What You Should Read Based on Your Favorite BTS Album
BTS is one of the biggest music icons in the world and if you’re here, you know that it’s not just good looks, fancy feet, and killer vocals that make this group the force that it is. BTS talks directly to their fans with every album they release. The symbolism and effort in each work shows their dedication to fans and to themselves. As avid readers, BTS has inspired many to read the literature they love. But what should you read? Why not let your favorite album decide?
Dark & wild
BTS’s first full-length studio album, Dark & Wild, is obsessive and desperate, and symbolizes the group beginning to break away from what was expected. They doff their school uniforms and take steps away from the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of the past. Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May not only shares that sense of darkness, but also of love and wild youth. If this is your favorite album, you’re not only a long-time ARMY, you have a hankering for danger.
“Haunting, immersive, and seething with dark magic.”―Alexis Henderson
“Brimming with romance and gilded with danger.” ―Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author
Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022!
In the 1920s, a decadent gothic tale unfolds as a young woman slips into a glamorous world filled with magic, romance, and murder.
But magic doesn’t interest Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s on the island only to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one.
Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the most mesmerizing may be her enigmatic new neighbor.
Emmeline Delacroix is an alluring figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. Soon, Annie is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.
To those who are bright and young; to those who are wild and wicked; welcome to Crow Island.
Praise for Wild and Wicked Things:
“A deep, sensuous exploration of the bonds between three very different, complex women that readers won’t soon forget.” —Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author
“Viciously enchanting, with a spell woven onto every page.” —Heather Walter
wings
A lot of new fans – ARMY – joined the fandom during the Wings Era. BTS has described the album of the same name in three words, and if this is your favorite album, you know what they are: blood, sweat, and tears. Wings as a whole is about temptation, internal conflicts, and struggle. The title track Blood, Sweat, and Tears was based off Demian by Hermann Hesse and had layers of deep meaning and incredible imagery. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, by a collection of 18 Afghan women, not only shares the theme of wings, but also of struggle, profound and moving imagery, and self-expression.
"My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream."
Eighteen Afghan women living in, speaking about, and writing from the country itself tell stories that are powerful and illuminating, unique and universal – stories of family, work, childhood, friendship, war, gender identity, and cultural traditions.
A woman's fortitude saves her village from disaster. A teenager explores their identity in a moment of quiet. A tormented girl tries to find love through a horrific act. A headmaster makes his way to work, treading the fine line between life and death.
These and more original, vital, and unexpected stories hail from extraordinary voices rooted in Afghanistan's two main linguistic groups (Pashto and Dari), and were developed over two years through the writer development program Untold's Write Aghanistan Project. My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird comes at a pivotal moment in Afghanistan's history, when these voices must be heard.
With an Introduction by Lyse Doucet, BBC chief international correspondant, and afterword by Lucy Hannah, Founder and Director of Untold
you never walk alone
While You Never Walk Alone is a full length-album, it’s seen as an epilogue to Wings. That said, it does have themes that stand out. It’s a message of hope to youth and to anyone suffering, and completes the chapter of the Most Beautiful Moment in Life series. In a sense, it’s BTS leaving their youth and facing adulthood. There can hardly be a better match to this sentiment than Brighter Than The Sun by Daniel Aleman. It features a heroine who shoulders incredible responsibilities and learns that she doesn’t have to face them alone. If this is your favorite album, you look for the brightness of the sun behind the rainclouds.
Every morning, sixteen-year-old Sol wakes up at the break of dawn in her hometown of Tijuana, Mexico and makes the trip across the border to go to school in the United States. Though the commute is exhausting, this is the best way to achieve her dream: becoming the first person in her family to go to college.
When her family’s restaurant starts struggling, Sol must find a part-time job in San Diego to help her dad put food on the table and pay the bills. But her complicated school and work schedules on the US side of the border mean moving in with her best friend and leaving her family behind.
With her life divided by an international border, Sol must come to terms with the loneliness she hides, the pressure she feels to succeed for her family, and the fact that the future she once dreamt of is starting to seem unattainable. Mostly, she’ll have to grapple with a secret she’s kept even from herself: that maybe she’s relieved to have escaped her difficult home life, and a part of her may never want to return.
love yourself: tear
The Love Yourself series should really be looked at as a whole, but Tear was the full-length album of the series. It details the journey of learning how to love oneself, accepting oneself – flaws and all – and believing in the truest of love: self-love. If this is your favorite album, you’ve realized that’s a journey you need to take. However, it’s a journey that’s easier said than done, and often one can’t do it all alone. That’s why the perfect companion book is A Book That Loves You by Irene Smit & Astrid van der Hulst. It teaches one to be kind to oneself, to celebrate strengths and flaws. Like Jin’s Epiphany (yes we know that one’s on Love Yourself: Answer, not Love Yourself: Tear, but bear with us here), it can help people realize that they are the ones they should love.
Slow down, celebrate the flaws, own the good stuff, and focus on learning to love and appreciate yourself. These themes of self-compassion and self-care are hugely popular, and Flow® has a unique and creative take on them. Now, following A Book That Takes Its Time, with 205,000 copies in print, A Book That Loves You offers a message that will resonate in its simplicity: Be sweet to yourself, no matter what kind of day you’re having. (In fact, the challenging days are the days you’ll most want to pick up the book.)
