Separating Authors From Their Works: A Discussion

The topic of separating authors from their work is one that has been on my mind a lot lately and I wanted to make a post discussing it. This is something that really applies to any and all artists and what they create, but in this post, I'll be specifically talking about authors/writers.

"Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men." - Alexander Pope - 

Recently there's been a lot talk about boycotting authors or books for different reasons. Some include; boycotting an author because of a claim that something 'problematic' was found in their book (here), changing award prize images that were modeled after a poorly chosen classic author (here), or boycotting an author's work because of allegations against them (here and here). To be very clear, I am not passing judgment or giving opinions on any of these specific cases, these are simply examples and I am just discussing the separation between creator and creation.

I think the 'mob mentality' on social media is a large part of this issue and is something that should be discussed more and something that everyone should consider when they post anything online. It has become a very big problem with YA discussion especially and I think it's important to think about whether the opinion you're giving is your own or one you heard/ saw somewhere else and decided you also believed without really thinking about it.

TBR Book Tag!

I want to start doing more tag posts because I think they're really fun and they're a good way to get to know the person behind the blog. I came across this TBR (to be read) tag on booktube and although I wasn't tagged by anyone, I'm going to do it anyway.

*I believe this is the original post here that booktubers got the idea from.

So the first question is...

✴How do you keep track of your TBR pile?✴

I have an Amazon wishlist with the books I just want to read, but I use my Goodreads want-to-read shelf to keep track of the unread books I physically own. If you're curious to see what those books are, I'll link it here. I also have a spreadsheet where I track additional information about each book, such as, where and when I got the book, the format it's in, it's genre, and whether it is a part of a series or a standalone.

✴Is your TBR mostly print or ebook?✴

Print. I don't actually buy ebooks. The only time I read ebooks is if I can download them from my local library through the OverDrive app. 

Bookish Songs

Soooo I love music. A lot. Almost as much as books. And I've wanted to do a post like this for a while, I had actually gotten the idea before I even started my blog, but I wasn't sure if anyone would care to read about music on a book blog. But then I thought about how this is my blog and I can literally do whatever the hell I want with it, so here it is.

A little background. I listen to pretty much all types of music, but mostly rock and all of its subgenres. The only music I don't listen to a lot of is country (I only like 10 or so songs). And it's through listening to different types of music that I've come across what I call 'bookish songs'. Bookish songs are songs that were inspired by books, reference books, or have inspired books. I'll also be including in this list songs that I found/heard of in books because I think it's great when a book can be what helped you find your new favorite song.

*Obviously this is not a list of every song in existence that fits this topic. These are just ones that I personally have listened to and ones that have been inspired by/reference books that I've read.

**I made a Spotify playlist here, which has most of the songs. Any songs I couldn't find on Spotify I have youtube links to down where the songs are individually talked about.

So on to the music.

Modern Adaptations I'd Like to See

So recently I read Tash Hearts Tolstoy (great book btw, review here) which is a young adult novel about a teen named Tash who writes and produces a low-budget web series called Unhappy Families with her friends. Unhappy Families is a modern adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with a teen cast and I loved the idea of modernizing classic lit stories so much that I've put together a list of just a few classic works I wouldn't mind seeing modern-set screen adaptations of. 

1. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Arguably Wilde's most well-known work, Dorian Gray has been adapted several times over but the adaptations are always set in the same time period as the story. Quite a few of the taboo topics mentioned in the story are seen as *slightly* less serious today so I think it would be cool to see Dorian in the modern world indulging in everything that we consider now to be too wild. Also imagining what his parties would be like today have me really hoping this is adapted sometime in my lifetime.

2. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

I'll admit I've only ever read three Shakespearean plays so far. But. This has become one of my favorite classics, it was just that damn good. Unlike some of the other classics on this list, A Midsummer Night's Dream does actually have a very loosely based modern adaptation called Get Over It, a 2001 teen comedy (pretty good movie) but it barely follows the play's storyline and the characters in the movie aren't wholly inspired by the characters from the play.  I really loved the idea of this story in a high school setting.