all that you hold dear

We’re halfway through the year, which means it’s time for a little bookshelf realignment. These are the titles that have been following me around like a well-dressed ghost, whispering read me read me every time I dare scroll instead of pick up a paperback. The vibes? Feminine, cerebral, and just a touch tragic. Like falling in love at an art museum and then ghosting them for Paris.

So, here it is: a chic little reading list for the chronically overcommitted, or, a stack of books on my nightstand that I swear to prioritize for the rest of the year (for real this time).

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

I started reading this last year but put it on hold, and I’ve been meaning to restart it for a few months now—a cult classic about ambitious working girls in 1950s Manhattan, complete with heartbreak, typewriters, and martinis in the middle of the workday. Think Sex and the City before it was cool, with a healthy dose of feminist disillusionment. Basically: I’m here for the drama, the dresses, and the quiet unravelling of it all.

Coventry by Rachel Cusk

For when I want to read essays that cut like glass.

Rachel Cusk is one of my go-to writers because she doesn’t write to soothe; she writes to provoke. These essays explore marriage, motherhood, and writing with her usual cool detachment which is what makes it so weirdly addictive. I’ve actually been saving this one for when I’m ready to listen, fully—days where it’s just me and Cusk, and whatever uncomfortably comfortable truth she wants to drop onto my lap that day.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Simply because I can’t not read the latest Rooney which I’ve actually had sitting on my shelf for several months now. Expect yearning. Expect restraint. Expect characters who say devastating things while buttering toast. I’m in.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali

Was I initially attracted to this book simply because of its Penguin black spine edition cover? I mean, I won’t lie; yes.

Everyone says this book is soft and haunting, that it’s not loud or showy but it lingers. It’s about a man who remembers a brief, all-consuming connection with a woman who felt more like myth than memory. No dramatics. Just longing, finely drawn.

I can’t wait to be reading this soon, perhaps in a café, in a black turtleneck, and a cup of hot Americano.

Notes to John by Joan Didion

I hesitated with this one. Not because I don’t adore Joan enough, of course I do, but because it wasn’t meant for me. Or you. Or anyone, really.

Notes to John is a posthumous release of private journal entries Joan wrote to her late husband, John Dunne. They’re letters, thoughts, and scraps of memory. It wasn’t meant for publication and definitely not as curated as her usual razor-sharp prose, so reading it actually feels a bit intrusive. There’s also been controversy surrounding its release, and rightly so—as it tugs at the boundary between writer and reader, public and private. But also because Didion has spent her entire literary career crafting her voice with exquisite control. These notes bypass that control entirely.

Still, I do want to read it, but with caution. With reverence. With the constant awareness that this isn’t literature in the traditional sense but something deeply personal. In a way, it’s a reminder that even the most exacting writers were, first and foremost, people who loved and lost sometimes more than they could bear.

It probably won’t feel good to read this one but it does feel somewhat intriguing in its own uneasy way.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

It’s about time. The ultimate coming-of-age memoir, written by one of the fiercest feminist minds of the 20th century. I want to know how she came to be, what haunted her, and how she managed to make existential despair look so chic (not to undermine feelings of existential despair, but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t indeed make it look chic).

M Train by Patti Smith

M Train doesn’t attempt to impress you. It’s not just a typical memoir: there’s no tidy arc, no dramatic peak, absolutely none of those things. It’s Patti drifting through cafés, old memories, and minor obessessions (same, Patti, same), letting her mind wander wherever it wants. And somehow, that’s exactly the point. I imagine reading it would feel like being in the company of someone who’s long made peace with being alone and I can’t wait to indulge in that.

The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Essential, dense, and a little bit defiant, The Madwoman in the Attic is less a book than a landmark. Gilbert and Gubar’s feminist reading of 19th-century women’s literature is sharp, provocative, and unapologetically academic in the best possible way. I’m definitely looking forward to how it might reframe the texts I’ve already encountered and challenge the ones I haven’t yet. And since I don’t expect it to be the kind of book I’ll be breezing through (I’m already seeing it: margin notes, rereads, and tabs), I’ve decided that if I’m going to be weighed down by a book, I want it to be this one.

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Will I finish all of these by December? Maybe. Will I get distracted by shiny new releases and obscure fan fiction on AO3? Most definitely. But for now, this is the dream: long nights, quiet mornings, and books that make me feel a little more alive, or at least a little less doomscrolled.