books/media

the unending content

I've been tracking the books' i've read since 2019, and the movies/tv i've watched since 2020. if at some point you think, "wow tillie, you sure do watch a lot of c-tier movies from the early-mid 2000s," it's probably because they have cillian murphy in them. i hope you can understand.

favourites are bold, things i read/watched for school are italicized, and things that are underlined can be clicked on

books

2019

Flowers of Mold by Ha Seong-Nan
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
so many good quotes. saw me in a way that 18yr old me needed to be seen
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Leo Tolstoy
like above, really spoke to everything i was feeling at that time in my life. i was thinking a lot about my childhood since i had just moved away to go be an "adult" far from family. it was nice to see such familiar feelings and, to an extent, situations, reflected in a very foreign environment (super fancy 19th century russian family)
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermentov
A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova

2020

Tolstoy Selected Stories by Leo Tolstoy
Childhood by Tove Ditlevson
The Europeans by Orlando Figes
great if you want to learn about opera, railroads, 19th century copyright laws, and #1 pathetic man ivan turgenev
The Secret History by Donna Tart
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
really enjoyed it in the moment, but afterwards it just sorta felt like trauma porn. i've never felt a book effect my wellbeing, but this one sent me down the bad spiral lol. i was already not doing well at the time, but this certainly made it worse *clown emoji*
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
forgive me, but i did find it to be a little disappointing after reading dubliners, aka the book that got me to like literature
Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev
super interesting to read as a companion piece to learning about the political and philosophical issues at that time
The Boarding School Girl by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

2021

Bro, Ice, and 2300 Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
A Dead Man's Memoir by Mikhail Bulgakov
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Natural History by Carlos Fonseca

2022

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
related too much to this and in a way i feel cringe about lol
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Aquariums by J.D. Kurtness
montreal mention woohoo. great book that some people say can get confusing at times because there arent distinct breaks to distinguish which character is sort of narrating/is the focus of a section, but honestly the characters' voices and lives are so distinct that it is very easy if you just pay attention lmao
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
infuriating in a way that i think is very specific to me. like me, the character is a student of linguistics and russian literature and the way that she goes about talking about the topics specific to those fields drove me insane. i found her to be super frustrating, but i also couldnt help but enjoy it
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Inseparable by Simone de Beauvoire
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein
The Possessed by Elif Batuman
elif batuman is fully redeemed. i love this book so much. taps into every interest and thought and wish that i have
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Luzhin Defence by Vladimir Nabokov
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
not to be that person, but to me, this book played out in my head like a beautiful crossover of guillermo del toro and laika studios. idk if that actually makes sense, but i dont think there is really a way to describe this book. fantastic.
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Homo Zapiens/Generation П by Victor Pelevin
anyone who likes the more classic russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries but wants to get into more modern works should start here. lots of references to the old stuff, but a ridiculous story that imagines the behind the scenes of a newly capitalist russia in the most absurd way possible
+many many short stories (russian stories)

2023

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada
Roadside Picnic by Arkardy and Boris Strugatsky

Homo Zapiens/Generation П by Victor Pelevin (again)
Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin
A Mother's Disgrace by Robert Dessaix
The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

Asemic the Art of Writing by Peter Schwenger
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
Russia: Myths and Realities by Rodric Braithwaite
We Had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets
Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda
The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami
The Waves Extinguish the Wind by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Mac's Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas
Bunny by Mona Awad
dare i say it? wasted potential.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
no offense to hank green, but i was not expecting to love this as much as i did. i am once again forced to face my perhaps incorrect belief that sci fi isnt for me. very fun easy read, even if the audiobook is actually pretty long.
Venomous Lumpsuckers by Ned Beauman
i think i've thought about this book every day since finishing it... i cant stop recommending it to people. go read it now
Hysteria by Jessica Gross
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Last Day by Domenica Ruta
Dune by Frank Herbert
Tezcatlipoca by Kiwamu Sato
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
My Wandering Warrior Existence with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
i'm embarrassed to say that this changed my life. "wait... crap. maybe there are actually partners out there... who truly love each other??" "all those love songs i listened to, thinking they were just fantasies... that really exists somewhere!" until reading this, i, like the author, had never really put 2 and 2 together that love songs and love stories are in fact real and are not just made up for the sake of entertainment. i have no excuse since my parents are very happily married and have been for 30+ years, but still somehow... i did not realise. and then, it CONTINUES to follow my chain of thought, saying, "i had no idea any of it was actually real. how could i be envious? think of it this way. if someone raves about a dish you've never eaten or even heard of before, there's nothing to be envious of because you don't know what it is." this caused quite the identity crisis this august lol. who was going to tell me (besides the entire world and every piece of media) that people actually fall in love??????
My Solo Exchange Diary 1 by Nagata Kabi
My Solo Exchange Diary 2 by Nagata Kabi

films/shows