☆❀☆

A few recent reads:

+ She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. A girl assumes her dead brother's identity, joins a monastery, later becomes involved in a power struggle outside the monastery, and does everything she can to rise to the top. I found this really hard to put down! It was very engaging! There's a sequel out, so I'm going to pick it up at some point.

+ Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. I read this as part of a challenge, but also because I read the first book and enjoyed it (that is, Moon of the Crusted Snow). 10 years ago, electronics stopped working and the world became dangerous and chaotic; a remote reservation managed to hang on and build up a life for themselves. So, this novel is set 10 years later, when people from that community set out to see what's out there (and possibly move somewhere else). It's relatively cozy even though the subject is sometimes very serious.

+ Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden-Keefe. This one is in progress, and I'm only about 1/4 of the way into it. The Sackler family built a pharmaceutical empire and contributed to the modern-day issues around opioids. Part of the money at the beginning came from pharmaceutical advertising; Arthur Sackler basically created the model for advertising that is currently used. I'm finding that the history of advertising in general is really interesting to read about, what led to the current state, etc.

+ Hyde by Daniel Levine. Another in-progress. It's Mister Hyde's POV of what happens in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, basically. Very interesting concept. I'm having trouble getting into it, and I'm honestly not sure why; it's possible that I'm not in the mood for this novel, or maybe I don't remember Dr Jekyll well enough to appreciate it properly. It has the full text of Robert Lewis Stevenson's novel included at the back, which I thought was a clever move, though obviously it helps that the original is short enough to do so.

The local library is doing an "Exploring Horror Subgenres" challenge. The idea is to try out various different types of horror, read one from each category, maybe give something new a shot, etc. They have a list of recommended reading (you can also pick stuff for the challenge that isn't on their list, though).

Here's the library's recommended list (plus notes on what I've read):
( Cut for length )
For books not on the list, I'm planning on reading these two:

Slasher: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. I really enjoyed The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and have been meaning to read more of this guy's work.

Sci-Fi horror: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer. I've already read Annihilation, and enjoyed it enough to put the sequel on the to-read list, soooo I guess there's no time like the present. :V

Anyway! Has anyone read any of these? Thoughts etc? I find with a lot of horror the premise sounds interesting but the execution doesn't live up to my hopes. Which goes for movies too, I suppose.

+ Went to physio last night. There seems to be some progress, which is good. I like that this place has evening appointments so I don't need to take time out of my work day. It's not like I do much in the evening anyway.

+ Went to dinner at my brother's place. His wife made some very good burgers.

+ I unfortunately haven't been much for conversation lately.

+ Read Junji Ito's Cat Diary. Found it disappointing. I've already seen the best pages on the internet. But the juxtaposition of his creepy art against the mundane cat stories is still amusing.

+ Wrote a little today. Had trouble getting into the groove, though. The Starbucks I went to isn't a very good environment for writing, not like the other Starbucks that closed down. Maybe on the weekend I will try writing at the library instead.

+ I don't feel very good today. I didn't feel good on the weekend either. Both physically and, like, emotionally. Lately I feel like I hate the entire world.

+ Going to have to go over my insurance. I received the renewal package today. I might need to contact my broker, and I really would rather not.

+ Took today off because I Felt Like It. Plus I had to go to an appointment. (Didn't need the whole day for that, but like, figured I might as well....) Also, treated to myself to lunch, just because I could. Felt nice!

+ Repotted two of my plants. Two others got the boot - the pepperomia and the oyster plant are gonzo. I probably could have saved them, like I did last year when they were struggling, but I didn't feel motivated enough to make the effort. So, now I'm down to a christmas cactus and two snake plants. Not sure what I will replace the other two with. Last year I'd considered picking up one of the hens&chicks that the garden centre was selling, and just keep it as an indoor plant; I might end up actually doing that. It seems that plants that tolerate dryness and cold do well in my apartment.

+ Made lentil burgers. Used this recipe from Occasionally Eggs. Tasted pretty good; would make again. Next time I might mix it up a little - different spices, maybe include some diced bell pepper. Though, I really suck at making patties. Maybe that's something that comes with practice? I've only tried making burgers a few times.

+ Took the book version of Conclave out from the library. Looking forward to it. The movie was pretty good, but the nice thing about books is that you usually get more deeply into at least one character's head.

+ I was surprised to see a lot of people on the Latest Things page posting their first entry in a new journal. Turns out some people are considering making a jump from Tumblr to DW due to some issues going on over there (staff layoffs etc). Well, DW's a very different kind of site, but I hope they enjoy it. I think it would be a good match for people who like textposting.

