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you wanted it, you got it, babes! caveat: this list is long (seriously, sorry about the length) and i can’t write blurbs for everything, but i highly recommend going and looking at anything that sounds interesting. some books will fall under multiple headings, so i’m listing them twice. i am linking to their purchase pages on bookshop.org, because amazon sucks and bookshop helps support indie booksellers, but if your local indie bookstore offers delivery or curbside pickup, buy it there. and i’m trying to keep this list confined to pretty recent titles, so even though a few older ones might slip in there, it’s definitely centered on releases from the past few years. okay let’s do this.

if you want a book that feels like a primal scream:

godshot by chelsea bieker

the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (short stories)

trust exercise by susan choi

my dark vanessa by kate elizabeth russell

the rehearsal by eleanor catton

indelicacy by amina cain

the answers by catherine lacey

the mars room by rachel kushner

the love affairs of nathaniel p. by adelle waldman

if you want clever social commentary and/or hilarious female protagonists:

you too can have a body like mine by alexandra kleeman

the new me by halle butler

queenie by candice carty-williams

prep by curtis sittenfeld

the idiot by elif batumen

my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh

oksana, behave! by maria kuznetsova

where’d you go, bernadette by maria semple

convenience store woman by sayaka murata

nothing to see here by kevin wilson

made for love by alissa nutting

the pisces by melissa broder

the herd by andrea bartz

if you want to start reading the unhinged women canon (not all recent):

mrs. dalloway by virginia woolf

the awakening by kate chopin

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

gone girl by gillian flynn

rebecca by daphne du maurier

white oleander by janet fitch

cousin bette by honore de balzac

wide sargasso sea by jean rhys

play it as it lays by joan didion

the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek

valley of the dolls by jacqueline susann

postcards from the edge by carrie fisher

if you liked the secret history:

if we were villains by m.l. rio

social creature by tara isabelle burton

the basic eight by daniel handler

the incendiaries by r.o. kwon

bunny by mona awad

hex by rebecca dinerstein knight

if you like speculative/dystopian fiction:

the dreamers by karen thompson walker

the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch

severance by lin ma

gold fame citrus by claire vaye watkins

the farm by joanne ramos

followers by megan angelo

the power by naomi alderman

the glass hotel by emily st. john mandel

if you want a book that reads like a good fanfic:

normal people by sally rooney

fame adjacent by sarah skilton

stay up with hugo best by erin somers

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid

circe by madeline miller

the nobodies by liza palmer

evvie drake starts over by linda holmes

if you like dark stories about complex relationships between women:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite

baby teeth by zoje stage

dare me by megan abbott

eileen by ottessa moshfegh

social creature by tara isabelle burton

the worst kind of want by liska jacobs

the girls by emma cline

oligarchy by scarlett thomas

devotion by madeline stevens

baby by annaleese jochems

marlena by julie buntin

bunny by mona awad

necessary people by anna pitoniak

if you like stories about complicated families:

red at the bone by jacqueline woodson

the care and feeding of ravenously hungry girls by anissa grey

mostly dead things by kristen arnett

bee season by myla goldberg

bowlaway by elizabeth mccracken

everything i never told you by celeste ng

the nest by cynthia d’aprix sweeney

the grammarians by cathleen schine

ask again, yes by mary beth keane

if you like smart and thoughtful books about relationships between women:

my brilliant friend and the neapolitan novels by elena ferrante

such a fun age by kiley reid

gingerbread by helen oyeyimi

the female persuasion by meg wolitzer

the burning girl by claire messud

expectation by anna hope

the animators by kayla rae whitaker

if you want something queer that isn’t YA:

my education by susan choi

permission by saskia vogel

mostly dead things by kristen arnett

real life by brandon taylor

after dolores by sarah schulman

patsy by nicole dennis-benn

wilder girls by rory power

enter the aardvark by jessica anthony

less by andrew sean greer

exciting times by naiose dolan

you just want something good and are willing to take a chance on one of these books i love (these are not all recent, i just like them a lot):

dept. of speculation by jenny offill

the interestings by meg wolitzer

godshot by chelsea bieker

play it as it lays by joan didion

the bonfire of the vanities by tom wolfe

wolf in white van by john darnielle

things you would know if you grew up around here by nancy wayson dinan

sex and rage by eve babitz

wise blood by flannery o’connor

leading men by christopher castellani

saint x by alexis schaitkin

the cosmopolitans by sarah schulman

lake success by gary shteyngart

odds against tomorrow by nathaniel rich

the great believers by rebecca makkai

very obvious special interests in things like animals or hair were ignored as normal girl interests

noise sensitivity was me being an uptight bitch

meltdowns extending into teenage years were seen as typical for dramatic teenage girls

love of colorful, sparkly, visually-stimulating things?? GIRL

vestibular stimming only landed me in cheerleading and gymnastics

severe social anxiety = shy girl!!!

always saying “what”? can’t be her ears bc she has great hearing, must just be another ditzy blonde girl

only eats specific foods/plain food? girls are sooo picky

self-harming? red flag but still typical of girls who are “looking for attention”

awkward laughing at everything because I don’t know what to FUCKING SAY?? giggly girl, very normal and cute (not)

doesn’t go out a lot? the perfect daughter!

not to mention all of the symptoms that WEREN’T obvious because I worked so hard to hide them.

