Like with any great conceptual art, Japanese Breakfast (jbrekkie)’s gothic effort, For Melancholy Brunettes (and sad women), began with a mood board.⁠ ⁠ Over the course of 2023, Michelle Zauner diligently plowed through tomes like David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1,000+ pages), and Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (700+ pages). She read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for the first time, and revisited Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, her gothic primers. The list of literature diverges in genre and chronology, but what’s consistent are their stories of tragedy. Like that of these books, the characters of For Melancholy Brunettes — drunks, cheaters, and misogynist players — face existential questions and irreparable sorrow. ⁠ ⁠ At the link in bio, Zauner breaks down the six books that most shaped the album, from its themes to the complicated characters spotlighted on songs like “Honey Water” and “Mega Circuit.” “I would like to believe that my record is lik...