More Bedside Books

Reading blog of a bibliophile and language lover.

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More Bedside Books Blog The What & When

Since I tend to have a bit of eclectic interests, I thought it might be helpful to give an idea of when one might see certain content covered on my blog. To that end below I’ve outlined themes for each weekday. Unfortunately, my life outside of blogging doesn’t allow me to be posting five days a week. However, my goal is to post something at least once a week. Plus, you may see some random posts pop up for events and special dates. Also check my carrd for a list of my socials.

 MONDAY: #JapaneseComics

Monday is #MangaMonday . Like other comics something I’ve been reading for decades. Though I’ve got scars from my time in the English-speaking anime/manga community. So, I’ve tried my best to move on. In spite of it I still hold my love for some titles.

TUESDAY: #TuesdayBookBlog

Tuesday is a general books day so most anything goes but, more than likely posting reviews about current titles. (i.e. published or received an adaptation within the year.)

WEDNESDAY: #Comics

Wednesday is #NewComicBookDay! (Well, DC Comics shifted to Tuesday so... it’s just expanded.) This could be posts on any comics really but, typically American ones from DC, especially Batman, usually about #PoisonIvy .

THRUSDAY: #TBT

Thursday is for a throwback and this is when I post about books (mostly #LGBTQ+Books and my project #ReadingTheQueerWorld) published anywhere from the previous year to centuries ago. I love my nostalgic re-reads but, do I have a To Be Read List for it too... I’m forever trying to #BeatTheBacklist .

FRIDAY: #FrenchLiterature

Friday is all about French literature. Back in 2018 I chose 12 works for a year of reading through Over the Millennia of French Literature. Then from 2020-2023 a project I dubbed Francophone Writers From 50+ Lands with #Francophone50. Coincidentally 2020 also marking 50 years of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Once again, most works I highlight are available in English translation so one doesn’t have to speak French (or in some cases a lect or dialect).

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2025... au revoir

2025 is on its way out so time for the Annual Wrap Up.

Put simply I’m burnt out.

Something chasing me since last year.

Yet, really for a longer time contributed to by not just personal but persistent systemic issues. That I and others have banged on about before.

Books and bookish community are usually key elements of my life. Literature from around the globe and translation particularly enrich many lives. Important, maybe more than ever.

However, arts like literature and its industries and people are also experiencing a variety of increasing challenges. Especially, in the last several years (online and off) the vital networks, resources, and skills I go to and have built up over the years around such, are repeatedly failing. Fatefully without truth and trust, which allows and underlies what I do, reaching the point I feel I cannot carry on as I have.

Additionally, in the last several years health issues that greatly impact my ability to and in how I read, blog, etc., worsened. This meant making certain adjustments and finding ways of mitigating these effects to some degree. But finally reaching the point of accepting and admitting that again I cannot carry on as I have.

Generally, find ways to roll with the punches and fight back, right? Well… what I can do right now is trying to rest, reassess, and better take care of myself. So, this post is the long way to explain and follow up that earlier warning of intermittent posting to an indefinite hiatus.

I hope anyone I’ve had discussions with or who has read my book reviews and other material has benefited in some way. I appreciate all the mutuals and friends made. Thankful as well to the hobbyists and professionals who gave some of their time or took notice. Know it has been such an experience for over a decade. The best of wishes to any and all who found the little spaces where I have shared my passion, research, and thoughts. ❤️

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Spotlight Read 2025: They Were 11!

A classic Japanese sci-fi comic by Hagio Moto back in print in English is They Were 11! With an award-nominated deluxe edition from Denpa Books translated by Ajani Oloye finally published in 2025. Again, notable in what such a comic does and doesn’t do around subjects such as gender, sexuality, and culture. For details read my older review. The choices in rendering speech and pronouns surely stir further discussion too. As well readers having access to the sequel Horizon of the East, Eternity of the West included for the first time in English. Overall, it is pleasing anytime a title of Hagio’s is (re)released to audiences overseas.

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“The sun’s coming back again,” Moomintroll thought in great excitement. “No darkness, no loneliness any more.”

— Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Warburton (1957)

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And so the year moves on in yesterdays many,

And winter once more, by the world’s law,

                              draws nigh.

