goodreads

Positives: First book was a 4/5 stars. Secret organization with supernatural abilities.

Negatives: Last book was a bit predictable and stereotypical bad guy organization, curious about which way it will evolve.

I think keep? I’ve heard little about this series, but as I liked the first one, I will give it a try.

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women by Leila J. Rupp

Goodreads

Positives: historical lesbians, but with major caveats (!!!)

Negatives: Goodreads reviews strikes again! I thought the rating were below average bc of homophobia, but turns out it’s the author who might’ve written it transphobic. And bad sources. Several reviews explain the problematic aspects, but I quite liked this one from a goodreads user called Juan.

Never read. You don’t write queer gender study books and not know what you’re doing if focusing so much on genitalia so define categories.

Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

Goodreads

Positives: About Ancient Egypt & Nefertiti, of course

Negatives: It seems most of the criticism is that it’s not detailed enough and very much a beach-read. So even if it had good ratings, when I dive into ancient egypt again I want to truly get as much out of reading as possible. Or the story better be told in a damn brilliant way.

I won’t read it, unless someone wholeheartedly supports it. I’ll look for another more detailed book on Nefertiti, I think.

Rosemarked by Livia Blackburne

Goodreads

Positives: YA fantasy book where the protagonist is a healer who can’t heal herself, which might be interesting

Negatives: The number of YA fantasy on my bookshelves is alarming considering I’ve dramatically stepped away from reading heaps of it. And I haven’t heard anything special about this book, from 2017, which always makes it a coin toss of good/bad quality writing.

I’ll give it a try, under doubt. Just because I want to read more books about magical healers, for some writing-of-my-own reasons.

No More Heroes by Michelle Kan

Goodreads

Positives: It’s only got 55 ratings on goodreads?? Ohhh, that’s interesting. Something feels promising still as it’s about vigilantes and moral questions is brought in. Debut novel. Also queer with genderfluid and aromantic-asexual character (ownvoices).

Negatives: Debut novel might be one? The synopsis is pretty generic fantasy and nothing memorable.

I’ll give it a try!

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Goodreads

Positives: Set in remote Turkish town, translated from Turkish. Winner of 2006 Nobel prize. Has a lot of elements like journalism, political violence, protests, questions of what is true. Highlights the challenges towards democracy.

Negatives: I thought it seemed a bit boring before I started reading up on it.

I will definitely be reading this sometime. I think I need to go into it ready for politics and existential societal questions, and with the american election around the corner – it’s going to be a while.

The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Goodreads

Positives: Seems good enough.

Negatives: I don’t know how this sneaked its way into this list, in no way am I really a person excited for contemporary YA romances, with very few exceptions.

It’s just not for me.

Deep in the Count by Madison Parker

Goodreads

Positives: M/M college sports (baseball) romance. This has the stereotypical sports guy vs data (cryptology) geek romance. Short; only 65 pages.

Negatives: Again, romances isn’t my things; but I do make more often exceptions for good queer ones. Stereotypical doesn’t necessarily mean bad, but it might.

More than anything else, the cryptology detail is most interesting to me. But I take that as a sign that I’m not reallt interested and realistically won’t read it anytime soon.

Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao

Goodreads

Positives: Truly cool cover! Promises of moral grayness – which I’m very much looking for recently. Debut novel.

Negatives: A 500 pages YA fantasy and beginning of trilogy better be good, because that’s a lot of time investment. Debut novel. Goodreads friends has disliked it – oh shit, looking further into it there’s a lot written about a controversy pre-publishing where “some readers argued that Zhao’s depiction of slavery was racially insensitive”. Here’s my problem; cancel culture is turning into a truly bad thing, but that’s separate from a piece of work actually having problematic/racist elements. And she hasn’t changed anything, just halted publishing a couple months.

Still a maybe, but with a leaning towards no unless I come across some truly good arguments/explanation otherwise.

Ruined by Amy Tintera

Goodreads

Positives: A protagonist on a mission to save her kidnapped sister, and out for revenge in an enemy kingdom. Infiltration of the royal family. Possibility for enemies-to-lovers prince & princess romance.

Negatives: More YA fantasy with an unoriginal synopsis and heavy on the romance.

