#if it's because the book was published in the 1950s.

[merrilark]

I finally scored a copy of The War Lover by Hersey (whoo-hoo free from Thriftbooks! 11/10 love that site, please go check it out as well as BetterWorldBooks) and I'm very ????? about how it censors every swear. Something about writing "s—" is more jarring and offensive to me than just writing "shit".

We all know what's under there, Mr. Hersey, you don't... you really don't have to do that. It's okay. This book is literally about the inhumanity of war but we're not censoring that. Just let your characters say "shit".

[mesetacadre]

Palace of the Republic, Berlin

The right to work at a job of one’s own choice was guaranteed by the East German constitution (Aus erster Hand, 1987). While there were some (mostly alcoholics) who continuously refused to show up for jobs offered by the state, their numbers represented only about 0.2% of the entire East German work force, and only 0.1% of the scheduled work hours of the rest of the labor force was lost due to unexcused absences (Krakat, 1996). These findings are especially noteworthy, given that people were generally protected from being fired (or otherwise penalized) for failing to show up for work or for not working productively (Thuet, 1985). The importance of the communist characteristic of full employment to workers is reflected in a 1999 survey of eastern Germans that indicated about 70% of them felt they had meaningfully less job security in the unified capitalist country in the 1990s than they did in communist East Germany (Kramm, 1999)

The Triumph of Evil, A. Murphy (2002)

The GDR had more theatres per capita than any other country in the world and in no other country were there more orchestras in relation to population size or territory. With 90 professional orchestras, GDR citizens had three times more opportunity of accessing live music, than those in the FRG, 7.5 times more than in the USA and 30 times more than in the UK. It also had one of the world’s highest book publishing figures. This small country with its very limited economic resources, even in the fifties was spending double the amount on cultural activities as the FRG. Every town of 30,000 or more inhabitants in the GDR had its theatre and cinema as well as other cultural venues. [...] Subsidised tickets to the theatre and concerts were always priced so that everyone could afford to go. Many factories and institutions had regular block-bookings for their workers which were avidly taken up. School pupils from the age of 14 were also encouraged to go to the theatre once a month and schools were able to obtain subsidised tickets. [...] All towns and even many villages had their own ‘Houses of Culture’, owned by the local communities and open for all to use. These were places that offered performance venues, workshop space and facilities for celebratory gatherings, discos, drama groups etc. There was a lively culture of local music and folk-song groups, as well as classical musical performance.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It, Bruni de la Motte and John Green (2015)

Work itself was elevated to a place of pride and esteem and, even if you were in a lower paid job, you were valued for the work you did as a necessary contribution to the functioning of society. The socialist countries were also designated ‘workers’ states and it was not merely an empty phrase when the GDR government argued that the workers, who produced the commodities that society needed, should be placed at the forefront of society. Those who did heavy manual work, like miners or steel workers, enjoyed certain privileges: better wages and health care than those in less strenuous or dangerous professions. The GDR had one of the most comprehensive workers’ rights legislation of any other country in the world. From 1950 onwards, there was a guaranteed right to work. This right applied to everybody, including disabled people and those with criminal records. Employers were made responsible for the training and integration of everyone. This meant that everybody felt they had a place in society and were needed. This was particularly important for disabled people and those who wanted a new start in life after being convicted of a crime. Working people were under a much more relaxed discipline in the workplace. Because there was job security and it was almost impossible to be sacked, an authoritarian discipline was difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. In Western countries work discipline is invariably enforced by the implicit threat of job loss. In the GDR, only in cases of serious misconduct or incompetence would employees be sacked. There were individual cases where employees were sacked illegally for what was considered ‘oppositional’ or ‘anti-state behaviour’, but usually the sanction would involve demotion or being transferred to a different workplace. This job security gave employees a sense of confidence and a considerable power in the workplace. It meant that workers could and would voice criticism over inefficiencies or bad management without having to fear for their job. Job security and lack of fear about losing it was probably one of the greatest advantages the socialist system offered working people. Even in cases where a worker was sacked from one job, other alternative work would be offered, even if not on the same level. The other side of the coin was that there was also a social obligation to work - the GDR had no system of unemployment benefit, because the concept of unemployment did not exist.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It, Bruni de la Motte and John Green (2015)

[grison-in-space]

wondering about whether you could rec some "romance is a social construct" texts? ofc it is, but i like having books and articles to reference/learn specifics from/see how these ideas have developed.

Sure! Here's a quick reading list. Bear in mind that I am not a professional historian and my reading on this subject is a little diffuse. I'm not tackling the behavioral ecology stuff right now because a) I don't have a more direct book rec off the top of my head than Evolution's Rainbow, which is not technically focused on social monogamy, and also b) I approach that whole field with my eyes wide open for people letting their own perspectives and cultural views get in the way of their observations of animals, and I do not have the energy to go deal with it right now.

If you're going to read two books, read these two:

Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: how love conquered marriage. 2006. All of Coontz' work, having to do with the social construction of the family, is relevant reading to this question (and I'd also recommend The Nostalgia Trap, because the historical context of how we conceptualize families is a major part of the construction of romantic love), but this one is most focused on the social construction of romantic love specifically and what it has replaced. Coontz is, I will disclose cheerfully, a major formative influence on my thinking.

Moira Wegel, Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating. 2016. Exactly what it says on the tin; focuses more closely on the modern invention of dating and romance.

Other useful readings to help inform your understanding of different ways that various people have conceptualized sex, sexuality, society and long-term connection include:

George Chauncey, Why Marriage? 2015. Chauncey is best known for Gay New York, which also offers a useful history of the way that relationship models and social constructs for understanding homosexuality changed among men having sex with men c. 1900 to 1950. This book, published just before Obergefell v. Hodges, is a discussion of why contemporary queer rights organizations focused on same-sex marriage as an activism plank in the wake of AIDS organizing. I find it really useful to read queer history when I'm thinking about how we understand and construct the concept of romantic relationships, because queers complicate the mainstream, heteronormative concepts of what marriage and romantic relationships actually are. More importantly, queer activist organizing around marriage has played a major role in shaping our collective understanding of romance and marriage in the past twenty years.

Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy, 2000. In order to understand how various cultures construct understandings of marriage and spousal relationships, it can be illustrative to consider what the people who are explicitly not participating in the institution are doing and why not. I found this an interesting pass over historical and social institutions that forbid (or forbade) marriage with a discussion about general trends driving these institutions, individuals, and movements towards celibacy.

Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex, 2023. This is a very pointed historical look at gender roles, concepts of beauty, and concepts of sex, attraction, and marriage among medieval Europeans with an extended meditation on what ideas have and have not changed between that time and today. I include this work because I think a deep dive into medieval notions of courtly romance is useful, partly because it is an important origin of our modern notion of romantic love and partly because it is so usefully and starkly different from that modern notion! Sometimes the best way to understand the cultural construction of ideas in your own society is to go look at someone else's and see where things are the same versus different.

It's a mish-mash of recommendations, and I'm reaching more for books that have stuck with me over the years than a clean scholarly approach to the subject. I hope other folks will chime in for you with their own recommendations!

[tavina-writes]

is it possible for a woman to inherit a sect or only sons?

Hi nonny!

I wrote about this a bit here, but traditionally to like, the wuxia genre: 1) this was (depending on the sect in question of course) mostly a meritocracy, so it's not strictly true that the daughters or sons of the former sect leader is inheriting the sect but also 2) the gender for many sects is entirely irrelevant, many prominent jianghu families in many many wuxia books aren't exactly like, desperate for sons even if they have (1) child and that child is a girl, like what will girl do? girl will learn martial arts. like it's hard?

In fact in classical wuxia it's actually quite...common to have female sect leaders (either of entirely female sects or of mixed gender sects) because sects are kind of, things you join rather than things you're born to and you inherit them because shifu said so, not due to biology.

For example, Huang Rong in Legend of the Condor Heroes and Return of the Condor Heroes, is the sect leader for the Beggar Clan, which is the largest and most powerful sect in the wulin instead of her husband Guo Jing, who was also a disciple of the previous sect leader.

Xiao Longnv from Return of the Condor Heroes comes from the Ancient Tomb Sect which, only accepts women btw, so all of their sect leaders have been women.

Yuan Ziyi's shifu, Baixiao Shenni, from Young Flying Fox was the sect leader of the Tianshan sect and a Buddhist Nun.

Dingxian from Xiao Ao Jiang Hu and her sisters, Dingjing and Dingyi, form a group called the "Three Elder Nuns" who are the leaders of the Northern Hengshan Sword Sect. Also from XAJH, Lan Fenghuang is the leader of the Five Immortal's Cult.

I'm not going to keep going down the list of like, female sect leaders in the traditional sense of the jianghu (for the record, all of the above books were written and published in the 1950s-1970s so it's not a recent phenomenon at all), but like, wuxia as a genre has in general, been surprisingly egalitarian on matters of gender. The fact of the matter is, this was the genre that first told me, at 7 or 8 years old that like, women can be powerful and intelligent and unhinged, whether they're villains or heroes or anywhere in between.

So uh, I think the reason you might not be aware of this Nonny (which is not a strike against you in any way!) is because danmei is primarily what's popular right now and danmei as a genre from what I've seen does not have uh, a great track record of bountiful female characters who are well rounded and extant or in positions of power.

[asnowperson]

A short Takemiya Keiko interview from 1998

My "All Things Takemiya" detective friend, Platypus, provided me with a two-page Takemiya Keiko interview scanned by @97tears from the now discontinued Hato yo! (鳩よ! - Oh, Pigeons!) magazine. It was a literary magazine published between 1983 and 2002—a publication you probably wouldn't look at if you were searching up on Takemiya, ig.

You can see the Japanese original taken from the 1998 April issue of the magazine, and my (poor) translation of it under the cut.

Takemiya Keiko Interview from issue #4 of Hato yo (1998) 

An interview with a master mangaka herself! 

I’ve always wanted to meet them! 1 – Takemiya Keiko 

“I wanted to draw real love” 

Takemiya Keiko. Born in Tokushima in 1950. Debuted with “Ringo no Tsumi” in 1968. Won the 25th Shogakukan Manga Award with “Kaze to Ki no Uta” and “Terra e.” Representative works include “Pharaoh no Haka” among others. “Tenma no Ketsuzoku” is currently being serialized in Asuka Magazine.  

I read “Kaze to Ki no Uta” during elementary school. It has left a very deep impression on me. I remember that when Ms. Takemiya is mentioned. It was like I was looking at something I was not supposed to look, and I still remember the thrill I felt.  Takemiya: Oh, is that so? (laughs) 

Thank you so much for being with me today.   Takemiya: And thank you for having me. 

Shall we start with what prompted you to become a shoujo manga artist?  Takemiya: Fundamentally, I was not suited for shoujo manga. I debuted in COM, and my dream was to draw manga that was neither shounen nor shoujo. But alas, the magazine in which I could draw my ideal manga was no more. My style didn’t have much “power” in it, so I inevitably had to choose a shoujo manga magazine. I think my art style was really uncommon at the time. But it was what it was, and I thought to myself, maybe capitalizing on that was the path I should take.  

Your works have an extraordinary depth as far shoujo manga goes... They have a unique art style...  Takemiya: It hasn’t always been like that. My shoujo manga technique was the fruit of what I have studied. It was not a result of my personal taste, nor my innate skills. Girls like that feathery, light touch. They like fine lines. But I didn’t have any of those. So, I figured drawing things girls would like a lot was my only choice. For instance, when I thought how they must like Europe at the end of the 19th century, I went on a trip as a result. I saw the real thing at its source, and did research on it.  