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Belladonna by Anbara Salam

‘It’s totally possible to keep on loving someone’, she squeezed my hand. ‘Even if you don’t like them very much.’

Belladonna by Anbara Salam is an elegant and literary coming-of-age novel set from 1956-1958. Two Catholic friends from Connecticut spend time in an elite academy at an Italian convent where obsession, lies and betrayal consume and unravel.

I first heard of Belladonna from the author’s essay “Unheld Conversations” in This Arab Is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers. There Salam, a Palestinian-Lebanese-Scottish writer, starts her contribution by writing about her second novel Belladonna. Another work of historical fiction though not autobiographical. But still writing with some parallels and possible subconscious expression. Like her novel’s protagonist and narrator Bridget, a queer Arab woman too. Salam was mesmerized by the community of women in a silent convent she lived near when young, but in London not Italy where she’s never visited, nor as far back as the time period her novel is set. Further with the upcoming publication of Belladonna in 2020 how she left a copy for her parents. Words that are read and yet the continued mutually avoided conversation of her sexuality with her family. About that grief, silence, and avoidance.

Writing what you know is old advice. Yet sometimes writing in between, filling the space and at a distance is powerful too.

Belladonna by Anbara Salam is available in print and digital (including audio) from Fig Tree

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They sat on the veranda steps together, it was very cold in the evenings now, but a feeling of approaching change and departure kept them sitting there.

— Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson, translated by Kingsley Hart (1970)

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This LGBTQ+ History Month and during Prison Banned Books Week one organization I want to highlight again is LGBT Books to Prisoners. Whose work also features in Books Through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement.

LGBTQ experiences are varied, but the carceral system is unable to deal with that diversity. In contrast to the restrictive, paternalistic carceral system that limits information and decides what information is appropriate, LGBT Books to Prisoners directly responds to individuals’ requests. We trust a person to know what books they would like, whether they wish to learn about a process such as transitioning or to relax with a crossword book. —from the chapter “Until There Is a World without Prisons: Books for LGBTQ People” by Melissa Charneko

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What's Your Freedom to Read Advocate Personality?

Take a quiz to determine your advocacy style and actions to take.

Find out more at Let Freedom Read Day.

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Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one’s knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox (goodthinkful would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency.

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Need a nonfiction resource to fight book bans?

The nonprofit Freedom to Read Project offers the digital workbook Turning the Page: An Advocate’s Guide to the Freedom to Read. Available free or, donate if you can financially support their work.

Get the Guide: Turning the Page

Turning the Page: an Advocate's Guide to the Freedom to Read was made by public school parents who found themselves in the middle of an orga

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The wood seemed to be waiting, breathless … the ants were in their anthills, the birds in their nests, and every one of the little creeping things of the forest, who had not already left the place, had found somewhere to hide.

— Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson, translated by Elizabeth Portch (1946)

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Need a nonfiction resource on fighting book bans?

In response to rising book censorship The American Booksellers Association have the guide ABA Right to Read Handbook: Fighting Book Bans and Why It Matters, with profits going towards efforts of the ABFE (American Booksellers Free Expression initiative).

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The Normalization of Book Banning

This report offers a window into the complex and extensive climate of censorship between July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.

Continuing to be a valuable resource, several experts for Pen America are also out with the 2025 report The Normalization of Book Banning.

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Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024

The American Library Association documented 821 attempts to censor materials and services at libraries, schools, and universities in 2024. The most common reasons for challenges were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and dealing with topics of race, racism, inclusivity, equity, and social justice. Of the 2,452 unique titles that were challenged or banned in 2024, here are the top 10 most frequently targeted.

1. All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson

2. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

3 / 4. (tie) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

3 / 4. (tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

5. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

6 / 7. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green

6 / 7. (tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

8 / 9. (tie) Crank by Ellen Hopkins

8 / 9. (tie) Sold by Patricia McCormick

10. Flamer by Mike Curato

Look up Book Resumes on why these books matter.

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There were lots more birds in the sky now, and they screamed as if possessed. Moomintroll had never seen so many birds all at once. The sky was almost black with them, little ones too, and they whirled round overhead wildly, more and more of them coming in from over the sea. Moomintroll gazed at them. He knew that they, too, were fleeing from the Groke and her dreadful coldness.

— Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson, translated by Kingsley Hart (1965)