Interested enough that I’ll keep it as a cozy, light read.


Summary

Six book kept on my TBR. Five books removed. A good enough percentage, I think.

being sick, friendship & empathy | existential thoughts


What truly is burning a hole in my soul right now is that, as students, people were so shocked and heartwarming about me having been admitted to the hospital. But in real life I’m so much expected to take care of myself without help, especially as everyone is busier with exam season close by, and it’s truly hard to keep up this semester with making food for myself, let alone study enough.

It’s not my fellow students’ fault – chronic illness is something truly difficult to understand how affects a person (and how much it varies) unless you’ve seen it up close, but I’ve found the STEM (mainly physics) crowd I spend most time with have few people that truly understand. I’m used to that, but it also tears at me, because I have to stop mirroring the people I’m surrounded with and realize I’m at a disadvantage. It does not mean I can never aspire to my ambitions, I do study physics for fuck’s sake, but that certain things will be different; more difficult for the most part.

Disabled is a term it took me a long time to be comfortable with using about myself for various reasons. Now I have to make the people around me comfortable with it as well, because even the ones who mean well have not yet faced the fact that I won’t become – and then stay (which is the most difficult part) – not sick. How energetic I am will constantly change, how much I can participate in parties or movie nights, or anything in between, will change. I can work on not instantly becoming social anxious when I’m more ill, because suddenly I can’t read the whole room like I usually can and I know I miss more social cues – these are examples of things I’ve realized overwhelmes me only recently.

The hardest parts of being chronically ill for me hasn’t been the pain, although that is a major problem when it truly gets bad; it has been to get people – doctors, friends, former friends, family, teachers, school administrators – to understand. Although I’ve lost a lot being chronically ill since I was a child, I’ve also gained qualities, among them a high level of empathy. It makes sense; it has been cruicial to my survival in a particular way, as well as something I’ve been raised to be very aware of. But I think going forward I’m going to have to mold what empathy means to me and kind of extract the parts of it that hinders me from asking people for something if I think they’re going to reject me. At this point I would rather go through that painful process and hopefully end up with a core group I know that care, even if I’m not in shape to go to a certain party with them. Or worse – somehow see me studying less or being awake at strange times, and directly connects it to laziness and me not being up for this. Whatever this is.

I’ve seen the signs of that happening recently with a truly close friend – I’ve gone through that type of friend-breakup before after all – along with some comments I’ve been getting from them. And I got so frustrated until I realized more than anything we’re in an university enviroment where you’re constantly afraid people will suddenly just leave. We as a student body are dependent for each other for more than we realize in our daily life, especially during covid-times, where we have nowhere else to turn to to fill our days (hopefully with some work), get us out of bed on a schedule or cheer us up.

Or discuss big philosophical ideas with, while hating on the one obligatory philosophy course we have, of course. In the end, my core friendgroup is weird, not in the way of ~we’re so quirky~, but in the way of “we’re STEM students all with different degrees of lack of social abilities, we joke about that constantly, but it’s true and sometimes the areas we lack makes people more hurt than intended in certain situations”. Sometimes it makes it impossible to see that you’ve hurt someone, or is making it more difficult for them. I think another change I will have to do is be conscious of telling them when it happens, softly of course*. Because I do believe they don’t dislike me as a person, even if I’ve gotten the reputation of being a bit chaotic and not as smart recently. And for the last one, at least, I know I can prove them wrong, if only my health would pick up the pace getting better.

I’ll continue looking elsewhere for support when it comes to my chronic illness. I think the temporary conclusion I’ve come to is that I’ve always found myself having friends for different purposes; I do different things with them and have a different level of openness/vulnerability. And that a person doesn’t have to understand what I’m going through as long as they show that they do care, even in their mistakes. It’s a strange space to be in right now; I both do not have the energy to deal with it, and it has risen as a bigger issue because of that.


The next day

I’m wary about sharing anything too personal on the internet, so I’m nervous about this one. But I want to add that I went from writing this post as a very much uninterrupted stream of consciousness to walking out into my living room and seeing the people I live with and three additional friends, who’d just gotten here from a chill night drinking someplace else. And they cheered for me being “alive!” and home. And then threw a whole lot of questions at me, which included how I’d forgotten to tell one of the people I live with & talk to mostly every day about being in the hospital at all, which I mentioned in this bi-weekly update (my excuse is that I was truly drugged on painkillers).

