Books that influenced or are referenced in RGU or by Ikuhara

Only including the following publishers: NYRB, Norton Critical, Penguin Modern, Pantheon, Penguin Classics, Oxford World's Classic, Vintage, Picador Paper, New Directions, McNally, Fitzcarraldo, Seven Stories, Very Short Introductions, Knopf, and Charco Press.

Summer romances!!!

Books that seem like they belong in autumn, most will probably be contemporary fiction so it’s up to interpretation

created by a western gal — trying my best but might have inaccuracies

Books with Female Main Characters who has a career mainly wielding Swords; not Bows, not Daggers, not Magic. Swords-women don't get enough love.

books to read before you kick the bucket, mostly western classics but trying to expand beyond

Boy’s Love Manga/Manhwa ||

Features: Anthropomorphism, Omegaverse, Books with themes that may make others uncomfortable

Incomplete list of texts largely originally written in the German language considered foundational works of the 20th century, mostly by authors or expats from Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and their antecedents. Partially personalized, naturally. Modernist/postmodernist; stylistically varied; weighed down by history, memory, and institutions; sometimes ironic, comic, or melancholic, or all three at once; atmospheric, psychological and/or philosophical. Pre/post-catastrophic humanism.

So sometimes adults don't know how to take care of children? IMPOSSIBLE!

Books with magic systems that utilize art and or crafts

From the New York Public Library. This is their adult fiction horror list for 2026

This is the second list in a series I’m working on of lesbian classics by decade!

1940s tomorrow.

Note: Not all of the authors/characters represented in these books may be lesbians (as we would understand a lesbian today). Nonetheless, I’ve included them on this list due to their historical and cultural significance to the lesbian community.

The title kinda says it all: young adult horror (and adjacent) books across the vast spectrum of queer identity!

Recommendations welcome!

✦ I have not read all of these books - if you notice anything that seems to be mis-labeled/mis-placed on this list, please let me know! ✦