Everyone in the village:

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

So there’s a known thing in the study of human psychology/sociology/what-have-you where men are known to, on average, rely entirely on their female romantic partner for emotional support. Bonding with other men is done at a more superficial level involving fun group activities and conversations about general subjects but rarely involves actually leaning on other men or being really honest about emotional problems. Men use alcohol to be able to lower their inhibitions enough to expose themselves emotionally to other men, but if you can’t get emotional support unless you’re drunk, you have a problem.

So men need to have a woman in their lives to have anyone they can share their emotional needs and vulnerabilities with. However, since women are not socialized to fear sharing these things, women’s friendships with other women are heavily based on emotional support. If you can’t lean on her when you’re weak, she’s not your friend. To women, what friendship is is someone who listens to all your problems and keeps you company.

So this disconnect men are suffering from is that they think that only a person who is having sex with you will share their emotions and expect support. That’s what a romantic partner does. But women think that’s what a friend does. So women do it for their romantic partners and their friends and expect a male friend to do it for them the same as a female friend would. This fools the male friend into thinking there must be something romantic there when there is not.

This here is an example of patriarchy hurting everyone. Women have a much healthier approach to emotional support – they don’t die when widowed at nearly the rate that widowers die and they don’t suffer emotionally from divorce nearly as much even though they suffer much more financially, and this is because women don’t put all their emotional needs on one person. Women have a support network of other women. But men are trained to never share their emotions except with their wife or girlfriend, because that isn’t manly. So when she dies or leaves them, they have no one to turn to to help with the grief, causing higher rates of death, depression, alcoholism and general awfulness upon losing a romantic partner. 

So men suffer terribly from being trained in this way. But women suffer in that they can’t reach out to male friends for basic friendship. I am not sure any man can comprehend how heartbreaking it is to realize that a guy you thought was your friend was really just trying to get into your pants. Friendship is real. It’s emotional, it’s important to us. We lean on our friends. Knowing that your friend was secretly seething with resentment when you were opening up to him and sharing your problems because he felt like he shouldn’t have to do that kind of emotional work for anyone not having sex with him, and he felt used by you for that reason, is horrible. And the fact that men can’t share emotional needs with other men means that lots of men who can’t get a girlfriend end up turning into horrible misogynistic people who think the world owes them the love of a woman, like it’s a commodity… because no one will die without sex. Masturbation exists. But people will die or suffer deep emotional trauma from having no one they can lean on emotionally. And men who are suffering deep emotional trauma, and have been trained to channel their personal trauma into rage because they can’t share it, become mass shooters, or rapists, or simply horrible misogynists.

- late night texts and good morning texts

- cuddles on a cold night

- falling asleep in each other’s arms

- getting to meet each other’s families and spending time with them

- having tons of inside jokes no one but us will get

- completely feeling loved by them and loving someone so much it hurts

*the asterisk is there because, well, if you’re having that much difficulty communicating without a Communication Buddy, you might have an udiagnosed mental disorder.

And I believe this theory because it explains a lot of what I’ve seen in my personal expirience with Autistic-ADHD friendships where the ADHD-Dolphin-Brain Friend sort of autofills in the gaps or files the extra information provided that the less-verbally-articulate Autistic Friend leaves out or over-elaborates while talking.  It also goes the other way where the Autistic Friend is like “Yes Please Infodump All This Context At Me” while the ADHD friend goes on a Wild Ramble or bluntly asks “What?” When ADHD Friend forgets to include a point of reference which is helpful, honestly.

Playing 5th edition for the first time and feeling overwhelmed? Here’s a quick glimpse into the classes.

Barbarian

Fundamentally: It’s like when you step on a Lego in the middle of the night and for a moment your capacity for rational thought is eclipsed by the fact that the entire world must tremble before the unfathomable depths of your wrath. Only with fewer Legos and more swords and stuff.

Mechanically: You can go into a rage in battle that diminishes the damage you take and increases the damage you deal. A lot of your fighting is based on high-risk, high-reward strategies, intimidation, and instinct rather than careful calculation.

Bard

Fundamentally: The words you speak change the shape of the minds around you. You’ve taken motivational speaking to a whole new level. You can also insult someone so hard they die from it.

