Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Talia Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

170K followers 3.8K following 17K posts

journalist, author, sword collector. haggard and unblest. newsletter: buttondown.email/theswordandthesandwich buy my new book!! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-lavin/wild-faith/9780306829192/ contact: [email protected]

www.hachettebookgroup.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · Nov 11

time to unleash The Grilled Cheese Essay (which personally made padma lakshmi cry) on the newskies

buttondown.com/theswordandt...

27 86 430

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 41m

👀

Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 2h

youtu.be/j1yDf3mw2PQ?...

Oh I forgot this golden oldie

Gothic Faith and Monstrous Religion

YouTube video by Romancing the Gothic

youtu.be

2 12

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 2h

like i said

Reposted by Talia Lavin

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 3h

Hahaha Melmoth is such a fool to keep looking at all those cursed paintings. I would never make that mistake, personally

*doomscrolls for 8 hours*

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 15h

this entire book is gonna be me yelling at our tender hero to stop looking at cursed paintings and shit

1 20 170

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 3h

everyone cool fucks with melmoth the wanderer

Sinboo [Spooky He/ Spooky His] @sinboy.bsky.social · 6h

Wait wait wait.

Honoré de Fucking Balzac wrote FANFIC of this novel??!!!

2 2 55

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 3h

why? im asking out of genuine ignorance tbh

1 2

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 4h

mostly weeping about catholicism, actually

1 1

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 6h

the monk is literally next up!!

1 2

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 6h

anyway turns out the mysterious Spaniard is the bastard son of a duke who was imprisoned in a monastery by a scheming abbot despite really really really not wanting to be a monk. end of volume 1, not sure what he's doing in the haunted mansion

2 21

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 7h

literally this weird anti catholic rant has taken up more space than the shipwreck, evil painting, and madhouse scene combined. this author really hates monasteries

3 1 49

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 10h

depressingly the handsome spaniard would prefer an extremely long anti jesuit rant to having gay sex (boo)

4 1 56

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 11h

this is my Spooky Szn gothic reading list

so this month i shall read
1. the monk
2. the castle of otranto
3. the mysteries of udolpho
4. gerard or the world, the flesh and the devil
5. the vampyre
6. carmila
7. the turn of the screw
8. the narrative of arthur gordon pym
9. vathek
10. the king in yellow

1 11

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 12h

john and the mysterious shipwreck survivor who is a handsome spaniard (possibly his demon ancestor) should explore each other's bodies sexually

that's my take

3 1 57

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 12h

oh NO JOHN dont harbor the mysterious survivor of the shipwreck in your house hes probably your DEMON ANCESTOR

1 2 59

Reposted by Talia Lavin

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 24d

people who want other people to stay in sad little grey boxes forever and never be happy in their bodies or desires are villains and cowards and they may be winning right now but by god they will lose as water smooths stone and roots break it, because that fierce joy is roots and water and life

10 380 1.7K

Reposted by Talia Lavin

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 24d

being trans is awesome and trans people are amazing and gender is a dumb box and anyone who makes their own crowbar to smash it from inside is a hero actually.

27 1K 4.7K

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 12h

I truly have no idea what is going to happen next, but we're at the Faustian bargain in a madhouse stage and its only chapter 3

2 54

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 12h

its like one of those insane food videos where the ground beef winds up inside like sixteen layers of stuff

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 12h

both are on my list!!!

1 1

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 13h

i have absolutely no idea whats gonna happen next at any point

1 3

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 13h

wow theres a whole chapter in a 1600s madhouse where a Royalist and a Cromwellian sing rival ballads at each other and a survivor of the Great Fire of London weeps for her children. kind of harrowing

2 1 55

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 13h

oh boy i did not expect the Spanish Inquisition

11 100

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 14h

this is the most melodramatic book ive ever read. i adore it

Olavida alone remained standing; but at that moment the Englishman rose, and appeared determined to fix Olavida's regards by a gaze like that of fascination. Olavida rocked, reeled, grasped the arm of a page, and at last, closing his eyes for a moment, as if to escape the horrible fascination of that unearthly glare, (the Englishman's eyes were observed by all the guests, from the moment of his entrance, to effuse a most fearful and preternatural lustre), exclaimed, 'Who is among us?-Who?-I cannot utter a blessing while he is here. I cannot feel one. Where he treads, the earth is parched!-Where he breathes, the air is fire!-Where he feeds, the food is poison!-Where he turns, his glance is lightning!-Who is among us?-Who?' repeated the priest in the agony of adjuration, while his cowl

4 3 71

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 14h

NO JOHN definitely dont read the SINISTER MOULDERING MANUSCRIPT

5 87

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 15h

NO JOHN dont stay in the curséd mansion you IDIOT

4 2 91

Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 15h

i have 10 books to read in 20 days so we shall see

1 7