tagged by @facelessoldgargoyle. what fun! :)
last book you read: Sexuality Beyond Consent: Race, Risk, Traumatophilia by Avgi Saketopoulou. Still chewing on it. Honestly would love to talk about it with anyone who wants to discuss. Traumatophilia in particular as a concept is interesting to me, and of course exigent sadism.
a book I'd recommend: I've given this book away and re-bought it several times now so safe to say I recommend it often, Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. A series of essays on disentangling the discomfort many of us have with conflict and what we can do about it. First chapter is about flirting, last chapter is about Palestine, to give you the scope.
a book I couldn't put down: Most recently, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. So much food and grief and complicated family stuff and contradictory emotions and experiencing memory from multiple angles. Love a good memoir and this one was a meal.
a book I've read twice or more: All classics for a reason — Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin; The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith; and the novel that used the former for inspiration (?), Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. All books where, when I got to the end of the last page I immediately turned back to the first page and started rereading, and have read again since.
a book on my tbr: Rejection: Fiction by Tony Tulathimutte. Given to me by a friend who thought of me when they read it because I “could use a book on how to deal with rejection” which is a scathing review of me as a person but, I think, correct.
a book I've put down: Heated Rivalry. I've tried a couple times, kind of made it to the end I guess by skimming heavily, but. It just doesn't hold my attention the same way the show does.
a book on my wish list: Give me recs! I am woefully out of practice reading books for adults that are fiction. I'm often drawn to memoir and non-fiction, but I struggle to get hooked on books that aren't auto/biographical, and it's a problem!
a favorite book from childhood: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. The book NOT the movie (Anne Hathaway you are on THIN ICE). I grew up in a cult with a lot of rules so I related heavily to Ella & her curse to Obey Against Her Will. I reread it every year to remind me that I got outta therrrreeee. (also, by the by, the reason I will always defend self-ascribed obedience! aka super sub shane, service sub shane, tpe shane, etc. A beautiful thing to decide for yourself!!! A terrible thing to not.)
a book of poetry or lyrics that I own: The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib. A lot of people have said this but I'll concur, it's musical. You can hear it, it's conversation and spoken word and rap and jazz and Springsteen and memoir all at once. Specific in tone & dialect in a way that is instantly recognizable and gives me a person/time/place to interact with and give context and add meaning. So lovely.
Also shout out to Nikki Giovanni, who I was somewhat familiar with but then dove deeper into after a teacher gave me an offhand remark that I wrote about "domestic themes, like Nikki Giovanni" in a way that felt like he was not interested in the subject matter. Anyway Giovanni's book My House uses domestic themes to talk about all kinds of topics, enormous and precise and profound, and idk, if I ever hear someone use the word "domestic" with that tone again I will tell them that this is my house and I plan to live in it.
a book I'd give to a friend: Oh that depends on the friend! The book I've given away the most is Conflict Is Not Abuse, lol, but also pretty much anything I'm in the midst of reading I want someone else to read with me so we can Discuss. Y'all wanna get in on this WORM action?
a nonfiction book I own: Personal Boundaries for Dummies. From the "For Dummies" series, with the purple and yellow highlighter motif from the nineties with the like, Microsoft Excel for Dummies? This one is from 2024 though, and I bought it after saying to my therapist, "I feel like a wobbly blinky baby deer when it comes to boundaries, this shit about 'no is a complete sentence' is real?" And he was like. Yeah. So I bought a book for dummies, because, I was one. I actually would recommend this book to anyone who's baby deer-ing it, too (with a few caveats, but ultimately still worth it for me).
what I'm currently reading: Worm (@worm-bookclub). But I’ve started off so slow and there’s a LOT to read so I have to figure out how to pick up my pace. Hoping this breaks my “struggling with fiction” streak!
what I'm planning on reading next: Yeah, I think it's gonna be Worm for a while, wish me luck!
Tagging @joyandcrown and @awakenedpotential (unless I missed that you already did it in which case, I need to read your post!) and anyone else who wants to jump in :)
germansingergirl
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prguitarman
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