Recs if you like The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black...

Like nonfiction natural history, but with more dragons

(These are books I’ve read and recommend, but I’m open to suggestions!)

Fiction (and some non-fiction) across genres featuring plagues, poisons, palace physicians, healers, and pre-antibiotic chaos. If it involves herbs, plagues, questionable remedies, court intrigue, or a morally complex healer experimenting in the corner, I want it.

Books with skeletons on the cover.

"ergodic literature is a mode of textual organization in which nontrivial effort is required for the reader to traverse the text, beyond ordinary eye movement or turning pages." - espen j. aarseth

books with unique formatting, books you can play like a game, books you need to take apart and put back together again, stories-within-stories, books containing found documents and ephemera, etc.

I have a whole tik tok on this divided into categories but here’s a compiled list

yeah it’s cliche but i do like a lot of these books. both books that fit the dark academia genre and books dark academics would read.

Short and engaging Horror reads around 200 pages or less that you can finish in one sitting.

Some slipcased, illustrated or photographical books. Because it’s better to leaf through pictures on a glossy page than doomscroll for 7+ hrs.

After following the amazing antics of OfficialHellsBelles on Instagram, I have made a list of the books and authors mentioned.

Also read Jaysea Lynn’s For Whom the Belle Tolls! 💜

Updated note: several books are missing, but I requested them from the librarians. I also skipped all the Sarah J Maas books.