After some hopefully-faux hurt souls, we were back to a strange place, but a more comfortable one than we had been for a long while. I didn’t feel like such an outsider, they could at least recognize something big had happened and that I was not that okay. That it wasn’t me that had voluntarily distanced myself from them, but shit had hit the fan health-wise and led to this.

And then as the evening progressed and we watched a movie, these obviously drunk people of mine continued to make fun of each other, and me, with some very poignant hospital/health jokes, which I laughed at genuinely because they were clever ones. But they did always add a concerned look, a comment that they were glad I was there and rounding the night of with a genuine discussion of “how bad/okay are you right now?” If anything it only reinforced the existing ideas I had about this whole situation the last months; they mean well, but sometime lack the ability to communicate it or are too hung up in their own things/views. But they also have generated this environment which has truly become home for me and for that I will work with all of it. ❤


Notes

* Or maybe not so softly. I might’ve already started this new strategy of mine off; it was the second time the same person commented on how I shouldn’t have kids because of my chronic illnesses and my reply might’ve been a longer version of “I understand what you mean because I know you, and you know I don’t currently want kids, but what you’re arguing for is pure eugenics.” They took it well, I will give them that.

For those wondering my diagnoses (so far) is the autoimmune illness Crohn’s disease, the gallbladder disorder Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction and a lung condition.

Exciting New Book Releases Autumn 2020 (part two)

I made a weird summer/autumn mix of new releases last time, so I’ll call it a part one.

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

Release date: September 15th 2020

Why I want to read it: Ghosts, a beautiful remote farm, trauma & loneliness. Same author as a lot of other amazing books; like “We Are Okay” and “Everything Leads To You“.

Burning Roses by S. L. Huang

Release date: September 29th 2020

Why I want to read it: A queer girls retelling of Red Riding Hood and the Chinese mythological archer Hou Yi (which I’ve not read about before), along with a few others mixed into this mashup. Same author as the badass Cas Russell series!

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

Release date: October 6th 2020

Why I want to read it: The title was what drew me in tbh. Then I realized it was the same author as another book I want to read; “The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle”. Not to forget the synopsis’ promise of: “A murder on the high seas. A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.”

What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump

Release date: October 15th 2020

Why I want to read it: I first found it because Ocean Vuong is one of many writers in this anthology. I think a lot of poems of empathy & outrage from diverse voices is very much what I need right now.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Release date: October 20th 2020

Why I want to read it: same author as “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”. It promises horror, boarding all-girls school and most importantly sapphic (or lesbian) dark academia

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

Release date: October 27th 2020

Why I want to read it: sicilian twin witches, set in 1800s. Murder, vengeance, a sarcastic bad-boy demon princes and dark magic. And I’ve seen people enjoy it so far.

A Court of Silver Flames (ACOTAR #4) by Sarah J. Maas

Release date: October 27th 2020

Why I want to read it: I’ve gotten so far into the series that I want to get through with it, tbh. I’ve mainly given up on still liking this author, it’s like her writing & choices plot and character-wise have declined the last books, probably because of popularity and publishing quicker.

Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett

Release date: November 10th 2020

Why I want to read it: dark academia set in college, lonelines, cults, manipulation and at least one death.

Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) by Brandon Sanderon

Release date: November 17th 2020

Why I want to read it: IT’S THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE, IF IT’S ANY BOOK I EVER HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR IT IS THIS ONE! so excited.

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black

Release date: November 24th 2020

Why I want to read it: It’s a somewhat short story from the Folk of the Air series, so it’s more to complete it than anything else. I’ve always liked Jude better than Cardan since The Cruel Prince.

Ruinsong

Release date: November 24th 2020

Why I want to read it: I’m kind of on the fence for this one, because, while I truly wanted to, I never got into The Seafarer’s Kiss by the same author because personally the writing didn’t fit me. But this one has enemies to lover vibes and promises sapphic (lesbian) characters, not to mention underground rebellion, so I’m willing to give it another try.