Then was Kaze to Ki no Uta born because you thought girls would like it?  Takemiya: That might have played into my choice of the time period the story’s set in. However, romance stories between a boy and a girl was the norm in shoujo manga at the time. You could only draw “And they lived happily ever after...” stories. And that happiness was only on the emotional level. It was normal to exclude all physical contact. But that is simply “affection.” I wanted to draw “real love.” I admit it was a little too sensational, but I thought doing it through same-sex love was the best way to go about it. That’s how I drew Kaze to Ki no Uta.  

The sex scenes between men were quite a shock for me as a little child. That’s how I learned homosexuality existed.   Takemiya: At the time, there was an official notice published by the Ministry of Education that stipulated that “You shall not draw a boy and a girl getting intimate!” However, if it was two boys, things were somehow fine... I thought I’d found a loophole! (laughs) 

These days, there are more extreme books labeled as “yaoi.” What do you think about them?  Takemiya: At the end of the day, doujinshi are doujinshi. They focus on personal enjoyment of a group. I consider myself a “craftsman,” and if I look at it from a craftsman's standpoint, I am not wholly satisfied with how they leave many things unexplained, or how they have no conclusion. At their level, I’d liked if those artists too felt more dissatisfied... If they aimed to be more conclusive. They have the talent to draw, so I’d love them to polish those skills. I’m sometimes told that it all started with “Kazeki,” and that I must take responsibility. And every time, I think to myself, “Oh... Re-really? Dit it?” (laughs) I wish someone drew something so awesome that it would blow Kazeki out of the water... 

I’d love that too! You called yourself a “craftsman,” but what exactly makes you think so?  Takemiya: I really love the word “craftsman.” I’m not interested in trying to reach an ideal of art that would not resonate with the public. I believe manga is something aimed at the general public. Otherwise, I would not consider it to have artistic value.  

Spoken like a real pro... Which brings me to Terra e... I think that’s the most widely-accepted manga of yours by the general public, and it was published in a shounen magazine. Why is it the outlier to be published in a shounen magazine?  Takemiya: I received an offer for it, but the truth is, I had always wanted to draw for a shounen magazine. That’s why accepted. But I needed to draw in the shoujo manga audience too, so I wanted the story to offer the best for both demographics. So I tried to have the concept to be that of shoujo manga, and the style to be that of shounen manga as much as possible.    

Is it different to draw for a shounen manga magazine, and a shoujo manga magazine?  Takemiya: You don’t have to hold back in shounen magazines. It fine to draw more hardcore stuff. But in shoujo magazines, that’s out of the question. There’s a trend that dictate that you should explain things in long-winded ways and spoil the reader, because girls like it when you reveal things to them through subterfuge, so don’t hit them directly with hard stuff. 

But after that, you’ve never drawn for shounen magazines which allowed you to draw as you wished.  Takemiya: Shounen magazines are mostly weekly. I cannot keep up with that. My art has fine details, so it takes me a lot of time to draw.  

Then will you be solely drawing for shoujo magazines in the future?  Takemiya: I can’t really say that I will. I’m currently working for a shoujo magazine with “Tenma no Ketsuzoku”, and with volume releases. I recently released an illustration book titled “Hermès no Michi.” I needed to base myself on documents and explain them in drawings. And they couldn’t be any kind of drawing, they needed to be interesting. Trying to come up with ways to do that was a very fun experience. So for starters, I’d like to undertake a work like that again. That kind of work I’m working on right now is a story about the fugitives of the Heike Clan in Tokushima.* 

*T/N: She is referring to “Heian Joururi Monogatari.”  

To finish our interview off, I’d like ask a question about the Year 24 Group (shoujo manga artists born around the 24th year of the Shouwa Era like Takemiya Keiko, Hagio Moto, and Ooshima Yumiko, who have influenced the shoujo manga world in the following years) which is still very prominent: Are you still conscious of it?  Takemiya: Year 24 is a thing of the past in the modern manga scene. I think it’s irrelevant now. Manga is evolving, becoming something else after being painted over continuously. I had fun when I was part of that group, but I don’t feel like dragging it out. I don’t want to cling to nice memories of the past as I work, and want to focus on how I currently think and feel. I want to do what I think is most fun at the moment.  

[yikesharringrove]

steve and billy teaching in the same school!! there's these teachers in my school and they work right across the hall from each other. they're always yelling into each others classrooms.

she teaches english lit 101 and he teaches gov 102

"Harrington!"

Some of the kids snickered quietly when Mr. Harrington jumped at the shout from across the hall.

He stared blankly at the last word he had written on the board, the black Expo mark wiggles from where he had jumped at the yell of his name.

He turned around, sighing exaggeratedly at Mr. Hargrove standing in the doorway.

"Kids, excuse my coworker here." He crossed his arms around his chest. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, you can Mr. H."

Steve rolled his eyes as his husband swaggered into his classroom, leading a line of ninth graders with him.

It's not the first time Billy's interrupted his class with a question about some inane bullshit that launched Steve into an over-excited rant for the rest of class.

Steve's tenth and eleventh graders were already closing their textbooks, knowing their teacher was just about to be insanely distracted for the rest of class.

"The birds n' I are reading The Crucible."

Fuck.

Steve's pretty sure Billy's kids pay him to bring them across the hall for these impromptu lectures.

"Witch hunts. I get it."

"Yeah, you know. Anyway, I'm giving some context to the publishing of the book. The Red Scare in the United States, well, the second Red Scare, as well as the rise of McCarthyism coincided with the publishing of the play."

Goddammit.

Steve's fucking master's thesis was on all about McCarthyism (more specifically, how the second Red Scare was directly linked to the Lavender Scare.) He cited the stupid play in his research.

Billy knows that. They were already engaged by the time Steve began his master's program.

Fuck this guy, for real.

Steve quietly closed his power point presentation on interest groups in America.

"Fine. Mr. Hargrove's class, find a seat. My class, your packet is still due Friday. I'll post the slides after class." He glared at Billy.

Billy grinned right back, his tongue poking out in that frustrating way it has since high school.

"1950s United States. What do you know?"

A few hands went up.

Even Billy raised his stupid hand. Steve ignored him.

