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The Tortured Poets Department Reading List
16
items A reading list for those who belong to the Tortured Poets Department: where every heartbreak is a masterpiece, every diary entry is a stanza, and Taylor Swift is our honorary chairperson.
By Isabelle McConville on Barnes & Noble
Sections
5
I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life
You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad
Am I Allowed to Cry?
Old Habits Die Screaming
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life
https://open.spotify.com/track/2OzhQlSqBEmt7hmkYxfT6m?si=h9CWtKY3TJubhTLYups0Lw
All’s fair in love and poetry
The Tortured Poets Department
Written in the last few years of her life, Sylvia Plath writes of heartache, depression and musings on her day-to-day life in this intimate portrayal of an iconic writer.
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Bright Objects, explores mysticism and cynicism, love and heartbreak, alongside one woman awaiting a comet and grappling with her grief.
Bright Objects
In this deeply personal collection, Ocean Vuong reflects on life and love, grief and time, in lyrical writing keeps us reaching for his work over and over again.
Time Is a Mother
You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad
https://open.spotify.com/track/36t6frENUtCYKuZus6aYDO?si=sb91AuKZTfSoCQovcpbSAQ
Megan Fox explores anger in her heartbreak, and writes, “I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness.”
Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems: A Collection of F**ked Up Fairy Tales
Caroline O’Donoghue introduces us to Rachel, a twenty-something student in Ireland grappling with complicated friendships and relationships, all while being horridly underpaid and constantly overlooked.
The Rachel Incident: A Novel
Catherine Cohen’s poetry reminds us all that sometimes in order to get past painful absurdities, all we can do is step back and laugh.
God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal About Town
Am I Allowed to Cry?
https://open.spotify.com/track/0W0iAC1VGlB82PI6elxFYf?si=RKc4jlgHTmm4NRBEMmfBbw
In Piglet, one woman bargains with herself and time in this juicy, taut and propulsive story of a relationship going off the rails and a woman seeking to find fulfillment at any cost.
Piglet: A Novel
Transcendent Kingdom‘s Gifty is a brilliant scientist grappling with unthinkable tragedies, and she’ll do anything — even studying it in a lab — to find out why people suffer so much, so often.
Transcendent Kingdom
Kaveh Akbar explains, “I hope that when there is laughter, it’s laughter made wise by having known real grief — and when there is grief, it is made wise by having known real joy.”
Martyr! A Novel
Old Habits Die Screaming
https://open.spotify.com/track/62E2nR0od0M5HYxuYLaDz7?si=JSuJe8wZS8iOkBKGNjD-Wg
Low spirits — and liquid ones — tend to accompany the depression stage of a breakup.
Lo Fi
A novel of a love story gone awry, and two people who find themselves in a relationship they can’t recognize anymore.
If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
Academia meets a murder mystery, where everyone’s too smart for their own good—and too dramatic to survive unscathed.
I was another person before reading this book I swear.
The Secret History
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
https://open.spotify.com/track/4q5YezDOIPcoLr8R81x9qy?si=pJ9_FUVeTPKOQlQFV-TmWw
In her essential collection, Mary Oliver’s poems span her incredible career and encourage us to embrace the unknown and find beauty in the world around us.
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Eugenides reminds us that love can be found anywhere, even in the worst of times, from the author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex.
The Marriage Plot
A collection of poetry filled with musings on empowerment, inspiration and guidance, encouraging every reader to find themselves on the other side of grief.
The Way Forward