Reading Log

- 5 minutes read - 893 words

Ever since I added the “currently reading” section to my front page, I figured I should probably start actually writing down the books I’ve read. At times I miss having Goodreads and such, but it’s also just a lot of work and too fancy for me. I am happy with just a plain list. I’ll try to remember to enter books chronologically by year, but it’ll be a very loose chronology. I should’ve been doing this all year, but oh well. More to come.

2024

Finished

  • Heather Radke, Butts: a Backstory (2022): What an absolute joy to read! All you ever wanted to know about butts throughout history!
  • Kathleen Riley, Imagining Ithaca: nostos and nostalgia since the Great War (2021): An interesting book on the theme of nostos (“homecoming”) in literature since World War I, and more modern media’s engagement with the classics.
  • J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Unfinished Tales (1980): A deep dive into paths not taken in Tolkien’s sprawling legendarium. It’s not a quick read, and is very dense, but is very good.
  • Michel Chion, David Lynch (2005): An interesting look at David Lynch’s films (and of course, TV, including Twin Peaks and On the Air).
  • Homer, Emily Wilson (trans.), The Iliad (2023): A heartbreakingly lovely translation of a brutal, grueling, intense epic, and the first translation (AFAIK) by a woman. Wilson’s earlier translation of The Odyssey is also amazing.
  • C.M. Mayo (ed.), Tameme: New Writing from North America (“Sun and Moon”) 1.2 (2001): This is an issue of a bilingual literary magazine with contributions from the USA, Canada, and Mexico. It was an interesting read, but I’m going to donate it for someone else to enjoy.
  • L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Overcaptain (2024): I’ve read all of the other Saga of Recluce books and they’re great. I’m excited for the next one to come out in August 2025!

Did Not Finish (DNF)

  • Jack London, White Fang and Call of the Wild: Literary classics about the frozen North.
    • I tried but really did not love this. Nope.

2025

Finished

  • L. M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle (1926): A woman is stuck in a mansion with her stuffy, terrible family, but eventually finds a way out. And it’s a really interesting ride. Made me think of mistaken-identity stories like Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe and such. It was really good, and had a happy ending.
    • I found out that Montgomery also wrote Anne of Green Gables and now I want to read it too!
  • Sarah Archer, Midcentury Christmas (2016): This was a delightful little book, all about ’50s and ’60s (and modern, ish) aesthetics of Christmas. I heard about it on a You’re Wrong About episode recently. I apparently got the “stocking stuffer” edition from the library, which hopefully didn’t abridge it too much!
  • Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness (1995): a collection of prose poems about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Sadly, extremely topical. It was a puzzling, confusing, terrifying, challenging, but also beautiful read. Highly recommend it. I don’t know if it’ll help make sense of what’s gone on or what is happening now, but it’s well worth a read.
  • Kate Chopin, The Awakening and other stories (2000): A collection of the writer Kate Chopin’s short stories, as well as the full-length novel The Awakening. It was an interesting read, the short stories were kinda cool, and even some of the short story characters come up in the novel!
  • Alexandre Dumas, The Wolf-Leader (1857): This was a trippy Gothic horror novel, with Satanism, lycanthropy, and all sorts of weirdness!
  • Mike Diver, Retro Gaming: A Byte-Sized History of Videogames (2022): This was a fun little read on the history of video games!
  • Annabel Abbs-Streets, Sleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self (2024): I heard about this on the always-lovely Nocturne podcast and really enjoyed it. A memoir about insomnia and embracing the depths of the night.
  • Gregory Maguire, Wicked: I saw the movie before I read the book. I enjoyed the book but it’s a one-and-done for me, I think. Worth a read, but not entirely my thing, unfortunately.
  • Mary Ellen Chase, The Story of Lighthouses (1965): This was a cool read! Lighthouses are fascinating.
  • Thomas Johnson (ed.), The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1976): This book of all of Emily Dickinson’s poems took me literally years to read (with long breaks), but I’m glad I read it. It was a trippy collection.
  • Paul Neilan, Apathy and Other Small Victories (2007): A friend bought this for me years ago and I haven’t gotten around to reading it. I need something to break up the 3 other dense, dense books I’m reading. NB: the cover for this book has suicidal imagery, caveat legens… After finishing it, it was a weird, nihilistic, sometimes funny, but mostly just sad book that didn’t really age well. Definitely a one and done.
  • Robert Descharnes & Gilles Néret, Dalí. The Paintings (2013): A wide-ranging collection of Salvador Dalí’s paintings, interspersed with a meandering biography of him. It was fine. I don’t think I like Dalí as much as I thought I did, but it is still interesting to check out the paintings. It’s going to the donate pile.

Did Not Finish

  • Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (1876): This one just didn’t grab me, unfortunately.
  • John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952): I stalled out. It was just too much.