For an exclusive profile of Styles via Better Homes & Gardens in anticipation of the superstar’s latest album, Lou Stoppard so aptly gushes, “Styles is teddy bears on your teenage bed, perfect handwriting on thank you cards, picked flowers on Sunday morning, puppies running on fresh-cut grass, Grandma’s favorite homemade cake.” Oh, how I’ve been craving comfort reads and listens lately. Too much time has passed since I sat with song lyrics and studied an album from beginning to end. (If you have moments to spare, absolutely unspool hours like this.) Filled with the urge to fuse everything with literature, I’ve compiled a list of song-and-book pairings inspired by Harry’s House. Please read and sing and shimmy along to the tracks and books moving me. Because I wouldn’t skip a song on the Harry’s House album, I can’t skip one here. Every track has lodged in my head or escaped my lips in hums, and that calls for more matchmaking. On Side A, the flowers, companionship, and bright day-ness of “Grapejuice” makes me reach for Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind. If “Matilda” cracks you open, consider picking up Mia McKenzie’s Skye Falling, which examines painful pasts, found families, and happiness. And flipping to Side B, the desire, inquiry, and vulnerability of “Cinema” summons Olga and Matteo’s new and sparking connection in Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez. “Boyfriends” conjures the support and honesty of true-blue friendships, like those in Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades. Love the album’s closing song, “Love Of My Life”? Maybe slide Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, translated by Edith Grossman, into your tote bag. Of course, these matches represent my reading preferences, my brain’s unique associations, and my current mood. Endless possibilities exist. Music and book enthusiasts, what titles would you pair? For more musical book pairings, check out these books matched to songs from Taylor Swift’s Lover and a list of albums inspired by literature.
