The Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London SE10, England,

“Hence I sit fearless on my goat, My naked charms displaying.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from “Faust I”, published p. 1808.

@halfbloodsnet​ quest # 0 : godly parents [greek goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare: athena]

comprehensive list of books that will make you think a lot

at the request of @uglydumbbitchdotcom and @dreamingmappist (just to let you know, most of this is european and pre-1930 so if you're looking for literature from other continents this is not the list to go to. i wish i knew more about african, asian, and latin american literature, but alas - i do not.)

a portrait of the artist as a young man and dubliners: short stories of a city by james joyce

anything by fyodor dostoevsky (specifically crime and punishment, demons, notes from underground, but really anything will do and i'm not going to list his complete works on here)

the goldfinch and the secret history by donna tartt

frankenstein by mary shelley

fathers and sons by ivan turgenev

station eleven by emily st. john mandel

the death of ivan ilyich by leo tolstoy

in the first circle by aleksandr solzhenitsyn

paradise lost and paradise regained by john milton

till we have faces and that hideous strength by c.s. lewis

ninety-three and the man who laughs by victor hugo

faust, pt. 1 by goethe

the ulster cycle and an táin bó cúailnge

the a wrinkle in time quartet by madeleine l'engle

grace by paul lynch (this might be sort of an odd addition but he's one of the authors who follows in the joyce tradition and this is a beautiful book with a fascinating plot set during the great hunger so it deserves a place here)

a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams

the plough and the stars by sean o'casey

the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck

common sense by thomas paine

macbeth and henry v by william shakespeare

a room of one's own by virginia woolf

beowulf

say nothing by patrick radden keefe

one hundred years of solitude and the general in his labyrinth by gabriel garcia marquez

the underground railroad by william still

the letters of vincent van gogh

my god, there is a lot of russian literature on there. anyway, here are the books that made me think the most and hardest out of anything i've read

Books To Read For The INFJs

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Circe by Madeline Miller

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

I just want a girlfriend and go to the library with her, discuss poetry and philosophy, have dates in cute cafes, just sit in silence and read books, cuddle while we watch old movies at 3am in the morning, visit art museums, take long walks in the park holding hands and talk about mythology. Is that really too much to ask for?

One of my favorite Oscar Wilde letter

OSCAR WILDE TO LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS

January 1893

Babbacombe Cliff

My own Boy,

Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those rose-red lips of yours should have been made no less for the music of song than for the madness of kisses. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.

Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place – it only lacks you; but go to Salisbury first.

Always, with undying love,

Yours,

Oscar

The sheer beauty of being truly invested in a book is what I live for. Your eyes fervishly scan the words desperate to know what happens next. You feel the characters and it’s like they’re an extension of you. Every word, every letter is deeply ingrained as it becomes a part of you

Auguste Ottin, Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea, Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris.

“epilogue”

he so fevently dreamed

aged and decrepit

shaking

in the building

flooded with moonlight

he no longer forced praise

and could not

sever ties with

the only connection

to

black-bordered death

a flood of painful memories

roaring

and

beautiful

Mercy never existed

reality never existed

he

just dreamed it all under the influence

a blackout poem made using a page taken from The Master and Margarita. Kind of reminded me of the time Richard almost froze himself to death in the mandolin factory because he was too scared to tell anyone that he had nowhere to stay during break.