Recs if you like Housekeeping...
Lucy Dacus Recommendations 💛
Books recommended by musician Lucy Dacus, a solo artist and member of the band boygenius. Pulled from her goodreads list.
The Art of Engaged Reading: Fiction Companion
You've built up your skills as an engaged reader - now it's time to start reaping the benefits! Every book on this list was chosen because it's genuinely enjoyable AND hiding something underneath the surface worth finding. The goal isn't to find the "right" answer, but to trust your own instincts as a reader and see where that takes you. Start in your favorite genre - it makes close reading feel like a game, not homework. Happy Reading Boundlings!!
✨️Classics by Women✨️
read the states + territories
books from all US states and territories. asking for recommendations! these books must a) be written by an author with a strong connection to the state or territory and b) take place largely in the state or territory. i want to try to prioritize, whenever possible, underrepresented voices / voices that america’s regime tries to silence.
please lmk if any of these authors or texts aren’t good representation.
i will comment a list with each state/territory + its associated book!
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.
How I’ve Loved You
On death and leaving you. Quiet meditations in memoir and make-believe and anything in-between.
book recs for blue readers
book recs for blue readers according to read your color on substack | updated periodically
The Guardian’s The 100 Best Novels of All Time
A list published by The Guardian on 5/16/2026, as voted on by authors, critics, and academics worldwide.
Top 100 Books! (According to The Guardian)
The Guardian Top 100 Best Novels
No plot just vibes ✨
Time Magazine’s All-Time Best 100 Novels
Time Magazine’s All-Time Best 100 English Language Novels from 1923 to 2005 as published in 2005.
Bucket-List Classics
All the Classics I want to read before ...ya know.
This Solitude
“When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.”
Moby-Dick Redux
Fiction inspired/influenced by Melville's masterpiece (or sometimes just by Melville)
Looking for nonfiction? Check out my list Special Interest: Moby-Dick.
Time Magazine All Time 100 Novels
Time Magazine’s compilation of the 100 best novels published since 1923.
(101 because “The Berlin Stories” is an omnibus of “Mr Norris Changes Trains” and “Goodbye To Berlin.”)
thinky women
Reading the PNW
Pacific Northwest authors and settings
The literary map of America
50 books - ones set in each state of America. I have put them in order alphabetically by state (not sure if it will change once created)
The Great American Novel
This is the list from The Atlantic. "In 1868, a little-known writer by the name of John William DeForest proposed a new type of literature, a collective artistic project for a nation just emerging from an existential conflict: a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” It would be called the Great American Novel, and no one had written it yet, DeForest admitted. Maybe soon."
The Guardian's 100 Best Novels of All Time
In May 2026 the Guardian published a list of the 100 greatest novels published in English of all time. The list was created based on votes from authors, critics, and academics.
Due to an error, the list originally included The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley instead of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Both are included here, as an unofficial 101 best novels
