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Taylor Swift: Here Are Some Books She Recommends

By Laila Abuelhawa
Taylor Swift attends the 65th GRAMMY Awards on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

With the end of the North American leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, how are we going to get our Taylor Swift fix? For fans looking for a way to connect with the award-winning artist on a deeper level, you can read some of her favorite books of all time. Reading the same books Taylor enjoys, you can see where she gets her inspiration in her songwriting.

Swift’s Songwriting Process, Detailed

Last year, Swift explained her songwriting process at the Nashville Songwriter Awards. She said that she has three genres of lyrics: Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics, and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics. “I categorize certain songs of mine in the ‘Quill’ style if the words and phrasings are antiquated if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets,” Swift said. “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre.” She listed everymore‘s “ivy” as a Quill lyric.

Swift considers most of her lyrics to be “Fountain Pen style,” as they follow a modern storyline “with a poetic twist.” For example, taking a common phrase and flipping its meaning. “Trying to paint a vivid picture of a situation, down to the chipped paint on the door frame and the incense dust on the vinyl shelf,” she said. “Placing yourself and whoever is listening right there in the room where it all happened. The love, the loss, everything. The songs I categorize in this style sound like confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send.”

Finally, “Glitter Gel Pen” songs are her carefree pop songs, like the ones featured on her 1989 album. Swift shared that these songs aren’t meant to be taken seriously. “Glitter Gel Pen lyrics are the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an angel in the bathroom. It’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live.”

Take a look below at four of Taylor Swift’s favorite books and how they may connect to her songwriting style. For the full list of Taylor’s 13 favorites, head to Ultimate Book List.

  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    Swift uses good old-fashioned books to make sparks fly when she’s writing. Per Taste of Country, Swift previously said of the storytelling in Harper Lee’s 1960 novel: “it makes your mind wander. It makes you feel like it makes your world more vast. And you think about more things and greater concepts after you read something like that.” After reading this book in high school, those same feelings were brought up in the coming-of-age story dealing with the dark subject of rape from a child’s point of view.

  • The Beautiful And Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Going even further back, Swift told Elle UK of her love of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novel. Swift told the publication that her favorite kinds of books to read are ones that give you more than just setting the scene or painting a picture. She describes how Fitzgerald perfectly places you into the story itself, like “that rain-soaked kiss” and how you “feel your heart race as the character’s does.” She said the writer describes a scene “so gorgeously interwoven with rich emotional revelations that you yourself have escaped from your own life for a moment.” This novel follows the story of a handsome young man and his beautiful wife, who gradually degenerate into a shopworn middle age while they wait for the young man to inherit a large fortune.

  • Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

    As one of her picks for Scholastic’s “You Are What You Read” campaign, this 1952 children’s novel is a story about loyalty, friendship, and sacrifice between a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. Though movies have been made based on the book, nothing beats reading E.B. White’s storytelling. Yes, you will find yourself crying over farm animals and arachnids.

  • Normal People by Sally Rooney.

    A fan at Swift’s 2019 LA secret session said the artist mentioned that she loved the book by Irish author Sally Rooney. She is actually a huge fan of her work, citing Conversations With Friends as another favorite. Funny enough, her ex- Joe Alwyn stars in the 2022 television series based on the 2017 novel. It has also been recommended by former President Barack Obama! Swift said that Rooney’s writing style is like “being inside somebody’s mind.” The award-winning book follows the complex friendship and relationship between two teenagers who attend the same school.

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