Mechanically: Your day-to-day repertoire of spells stays the same (once you’ve learned a spell, it tends to stick in your head) and also pulls from a lot of different specializations. You can also inspire your allies, mess with your enemies’ morale, and, yes, insult someone so hard they die from it.

Cleric

Fundamentally: You’re pretty tight with some sort of higher power who’s granted you abilities commensurate with their sphere of influence. You might be a warm and fuzzy beacon of light and love, you might heal the sick, or you might make swarms of insects descend on your screaming foes. God stuff, you know?

Mechanically: You have access to a huge number of spells but don’t know them all off by heart, so every morning you spend some time in prayer and contemplation to make sure a few of them are ready at your fingertips when you need them most.

Druid

Fundamentally: You can turn into animals and control a lot of powerful magic that’s tied in with nature and the elements. You also may have read too many Animorphs books as a kid.

Mechanically: Much like clerics, you have a huge number of spells potentially at your disposal but have to concentrate each morning on picking out which ones you’ll pack with you. You can also, you know, turn into animals. That’s a thing.

Fighter

Fundamentally: You probably watch a lot of action movies and wince every time a character pulls off an amazing fight despite not having any experience or training. You’ve worked very hard to learn strategy, tactics, and precision, and when the stars align, the whole battlefield is yours to control.

Mechanically: Depending on your specialty, you’ll have a variety of abilities to make combat go a little more smoothly for you and your friends: taunting enemies so they focus on the right people, shielding your squishier allies, or just doling out an absurd amount of hurt.

Monk

Fundamentally: You think people get a little weird about their swords; you’ve never needed more than just your fists and maybe a good stick. You’re highly trained and absurdly dexterous: if someone tries to pull a coin out from behind your ear, they’ll probably find themselves with a rabbit in their hand instead and no idea what happened.

Mechanically: You’re so quick that you can snatch arrows out of mid-air. You’re also very centered on precise, devastating strikes, and have a store of ki points that allow you to do special attacks/defenses.

Paladin

Fundamentally: While clerics are generally a little more buddy-buddy or reverential with their divine patrons, yours is something more of an… employer. You know how it is when you’re on the clock: sometimes you gotta do your best to be the good you want to see in the world, and sometimes you gotta swear to enact vengeance for ancient wrongs. It’s a living.

Mechanically: Your singularly goal-oriented abilities are a blend between magic and more traditional combat, and you can frequently use magic spells to imbue weaponry with divine power. You also have an impressive ability to suss out both strong good and strong evil.

Ranger

Fundamentally: You know the wilderness pretty darn well (and probably complain about weekend hikers a lot). Your idea of a good time is being dropped in the woods without a map and having to puzzle your way out, preferably while hunting a few monstrosities along the way…

Mechanically: Your experience and survival instincts will serve you especially well in particular regions (a favored terrain you select) and against particular enemies (a favored type you select). You pick up a bit of magic here and there, mainly to help yourself and your friends make it through the wilderness unscathed.

Rogue

Fundamentally: You’re a very sneaky person who figures the best battle is the one that you ensure is over before it even gets a chance to start… mostly because you know if you get cornered you’ll probably get squashed like a bug. It’s probably a good thing that you’re so stealthy you practically vanish into another dimension.

Mechanically: You get huge bonuses and incentives for attacking first or when an opponent is distracted. You’re also notoriously quick-fingered and can be assured that if something ever goes missing, every eye in the room is going to be looking at you. Whoops.

Sorcerer

Fundamentally: You’ve got some powerful magical abilities that just sort of… happen, and your control over them is a little shaky at best. But it’s fine, it’s all good, you’ve got it handled. That tree was always on fire, right?

Mechanically: You learn a limited selection of powerful spells that are always at your disposal, and also gain access to a pool of Sorcery Points that will let you further manipulate your magic as you get more and more comfortable with your spellcasting.

Warlock

Fundamentally: Some incredibly shifty and absurdly powerful ancient being decided you seemed kind of neat, so they were all, “Hey, how would you like to have some seriously freaky magic in exchange for making a sorta dodgy pact with me?” and you were all, “alksdjflgk???” because hey, otherworldly and unfathomable, and they were all, “Cool, have fun,” and now you can kill things with your brain. 

Mechanically: You have an extremely limited number of very powerful spells, but your spellcasting recharges very quickly, since the channel between you and the source of your magical abilities is pretty darn open. You also made a pact with something strange and a little bit unknowable. What could go wrong?

Wizard

Fundamentally: You’re the kind of person who got all A’s in school but also studied their ass off to do it. It’s like you read Harry Potter so many times that you managed to will magic into existence. You’re probably going to drag the party to every used bookstore on the planet.