Two things are consistent in my life: reading as a form of escapism and a Lorde album magically appearing at every pivotal moment. I feel confident saying that Lorde is one of the most influential artists of our generation and will I forever be saying that her influence derives from her status as a prettier Jesus? Yes.
Pure Heroine was the pinnacle Tumblr chic album, accessorized by American Apparel and rainbow gasoline puddles, that perpetuated our teenage angst right as we entered high school. Melodrama hit right as we were graduating high school, getting our hearts broken, and entering our formative college years – sending all of us into a spiral for years to come. And now we’re here: graduating college, becoming adults, and feeling this looming sense of dread from the state of the world. Lorde couldn’t have come at a better time.
At only 24, what has possessed miss Ella Yelich-O’Connor to create such timeless pieces of art? Where does her wisdom come from? We still haven’t gotten to the bottom of it, but here are some books/authors that Lorde has read that you can pick up and try to get into her head, obviously while also eating a pile of onion rings.
“Reading has always been the thing that I’ve done the most, apart from sleeping and stuff, so I guess that’s a good place to start. I am one of those people who read everything, regardless of whether or not it’s shit. I don’t know why, but I will have just as much fun reading something really awful as I do something really good.” — Lorde
Going South by Ella Yelich-O’Connor
I was one of the lucky ones who got their hands on this book
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
The defining book series of this generation hand in hand with the defining artist of this generation… immaculate. Lorde curated the Mockingjay: Part 1 soundtrack and I’m not ashamed to say that I still listen to it. Lorde + HAIM + Tove Lo + CHVRCHES ? Genius.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Lorde tweeted about this book before she threw her cellular device in the water!
A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes
Lorde also tweeted about this book, but her phone’s in the water and her tweets are all gone. Sad.
Rookie Yearbook by Tavi Gevinson
Name something more 2010 than Rookie and Tavi Gevinson (Gossip Girl herself). Reading through Lorde’s Rookie interview gave me insight into her newsletter because every time I get an email notification from Lorde, I do get that same excitement that I got when I read Tavi’s letters from the editor back in middle school. There’s something so deeply personal about the newsletters that I like to think Lorde got from Rookie (because I also read that and for some reason
In that same 2014 interview with Rookie, Lorde proclaimed her love of the site and also recommended the following titles/authors:
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories by Wells Tower
Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Feed by M.T. Anderson: Yes I read the Rookie article in 2014, yes I read this book, and yes I was
Roald Dahl’s short stories
Tobias Wolff
Kurt Vonngeut: She talks about Vonnegut’s work in general, but specifically Slaughterhouse-Five.
Speaking of Lorde’s newsletter, she just recently gave us some book recs in there!
From The Emails
The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979 by Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell
“This Lowell Hardwick letters collection might actually warrant its own newsletter, but I thought of this quote from Lowell in it about Nail Salon today – ‘In the best art, as in life, all the blood-veins go to the heart.’”
Also featured in her newsletter:
The Years by Annie Ernaux
On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint
Fragments of an Infinite Memory: My Life With the Internet by Mael Renouard
The Dancers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
In one newsletter, the book she was holding in her walk-selfie was The Course of Love by Alain de Button.
Additional books that Lorde has mentioned
Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
I’m Very Into You: Correspondence 1995-1996 by Kathy Acker
The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
Specific authors that she has mentioned
Audre Lorde
Janet Frame
Junot Diaz
J.D. Salinger
James Baldwin
Eleanor Catton
T.S. Eliot
Walt Whitman
Sylvia Plath
Derek Walcott
Gathered from Twitter and a million interviews, I’m taking this as a you must read all of their work to understand me type of thing, so I’ll be missing for about the next 10 years as I try to get through Miss Ella’s list.
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