Recs if you like Nights at the Circus...
1001 Books to Read Before You Die
Based on the list/book published in 2006, general editor Peter Boxall.
scary, spacy & spellbinding (200-300 pages)
Short-ish (& sometimes spicy) standalone speculative stories.
Weird and Unhinged Women 2.0
All sorts of stories about all sorts of women and girls.
This is a genre-agnostic mega-list of weird girl* fiction expanding on an original list by @yarnandbooks (no longer being updated). You can view the original list here: (link) /// As a nonbinary person, I take as broad a view as possible of the "girl" in "weird girl*", hence the asterisk.
Wide open for recommendations!
Weird Women of the Late 20th Century (1945-2001)
Lives of outsiders rendered in sharp prose style. Descendants of Shelley, the Brontes, and Woolf; forebears to 'Weird Girl Lit'. Title refers to the authors, the subjects of the work may not always be women. Focused on novels published between WW2 and 9/11, with a few memoirs and short story collections.
clowning around
do clowns make you feel funny in your tummy? ๐คก here is a list of clown books that span multiple genres, from nonfiction to horror to smut
side note: I do love the clown community here in los angeles and I love clown comedy so this is in no way a hateful list
as always, taking any and all suggestions!
Postmodern literature
Books that exhibit key traits of, or helped develop, the Postmodern literary movement.
Not including criticism or theory.
Research trigger warnings before reading.
(Recommendations welcome)
Tents, treats, and a little chaos
I love whimsy and books around a circus (or circus adjacent vibes like whimsical carnivals, festivals, etc)
Enchanted Arts
Craft, Performance and Art-focused Fantasy/Gothic
Angela Carter Quest
I discovered Angela Carter in Novemver of 2024 and after absolutely falling head over heels for one of her short stories in a Literary Critisism class - Company of Wolves - vowed to read as many of her books as I could in 2025. With college work I only read 3 in 2025, and now we are coming into 2026 and I have compiled several of her books, but have yet to read them! This is my personal quest list to encourage me to. Please leave your Carter favourites, stories and recs in the comments!๐ค
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: List
The Primary Works section of the Reading List of Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Take me to the Circus
A variety of contemporary and fantasy reads with light or dark themes featuring the circus or carnival. Read at your own risk! Recommendations welcome.
Weird Girl Lit Classics
Books from before 2000 that fit the more modern genre/descriptor of "weird girl literature"
๐ yarnandbooks
Queers To Quell My Fears
Stellar queer mind and gender-bending fiction with a touch of madness, sadism and the surrealโจ๏ธ๐ณ๏ธโ๐
The Folio Society Collection
A list of all the books that the Folio Society has made special editions of.
Let's get weirder ๐พ
Do you want to ride the weird wave together? First stop: pioneering female authors who break the rules.
Check out the Penguin Vintage Classics "Weird Girls" series and let's read along!
Weird Girls: Vintage Classics
โDive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors.โ A curated list of โweird girlโ fiction by Vintage Classics.
spring reads
books that are like a breath of fresh air or based in nature, or are full of exuberance, sweetness, mischief, long ramblings, and childlike fun
birdwatching ๐
suddenly I'm reading books about birds (magical or real) and I want to read more of them
bec you loved the night circus so much
the night circus has the most fantastical setting ever and i am on a quest to find another book like it that truly makes me wish i lived inside its pages
ps: this is a tbr
puppet stories and some analysis on their realness
books that are pinocchio retellings, spiritually pinocchio retellings, or some philosophical/literary analysis that compelled me
ยฉ 2025 Pagebound