-

"Which brings us to the end of the decade. With the early 1960s, we have the reformation in the Catholic Church, known as Vatican ll-"

The bell cut him off mid-sentence, and there was a mad scramble as the students all tried to pack up as quickly as possible, before Steve could keep going.

"My class," he nearly shouted over the scraping of chairs against linoleum. "Your packets are still due Friday! I don't care that Mr. Hargrove interrupted our time."

"And birds! The rubric is posted on the class page! I want outlines handed in on Tuesday."

The classroom door closed behind the final kid.

"You're a dick."

Billy laughed.

"Nah, you just teach that shit so much better than I do."

Steve rolled his eyes. He sat behind his desk, yanking over a stack of twelfth grade research assignments to begin grading. Billy perched on the other side of his desk.

"Y'know, you could just ask me to come in and lecture. You don't have to interrupt my own class."

"Yeah, but it's fun to wind you up and watch you go. And I think the birds like it when they see that you're passionate about something. Why do you think I always start with The Joy Luck Club?"

"Because you have mommy issues."

"No. Because Ying-ying's story makes me sob like a bitch, and the birds get to realize that I'm a real-life human."

Steve scrubbed his face with his hands, collecting himself before facing his dumbass husband again.

"Wait, you said they had an essay due. What's the essay?"

"Oh, comparing the Salem Witch Trials and the goings on of the U.S. government in the mid 1950s. You know."

"So, you created an assignment, knowing that I would infodump all that shit to your kids?"

"Yes."

"I want a divorce."

Billy laughed, leaning over Steve's desk to kiss his forehead.

"No, you don't."

"No, I don't. I love you. But also you suck."

The bell sounded to indicate the end of passing period.

Billy got off the desk, stretching with a groan.

"Would you be mad if I brought my senior class in?"

Steve glared at him in the doorway.

"What's the assignment?"

"They're presenting on the parallels between 1984 and the current political climate."

Goddammit.

"Bring 'em in."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Emil Ferris’s long-awaited “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two”

NEXT WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Seven years ago, I was absolutely floored by My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, a wildly original, stunningly gorgeous, haunting and brilliant debut graphic novel from Emil Ferris. Every single thing about this book was amazing:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

The more I found out about the book, the more amazed I became. I met Ferris at that summer's San Diego Comic Con, where I learned that she had drawn it over a while recovering from paralysis of her right – dominant – hand after a West Nile Virus infection. Each meticulously drawn and cross-hatched page had taken days of work with a pen duct-taped to her hand, a project of seven years.

The wild backstory of the book's creation was matched with a wild production story: first, Ferris's initial publisher bailed on her because the book was too long; then her new publisher's first shipment of the book was seized by the South Korean state bank, from the Panama Canal, when the shipper went bankrupt and its creditors held all its cargo to ransom.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters told the story of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Karen narrates and draws the story, depicting herself as a werewolf in a detective's trenchcoat and fedora, as she tries to unravel the secrets kept by the grownups around her. Karen's life is filled with mysteries, from the identity of her father (her brother, a talented illustrator, has removed him from all the family photos and redrawn him as the Invisible Man) to the purpose of a mysterious locked door in the building's cellar.

But the most pressing mystery of all is the death of her upstairs neighbor, the beautiful Annika Silverberg, a troubled Holocaust survivor whose alleged suicide just doesn't add up, and Karen – who loved and worshiped Annika – is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Karen is tormented by the adults in her life keeping too much from her – and by their failure to shield her from life's hardest truths. The flip side of Karen's frustration with adult secrecy is her exposure to adult activity she's too young to understand. From Annika's cassette-taped oral history of her girlhood in an Weimar brothel and her escape from a Nazi concentration camp, to the sex workers she sees turning tricks in cars and alleys in her neighborhood, to the horrors of the Vietnam war, Karen's struggle to understand is characterized by too much information, and too little.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

These monster-comic throwbacks are absolute catnip for me. I, too, was a monster-obsessed kid, and spent endless hours watching, drawing, and dreaming about this kind of monster.

But Ferris isn't just a monster-obsessive; she's also a formally trained fine artist, and she infuses her love of great painters into Deeze, Karen's womanizing petty criminal of an older brother. Deeze and Karen's visits to the Art Institute of Chicago are commemorated with loving recreations of famous paintings, which are skillfully connected to pulp monster art with a combination of Deeze's commentary and Ferris's meticulous pen-strokes.

Seven years ago, Book One of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters absolutely floored me, and I early anticipated Book Two, which was meant to conclude the story, picking up from Book One's cliff-hanger ending. Originally, that second volume was scheduled for just a few months after Book One's publication (the original manuscript for Book One ran to 700 pages, and the book had been chopped down for publication, with the intention of concluding the story in another volume).

But the book was mysteriously delayed, and then delayed again. Months stretched into years. Stranger rumors swirled about the second volume's status, compounded by the bizarre misfortunes that had befallen book one. Last winter, Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston published an article detailing a messy lawsuit between Ferris and her publishers, Fantagraphics:

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/fantagraphics-sued-emil-ferris-over-my-favorite-thing-is-monsters/

The filings in that case go some ways toward resolve the mystery of Book Two's delay, though the contradictory claims from Ferris and her publisher are harder to sort through than the mysteries at the heart of Monsters. The one sure thing is that writer and publisher eventually settled, paving the way for the publication of the very long-awaited Book Two:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

I've been staring at the spine of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One on my bookshelf for seven years. Partly, that's because the book is such a gorgeous thing, truly one of the great publishing packages of the century. But mostly, it's because I couldn't let go of Ferris's story, her characters, and her stupendous art.

After seven years, it would have been hard for Book Two to live up to all that anticipation, but goddammit if Ferris didn't manage to meet and exceed everything I could have hoped for in a conclusion.

There's a lot of people on my Christmas list who'll be getting both volumes of Monsters this year – and that number will only go up if Fantagraphics does some kind of slipcased two-volume set.

