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“All the books beside your bed”: an Eras reading list for Swifties
Dear Reader... are you ready for it?
The popularity of Taylor Swift’s music, the passion and devotion of her fans, and the scale of The Eras Tour demonstrates to us all the power of storytelling through song. We recognize ourselves in her lyrics, in the scenes she lays out, in the emotions she conveys through masterful pop songcraft. Over the span of her career, Taylor has taken us through a lifetime of feelings, evolving and reinventing as she grows, leaving in her wake what we have come to know as The Eras. We love them all for different reasons, and everybody’s got a favourite, the one that speaks to us the most. And while we all may dream of Taylor releasing a book (or eleven) like in the "All Too Well" music video, we aren’t there yet. So, we’ve done the next best thing and rounded up a list of books that embody the sentiment and aesthetic of each Era. Keep scrolling for the ultimate Swiftie reading list.
Taylor Swift
The Perks of being a Wallflower
With songs like “Invisible,” “The Outside,” and “A Place in this World,” it’s difficult to listen to Taylor’s debut album and not be reminded of the emotionally perilous time of adolescence. You’re lost, alone, on top of the world, in love, heartbroken, trying to fit in while finding yourself. Taylor Swift explores love, heartbreak, and self-discovery much like Charlie, Patrick, and Sam in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The novel follows observant Charlie as he navigates the strange world between adolescence and adulthood alongside friends Patrick and Sam. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.
View eBook View AudiobookFearless
Eleanor & Park
The Fearless album walks us through the emotional highs and lows of high school life. From making lifelong friends in homeroom like “Fifteen” to watching your crush fall in love with the head cheerleader à la “You Belong with Me,” Taylor reminds us that high school is so not easy. And Rainbow Rowell agrees. Eleanor & Park is a tender story of friendship and first love, set amidst the chaos of high school. Can first love last forever? Who knows, but Eleanor and Park are “Fearless” enough to try.
View eBook View AudiobookSpeak Now
A Court of Thorns and Roses
At its core, Speak Now is an introspective exploration of relationships, both broken and bonded. Blossoming love, unrequited love, heartbreak, betrayal, rage, revenge, victory; Taylor takes us through it all. Throughout, she enchants with fantastical fairytale imagery, featuring everything from interrupted weddings to crumbling castles and fighting dragons. If this has you recalling a certain huntress and a few Fae High Lords, you’ll know where we’re heading here. A Court of Thorns and Roses straight through to A Court of Silver Flames feels like Speak Now reimagined as a high fantasy epic. If you’re looking to feel everything Taylor’s singing about on this album within the backdrop of Fae lore, lust, love, and magical treachery, this series is for you.
View eBook View AudiobookRed
Normal People
The Red album explores lost love, heartbreak, and the intense emotions that come along with it. The album itself is a bit of a rollercoaster, featuring some of Swift’s most upbeat tracks like “We Are Never Getting Back Together” and “22,” to devastating ballads like “All Too Well” and “The Last Time.” If you’ve read or watched Normal People, you know the “Techerous” will-they-won't-they, intensely emotional bond between Marianne and Connell is essentially this album personified. We watch them evolve from teenagers to young adults, much like Swift does as she reflects on her most formative break up yet. All the while, we get the “Sad Beautiful Tragic” of it all as Connell and Marianne fail to communicate their true feelings and cause more hurt than necessary to each other.
View eBook View Audiobook1989
City of Girls
Welcome to New York! In the 1989 Era we see Taylor take on the big city and embrace youth and freedom in “Style”. In City of Girls, we meet Vivian, freshly kicked out of Vassar College and sent to live in Manhattan with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater. Told from the perspective of Peg as an older woman as she looks back on her youth, the story explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. It’s hard not to imagine Vivian dancing through the streets of New York to 1989, it truly is the perfect soundtrack for this book.
View eBook View AudiobookReputation
Circe
Before the Reputation Era, Taylor disappeared from public eye after some serious scandal and “Bad Blood”. She emerged by dropping Reputation, ultimately rising from the ashes and seeking revenge on the people who tried to set fire to her legacy. While anger and vengeance are prominent themes on the album, Reputation also has a softer side, detailing the private moments of blossoming love. The overall story of Reputation similarly details the life of Circe, the titular character of Madeline Miller’s mythological retelling. Exiled by Zeus for her powers of witchcraft, Circe lives alone on a deserted island, honing her craft as her safety is constantly threatened by the wrath men and gods alike. In her isolated life, Circe experiences pain, power, and intimate love.
View eBook View AudiobookLover
Red, White, & Royal Blue
Ah, the Lover Era. What didn’t Taylor give us on this album? Lust, longing, glimpses into a deep, precious, life-changing love...and some killer pop songs to boot. What’s not to love about Lover? Some might ask the same of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, & Royal Blue. Or “Mr. Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” as we’ve taken to calling it. The rom-com extraordinaire gives us love, lust, drama, heartbreak and more as America’s First Son, Alex, and England’s Prince of Wales, Henry, find themselves on an enemies-to-lovers rollercoaster after a PR disaster forces them together. The hilarious, tender fallout of their budding closeness evokes all the feels, and Lover is the perfect soundtrack for it. You can practically hear Alex screaming “London Boy” at the top of his lungs from the White House.
View eBook View AudiobookFolklore
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
In Folklore, Taylor lets us into her imagination through songs written by escaping into fantasy, history, and memory during a time of isolation. While most of Swift’s work is heavily autobiographical, Folklore is distinctly different. Through its escapist, whimsical nostalgia, the album leaves us wondering what’s real, what’s fantasy, and does it matter in the end? Enter: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. In a similar vein, this novel questions the idea of perception, how well we can really know our idols, and whether the power lies with the perceived or the perceiver. In the story, aging and elusive Hollywood icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell her truth. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love.
View eBook View AudiobookEvermore
Rebecca
Evermore is Folklore’s sister album, and while they’re alike in many ways, Evermore feels distinctly moodier. Which is why Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic, romantic Rebecca feels like perfect embodiment of this era. That, and because “Tolerate It” draws distinct parallels to this novel. Rebecca follows a shy, unnamed heroine who falls in love with and hastily marries Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. But as they arrive at her husband's home, a change comes over Maxim, and she realizes that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs. de Winter walks in her shadow.
View eBookMidnights
The Midnight Library
Midnights is an exploration of the intense, sometimes foreboding thoughts that keep is up at night. Whether it’s new love, past love, revenge, longing, heartbreak, or growing up, Taylor delves into the emotions that keep us ruminating into the small hours of the night. The obvious choice for this era is Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, which similarly explores life’s what ifs and could-have-beens. Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library and has a chance to make things right. Her life has been full of misery and regret, but the books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. She can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?
View eBook View AudiobookThe Tortured Poets Department
The Secret History
The Tortured Poets Department leans heavily into the Dark Academia aesthetic. Think typewriters, leather-bound tomes, old hand written letters, and the star of the show: tortured poets. We get nods to Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith, a double album referred to as The Anthology, and the final track is called “The Manuscript.” There is no doubt about it, Taylor was feeling collegiate. What better book to embody this era than the story that inspired the dark academia genre? We're of course talking about Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Set at a New England College, a group of clever, eccentric misfits discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.
View eBook View AudiobookThis post was inspired by Marcos Bueno’s Biografía literaria de un Swiftie
Cover image via Taylor Swift/VEVO
