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bummersummer

a reading list for Lana fans

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meaning: the usual suspects / stuff she's directly or indirectly mentioned in songs or interviews AND books whose themes relate to her persona / vibe / interests and thus we might like to read.

 
stuff she's mentioned one way or another : (surely incomplete, i'll keep editing this if people add others in the replies)

  • Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
  • Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi
  • Burnt Norton - TS Eliot
  • On The Road - Jack Kerouac
  • Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
  • Howl - Allen Ginsberg
  • Victoria Holt - Road to Paradise Island
  • Norman Rockwell (no specific book afaik)
  • The Master Key System - Charles F. Haanel (@MoonAgain)
  • The Bible (@HANGINGFROOT)
  • Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill (@Barry)
  • The Satanic Witch - Anton LaVey
  • Aleister Crowley (no specific book mentioned)
  • Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
  • A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
  • Nature (essay) - Ralph Waldo Emerson (this + the 3 above by @trayertrash)
  • Mind Breaths: Poems 1972-77 - Allen Ginsberg
  • Matcha - Jessica Flint & Anna Kavaliunas
  • Everyday Watercolor: Learn to Paint Watercolor in 30 Days - Jenna Rainey (this + 2 above @ ig post feb 19)
  • Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller (ig post march 19)
  • Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories about the Wild Woman Archetype - Clarissa Pinkola Estés
  • The Creative Fire: Myths and Stories About the Cycles of Creativity - Clarissa Pinkola Estés
  • Untie the Strong Woman: To Know and Honor Holy Mother - Clarissa Pinkola Estés (this + 2 above @ ig post july 2019)
  • In The Nature Of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1887-1941 - Henry-Russell Hitchcock
  • Man And His Symbols - Carl Jung
  • The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - Richard Prum (@kristinaj this + 2 above @ ig posts september 2019)
  • Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald The Dawn Of TechnoDimensional Spiritual Warfare - Tom Horn and Nita Horn (@AnarKissed)
  • Surfing California - Bank Wright

 

our Lana-related recs : (add a brief description)

  • The Girls - Emma Cline (coming of age story of a teen girl who joins a Manson-like cult in the 60s)
  • Marlena - Julie Buntin (story of a toxic & dangerous friendship between 2 teen girls, marked by drug addiction and general recklessness)
  • White Oleander - Janet Fitch (a very California book about a girl placed in several foster homes & her toxic, beautiful mother)
  • Joan Didion - Slouching Towards Bethlehem (imo it's impossible Lana hasn't read this book; a series of seminal essays about 60s California by prob the most iconic Cali writer)
  • Junky - William Burroughs (THE book about heroin addiction)
  • Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon (psychedelic noir set in 60s California about a stoner P.I. looking for a lost girl; also: watch the movie!!!)
  • The Two Mrs. Greenvilles - Dominick Dunne (@kitschesque, "BTD era glamour")
  • Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan (@RainOverLondon, "teenage girl named cécile who lives a lavish and languorous lifestyle, spending the summer at her family’s french riviera villa with her father, raymond, and his mistress, elsa; call me by your name meets gossip girl")
  • Lithium For Medea - Kate Braverman (a story of addiction, of complicated mother/daughter relationships & toxic romances set in Venice, LA)
Edited by bummersummer

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Love this thread idea. I always find her influences fascinating. 


                                                                                                                                                ♡ I had a dream that I was fine, I wasn't crazy, I was divine ♡                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

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Wow just googled Joan Didion. These photos look like the inspiration behind the Ultraviolence album cover.

20DIDION-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp

 

0*WCafrbAWIArxU68k.jpg

 

definitely going to check out her book The White Album as this sounded more interesting than slouching towards Bethlehem 


"It's 2011, and we should all be aware of exactly how fast technology is developing" - Lana Del Rey

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The Satanic Witch  :creep:

Black Beauty

A Clockwork Orange

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I vaguely remember her listening to something while driving before, but can't recall if it was an audiobook or something else?


9a32008aa9568555201e3b88bceeef59.jpg

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Wow just googled Joan Didion. These photos look like the inspiration behind the Ultraviolence album cover.

 

YES!! like i said, it seems literally impossible to me that Lana's never read her & you make a really great point with those car photos as they're THE iconic Didion shoot (i believe several of them were used as book covers throughout the years).

 

as for The White Album vs Slouching, both are great so you can't go wrong with either. i don't remember from which of them this short essay "LA Notebook" is from, but to me it encapsulates the vibe of most of her books & her style of writing, and it's just so UV, Honeymoon & NFR Lana to me!

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Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I vaguely remember her listening to something while driving before, but can't recall if it was an audiobook or something else?

Didn't she say she was listening to the autobiography of some woman in audiobook form? And she said it's really fun and "trashy" or something like that.

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bonjour tristesse by françoise sagan! originally published in french in 1954, but is widely available today in english translation.

 

it’s about a teenage girl named cécile, who lives a lavish and languorous lifestyle, spending the summer at her family’s french riviera villa with her father, raymond, and his mistress, elsa.

 

it’s not really a coming-of-age type, but more of a scandal. call me by your name meets gossip girl, but not a love story. i highly recommend!

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Love this list! Mad that everything I thought about commenting was already on it tho........

 

edit: Aleister Crowley for some more witchy stuff! He was a huge figure in the occult world (pre-Anton LaVey), and Lana mentions him by name in Get Free. His work is pretty dense though. 

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Love this list! Mad that everything I thought about commenting was already on it tho........

 

edit: Aleister Crowley for some more witchy stuff! He was a huge figure in the occult world (pre-Anton LaVey), and Lana mentions him by name in Get Free. His work is pretty dense though. 

 

added! dense is right, i tried reading the book of lies some time ago & gave up. :facepalm: it was so fucking cryptic, i felt like each sentence needed its own footnote

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