In the meantime, we've got more Ferris to look forward to. Last April, she announced that she had sold a prequel to Monsters and a new standalone two-volume noir murder series to Pantheon Books:

https://twitter.com/likaluca/status/1648364225855733769

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#oh-my-papa

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Biggest galaxy brain moment from visiting the Dune dunes is that it gave me a whole new perspective on why the terraforming of Arrakis is treated with such deep ambivalence by the text. Because the terraforming process that's described in great detail in the book? That's exactly what's happening to the Oregon dunes. And they're disappearing.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the open sand you see in this picture stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which is visible here as a faint blue-gray line about halfway up the photo. The sea washed new sand ashore, and the seasonal wind cycles blew it into a constantly-shifting landscape of dunes, tree islands, ghost forests and both permanent and ephemeral lakes and rivers.

As European colonization of the Pacific Northwest grew, the new settlers and the logging and commercial fishing industries they brought with them wanted permanent towns and roads that weren't constantly being swallowed by the moving sand. Starting in the 1930s, European beachgrass and other non-native species were introduced to try to hold the dunes in place.

The invasive species did hold the dunes in place--too well. The deep roots of the beachgrass shaped the sand blowing in off the beach into a permanent dune parallel to the ocean, called the foredune.

As the foredune got taller, it blocked both wind and the movement of sand, which allowed the land behind it to become grassland...

then forest.

Walking through this area, you might never know there was a dune under your feet. You can be close enough to hear the ocean, but there is almost NO wind--the main force that shapes the dunes.

There are (slow, difficult) remediation efforts underway to control the European beachgrass and restore at least some of the area to the natural dune cycle that created the miles and miles of open sand. But the ecological feedback loop created by introducing the beachgrass is stubborn, and without any further intervention, the dunes could be completely covered with forest in as little as a few decades. (I've heard estimates from 50 to 150 years, both of which are a blink of an eye in geological timescales.) The Oregon dunes are at least 100,000 years old, and within the span of just a few human lifetimes the ecosystem could be irrevocably changed.

The dune stabilization project is what Frank Herbert came to Florence to research for a never-written magazine article. Herbert began writing Dune in the mid-1950s, but by the mid-60s when the book was published, his own politics had shifted as he was influenced by the growing environmental movement and by Native activism happening around him in the Pacific Northwest. Like the story of the Oregon dunes, the terraforming of Arrakis is initially promoted as triumph of science and human rationality over nature that will make people's lives easier. But it ends up destroying the native ecosystem and the way of life of the planet's indigenous people, as becomes clear in Dune Messiah when Paul actually implements the terraforming project. (In the book, Dr. Kynes, the main architect of the terraforming project, dies in a spice blow--literally swallowed whole by the planet he tried to control.) It's one of the many political/ideological tensions in the story that's presented but not resolved, and I'm super curious to see how this element of the story is handled in Villeneuve's Dune Messiah.

All photos above taken by me at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area in September 2024.

[dykerory]

2025 Book Bingo!!

My dearest @batmanisagatewaydrug issued this challenge and here I am listing the books I intend to read in 2025! Under a read more because I'm not a monster

Literary Fiction: Our Share of Night (2019) by Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell

Short Story Collection: Alien Sex: 19 Tales by the Masters of Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy (1990), edited by Ellen Datlow

A Sequel: Don’t Fear The Reaper (2023) by Stephen Graham Jones

Childhood Favorite: When You Reach Me (2009) by Rebecca Stead

20th Century Speculative Fiction: The Time of the Ghost (1981) by Diana Wynne Jones

Fantasy: To Shape a Dragon’s Breath (2023) by Moniquill Blackgoose

Published Before 1950: Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë

Independent Publisher: Creatures of Passage (2022) by Morowa Yejidé, published by Akashic Books

Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Something is Killing the Children Book One (2021), by James Tynion IV, art by Werther Dell’Edera

Animal on the Cover: Coyote Rage (2019) by Owl Goingback

Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Let the Right One In (2004) by John Ajvide Lindqvist, trans. Ebba Segerberg

Science Fiction: Finna (2020) by Nino Cipri

2025 Debut Author: Needy Little Things (2025) by Channelle Desamours

Memoir: Camgirl (2019) by Isa Mazzei

Read a Zine, Make a Zine: Leaving this one blank for now! If anyone has any zine recommendations I'd love to hear them!

Essay Collection: Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror (2023), edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith

2024 Award Winner: Linghun (2023) by Ai Jiang, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Nonfiction: Learn Something New: Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids (2012) by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero

Social Justice & Activism: Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (2019) by Sabrina Strings

Romance Novel: Such Sharp Teeth (2022) By Rachel Harrison

Read and Make a Recipe: The Sopranos Family Cookbook: As Compiled by Artie Bucco (2002), by Allen Rucker, David Chase, and Michele Scicolone

Horror: SOUR CANDY (2015) by Kealan Patrick Burke

Published in the Aughts: Abandon (2009) by Blake Crouch

Historical Fiction: The Hacienda (2022) by Isabel Cañas

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: Leaving this one blank for now as well! If any booksellers or librarians want to recommend me a book so I don't have to talk to someone in real life. I'd love that.

[birdfrenchforbird]

2025 book bingo tbr

i'm gonna be following the 2025 book bingo created by the magnanimous @batmanisagatewaydrug and i have just completed (to the extent i can today) my tbr! (this has also inspired me into making a list of 25 things i need to do 25 times throughout 2025... so if there's one thing i will be next year, it is occupied). i drew from books that i own/my roommate owns as much as possible.

Literary Fiction: Luster by Raven Leilani (which has been on my libby holds list since mackenzie last recommended it. abt 20 weeks to go).

