If You Like Harry Styles, You Should Read These Books: Together Together Tour (fiction and nonfiction)

I just got home from seeing Harry Styles on the Together Together Tour at Wembley Stadium. I still can't believe that I've seen Harry at Wembley, which has been a dream since I was a One Direction obsessed teenager. The show was amazing. The stage is as huge as it looks online! I'm always shocked when I walk into a stadium at just how big they are. There were definitely times we couldn't see him at all from the pit, but when Harry was by our section, he was right there. We stood right over by the bridge and had the time of our lives, being shocked at the view when he was close and having our own dance party through the rest of the set. I'd seen Harry at the Forum on Love on Tour, which was a much smaller venue. While the more intimate room was so much fun, I get Harry's vision to create this club/rave/dance party experience that de-centered him as a way to cope with just how huge the rooms are. 

Anyway, enough said about the tour. I thought to celebrate the experience, I'd make a little list of books that you should read if you're a Harry Styles fan across both fiction and nonfiction. Some of these come from specific songs, but we're mostly coasting on vibes here or books I think his fandom would generally enjoy. But I'll still do my best to match them with songs.

Fiction

Evenings and Weekends

You'll see that many of these fiction picks do come from the fact that they're about navigating early adulthood in London. I think this made the list, actually, because I went to the show during the heatwave, which was consuming all of our thoughts. Even Harry had to ditch his blazer ASAP and then stared in horror at his pit stains. I was just glad someone was as sweaty as I was. All of the characters in this book are suffering through the same stifling heat and struggling with the gap that I feel like Kiss All The Time Disco Occasionally deals with, how everyone in the friend group is suddenly at a different life stage even when they all started from the same place.

song: "American Girls" - while the book doesn't deal with "American Girls" there is an aspect of watching your friends all take different turns with their lives.

I Want You to Be Happy

This is the splashy contemporary London summer release from Faber, and while it didn't blow me away, I did really enjoy this hyper modern story of a girl and a guy who meet at a bar and the mess that ensues in their situationship thereafter. It will feel too real at times.

song: "Late Night Talking" - much of their relationship unfolds at bars, parties, and apartments late at night.

Permanence 

This is a recent read for me that I am absolutely obsessed with. Sophie Mackintosh is so talented. The book focuses on a couple that are having an affair after they meet at an art museum, so they never experience their relationship like a real couple. He has a wife and a daughter. But one day, they wake up in a parallel city where they have an apartment together and can live their mundane, domestic lives. This is Clara's dream and Francis's nightmare. Such a compelling read and unique twist on the affair novel.

song: "Taste Back"

Writers & Lovers

This is just a vibes pick and because I love this book. It's about a writer who's still trying to make a go of devoting her life to a career that hasn't taken off yet when all her friends are abandoning ship for more practical lives. She also finds herself in a love triangle. This is a book about devotion to your art, grief, and figuring out how to live your life.

song: "Fine Line"

Audition

Another total vibes pick. For some reason, this Katie Kitamura book just feels like the right vibe. This is a wild, windy book that's bisected into two possible timelines to explore all the potential facets of the situation. It's about a famous actress and does deal a certain amount with fame, though that doesn't feel super central. The cover certainly fits with this eras colors and marketing.

song: "Are You Listening Yet?"

Perfume & Pain

Any Anna Dorn book that suits your fancy will do. She tends to write about obsession, fame, internet culture, and fandom in her novels, Perfume and Pain and American Spirits. I think if you've stuck around the Harry Styles fandom and been present for it online at all, you'll get a kick out of her writing.

song: "Ready, Steady, Go!"

The Pisces

This is the only pick that started with a song, and that's "Music for a Sushi Restaurant," particularly the music video where mermaid Harry finds himself gone from entertainer to dinner at an aforementioned sushi restaurant. Well, Melissa Broder's book also features a merman and an equally toxic situation.

song: "Music for a Sushi Restaurant"

Nonfiction

Hollywood's Eve

Eve Babitz wrote about rockstars that Harry himself idolized and that were kind of the Harry of their day. But there's something that I also find in a kinship between Harry and Eve herself. This is Lili Anolik's book about Eve Babitz and her first book of nonfiction on the topic, which I greatly prefer to Didion & Babitz because it's clear through that whole book that she just wants to write more about Eve anyway.

Famesick

Everyone is reading Lena Dunham's new memoir right now, and that's because they should be. Dunham is a great writer, and whether you're a Girls fan or not, you'll be entertained. I also think it's an interesting and important look at what it's like to be a celebrity, especially one that's the focus of the internet's attention.

Everything I Need I Get From You

This is the book on fandom, in my opinion (and I did write my thesis on it after studying music industry in college). The book opens with a scene involving driving past the sight of the infamous vomit shrine, from when Harry Styles threw up on the side of a highway in LA during the One Direction Days. Tiffany does an incredible job digging into fandom and internet culture, filtered through the lens of her own experience being a One Direction fan growing up.

Fangirls

Another incredible nonfiction book about fandom from the incredible music journalist Hannah Ewens. This is a broader and more sweeping summation of fandom where she uses different fandoms to illustrate aspects and intricacies of the ecosystem as a whole.

How to End a Story

I haven't finished this massive volume of Helen Garner's collected diary entries that she edited and released herself. Albums often have a feeling of being a curated collection of diary entires, so it felt like Garner's own diary entries would be of interest.

The White Album

Harry is a longtime Didion fan. The essay "The White Album" influenced Fine Line, which is evident in its California-focused feel, and he posted a tribute to Didion on his rarely used social page when she passed away, so it's only fitting that we include a Didion book on this list. I'm not a huge fan of many of the authors Harry has recommended himself, but Didion, I can get behind.

Dead and Alive

I feel like there needed to be a Zadie Smith book on the list, so I'm going with her latest release, a collection of essays thinking about art and pop culture. I highly recommend the audiobook of this one that Zadie reads herself.