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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.

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

R F Kuang asking the right questions here 💆🏾‍♀️ here's some good recs from the replies that I added to my own tbr:

The buried giant, kazuo ishiguro (subversive arthurian tale with dreamlike prose. everyone's memory is in flux so details shift and waver. intergenerational trauma and historiography but has a melancholical and anchored character story).

Lancelot (the arthurian tales series), giles kristian

The mabinogian tetralogy, evangeline walton (retelling of welsh mythology. weird, eerie, beautiful and just gorgeously written)

The traitor son cycle, miles cameron

The dragon and the unicorn, aa attanasio (very weird arthurian prose. merlin is an astral shark demon made of electricity. creepy, dark, and dramatic).

Sistersong, lucy holland

Book of the new sun, gene wolfe (like walking through a black Magic the Gathering Card, or if Pere La Chaise stretched endlessly, in every direction, throught time).

The dragon waiting, john m. ford

The wolf and the woodsman, ava reid

City of saints and madmen (ambergris series), jeff vandermeer (like slowly unearthing a strange and unfathomable artifact that you gradually piece together into an incomplete picture).

Silver in the wood (the greenhollow duology), emily tesh (chaotic, lush and haunting and canonically promises the m/m energy that feels promised but not guaranteed by the green knight trailer)

I'm just a 70' tall woman with a regular-size book binding hobby.

Living in Germany, this is also really scaring me. We are really close to a big war.

I don’t even know if I’m scared or angry anymore. I’m just…tired. 

I’m so tired.

obsessed w the man who came into the theatre i work at (modern productions NOT shakespeare plays) who realised he lost his ticket and turned to his wife and asked “dost thou know whither we sit” 

@underwaterslopman I totally understand your point. Though the movie actually isn't that romanticised. It is far better than most Hollywood movies when you consider that point. But yeah...it is not historically accurate. Here is an interesting article about this topic. See...i still think it is a good movie in itself when we are open to discussion.

the Guardian

The New World: a gap-year fantasy that doesn't trip up on talking raccoons

Terrence Malick's take on the Pocahontas tale is un-Disneyfied in every way

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.

To all University students out there: Do you still have online classes or is campus life normal again? I'm from germany and i haven't had a normal lecture in 20 months. Does anyone else find this tiring?

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.

“Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

— Frédéric Chopin

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.

Some of my favorite movies/series Part 4:

(dark academia, light academia & cottage core themed/coded):

1. Another Country (1984; directed by Marek Kanievska; 87 mins)

2. Departure (2015; directed by Andrew Steggall; 109 mins)

3. Carol (2015; directed by Todd Haynes; 118 mins)

4. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2019; directed by Céline Sciamma; 120 mins)

5. Elisa & Marcela (2019; directed by Isabel Coixet; 118 mins)

6. Mary Shelley (2017; directed by Haifaa al-Mansour; 120 mins)

7. Over The Garden Wall (2014; directed by Nate Cash; 109 mins)

8. The Dreamers (2003; directed by Bernardo Bertolucci; 112 mins)

9. Total Eclipse (1995; directed by Agnieszka Holland; 111 mins)

10. Swing Kids (1993; directed by Thomas Carter; 112 mins)

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!

StrawPoll

What is your favourite Stephen King Book | StrawPoll.com

What's your opinion? Vote now: Carrie, The long walk, The Shining, The Stand, It, Pet Sametary, Salems Lot, Firestarter, Cujo, The running m

@riot-control wow. That actually is a very cool idea!

One of the most beautiful classic literature editions 🧡💛💚💙💜

If you are interested in beautiful editions of classic Literature, check out the Penguin Drop Caps series! They have a book in every color of the rainbow for every letter of the Alphabet.

Penguin Drop Caps - Penguin Classics - Because what you read matters. - Penguin Group (USA)

Penguin Drop Caps by type designer Jessica Hische - Penguin Group (USA)

Penguin Drop Caps is a series of twenty-six collectible hardcover editions of fine works of literature, each featuring on its cover a specia

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

“As far as words go, ‘crying’ is louder and ‘weeping’ is wetter. When people explain the difference between the two to English-language learners they say that weeping is more formal, can sound archaic in everyday speech. You can hear this in their past tenses—the plainness of ‘cried’, the velvet cloak of ‘wept’. I remember arguing once with a teacher who insisted ‘dreamt’ was incorrect, dreamed the only proper option. She was wrong, of course, in both philological and moral ways, and ever since I’ve felt a peculiar attachment to the t’s of the past: weep, wept, sleep, slept, leave, left. There’s a finality there, a quiet completion, of which ’d’ has never dreamt.”

— Heather Christle, from The Crying Book

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"

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.]

Auto Mechanics Pose Dramatically to Recreate Renaissance Paintings

Photographer Freddy Fabris has paid homage to the great Renaissance master painters using his camera instead of a brush. This unique tribute—aptly called The Renaissance Series—fuses contemporary culture with the dramatic styling of the original portraits.

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."

Reblog if you're a booklr

Please, I want to follow more of you because you’re all amazing.

put ur films that absolutely should NOT be comfort films in the tags

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.

Most underrated movies of the last decade

1. Filth (2013)

One of the greatest movies of the last decade, maybe McAvoy's best performance ever: A tragic, funny, absolutely unapologetic movie about the downfall of a scottish police officer.

2. Swiss Army Man (2016)

I promise that you have never seen a movie like this before. It is absolutely strange, macabre and loaded with dark humor: a man stranded on a deserted island tries to keep his sanity by talking to a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe).

3. Rush (2013)

Rush is a 2013 biographical sports film centred on rivalry between two Formula One drivers, the British James Hunt and the Austrian Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula 1 motor-racing season. One of the best Sport Dramas out there.

4. Mother! (2017)

I know some people dislike this movie but I think it is one of Aronosfky's masterpieces. A political, philosphical and brutal allegory of the destruction of our planet brilliantly acted by Jennifer Lawrence.

5. The Flowers of War (2011)

Watching this movie was one of the most eye-opening experiences for me: An American (Christian Bale) tries to protect a group of Chinese students and prostitutes from Japanese soldiers in 1937 Nanjing.

6. Sheperds and Butchers (2016)

A different kind of "true crime story": A lawyer takes on the murder case of a prison guard traumatized by the executions he took part in.

7. Slow West (2015)

The cinematography in this is beautiful: A bounty hunter keeps his true motive a secret from the naive Scottish teenager he's offered to serve as bodyguard and guide while the youth searches for his beloved in 1800s Colorado.

8. Enemy (2013)

This movie will mess with your head: A college Professor (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers a man who looks and talks exactly like him. A strange tale of what is true and what is fictional begins to unravel.

9. La grande bellezza (2013)

This arthouse movie is for the ones who look for deep conversations, philosopical questions and the horrors and beauties of everyday life. A slow paced and hugely moving tale about modern italy.

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

Everything about this movie is top notch: the acting, the story, the visuals. A modern masterpiece that has the chance of becoming a classic: Two lighthouse keepers are stranded on an island as they slowly dive into insanity.