2. Short Story Collection: Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (advanced reader's copy i got for free from my college's book club)

3. A Sequel: A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

4. Childhood Favorite: The Sword of Darrow by Alex and Hal Malchow or Heidi by Johanna Spyri or something i find when i am home for the holidays that calls my soul more than these two

5. 20th Century Speculative Fiction: The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkein (because TECHNICALLY it counts)

6. Fantasy: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (one of the few remaining Book of the Month editions i still own)

7. Published Before 1950: Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, published in 1915

8. Independent Publisher: I Love Information by Courtney Bush, published by Milkweed Editions (will need to either get over my fear of going to the library in person to set up my online account and put a hold on this OR purchase a copy)

9. Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Fun Home by Allison Bechdel or Saga by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, have not decided (both owned by my roommate)

10. Animal on the Cover: Diminished Capacity by Sherwood Kiraly (he was my playwriting/fiction professor and gave me my copy of the novel)

11. Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Euphoria by Lily King, set in New Guinea (owned by my roommate)

12. Science Fiction: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

13. 2025 Debut Author: Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang, expected May 2025 (another physical hold or purchase situation)

14. Memoir: Reading With Patrick by Michelle Kuo (commencement speaker at my graduation!)

15. Read a Zine, Make a Zine: tbd! will probably be more than one!

16. Essay Collection: The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo

17. 2024 Award Winner: How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair, NBCC Award for Autobiography (will borrow from libby, audiobook is also available)

18. Nonfiction: Learn Something New: I was paying more attention to the nonfiction part than the learn something new part and i do need to find a new book for this because originally i was gonna go with one of Caitlin Doughty's novels which, while lovely, are not something New To Me. i know i have a biography of Anna Freud somewhere so maybe i will dig that up? otherwise it might be a scroll-through-libby adventure

19. Social Justice & Activism: The Theater of War by Bryan Doerries (read a few chapters first year of undergrad but never the whole thing so technically it counts as a new book for me)

20. Romance Novel: Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

21. Read and Make a Recipe: Jane Austen's Table by Robert Tuesley Anderson, specific recipe to be determined upon reading

22. Horror: Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews (owned and recommended by my roommate as a good option for me, because i do not do well with horror. respect the genre so much!! but my anxiety disorder)

23. Published in the Aughts: Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik (just got my thrift books copy a couple weeks ago. i am making myself SAVOR this series)

24. Historical Fiction: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

25. Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: tbd upon getting over my fears and actually visiting my library in person! it's a five minute walk from my apartment i do not know what my problem is

[wagahai-da]

i love the one-upmanship of the early contactee movement because for a while they'd be publishing books and it'd be like

1949, book called Flying Saucers, I Heard Of 'Em 1950, book called I Personally Saw A Flying Saucer 1951, I Touched A Flying Saucer 1952, Well The Occupants Of A Flying Saucer Talked To Me! 1952 later, Oh Yeah? The Flying Saucer Took Me For A Joyride 1953, The Saucer Occupants Took Me To Their World In A Flying Saucer And I Lived There For A While And Their Food Was Great and They Were Kinda Communist But I'll Say They Weren't And Then They Gave Me Keys To My Own Saucer But I Lost It Because Atomic Weapons Exist

and then you'll get the random ones that are like.

1954: The Flying Saucer Took Me To Hell And It Was Scawy :c

[mask131]

So you want to know about Oz! (1)

Then congratulations! Welcome to this quick crash course to know everything about the world of Oz! The movies, the adaptations, the musicals, the books! Yes, books, with an S, because "The Wizard of Oz" everybody knows and love was just the first book of an entire BOOK SERIES that became the enormous franchise we know today! You thought there was just ONE Wizard of Oz movie? Think again! You thought "Wicked" was the only work that gave a backstory to the Witches? Get ready for some discoveries!

And so we begin our journey to the wonderful land of Oz...

The story of Oz begins with one novel. No, not one movie - but the novel that caused the movie... L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"

Published in 1900, this children novel is still to this day one of the most famous works of American youth literature, as well as the master-piece of Baum, THE book everybody knows he wrote. Baum intended, with this book, to create a purely American fairy tale: he wanted to rival the European tales of Charles Perrault, the brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen - and he succeeded! The novel was a best-seller as soon as it was released, and is still considered as "America's greatest fairy-tale".

Most people know of "The Wizard of Oz" through its famous adaptation, the 1939 musical movie. While these two works do share a same set of main characters and a similar plot, the novel contains many, many details that were not adapted into the movie ; and, in return, the movie brought a lot of elements that were absent from the novel. Both, however, are still the story of a little girl by the name of Dorothy (she wasn't yet named "Gale") and her dog Toto, who are swept up into a tornado and taken to the magical Land of Oz. There she meets three comical companions (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion), and together they go seek the Wizard of Oz in hope he can grant their wishes, only to have to escape from the clutches of the Wicked Witch of the West...

If you want to read the original novel, it will be very easy! Not only is it still regularly printed today, with various anniversary editions ; but it is in public domain since the 1950s! So you can go read it for free right now, without any problems!

Most people tend to stop at just this book... Not wondering if there was any sequel, treating it as if this was just a one-shot. Except, we told you, this book was a best-seller! An ENORMOUS success! Never before had a children's book brought so much money in the United-States! As such, Baum was not going to just stop there...

While he did intent "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" to be a self-contained novel existing as its own thing, in 1904 he published a sequel "The Marvelous Land of Oz":

This novel does not follow Dorothy however, but rather a very different character... A little boy who lives in the Land of Oz post-Dorothy: Tip (short for Tippetarius), an orphan boy who escapes the clutches of his wicked witch of a caretaker alongside a pumpkin-headed scarecrow he just brought to life. And the two undergo a journey to the Emerald City ruled by the Scarecrow-king, only to get swept into a revolution...

This novel was conceived in a similar way to the first one, as a "self-contained" story. While it does take place after the events of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", reuses several of the same characters (The Scarecrow and the Tin Man are part of the main party, Glinda plays a key part in the final act) and briefly recaps the events of the first novel, it can still be read on its own. This novel especially get a lot of attention today (after decades and decades of falling into pur oblivion) due to its fantasy-dissection of the topics of genders - differences between men and women, boys and girls, unfairness and injustice among sexes (the revolution in question is a "girl revolution" seeking to destroy what is perceived as a misogynistic patriarchy)... All culminating with what is still to this day one of the most famous accidental depictions of a trans character in fantasy!