Stuff I've read and watched lately:

Books:
+ Fearless and Free, Josephine Baker's memoir. This was published in France a long time ago, but it's only very recently that it was translated into English. Super interesting! She had a fascinating life. I'm glad I took the time to read it.

+ Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. Set in 1970s Japan, about a girl who goes to live with some wealthy and somewhat strange relatives. I found it meandering and dreamy. Might check out more of this author's work at some point.

+ Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. Basically a diary of her experience watching the birds in her backyard, with some very neat illustrations. I think someone on my flist recommended it. Anyway, I really liked this a lot; it kind of made me want to get into birdwatching myself (not that I need a new hobby...) It's amazing how many things you notice about the world outside, nearby, right in your backyard, when you stop to look at it.

Movie:
+ The Boy and the Heron (2023). This movie is beautiful and weird, which is to be expected given that it's a Miyazaki film. Kind of not sure what to think of it; the story got very loosey goosey toward the end, I think.

Also I got my wires crossed somewhere, because at some point I heard that this was an adaptation of How Do You Live. I read the translation of that last year, and was curious about how you could possibly adapt it, given that the book is very didactic and basically an exploration of ethics and so on. Turns out it's not an adaptation; it merely references it (in the Japanese title and in one brief scene).

...So the entire time that I was watching it, I was looking for more references back to the novel, which there weren't really. Maybe I should watch it again with my expectations recalibrated.

(Also, Kiriko is awesome. I LOVE HER, she's the best.)

I first watched De dødes tjern | Lake of the Dead (1958) several years ago. There was a brief period where I would put it on every weekend and watch it. I'm weirdly fond of it; there's something strangely comforting about it.

It's a weird little movie, one of Norway's first horror films, though in many ways it's much more a mystery than a horror. The story features a group of people at an isolated cabin out in the wilderness, who go up there because their friend, who was staying at the cabin, has gone missing. The titular lake is said to be haunted by the ghost of a murderer, and those who stay at the cabin are said to be compelled to drown themselves. In the end, the question of whether anything supernatural was involved is up in the air.

Since I've enjoyed the film for so long, I was really looking forward to reading the novel. At one point I had even considered trying to get my hands on a copy of it in Norwegian and trying to read that. Well, Lake of the Dead by Andre Bjerke only received a proper English translation in 2022, and it's just now that I was able to get around to reading it.

I was surprised to find out that it was written in 1942. The film has late '50s setting and I guess I supposed the novel had been written around that time too. The author was originally a poet, but switched to writing thrillers, partially because it was easier to get those published during the Occupation (apparently, according to the introduction).

Unfortunately for me, I didn't enjoy the novel very much. The general premise is very good, but it's soured by the narrator - the first-person narration from the character Bernhard is quite sexist. And like, I honestly don't expect a lot from a novel written in the 1940s, but it kept popping up all the time and messing up the vibe, if you know what I mean.

In addition to that, there were a lot of parts that felt over-explained - the finale where the psychologist Kai Bugge lays out the explanation of all that happened (with possible not-so-scientific things) keeps going on and on for pages and I think by that time I was just sick of it.

I rewatched the film tonight, and I would say that I still enjoy it a lot. A lot of the things that bothered me about the novel are either absent or streamlined in the film. The sexism in the novel is almost entirely in the first-person narrator's internal monologue, and since we don't have that in a movie, it solves the biggest issue I had with the book. (And Bernhard as a character is much more likeable in general in the film than the novel.) And the over-explanation and whatnot, both at the end and in other places, was snipped and streamlined.

There is one scene in the film that I really really like. When Bernhard and Kai Bugge are reading through the diary that their missing friend left behind, the screen shows us what the creepy account is describing. By modern standards, the bit with the ghost isn't scary at all, but I think by 1958 standards it was well-executed.

Too bad about the novel, but the movie really holds up (as far as I expected it to, anyway). There doesn't seem to be an official English release, which I find slightly surprising - but only slightly. My understanding is that in Norway, it isn't obscure at all, and both the book and the movie are part of the foundation of Norway's modern horror tradition. But outside of Scandinavia, it isn't well known. I would speculate that it isn't scary enough, artsy enough, dramatic enough, or unique enough to make much of a splash.

...But I still find myself weirdly fond of it. Well, the movie, at any rate.

