#slaughterhouse-five

10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (pub 1939)

Honestly this wasn't the most mind-blowing or memorable book, but it was my first Christie and my introduction to this genre. It got me out of a slump too which was great. Christie's style is so very british but I thoroughly enjoyed this as my introduction to this kind of mystery, and I found the reveal to be surprising and well done! This book definitely made me want to pick up more Agatha Christie in the future, but I'm not in any particular hurry to do so.

9. Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (pub 1939)

This was actually my most recent read. I picked up this book knowing that it was the inspiration behind the musical (and film) Cabaret. This book feels much more of a piece of creative nonfiction/memoir than a novel, but it tells different stories in vignettes of people in Berlin in the 1930s. Between dancers and artists like Sally Bowles, queer people in Berlin, and Jewish people living through the rise of the Nazi party, these true stories were incredibly touching and really made me think about the way we talk about fascism today. The modern way in which people spoke in Weimer Germany, and the extent to which they knew what was going on in Germany at this time and still just let the Nazi takeover happen, is terrifying and all too real, and I am glad this book exists to highlight that.

8. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (pub 1953)

My first Baldwin of the year and third Baldwin book overall. I really enjoyed this book, as it was an exploration of a Black family in Harlem, and each family members' relationship with one another and with God. I loved the way the story was told, through flashbacks and memories of each character as they sat to pray in a church. Each story was both incredibly humanizing and devastating, and the ending was surprisingly somewhat hopeful.

7. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (pub 1976)

I read this after the second season of the amc show aired. Honestly, this book was so much better than I was expecting it to be, given what I know about where Anne Rice takes the series in the future. In this novel, the prose is so beautiful and breathtaking. Anne Rice also delves into such deep and thought-provoking discussions about God and religion, goodness and evil and monstrousness, through her characters and their philosophies, and how they deal with their vampirism. I fully feel that this book deserves to be called the modern Frankenstein.

6. Babel by RF Kuang (pub 2022)

The youngest book on here by far. I am often weary of the trendy new books and the 'booktok' books, especially those that seem to be fulfilling some kind of aesthetic. So, my expectations going into this weren't the highest, I was expecting, as is true with most 'dark academia' books, a rip-off of The Secret History. However, I was so pleasantly surprised by this book! This book is an anti-colonialist response to The Secret History and the like, and explores how academia always serves the institutions in power, and how specifically British academia has driven, and continues to drive, imperialism. This book was also very science-fictiony, and completely deserves its Nebula award. The magic system in this book is so interesting and novel to me, and i truly think Kuang is a genius. Also, I personally loved the footnotes. It's so clear how much work and research went into this book, and it adds so much to the quality of the book.

5. Animal Farm by George Orwell (pub 1945)

This was technically a re-read, since I read Animal Farm with my mom in elementary school and didn't understand it at all. So, I finally got back around to reading this and it was great. Just so perfectly told, the story of revolt from one authoritarian regime and the decline into another, arguably worse regime. It was also incredibly heartbreaking, and made even more so by making the characters farm animals. It is truly a perfect book and I know it sounds cliche, but everyone should read it. George Orwell is well-known for a reason.

4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (pub 1969)

This one was unexpected! I have owned Slaughterhouse-Five for years, I think it has been sitting on by bookshelf for over five years untouched. I finally got around to reading it a few months ago and it was incredible. Kurt Vonnegut has a witty and to-the-point writing style that was difficult to get used to at first, but I definitely believe it worked in this book's favor. The childlike, simple way of writing and speaking, combined with the grim topic of WWII and PTSD, really highlight the sadness of Kurt Vonnegut's situation and how young he, and Billy Pilgrim, and all these soldiers really were. I absolutely loved the sci-fi interludes as well. It worked both creatively, to provide an allegory for war and PTSD, and literally to show just how dissociative Billy Pilgrim would get after the war. This book left me feeling incredibly sad, and I know that was just the point.

3. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (pub 1969)

And the book that beat Slaughterhouse-Five for both the Hugo and the Nebula! This book is not one that I would typically read, but I am so glad that I did. It is considered a seminal work of feminist science fiction, and tells the story of a human man named Genly who goes to a planet where all the people are genderless. It is a beautiful story of finding love and understanding with other people, and learning that there are strengths in our differences, and those differences can bring us together. This is a truly great novel, and left me feeling the way the protagonist felt, having gained a new empathy and love for human beings, no matter how different we may be.

2. Another Country by James Baldwin (pub 1962)

My fourth and final James Baldwin novel to date. I absolutely loved this book. The writing style, the beautiful vibes, and the beautiful and devastating story of a group of friends in Greenwich Village, New York was so compelling. This was one of those books that I could not just put away after I finished it. I had to read and reread the book, go over it in my mind for a while afterwards. This book explores Black masculinity and Black womanhood in America, it explores queerness, and specifically Black queerness during this time, and it explores the complicated dynamics between a multiracial group of friends in 1960s America. It feels so shockingly ahead of its time.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (pub 1949)

Good question, and thanks for the ask!

Longtime followers of this blog can probably predict, correctly, that I’ll answer this question with The Great Gatsby, particularly after my Great Gatsby Obsession of 2019™️, well-documented on this blog. It’s just so well-written, with such lyrical and flowing sentences, and every character is such a flawed disaster in different ways and yet I still love them so much*, and Nick and Jay are so gay for each other, and Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald themselves were such fascinating disasters and I…you don’t understand, I just love this book so much, you guys.

*Except Tom. Tom can go choke and also be yeeted into the sun.

Aside from The Great Gatsby, here are some other favorites, restricting “classic” to “published over ~50 years ago”, with very brief reasoning:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (made me feel Seen™️ as a high schooler)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (made me feel Seen™️ as a college student)

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (my favorite Shakespeare play, especially since I have fond memories of performing in it, as King Duncan, in my college’s Shakespeare club production! I also love Hamlet, Richard III, Much Ado [although I’ll admit I’ve never read it, just seen performances of it], and Romeo & Juliet!)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (more disaster humans, gotta love that! We’re also using it as the “foundational text” for one of my grad school modules this semester!)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (it’s just…really good! I also read it for my 9th grade English class in January 2017, so it felt. Uh. Especially timely)

1984 by George Orwell (did it feel relatable to 14-year-old me because of the internet’s surveillance capitalism, or because I felt scrutinized and like I had no privacy in my home? Uh…yes)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (particularly the translation by Simon Armitage—it’s so gay and so hilarious)

No-No Boy by John Okada (is it a fascinating, angsty look at Asian American identity post-WWII? Yes. Does it include an “only one bed” scene? ALSO YES)

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska (honestly, I haven’t reread this one in a while so I don’t remember if it holds up, but I remember loving it when I read it for a college class in 2022!)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (it’s so sprawling and yet so relatable; any human emotion you’ve experienced, Tolstoy’s probably crystallized it and put it to paper with devastating accuracy)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (this one rewired my brain chemistry a little bit. The rueful humor, the combination of the sci-fi with the psychological, it’s SO good and SO me. I think it’s the single book I’ve referenced the most in all my grad school discussions so far, and I’m using it as a major source of inspiration for my own novel!)