But I'll return to this all in a later post, possibly...

This novel was ALSO a best-seller and a huge success. And as such... you know what that means. Yes, Baum wrote a THIRD book taking place in Oz! Well, almost... The novel actually mostly takes place in lands neighbors to those of Oz, the land of Ev and the realm of the Nome King... But all the Oz characters return - including Dorothy, who is again swept away into fairy-lands, this time not with her dog Toto, but with a pet chicken Billina.

This story is the novel "Ozma of Oz", published in 1907:

And with these three books, you have the original Oz trilogy!

"But wait, there were other Oz books, weren't there?" you ask. Oh yes, there were more books, indeed! However, I want to stop at this point because these three books do form a specific trilogy for various reasons. The trilogy of the "good" Oz books before everything went... let's say downhill (but more about that next post). But more importantly, the trilogy of Oz books most people know about!

Indeed, even if you have never read "The Marvelous Land of Oz" or "Ozma of Oz", you probably came across various elements of these books, that are regularly scattered throughout Oz adaptations and novels. For example the famous Disney movie "Return to Oz" is mostly an adaptation of "Ozma of Oz", but with numerous elements of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" added to the plot

More recently, the trilogy also formed the basis of the new plot offered by the short-lived TV series "Emerald City"!

Langwidere the princess with a hundred heads, Mombi the witch, Ozma the princess of Oz, the Nome king, Tik-Tok the automaton, Jack Pumpkinhead, general Jinjur, the land of Ev, the Powder of Life and many other names and concepts you might be familiar with come from these two direct sequels to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Sequels which unfortunately never knew the lasting popularity of their predecessor, despite being just as famous, if not more, in their time...

Next post: Baum's downfall...

[uwmspeccoll]

Steamy Saturday

"Pam knew the type -- the darling of a hundred female patients."

"She swore she would never love a doctor -- but her heart knew better."

"But Pam's well-laid plans were soon disrupted when a handsome young man burst into her hotel room."

"Pam's life -- as well as her heart - was in his hands!"

"But . . . [w]hy had he pretended to be in love with her when he had a fiancée the whole time?"

Oh, poor, fickle nurse Pamela Ware! Doesn't she know that nurses marry doctors? Such is the narrative dilemma in Special Nurse by popular American romance author (especially for Harlequin) Lucy Agnes Hancock (1877-1962), originally published by Macrae Smith Company in 1948, and published in pulp format by Pocket Books in 1950. We hold the 1958 Pocket Book printing.

Pam Ware is actually not that fickle, just a little obtuse. In reality, she's a competent and spunky individual with a successful career, an assertive attitude, and a roommate named Joan, who keeps us entertained with her snappy dialogue. While on vacation, Pete literally bursts into Pam's life. She soon learns he's a doctor, but she has sworn off doctors and plays hard-to-get, until Pete gives her “a devastating kiss,” and that vow goes out the window.

Tragedy soon strikes, however, when Pam is seriously injured in a car accident, and through a case of mistaken identity, Pam comes to believe that it was Pete's car that hit her while he was running off to elope with another woman! Damn doctors!! Pam is devastated. She also learns that it was the new Dr. Percival Chadwick that saved her life, who the nursing staff have dubbed "Dear Percival": "he’s not only a wonder as a surgeon but the acme of masculine pulchritude.” Pulchritude? Really?

Long story short: we all learn that "Dear Percival" is actually Pete (he hates the name Percival); Pam learns that it was not Pete who crashed into her car and ran off with another women; nevertheless, because he's a doctor she still plays hard-to-get; Pete professes his love, and she continues to snub him; but, hey, it's a romance novel, and of course she concedes in the end: “What better way to get acquainted than to marry and live together?” Right.

We don't know who was responsible for the cover art, but we must say it has a sinister vibe, as if the background figure is about to perform some unspeakable procedure on the unsuspecting nurse. Don't say we didn't warn you, Nurse Pam.

View other nurse romance novels.

View other pulp fiction posts.

[forthegothicheroine]

@batmanisagatewaydrug set up a fun Book Bingo for 2025, and want to try and do it!

This planned list of books for me to read is extremely subject to change, especially since I always get a lot of books as holiday presents, but here's the plan as of this moment.

Literary Fiction: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. My mother got me a bunch of Steinbeck for my birthday, since I liked Cannery Row, so let's see if I can do now what I couldn't in high school!

Short Story Collection: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Another author I don't know super well but who has written at least some things I like.

A Sequel: Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck. Like I said, my mom got me a bunch of Steinbeck and I like Cannery Row, so I'll try the sequel.

Childhood Favorite: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. I read and loved three quarters of this as a kid- but I had to stop before what I knew would be the grim finish, where Twain's depression took hold. It's time I see it through.

20th Century Speculative Fiction: Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. I've come around on Newman, so I should finally try his Bad End Dracula AU.

Fantasy: Fool by Christopher Moore. I keep seeing this when I shelve things at the library and thinking 'I should get that out sometime' so let's make it sometime!

Published before 1950: Beowulf, translated by Burton Raffel. I loved the children's book Bea Wolf, and it gave me the urge I needed to find a good translation of the original.

Independent Publisher: Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng. Gothic? Fairies? Dark historical fiction? Amazing cover? Sounds great.

Graphic Novel: Be Very Afraid of Kanako Inuki by Kanako Inuki. Another great cover that's already making me very afraid!

Animal on the Cover: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. I loved Convenience Store Woman and this has a cute hedgehog on the cover, and that's all I need to know.

Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. One of the books that's been on my tbr for the longest time, and I loved both film adaptations.

Science Fiction: Finna by Nino Cipri. I'm always down to read about genre-shifting trips through alternate dimensions.

2025 Debut Author: You are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego. I have a weakness for riffs on And Then There Were None, plus this seems like the kind of book my library will order.

Memoir: The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I started this at someone's house and never finished it, so now is the time.

Read and Make a Zine: Archive.org has a bunch of issues of a Twin Peaks fanzine called Wrapped in Plastic, which I'm looking forward to browsing through! I hope it will give me ideas for what to create!