List of books read in 2025. :)
( Reading list for 2025 )

The year ain't over yet, but I'm already thinking about next year's reading goals.

+ This year I intended to get through a lot of my unread books so I can finish them and (if not something I'll re-read) get them out of the house. I did manage that - however, every time I go to drop off something at a Little Library, I end up picking up one or two more from there, so I've unfortunately ended up with more than I had at the beginning. Oops.

+ I think I'll try to read more nonfiction by women next year. A lot of the fiction that I read is by women, but with nonfiction I think I'm less likely to find it when browsing at random, so it wouldn't hurt to be deliberate about it for a while. I don't know if I'll set a specific number to aim for tho'. (Recs welcome. I'm open to most subjects, but tend to gravitate toward history, biography/memoirs, and anything LGBT2QA-related.)

+ Might be fun to try reading more fiction in translation, too. (Not including manga in this. :P ) There are a lot of novels by Japanese authors on my to-read list in the library's system, but I'll have to see what else they have available too.

+ I won another reading challenge from the library. I feel kind of weird about winning twice, especially because a lot of the stuff I read was things like comics and audiobooks, which bump up the numbers easily. But at least it wasn't two challenges in a row or anything. And I think they give out more than one prize; maybe it's the top three people or something. Anyway, will have to pick that up on the weekend.

+ Work is going okay. I think. It's moving very slow, but on the other hand, I don't think much is expected of me at this point. I don't have all the access that I need, and some of the people on my team aren't finished with the orientation videos yet (there's like, 12 hours of them that we have to do). But I think I'll talk with my in-office supervisor tomorrow morning to ask if there's any shadowing I can do with her. The thing is, I think there might not be; my job handles stuff at a bunch of locations and our location only deals with this task occasionally (at least that's my understanding).

+ Xmas is coming way too fast. I need to start, like, buying presents. On some occasions, I've been done by now. Going to have to get lists from everybody. I have ideas for dad at least, but mom and SIL are mysteries.

Currently reading: Kenneyism by Jeremy Appel. About said former Alberta premier's rise, fall, and general efforts to make my province worse. Interesting book, but bad for my blood pressure. (While it's on my mind, the chapter on Kenney's pro-oil and anti-environmentalism stance contained absolutely no mention of the 2016 fire and how its effects influenced the industry and general political climate in the province, which seems like a glaring omission to me.)

Reading through this stuff makes me feel pretty depressed about Alberta in general. Like, Kenney and Smith are awful, but it was people of the province that voted them in to begin with, you know? They didn't just magically get into power; my neighbours and family and coworkers and bosses put them there.

...Anyway, I'm probably going to need to read something light after this. I have a lot of books to choose from, 'cause I keep picking up stuff from Little Libraries, as well as whatever the regular library has to offer.

Tsundoku pile:
+ Summer in Orcus by Ursula Vernon. Some flavour of fantasy novel with a young protagonist. Just realized that this one is signed; I'll have to be gentle with it.
+ Combined edition A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I've read and enjoyed ATOTC; GE is new to me.
+ With Love from London by Sarah Jio. About a librarian who inherits her mother's bookshop. Not a romance novel.
+ Fire Strike by Clive Cussler. I have never claimed to have good taste in literature.
+ An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. Memoir/what it says on the tin, maybe.
+ The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol - Translated by Pevear & Volokhonsky. Been casually meaning to look into this author for a while.
+ Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman. Probably needs no introduction. I tried to start this at one point, but wasn't in the mood.
+ The Village of Small Houses by Ian Ferguson. A memoir about growing up in Fort Vermillion.
+ Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik. Some kind of romantic drama/adventure set in Bolivia.
+ The Ghost Ships of Archangel by William Geroux. WWII nonfiction about ships from doomed convoy PQ-17 carrying supplies to Arkhangelsk.
+ Lake of the Dead by Andre Bjerke. A classic Norwegian horror/thriller; it has a film adaptation that I was very into for a while.
+ And All Between by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. This has been on my bookshelf since I was in elementary school and I have no idea what it's about.
+ Dust on the Sea by Douglas Reeman. Pulpy marine adventure set during WWII.
+ Assault in Norway by Thomas Gallagher. Small pulpy paperback about the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during WWII. Looks like it's a novelization of events rather than an actual history book.
+ Sixty-seven Ontological Studies by Jan Zwicky & Robert V. Moody. Poetry and photography.
+ Olav H. Hauges vakraste dikt. Sent to me by a friend. Compilation of my favourite poet's works. Norwegian only, not facing translation.