Discover the comforting effects of a daily ritual, like drinking tea. Why it’s okay—and even beautiful—to stumble now and again. Embrace the art of being alone. Release the reins on your schedule. And learn to love yourself with all your imperfections—including your over-productive mind. The book combines Flow’s signature scrapbook-like look and feel, focus on mindfulness, and high production standards. Sprinkled throughout the essays, illustrations, and sayings are paper “goodies,” designed to help readers put what they read into action: A “slow down” sticker puzzle, a pullout “My Own User Manual” map, a DIY flower to assemble and enjoy.
It’s a delightful gift for yourself or someone you care about—a book to peruse and engage with, using creativity and intention.
map of the soul: 7
Map of the Soul is another album series but 7 is the definitive one. The number 7 not only represents the member count but also how many years since their debut. The album itself symbolizes the journey of self-discovery and being who you truly are. It follows the Love Yourself series quite well, continuing the them of love and acceptance of one-self. The same can be said for You Gotta Be You by Brandon Kyle Goodman. This memoir reflects on what people might be like if society hadn’t dimmed their shine. It teaches people to reclaim who they are deep inside, and to be themselves, no matter what others say. If this is your favorite album, you know the importance of being who you are.
YOU ARE ENOUGH EXACTLY AS YOU ARE.
From the time we’re born, a litany of do’s and don’ts are placed on us by our families, our communities, and society. We’re required to fit into boxes based on our race, gender, sexuality, and other parts of our identities, being told by others how we should behave, who we should date, or what we should be interested in. For so many of us, those boxes begin to feel like shackles when we realize they don’t fit our unique shape, yet we keep trying because we crave acceptance and validation. But is “fitting in” worth the time, energy, and suffering? Actor, writer, and activist Brandon Kyle Goodman says, Hell no it ain’t!
As a Black nonbinary, queer person in a dark-skinned 6’1”, 180-pound male body born into a religious immigrant household, Brandon knows the pain of having to hide one’s true self, the work of learning to love that true self, and the freedom of finally being your true self.
In You Gotta Be You, Brandon affectionately challenges you to consider, “Who would I be if society never got its hands on me?” This question set Brandon on a mission to dropkick societal shackles by unlearning all the things he was told he should be in order to step into who he really is. It required him to reexamine messy but ultimately defining moments in his life—his first time being followed in a store, navigating his mother’s born-again Christianity, and regretfully using soap as lube (yes, you read that right!)—to find the lessons that would guide him to his most authentic self.
Compassionate and soulful, funny and revealing, You Gotta Be You is an unapologetic call to self-freedom. It’s about turning rejection (from others and yourself) into a roadmap to self-love. It’s a guide to setting boundaries and fostering self-growth. And most importantly, it’s an affirmation that we are enough exactly as we are.
proof
All right, we know. Proof is really an anthology, a collection of the best and most meaningful songs BTS has produced in their career. While this may seem like a cop-out for favorite album, we think it symbolizes that you know BTS’s work is meant to be enjoyed as a whole because that’s the best way to hear the message they’ve been sending for ten years. We also think it means you might like anthologies or collections in general, because they’re a little bit of everything under a unified theme. Such is the case for Small Odysseys. It features a collection of contemporary short stories that take a journey from old-time movie stars to the apocalypse — with a beacon of hope found in the next generation. Its message is similar to BTS’s as a whole: we are the ones who tell our stories. We create our own love, joy, and hope; the journey continues.
“Lovers of the short story, rejoice! There’s something for everyone in this anniversary collection . . . The collection makes the argument that time and again, it is stories that save us.” —Booklist
Thirty-five literary luminaries come together in this stunning collection of all-new works.
A must-have for any lover of literature, Small Odysseys sweeps the reader into the landscape of the contemporary short story, featuring never-before-published works by many of our most preeminent authors as well as up-and-coming superstars.
On their journey through the book, readers will encounter long-ago movie stars, a town full of dandelions, and math lessons from Siri. They will attend karaoke night, hear a twenty-something slacker’s breathless report of his failed recruiting by the FBI, and travel with a father and son as they channel grief into running a neighborhood bakery truck. They will watch the Greek goddess Persephone encounter the end of the world, and witness another apocalypse through a series of advertisements for a touchless bidet. And finally, they will meet an aging loner who finds courage and resilience hidden in the most unexpected of places—the next generation.
Published in partnership with beloved literary radio program and live show Selected Shorts in honor of its thirty-fifth anniversary, this collection of thirty-five stories captures its spirit in print for the first time.
FEATURING
Rabih Alameddine * Jenny Allen * Lesley Nneka Arimah * Aimee Bender * Marie-Helene Bertino * Jai Chakrabarti * Patrick Cottrell * Elizabeth Crane * Michael Cunningham * Patrick Dacey * Edwidge Danticat * Dave Eggers * Omar El Akkad * Lauren Groff * Jacob Guajardo * A.M. Homes * Mira Jacob * Jac Jemc * Etgar Keret * Lisa Ko * Victor LaValle * J. Robert Lennon * Ben Loory * Carmen Maria Machado * Juan Martinez * Maile Meloy * Joe Meno * Susan Perabo * Helen Phillips * Namwali Serpell * Rivers Solomon * Elizabeth Strout * Luis Alberto Urrea * Jess Walter * Weike Wang