Hello Dear Readers: A Mid-Year Update—July 16, 2025, 11:09pm EST.
Good evening everybody,
(A Note from Future Me: This is a bit long, so, if you plan to stick around for the whole bit, grab a snack! I promise I talk about books...eventually, about half way down.)
I hope all of you are well.
Let me first express my thanks to those of you who see these and interact with them. I haven't been nearly as active with this blog as I had wanted to be, and I seriously don't deserve you all.
I'll begin with a little update on what's been keeping me away from writing here. January through May, I was writing my Capstone for Religious Studies, completing my coursework. I read so much for that, but only parts of books, and soooo many essays and articles. Some of those books I plan to go back and finish, but after everything I needed to step away from Religious Studies (and by proxy film studies, due to my research topic) for a little while.
It was a relief to be finished with my Bachelor's, finally. So many things happened throughout those five years, that had nothing to do with my studies, but changed them tremendously. I started, like everyone else, during Covid, August of 2020—in a Comparative Religion program. Uh, that alone says enough (politically, socially, globally, etc). It was the most informative and eye opening process (besides grief, but more on that in a sec) that I have ever been through.
As I've spoken a little about on my main blog, about halfway through my degree, my mom passed. We were tight, it was hard. Only daughter to a single mother and all that. I've never been to such dark places within myself as I have been since she died. This was absolutely the hardest time in my life, ever, and I'm still unsure if I will ever return entirely from the fog of it. I thank my Mom everyday for encouraging me to read, because books have gotten me through so many tough times, including these ones.
Then, which I haven't really talked about, exactly a year later, we went through Helene here in WNC. I'm still not ready to talk about all that, but my grief was certainly compounded by watching the places my mother had loved and taken me to...just wash away. I didn't lose people, for which I am grateful, but I lost a lot of the places I liked to go to remember my mom, personal altars, and I felt like my grieving began again, before I had really made it through the first round. Not to mention, I've lived here all my life, so I also lost places that not only held memories with my mom, but just my childhood in general, my marriage, my daughter, family history—you get it.
I made and lost friends in the five years I was studying, moved to a new apartment for the first time since 2018, my baby started kindergarten, I changed jobs—it was all a lot, to say the least.
I'm changed in so many ways, again, just like most people since 2020. It feels profound, nonetheless, and I'm proud, even if also a bit melancholy, to be here with you all.
When I started this blog, Mom had just passed, and in my escapism, I had been sucked into book journaling TikTok (a platform I no longer use). I've been lazy with the blog in my grief, but I have faithfully kept up with the book journal that I started in January 2024—which this blog was inspired by, to share the journal journey with all of you. So without further ado, here is the update you actually read this whole thing for.
So far this year, I have read 34 books. This is largely due to a burn out with tv and movies. Additionally, when I wasn't reading books or articles for my paper earlier in the year, I usually read fiction to keep my reading skills sharp, or rewatched one of the two film I was dissecting for my research—not to mention, I really just couldn't risk getting sucked into a TV show while I worked on this. I put most of my time into it, which paid off, because I got the highest grade possible on it, and I'm incredibly proud of it.
Anyway, 34 books. Half of those books, I have rated 5⭐️, so that's what I wanted to share with you. (I mentioned in a post last week that I had changed the rating system I was going to use moving forward, and some of these were rated before I made those changes.)
So far, my 5⭐️ reads for the year are:
January
Piranesi (2020), by Susana Clark
Rosemary's Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
The Exorcist (1971), by William Peter Blatty
Cher: The Memoir, Part 1 (2024), by Cher
Love, Pamela (2023), by Pamela Anderson
In Pieces (2018), by Sally Field
I was really into Celeb Bios in January, In hindsight, I probably would only give 5⭐️ to In Pieces by Sally Field , but the others are certainly solid 4s.
Piranesi was my favorite book of the month. I couldn't explain it to you, but it is existential af, and I loved every word. I am changed from it, I think. It made me think about the meaning of everything.
Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist—back to back—was intense. I don't know if I would have read them this way, but for the fact that I was considering doing my research on the American "Unholy Trinity" (not to be confused with the British "Unholy Trinity") of films, which includes the film adaptations of the two books at hand, and the film The Omen, starring Gregory Peck. I decided to go in a different direction for my project, but thoroughly enjoyed both books, and learning the political and historical context of each.
February
7. The Book of Hope (2021), by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
It is really nice when your childhood hero lives up to the hype. Jane is a saint. (I have an entire shelf dedicated to her writings, as well as other primatologists in my home library. Now I'm more committed than ever to reading those books again with fresh eyes.)
April
8. Something in the Water (2018), Catherine Steadman *reread*
Hands down, still Steadman's best. I listened to the audiobook, which is the best way to go with Steadman. She reads all of the recordings of her books herself and I absolutely love them.
May
9. The Honjin Murders (1946), by Seishi Yokomizo 10. She Who Knows (2024), by Nnedi Okorafor
Fresh out of school, I did what I do every summer, (well, really I started in April as I was rounding out my research project): I reread Catherine Steadman's complete works. Perhaps inspired by the travel usually involved in her plots I decided to "travel" myself for the remainder of the month.
