Recs if you like No One Is Talking About This...
these titles are complete sentences!
books your pretentious friend has heard of
A Picture of Pagebound
Book titles that illustrate things Pagebound users might do or say, or titles that might describe the app or its users. Recommendations are welcome (this is meant to be fun, please do not suggest titles that are rude or aggressive)!
This list is not a commentary on these books---the focus is purely on the titles!
assigned by frankie
almost every single book mentioned* on 🔗 Frankie's Shelf youtube channel because their taste is wild and i love it.
updated as frankie posts. *mentioned as in the book is the focus of the video, listed in the description, or offhandedly said.
digital dreams / questioning the corporeal
in which digital spaces and new technologies are used to access strange/surreal/absurd/dreamlike planes of being, raising questions around what it means to exist [in a human body] in our technological age. these books play with style and form in testing and questioning the limits of our humanity.
books for purple readers
book recs for purple readers according to read your color on substack | updated periodically
Being Human is Uncomfortable
These books are deeply human, and they aren't afraid to make you uncomfortable along the way. Whether the characters are unlikeable or the author seems to be rudely calling you out or the content is critiquing an aspect of the human experience (or all the above), these books are unflinching in the face of their consumers. Recommendations are welcome!
half-glimpsed images: the novel in fragments
the fragmentary novel is constructed of fragments or vignettes, typically following images, thoughts, and feelings over a sequential series of events. in a world of disruption, displacement, and of time being swallowed and spat out by the machines of capitalism and colonialism, the fragmentary novel offers an alternative structure.
title borrowed from jenny offill. recommendations welcome.
The Big Bad Luddite Novel*
ANTI: fascism, ai, nfts, Big Tech, billionaires, surveillance states, optimization, algorithms, bot farms, technofeudalism, enshittification, exploitation, extractionism, planned obsolescence PRO: organized labor, punk, analog, solidarity, free speech, friction, degrowth, experimentation, right to privacy, right to repair, diy, material process, mutual aid, ecological living, the human hand, the human mind
*Short stories welcome. Looking for nonfiction? Check out The Big Bad Luddite List.
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!
Books That Break The Rules
Books that ignore the traditional way of telling a story. These books tell their stories in unexpected ways, through letters, transcripts, diaries, documents, text messages, or unconventional layouts.
autofiction: hyperreflection as an art form
Introspective books by people who observe a lot, ponder a lot, feel a lot, and write about it. Creative memoir, self-indulgent navel-gazing, or "wan little husks" (as Joyce Carol Oates once put it)... whatever you personally think about autofiction, including whether or not it really is a genre, this somewhat experimental form of writing most definitely gives both writers and readers a chance to engage in narratives in a different way.
yesss mama as you should
it's giving cunt
Weird and Unhinged Women
All sorts of stories about all sorts of women. Mostly litfic, some horror.
Parasocial Hellscapes
Uncanny digital intimacy. Ring lights, comment sections, stan culture, identity crisis, doomscroll insomnia.
Between two books
Books from the Florence and the Machine book club @betweentwobooks on IG
(I am not the book club admin, just a fan, and these are not all the books but I will add them all in soon, I promise)
What the NYT Missed: 71 More Best Books
This is a list put together by Lithub to highlight books they thought the NYT top 100 of the century missed out out. The full title is What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Century and was published July 16, 2024. https://lithub.com/what-the-new-york-times-missed-71-more-of-the-best-books-of-the-21st-century/
Hey Girl, Just Checking In On You! For No Reason!
deep in the feels, experiencing life and all of its ennui, questioning the meaning of existence, the cosmic outline and confines of the world, and wondering if anything is actually real, and, if it is, why does any of it matter?
Analog Fever Dreams
Books that feels like day dreaming, sounds like colors, and looks like an answer just out of reach
Purple Reader
