Books
Books discussed as more than a passing mention or reference on Exotic and Irrational Entertainment, listed alphabetically by author and linked to the relevant E&I post(s).
Abbate-Edgeworth | Eliot-Inchbald | Izzo-Murakami | Nabokov-Thackeray | Tolkien-Wharton
Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker, A History of Opera
Joan Acocella, Mark Morris
John Adams, Hallelujah Junction
William Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard
Viv Albertine, Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen, Persuasion (also discussed in: "A Bollywood Persuasion")
The plan
Sense and Sensibility, inheritance, and money
Pride and Prejudice and the marriage market
Mansfield Park and slavery I: Fanny Price and Dido Elizabeth Belle
Mansfield Park and slavery II: Lord Mansfield and the anti-slavery movement
Mansfield Park and slavery III: An estate built on 'the ruin and labour of others'
Emma and the fate of unmarried women
Northanger Abbey and women writers and readers
Persuasion and war
Persuasion and Jane Austen's sailor brothers
Favorite adaptations and final thoughts
Jane Austen proposal scenes compared to their film and television versions:
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
[Jane Austen] Inger Sigrun Bredkjaer Brodey, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness
[Jane Austen] Paula Byrne, The Genius of Jane Austen (Jane Austen and the Theatre)
[Jane Austen] Paula Byrne, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
[Jane Austen] Helena Kelly, Jane Austen, The Secret Radical
[Jane Austen] Devoney Looser, The Making of Jane Austen
Paul Auster, The Locked Room (Book 3 of The New York Trilogy)
Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Letters:"The delight of your friendship": The correspondence begins
"Burn it at once": The first meeting and Browning's declaration
"I never shall forget": The Pisa affair and the renewed declaration
"The highest and completest proof of love": The secret marriage and the elopement
"How do I love thee?": Sonnets from the Portuguese
Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother? (also discussed in: "Favorites of 2012: Books")
Alison Bechdel, Dykes To Watch Out For
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
Anna Beer, Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music
Daniel Bergner, Sing for Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family
John Blaser, No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir
Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac: Vertigo (D'Entre les Morts)
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Mihir Bose, Bollywood: A History
Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763
Peter Boxall (ed.), 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Inger Sigrun Bredkjaer Brodey, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness
Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (also discussed in "Favorites of 2015: Books")
Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë, Villette (also discussed in: "Favorites of 2014: Books")
Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Make Me a Modern Girl
Fanny Burney, Camilla
Fanny Burney, Cecilia (also discussed in: "Jane Austen's favorite novelist: Fanny Burney" and "Favorites of 2014: Books")
Fanny Burney, Evelina
Fanny Burney, Journals and Letters
Paula Byrne, The Genius of Jane Austen (Jane Austen and the Theatre)
Paula Byrne, Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson
Paula Byrne, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
Leonora Carrington, The Complete Stories
Angela Carter's fiction:The Bloody Chamber
The Magic Toyshop
Nights at the Circus
Wise Children
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (in the section "On ignoring the big picture for the nagging detail" in Nick Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading")
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
Anupama Chopra, King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les liaisons dangereuses
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (also discussed in "Favorites of 2013: Books")
Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink
Deborah Curtis, Touching from a Distance
Maurizio de Giovanni, The Commissario Ricciardi novels
I Will Have Vengeance
Blood Curse
Everyone in Their Place
The Day of the Dead
By My Hand
Viper
The Bottom of My Heart
Alfred de Musset, The Confession of a Child of the Century
Madame de Staël, Corinne, or Italy
Jean-Christophe Deveney and PMGL (Pierre-Marie Grille-Liou), Haruki Murakami: Manga Stories
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Jenny Diski, The Sixties
Jenny Diski, Why Didn't You Just Do As You Were Told?
Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (also discussed in "Favorites of 2013: Books")
Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel
[Daphne du Maurier] Margaret Foster, Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller
Edward Dusinberre, Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String Quartets
Rachel Dwyer, 100 Bollywood Films
Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence
José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, The Maias
Emily Eden, The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House
Maria Edgeworth, Belinda
Maria Edgeworth, Helen
Maria Edgeworth, Patronage
George Eliot, Middlemarch (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
Manny Farber, Negative Space
Susan Ferrier, Destiny
Susan Ferrier, Inheritance
Susan Ferrier, Marriage (also discussed in "Favorites of 2015: Books")
Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Michael Frayn, Copenhagen
Michael Frayn, Headlong (also discussed in: "Favorites of 2012: Books")
Michael Frayn, A Landing On the Sun
Michael Frayn, Now You Know
Michael Frayn, Skios
Michael Frayn, Spies
Michael Frayn, Stage Directions: Writings on Theatre 1970-2008
Michael Frayn, The Trick of It
James R. Gaines, Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment
Eduardo Galeano, El libro de los abrazos (The Book of Embraces)
Eduardo Galeano, Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire)
Eduardo Galeano, Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (also discussed in "Favorites of 2014: Books")
Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte (also discussed in "Favorites of 2014: Books")
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters (also discussed in "Favorites of 2014: Books")
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar: The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
George Gissing, New Grub Street (also discussed in "Favorites of 2015: Books")
Jane Glover, Handel in London: The Making of a Genius
Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera
Edmund Gordon, The Invention of Angela Carter
Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band
David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (also: The Wager and slavery)
Alasdair Gray, Poor Things
Eduardo Halfon, The Polish Boxer
Ellen Harris, Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess
Eliza Haywood, The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Richard Hell, I Dreamed I was a Very Clean Tramp
Clinton Heylin, From the Velvets to the Voidoids: The Birth of American Punk Rock
[Patricia Highsmith] Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith
Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked
Nick Hornby, "Stuff I've Been Reading"
The Polysyllabic Spree
Housekeeping vs. The Dirt
Shakespeare Wrote for Money
More Baths Less Talking
Hua Hsu, Stay True
Spike Hughes, Glyndebourne: A History of the Festival Opera (Second edition)
Mara Hvistendahl, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story
Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun
Jean-Claude Izzo, The Marseilles TrilogyTotal Chaos
Chourmo
Solea
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
Subhash Jha, The Essential Guide to Bollywood
Diane Johnson, The True History of Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives: Six Victorian marriages, part 3: Mary Ellen Peacock Nicolls and George Meredith
Steven Johnson, Enemy of All Mankind
Steve Jones: Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (also discussed in: "Favorites of 2012: Books")
Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing (also discussed in "Favorites of 2013: Books")
Akira Kurosawa: Something Like An Autobiography
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
Olivia Laing, To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface
Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide
Charlotte Lennox, A Female Quixote
Charlotte Lennox, Henrietta
Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman
Jonathan Lethem, The Disappointment Artist
Ada Leverson, The Little Ottleys
Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, with Reminiscences of the Author, plus Punch parodies
Love's Shadow
Tenterhooks
Love at Second Sight
Daniel J. Levitin, This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
Jill Liddington, Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax, 1791–1840 [1806-1810]
Helena Whitbread, ed., I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister [1816–1824]
Helena Whitbread, ed., No Priest But Love: Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister, 1824–1826
Anne Choma, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister [1828-1832]
Jill Liddington, ed., Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: The Anne Lister Diaries and Other Writings, 1833–1836
Devoney Looser, The Making of Jane Austen
B. G. MacCarthy, The Female Pen: Women Writers and Novelists 1621-1818
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Collected Stories
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Counselor Ayres' Memorial (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Dom Casmurro (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas; "The dead man who is an author" (translations compared)
Naguib Mahfouz, Autumn Quail
Javier Marias, The Infatuations
Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Rebecca Mead, My Life in Middlemarch (also discussed in "Favorites of 2014: Books")
David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Selected Letters
"I tremble for what we are doing": The elopement
"Charm'd with their Civility and Beauty": The journey to Turkey
"An Entertainment which was never given before to any Christian": In the harem
"That odd question": Friends and lovers
"I love without hope of return": The final decades and the Embassy Letters
Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh
[Mark Morris] Joan Acocella, Mark Morris
Morrissey, Autobiography
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (also "Biggest disappointment" in Favorites of 2012: Books)
Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage ("Second biggest disappointment" in Favorites of 2014: Books)
Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami: Manga Stories, adapted by Jean-Christophe Deveney and illustrated by PMGL (Pierre-Marie Grille-Liou)
Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing (Kodansha English Library edition)
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood (Kodansha English Library edition)
Haruki Murakami, Pinball, 1973 (Kodansha English Library edition)
Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
[Haruki Murakami] David Karashima, Who We're Reading When We're Reading Murakami
[Haruki Murakami] Jay Rubin, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words
Venetia Murray, An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
Silvina Ocampo, Leopoldina's Dream
Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet
Margaret Oliphant, Miss Marjoribanks
Sydney Padua, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book
Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence (also discussed in: "Favorites of 2012: Books")
Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red
Orhan Pamuk, The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist
Orhan Pamuk, The New Life
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Philip Pullman, The Sally Lockhart Mysteries (also discussed in "Favorites of 2013: Books")
The Ruby in the Smoke
The Shadow in the North
The Tiger in the Well
The Tin Princess
Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (also discussed in: "Following a train of thought: Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin", "Following a train of thought: Eugene Onegin - The Duel" and "Favorites of 2013: Books")
Michael Reynolds, Creating Der Rosenkavalier
Simon Reynolds, Rip it Up & Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984
Simon Reynolds, Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Or the History of a Young Lady
Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Baronet
John Robb, Punk Rock: An Oral History
[Mary Robinson] Paula Byrne, Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson
Michael Rose, The Birth of an Opera
Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
Six Victorian marriages, part 1: Jane Welsh and Thomas Carlyle
Six Victorian marriages, part 2: Effie Gray and John Ruskin
Six Victorian marriages, part 4: Catherine Hogarth and Charles Dickens
Six Victorian marriages, part 5: Harriet Hardy Taylor and John Stuart Mill
Six Victorian marriages, part 6: George Eliot and George Henry Lewes
Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise
Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Katherine Rundell, The Golden Mole
Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
George Sand, Indiana
George Sand, Consuelo
George Sand, Lucrezia Floriani
George Sand, Marianne
Kelefa Sanneh, Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
Vikram Seth, The Golden Gate
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
Frances Sheridan: Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph
Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece
Charlotte Smith, Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle
Charlotte Smith, Celestina
Charlotte Smith, The Old Manor House
Patti Smith, Just Kids (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Patti Smith, M Train
Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Zadie Smith, Feel Free: Essays
Zadie Smith, The Fraud
Edward Sorel: Mary Astor's Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936
Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True, 1907-1940
Stendahl, Le rouge et le noir (Scarlet and black)
Victoria Sweet, God's Hotel
William Thackeray, Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.
William Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Richard Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (also discussed in "Favorites of 2015: Books")
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Anthony Trollope, The American Senator
Anthony Trollope, Ayala's Angel
Anthony Trollope, The Chronicles of Barsetshire (also discussed in "Favorites of 2011: Books")
The WardenAnthony Trollope, Cousin Henry
Barchester Towers
Doctor Thorne
Framley Parsonage (also discussed in "Bollywood and the Victorians")
The Small House At Allington (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
The Last Chronicle of Barset (also discussed in "The Victorians and opera: Trollope meets Verdi")
Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Anthony Trollope, Is He Popenjoy?
Anthony Trollope, Kept In The Dark
Anthony Trollope, The Land-Leaguers
Anthony Trollope, Miss Mackenzie
Anthony Trollope, An Old Man's Love
Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm
Anthony Trollope, The Palliser Novels (also discussed in "The Pallisers")
Can You Forgive Her? (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
Phineas Finn
The Eustace Diamonds
Phineas Redux
The Prime Minister
The Duke's Children
Anthony Trollope, Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
Anthony Trollope, The Vicar of Bullhampton
Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (also discussed in "Favorites of 2010: Books")
William van der Heide, Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal
Jessica Waldoff, Recognition in Mozart's Operas
Michael Walker, Hitchcock's Motifs
David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Duncan Watts, Everything is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer)
Jane West, A Gossip's Story
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Ellen Wood, East Lynne
Other posts on books:
