Footsteps in the Sand

Wendy and the xenomorph I’ve been ruminating a bit on fascism–in part because of the real world, and in part because of what I’ve been watching on TV. So, to start things off, here are some clips! Witness the corporatocracy of Alien: Earth, the theocracy of The Testaments, and, though I won’t be reviewing the show here, the theocratic corporatocracy of the final season of The Boys!…

Does this make me “Jewish”? In keeping with recent tradition, I spent one night of Pesach (Passover) at my synagogue’s seder. It’s far from the only time I find myself walking through those doors. I’d say I’m semi-decently involved in synagogue activities. In fact, much to my surprise, I was invited for a great honor last Simchat Torah—to take an aliyah in honor of my participation (apparently,…

“Offred” Circles Back to the Beginning So much for the wishy-washy promise I made when reviewing season five. Did I watch the series finale in real time? Nope…what ultimately lit a fire under me was the promise of the new sequel show, The Testaments (with episodes streaming in a little over a week! Maybe that one I’ll watch in real time! :P) As for my feelings about season six of The Handmaid’s…

Depiction of Jewish communities in Italy We’re almost into month three of 2026, so time to dust off my old tradition of looking back on Jews and Jewish perception in Italy. One thing I can say about recent years is that JTA has scaled back its global coverage significantly. Not too much to show there. I broadened my search using Google News, and thus picked up on the surge of post-October 7…

It may be time for me to admit my own recent binge of a vampire soap. 😛 I meant to turn to The Originals for pure escapism, but I can’t seem to stop myself from over-analyzing. Maybe I’ll keep it brief. The Originals was an offshoot of The Vampire Diaries, and it aired on the CW between 2013-2018. The purpose was to take a main antagonist from the first show, Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan) and…

Shalom! We’re past Jewish Book Month (year 100!) and Chanukah now, but with just a few days left in 2025, I’m talking about my year in Jewish reading. (And not even all of it; here are my first and second fave Jewish books of the year!) I’m utilizing Erika Dreifus’s bingo board for literary prompts, though sometimes I interpret things, er, creatively. 😛 If you’d like a diversity of Jewish reading…

An empire in decline fourth and final NaNoWriMo post of 2025 Some structural changes: AppleTV Plus is now just AppleTV, and David Goyer has stepped down as showrunner. Many of the other writers and directors are stepping back, too, which is more alarming. Hopefully Foundation will still feel like Foundation (I know, I know, the books are different) in season four! Season three certainly feels…

Third NaNoBlogMo Post of 2025 For context, the U.S. government shut down from October 1 – November 13, 2025. As a federal contractor, I was put on furlough, and largely left to my own devices. I’m very fortunate that this was the case for me. Being left to my own devices meant I could meet a challenge I set for myself a few months back about more television in my life. …frankly, I meant to use…

Angelus (David Boreanz) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau) in “Buffy” season 2 Second NaNoBlogMo Post of 2025 For context, the U.S. government shut down from October 1 – November 13, 2025. As a federal contractor, I was put on furlough, and largely left to my own devices. I’m very fortunate that this was the case for me. Being left to my own devices meant I could meet a challenge I set for myself a few…

They didn’t put the year inside the book this time! first NaNoBlogMo Post of 2025 The GoodReads Choice Awards for 2025 are now live! As is now the norm, they open in mid-November and promise two rounds, with winners to be announced in early December. No changes to the categories this year, but man oh man this is my least impressive showing yet. I’ve only read one of the books in contention for…

My oh-so-original logo 😛 It’s the fourth year of my personal book award (technically more of a reading list with a tier ranking at the end.) Based, in part, off the GoodReads Choice Awards, this is my place to read a little bit of (often not too buzzy) frontlist. I’ve read and reviewed three books in four categories, and yammered about them and other intriguing 2025 releases on my BookTube…

Rabbi Lea Schmoll (Elsa Guedj) finds administering to her Jewish community isn’t exactly what she thought it would be. This one’s kinda exciting for me. The Jewish world outside of North America (and, arguably, some loud minority groups in Israel) aren’t known for fostering liberal religious communities. A bit of an over-generalization, sure, but even the woman whose life inspired the basis of…

Suddenly the superior form of entertainment. I’ve been putting off writing this post. Mainly because it’s silly and past my personal threshold for navel-gazing (which is already pretty high. :P) But because my television habits are off and this is a pop culture blog, I don’t really have much more to talk about! I miss life back in the day…probably still less than ten years ago where television…

In all honesty, I’m a little bummed. Maybe my pop culture zeitgeists are changing, because when it comes to the big franchises that showed up, nothing is squarely in my wheelhouse. (Yo, AppleTV! Where were you this year, dude? Why no Foundation? Or, presumably more likely, Severance? I just can’t watch that show, because I need more escapism from work drama. :P) So, most of my feels are with the…