Essay Collection: The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang. Not much to say about this except that it sounds really fascinating.

2024 Award Winner: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. This won the Alex Award (for adult books with good YA crossover appeal) and I've been curious about it since I worked at a bookstore and put in the order.

Nonfiction: The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching. I would indeed like to learn about those books! Because I missed the "learn something new" part, I will read The Feud: the Hatfields & McCoys by Dean King.

Social Justice & Activism: Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. This has been recommended to me as a good starting point to learn about transformative and restorative justice, something I would like to understand better.

Romance Novel: Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt. Duke of Desire was great, so I'm eager for some more of that!

Read and Make a Recipe: I'm hoping to find something good from the Moosewood Cookbook, I need to learn more good vegetarian meals.

Horror: Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne. More gothics, and as always, I'm late to a book everyone else always loves!

Published in the Aughts: Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood. Another book I always see on the shelves and always mean to get out next time when I'm not in the middle of something!

Historical Fiction: The Keep by F. Paul Wilson. Historical horror (with Jewish characters) is one of my favorite genres.

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: Poison Widows: A True Story of Witchcraft, Arsenic, and Murder by George Cooper. This was on the library website of recommended Philadelphia-set books, so I'll happily give it a try.

[cassiopeiascorner]

old vs recent books

These days I feel more drawn to older books (1950-1980), for a number of reasons. First, because "modern" witchcraft books tend to give out the same information, so once you've read a few, you've basically read them all.

But I also feel like misinformation spreads a lot faster in this era than it did 70 years ago. Nowadays, someone says something online, tons of instagram/tiktok/youtube videos/web pages repeat it, and two years later it founds itself in a published book on "modern witchcraft". Now, I'm not saying everything that comes out of a 1950 author's mouth is true, just that since the book publishing process was much more long and arduous then, there's probably more research/tradition going into what's written.

Also (but that's just me), I'm more prone to trusting an author that's firm in their personal beliefs and puts rules on their practice than one that says that pretty much everything is fine and ok to do. (That said, someone that holds space for doubt and renewal in their own knowledge is someone I am 100000% more likely to put my trust into.)

it also helps to see what are actual "old" and widespread beliefs among cultures, as opposed to things that were invented 20-30 years ago and are thought to be timeless (e.g., the threefold law)

[crystaloregarden]

made a visual bingo sheet for doing @batmanisagatewaydrug 's 2025 book bingo since my memory is a lot better with images + I'm not a person who remembers or pays a lot of mind to genres so I'd just forget anyhow B)

also, a few of my friends and i are doing this book bingo together in my server, if any of my moots want to join in!

book titles & my reason for choosing them under the cut:

Literary Fiction: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio (blind pick from storygraph)

Short Story Collection: The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl - Roald Dahl (roald dahl is on this list already so i figured i'd read some of his other stuff, too!)

Sequel: Two Hearts & The Way Home - Peter S. Beagle (sequels-ish to the last unicorn which is one of my top fav pieces of media of all time I NEEEED THESE)

Reread a childhood favorite: Matilda - Roald Dahl (LOVE THIS BOOK & MOVIE SO MUCH!!!)

20th century speculative fiction: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin (i've been trying and failing to read Wizard of Earthsea due to lack of time + its juvenile tone so hoping i can find something i like in this book instead!)

Fantasy: Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao (been on my TBR forever and finally have an excuse to prioritize it)

Published before 1950: The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (ALSO been on my TBR forever, attempted to read it once via audiobook but the audiobook reader was so bad at reading that i had to put it down. hopefully my library has a print copy!!)

Indie Publisher: Those We Do Not See - Angie Gallion (looked on the list that the tumblr post recommended, ended up at red adept publishing and blind picked)

Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Dragon Quest - Adventure of Dai (recommended to me by luca! he first recommended dragonball to me and i had to decline because that's is SO many chapters FHSJDFKL)

Animal on the Cover: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World - Robin Wall Kimmerer (obsessed with all of kimmerer's works and need to read them all NOOOWWWWWW)

Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: The Fox Wife - Yangsze Choo (this was recommended to me right before i left kansas by the person who did my hair so it's only been on my TBR a short while, but i'm always super eager to read books that were personally recommended to me!!)

Science Fiction: Time Shards - David Fitzgerald, Dana Fredsti (was on my TBR in storygraph, i don't remember adding this so it might as well be a blind pick FHKSJDHF)

2025 Debut Author: The Woman In The Wallpaper - Lora Jones (blind pick!)

Memoir: Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy - Charles Busch (recommended to me by my coworker at my old job who was an elderly gay man who spent his life in theatre, extra excited to read this one!!)

Essay Collection: Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007 - Nick Land (on my storygraph TBR, i think i saw some quotes from a tumblr post and added it?? i THINK)

2024 Award Winner: Dance with Me - Georgia Beers (blind picked from the Lambda Literary Awards since they focus on LGBT+ works!)

Nonfiction: Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair - Sarah Schulman (recommendation from a tumblr account i follow for book recs on activism and mental health)

Activism/SJ: Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights - Molly Smith, Juno Mac (same as above!)

Romance Novel: Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (was on my storygraph TBR)

Horror: Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer (i am vaguely aware that the movie version of this book is dogshit and i've heard the book is LEAGUES better so i want to take a peek for myself)

Published in 2000-2009: Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them - Francine Prose (ohhh i added this to my tbr recently-ish but i don't remember where i found it, i am SUPER interested in this though as both a writer and an avid reader!)

Historical Fiction: Babel - R.F. Kuang (blind pic, partially influenced by the fact that luca brings up the tower of babel so often that we have a spiritual "mentioning tower of babel" jar in place)

all i need now is the library rec (i'll be moving in walking distance from a library in a couple weeks), the read & make a zine (i'll poke around archive.org to find some interesting ones & potentially want to make one myself about my old cat who passed) and read & make a recipe (i cook at home rather than eat out most of the time so this is gonna happen prolly within like a week of 2025 anyways)