march tbr

hello.

march is a month of in-betweens— neither fully winter nor fully spring, a liminal stretch where the air still carries the weight of cold mornings, but the days last a little longer. a season of transitions, of thawing and soft awakenings. streets cleansed by the downpour of rain while the first buds emerge through frostbitten ground. restless and impatient, the world stirs from its slumber, stretching its arms up towards something new. a month of paradoxes— wool coats over light dresses, golden sunlight interrupted by storms. a season reluctant to loosen its grip while spring wraps her arms around the edges of winter— for the ache of change that hasn’t quite arrived.

i’ve curated a march reading list with a balance of depth, variety, and mood—books that will challenge me, immerse me, and offer different textures of thought and experience. as always, i read intuitively, following my attention wherever it pulls me, so this list is less of a rigid syllabus and more of a constellation of books i feel drawn to right now.

one of my project books for this month is middlemarch by george eliot. this is a novel that demands patience and time, and i know i won’t finish it within the month—it's a book to be lived with, to carry through slow days and shifting moods, so i’ll likely continue it into april. alongside it, i’ve chosen a mix of shorter reads, allowing me to weave between dense, expansive works and more immediate, intense experiences. i need contrast in my reading—different voices, different rhythms, different intellectual and emotional registers. some books will likely consume me in a day, others will be a slow burn, something to return to in fragments.

at the end, i’ve included a few audiobooks i plan to listen to—another layer to the way i experience literature, a way to let words shape the spaces between everything else. this list, like all my reading, is a conversation, an ongoing process of discovery.

books to read in march

middlemarch by george eliot
one of the most profound studies of human nature in literature. eliot dissects ambition, marriage, and morality with unrelenting depth. sprawling, meticulous, and deeply compassionate—this is a novel that rewards patience and introspection.

the waves by virginia woolf
a novel written like a fevered dream—fluid, rhythmic, and hypnotic. woolf dissolves narrative structure, giving us a symphony of six voices that explore time, identity, and the ever-shifting nature of self. reading this feels like floating in and out of consciousness, caught between memory and inevitability.

collected essays by james baldwin
a masterclass in intellect and moral clarity, baldwin’s essays cut deep. his prose is searing yet deeply humane, exploring race, identity, art, and love with a precision that feels both urgent and timeless.

tractatus logico-philosophicus by ludwig wittgenstein
a dense, enigmatic exploration of language, reality, and the limits of human understanding. wittgenstein doesn’t just theorize—he disassembles thought itself, leaving behind something startlingly precise and strangely poetic.

demons by fyodor dostoevsky
dostoevsky at his most incendiary. a novel of ideological possession, political unrest, and spiritual crisis, where revolution and destruction spiral into madness. it’s a chaotic, unsettling dissection of extremism, filled with unforgettable characters teetering on the brink.

the lost estate by henri alain-fournier
a novel wrapped in nostalgia, longing, and the ache of youth. a love story that feels like a half-remembered dream, where beauty is fleeting and the past always just out of reach.

annie john by jamaica kincaid
a sharp, haunting coming-of-age novel about love, loss, and the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters. kincaid’s prose is deceptively simple, but beneath it lies a deep well of emotion and quiet rebellion.

the sickness unto death – søren kierkegaard
a book about despair, selfhood, and the way faith collides with existential dread. kierkegaard is never comforting—he forces you to sit with the weight of your own existence, with the terror of being a self in a meaningless world. if fear and trembling was about taking the leap of faith, the sickness unto death is about standing at the edge and wondering if you even can. i already know this will send me into an existential spiral, and i welcome it.

a woman appeared to me by renée vivien
renée vivien, the sapphic poet, the tragic icon, the woman who lived and loved with the intensity of a storm. a woman appeared to me is her most explicitly autobiographical novel, a feverish, fragmented account of obsessive love, heartbreak, and the inescapable tension between ecstasy and suffering. written in the early 1900s, it was radical in its time—openly and unrepentantly sapphic, filled with the kind of melancholic devotion that reads like both confession and self-destruction.it’s poetic, deeply melancholic, and filled with that particular kind of doomed romance that i am so drawn to.

bluets by maggie nelson
i’ve read parts of this before, but this time i want to sit with it properly. bluets is like a collection of poetic fragments—philosophical, intimate, sharp in its beauty and its sorrow. it’s about the color blue, but also about desire, depression, loss, and obsession. nelson writes in a way that feels like she’s carving something out of you, making you see the world differently.

the faggots and their friends between revolutions by larry mitchell
an underground queer classic—part fable, part manifesto, part fever dream. a vision of queer resistance, community, and love, written with a kind of radical tenderness that feels both urgent and timeless.

the monk by matthew lewis
the monk is a gothic masterpiece of sin and temptation— infamous for its excess, its descent into moral and supernatural chaos. lust, corruption, the destruction of a holy man—it’s a novel that scandalized its time, and that makes me even more excited to read it. unhinged, absolutely depraved—everything i want from an 18th-century novel.

bone black by bell hooks
bell hooks’ memoir, written in short, poetic vignettes, capturing the complexities of growing up Black and female in the american south. it’s both deeply personal and politically charged, a meditation on memory, identity, and the shaping of a writer’s voice. hooks moves through childhood, through the intersections of race, gender, and class, with a clarity that feels both raw and lyrical. i already know this will leave a mark on me.

the carrying by ada limón
a poetry collection about the body, grief, resilience, and the quiet miracles of ordinary life. limón writes with such tenderness, such aching beauty—her work feels like it expands the way you see the world, making space for wonder even in sorrow. this will be one to savor.

audiobooks i plan on listening to…

the odyssey – homer (emily wilson translation)
i studied this book in university, but emily wilson’s translation makes it feel alive, urgent, and newly electric. the odyssey is a journey through longing, homecoming, fate, and the gods’ cruel indifference, but it’s also a meditation on time and identity—who we are when everything familiar is stripped away. i’m particularly excited to read listen to wilson’s interpretation, as she peels away the layers of poetic tradition and male bias, bringing a sharp clarity to the text. it’s both an epic and an intensely human story, one that still resonates thousands of years later.

mythos – stephen fry
i’m almost finished with this one… a modern retelling of greek mythology, done with fry’s signature wit and intelligence. i’ve always been fascinated by how myths shape our collective understanding of human nature, how they exist as both timeless archetypes and deeply personal stories. mythos feels like sitting by a fire, listening to an old friend recount the stories of the gods in a way that makes them feel both grand and mischievously human.

heroes – stephen fry
where mythos explores the gods, heroes brings the mortal figures of greek legend into focus—these flawed, courageous, tragic figures whose stories have echoed through time. the thing about greek heroes is that they’re never purely good or noble; they’re reckless, prideful, often self-destructive. i love that fry embraces that complexity, making them feel both mythic and relatable. this will probably be an immersive, entertaining read that bridges ancient storytelling with modern sensibilities.

that’s all for today.

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i love you.

bye.

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