We’re midway into 2025 and I have a confession to make. I feel like I’m failing my pop culture interests. 😛 Ultimately, at the end of the day, maybe peoples’ interests change. But I don’t quite like the direction I’ve been headed. Instead of watching shows when they air, I’m largely turning to YouTube content. And not the cool YouTube content like BookTube.* Instead it’s more chronically online…

Find the video here: https://youtu.be/0n4pXT_XHrc

How many books read: 49

Best Book: THE LATECOMER by Jean Hanff Korelitz: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7450695463

Best Sequel: HEIR by Sabaa Tahir: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7361011349

Best Short Story Collection: COWBOYS AND EAST INDIANS by Nina McConigley: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3926671845

Most-Read Genre: Jewish Fiction New Releases I Want to Read:

--THE ANATOMY OF EXILE by Zeeva Bukai: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212232567-the-anatomy-of-exile

--THE THINKING HEART: ESSAYS ON ISRAEL AND PALESTINE by David Grossman: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214100227-the-thinking-heart

--SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214331246-sunrise-on-the-reaping

Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of the Year:

--WHILE THE DARK REMAINS by Joanna Ruth Meyer (7/29): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222208035-while-the-dark-remains

--HAPPY NEW YEAR'S by Maya Arad (8/5): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214678652-happy-new-years

--THE BELLES by Lacey Dunham (9/9): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224003653-the-belles

--AS A JEW by Sara Hurwitz (9/9): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222658326-as-a-jew

--AMONG THE BURNING FLOWERS by Samantha Shannon (9/16): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222376983-among-the-burning-flowers

--THE SOVEREIGN by C.L. Clark (9/30): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62563726-the-sovereign

--THE WAR BEYOND by Andrea Stewart (11/4): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228466301-the-war-beyond

Biggest Disappointment: THE MOTHER OF ALL THINGS by Alexis Landau: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6456945535

Biggest Surprise: THE HUNTER by Tana French: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7337318948

Favorite New Author: Elif Shefak, after reading THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7437373810) and in 2020 10 MINUTES, 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE, NEW WORLD: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3552655131. On my physical TBR shelves: THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56587382-the-island-of-missing-trees

Newest Fictional Crush, Adapted to Favorite Relationship in a Book/Series: the Oppenheimer triplets in THE LATECOMER Isabel, Professor Connelly and the Wilder English department, MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR by Daisy Alpert Florin: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7563150973

Newest Favorite Character: Quill and Aiz in HEIR, Damien in OUR DEADLY DESIGNS by Kalyn Josephson: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7243178172

Book That Made Me Cry: THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7497798347

Book That Made Me Happy: HAPPINESS by Aminatta Forna: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4864347569

Favorite Review/BookTube Video: 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0WapomdXMs&t=1s

Favorite Book Adaptation I Watched This Year: Pachinko Season Two: https://chavalah.wordpress.com/2025/03/31/pachinko-season-two-you-cant-erase-the-past-plus-march-25-tv-shows/

Most Beautiful Cover I Bought/Received This Year: OLIVE DAYS by Jessica Elisheva Emmerson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205673372-olive-days

Next Big Priority In My Reading: Hoping to make a significant dent in my TBR on an upcoming cruise in July, gulp!

My Bookish Highlight: Incorporating the Buzzwordathon Challenge from Books and Lala as a way to get through my 2024 Jewish Book Council "Raid the Shelves" TBR! See my Page 112 Tag videos for 2025 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNWZaEobSKhvJZ4Y4ppNv7EterSGEHMj5

What Books Do I Need To Read By the End of the Year:

--Top O' the Goodreads: HARDLY CHILDREN: STORIES by Laura Adamczyk: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37941816-hardly-children

--Top O' the GoodReads:THE ARCHIVE OF ALTERNATE ENDINGS by Lindsey Drager: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42770439-the-archive-of-alternate-endings

--Top O' the GoodReads: A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Michael Cunningham: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2137.A_Home_at_the_End_of_the_World

--Top O' the GoodReads: SPECIMEN DAYS by Michael Cunningham: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2136.Specimen_Days

--Women in Translation Pick: AQUARIUM by Yaara Sheroni: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57693573-aquarium

--Victober Pick: COSELLA WAYNE, OR WILL AND DESTINY by Cora Wilburn: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46168436-cosella-wayne

Carla (Carol Kane) and Cantor Ben (Jason Schwartzman) reconnect through chanting Torah. Jason Schwartzman plays Ben Gottlieb, a cantor who can no longer sing (or, arguably, function at all) after the sudden death of his wife a year past. Carol Kane plays Carla O’Connor (nee Kessler), a widow unceremoniously fired from her music teaching job who seems to be looking for new purpose in her life.…