I make lists; obsessively and for everything. I arrange books into categories that exist only in my own mind, write endless lists in my notes app, and build stacks that eventually come to line my walls. It’s like a playlist—the books get reshuffled and moved around but are never abandoned. They always multiply anyway.
I also get asked for book recommendations… a lot. It’s the easiest way to slide into my DMs, and isn’t that the whole point, anyway?
Here are a few of the books I think are so special. The first list in a series of many to come.
The Faces by Tove Ditlevsen
A tough, murky read and a hallucinatory tale of lost identity. Perhaps the original, and still too often overlooked, example of weird girl lit. Spellbinding!
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
A quiet meditation on art, identity, and possession. I loved the format of this book, written as a letter. At times, the prose felt revelatory.
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
A rapid and desperate series of vignettes. I continue to question how this Portuguese man born in 1888 and I, a woman of ’98, share so many of the same thought patterns. At the same time, I continue to question how anything this special could exist at all.
A Dictionary of Color Combinations
Growing up, I couldn’t understand why my mom was so obsessed with her Pantone swatch collection book…until I discovered A Dictionary of Color Combinations. Flip to any page to provoke whimsy.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
A harrowing modern folktale. Quiet, meditative, hypnotic, and strange. Lingers for a long time.
I’m With The Band by Pamela Des Barres
Couldn’t have gotten through high school without it.
Xoxo,
Allie
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