The Honjin Murders is a Japanese mystery, featuring the famous literary detective Kosuke Kindaichi. Further reading led me to learning about early "global" publishing, and the spread of Western detective novels to Japan in the early 20th century, and the boom of detective and mystery novels there as a result. This book was like nothing that I have ever read, and Kindaichi is an interesting guy. Yokomizo's descriptions of the Japanese landscape and culture is so honest that I could not help but relate. Stands as a reminder to the international reader that we are all human beings with human problems, regardless of location. I immediately wanted more, and currently have the 2nd book in the Kosuke Kindaichi Files downloaded on my Kindle, though I haven't started it yet.
Next I went to Africa, via Afrojujuism/Afrofuturism, with Nnedi Okorafor. I have loved Okorafor since I read Binti in that same class in which I read Butler. I loved She Who Knows so much for the middle-aged perspective; it is written from the view of a middle-aged woman looking back at her younger self to remember who, and what she is. A beautiful and meaningful book to have read at this time in my life, truly.
June
11. Bury Your Gays (2024), by Chuck Tingle 12. Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle 13. I Make Envy on Your Disco (2024), by Eric Schnall 14. Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball (1994), by Kathleen Brady 15. Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995), by Octavia Butler
My focus earlier in the month was Pride. So, never you forget, that Pride '25, I was initiated into the "buckaroos" (without ever having stepped foot into the Tingle Tumblrverse; thank you to my local librarians for having a copy of Bury Your Gays on the New Releases shelf). Chuck is one of the most endearing writers I've ever read, and I cried many times reading both BYG and CD.
I Make Envy on Your Disco is probably my favorite of the year fiction-wise—also made me cry so many times throughout. I focused on Weimar Germany in my spare time a lot for a few days after finishing this book, watched Cabaret, and a documentary called El Dorado: Everything the Nazi's Hate. Of this book, Alan Cumming said it was "a love letter to Berlin and saying yes to life". That convinced me to read the book, and Alan was not wrong, in the least. I thought about life a lot when I finished it, and what I want out of it.
Lucille, and Bloodchild, admittedly, had both been started previously, I simply finished them in June. I had a book hangover after Disco too, so it was easier just to focus on reading goals than try to find a new book to read from scratch.
Lucille Ball has always fascinated me, and this was a really solid bio. I had started it in June. One of Desi was just published this year, and I've added that to my TBR. I have watched I Love Lucy or the Lucy Show since I was a little girl. It started as a late night indulgence with my Papaw and has continued to this day. Did you guys know that Buster Keaton—KEATON— mentored Lucille, and called her a genius? He wasn't wrong, but it's fucking Keaton.
Bloodchild and Other Stories is such an intimate piece of Butler that we get to have. I read Bloodchild, the short story in a gender studies class, just before my mom passed, which led me to Parable of the Sower. Without that book, I would have literally lost all my wits. I had started reading the complete Bloodchild volume sometime last year. Bloodchild really is the highlight of this volume, though I found value in each piece, particularly the essay on writing.
July (so far)
16. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (1983), by Hayden Herrera 17. One Way Witch (2025), by Nnedi Okorafor
Another reason I was reading books I had started in other months and not finished at the end of June, was that I really wanted to reach 10 reads in June. The only reason that didn't happen was because I watched The Babadook again, via Joe Bob Briggs' Last Drive-In, and immediately got an idea for another film analysis, similar to the project I did for school in structure. This lead me back to one of the books I read bits of for my research: How to Read a Film by James Monaco.
I started at the beginning, deciding I may as well just jump in head first, and set a goal to read the whole thing. I made it through the first chapter, Film as Art. In that chapter, Monaco goes over a teensy bit of 20th Century Art History that deviated my attention, yet again. Thinking that it would be a good idea to re-familiarize myself, I pulled the tome that is Gardner's Art Through the Ages from my shelf. I've been carting the 12th Edition around with me going on nearly 20 years, and have barely cracked it. The last two chapters of this edition focus on the 20th Century, so I spent about 3 days reading them.
Alas, when I finished those chapters in Gardner's, I was inspired to read Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera—another, rather large, book I have carried around for years. This, so far, is my favorite non-fiction read of the year. It was incredibly profound, and though much of it I already knew, I came away loving Frida Kahlo more than I did before (apart from the obsession with Stalin up until her dying day; something Roger Waters is sadly repeating in regards to Putin today). It is sooooo much different than its film adaptation.
One Way Witch is a sequel to She Who Knows, and was even better: a portrait of a middle-aged woman whose husband and daughter have both died. I'm so inspired by Najeeba's (mc) will to find something new to live for in the wake of the loss and grief that come with death. I have more Okorafor on the way to tide me over until the last of the She Who Knows trilogy is released next year.
And that's it for the year so far.
If you read all this, sincerely, thank you so much. I love reading, and I love writing, and I love writing about books. So, thanks for being here to listen.
Happy Reading,
HFBH
