I don’t say much about my private life because I like to maintain an elusive air of mystery, but there is one thing that must be known, and that is that two weeks ago, after realizing that I was spending my summer sleeping for 12 hours straight and taking naps as hobbies, I decided to apply to eighteen different jobs on impulse to feel the illusion of productivity.

Unfortunately for me, this led to a downward spiral in which I actually got a prospective employer interested, went to an interview, and got hired, which I now consider to be an Extremely Bad Move on my end because I wanted to quit after the first three days.

So really, the title of this post should be Why I Got A Job, but no one ever said I had to use my three brain cells after school so I won’t.

I digress from the main point: there was one more reason other than wanting to do something with my life that drove me to get a job in order to get that sweet, sweet feeling of having more than 20 bucks in your bank account, and that’s because in quarantine, I was a slug. I slept, woke up, ate, slept some more, and bought a bunch of stuff off of Amazon because I have the self-control of a toddler.

That lead me to my second predicament. Other than the problem of having a job (which is coincidently the solution to the next problem), my second problem was that I had no money! I was broke! I am still broke, considering I haven’t even gotten my first paycheck yet!

So it was somewhere around the time that I realized items cost money, and that without money I wouldn’t be able to surround myself with a bunch of things I didn’t need that I got a job.

But this post isn’t really about getting a job— it’s about why I needed one. So without further delay, let me show you the reasons as to why I suddenly decided I desperately needed funds.

(Spoiler: the answer is books. I wanted books. I wanted too many books.)

And that is why in no particular order, I will be listing all the books that I wanted to buy but had no money to.

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

This is actually a book I’ve wanted for a while. When I read The Sound and the Fury, I fell in love with my angsty Harvard boy, Quentin Compson. Sure, the poor boy has some issues, but he’s just trying his hardest to reconcile his value system with the world he lives in, and inevitably he fails. He is so, so tragic that he is so, so appealing, and when I realized that I would see more of him in Faulkner’s other novel, Absalom, Absalom, I wanted to read it immediately.

This is probably one of the most solid reasons I have for wanting to read any book here.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

So there’s this anime called Bungo Stray Dogs, and the only thing you need to know about it is that in this show, the characters are all named after real life authors. Also they have abilities (i.e superpowers), and the names of their abilities are based off of their literary works.

So there’s a morally questionable character in BSD named Osamu Dazai, and his ability is called No Longer Human. One thing lead to another, and I’m here, taking book recommendations from a Japanese anime. If you’re interested, there are authors from other nationalities like Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is also a character in Bungo Stray Dogs. Coincidently, his ability is called The Grapes of Wrath! Coincidently.

Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix by Julie C. Dao

So this is the sequel of a book I absolutely LOVED, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. In the first book, Xifeng is essentially the evil queen from Snow White, clawing her way up from a poor peasant girl to the Empress through interesting means, and it’s just a masterpiece. I recommend that book highly. Read it!

Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix follows Xifeng’s stepdaughter, Jade. Jade is essentially Snow White, and though I’ve heard some mixed reviews about this book, I want to give it the chance because the first was just so good. So good.

Circe by Madeline Miller

Who else read Song of Achillies by Madeline Miller? It was honestly a great book too, Patroclus and Achilles and Miller’s writing style deserve all the praise. Probably more than that, Patroclus and Achilles deserved a happy ending, but what can you do? They’re heroes. There are no happy endings, unless you’re Perseus. (No, I do not consider this a spoiler considering the Illiad has been out for like, a couple thousand years.)

And I hear that her other book Circe was just as good, and I have really high expectations for this book.

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima

It’s Mishima? Of course I’m going to get it?

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

Refer to commentary under The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

And because I can’t be satisfied with books, I also want to buy a scratch off poster with a list of 100 books. 100 books. There are problems on many levels in buying this poster (such as when am I realistically going to be able to read all the books on this list and where am I getting the money to buy 100 books? I’m broke?) but I’m still doing it anyway because I have no impulse control and I’m ruled by hedonistic pleasures so buying books is a go.

There were a couple (several) books I didn’t include that I wanted, but these were the main ones. Oh woe is me, longing for things that I can’t have (which reminds me of one of my favorite poems which you can find here). But that’s life, and when life gives you too much free time and Amazon, you must get a job.

What’s the book you most want to read currently?