#reading bingo

First row: book rec one word title cover is your favorite color plays with format genre you don't usually read

Second row: no male major characters animal on the cover not originally in english nonfiction based on a real event

Third row: pick a book by its cover published 100+ years ago FREE SPACE character's name in title anthology/short story collection

Fourth row: 3+ points of view graphic novel/comic book/manga classic/famous author you've never read author from a country you've never been to queer classic

Graphic Novel or Fan Fiction: Christopher Tauber, Hanna Wenzel: Rocky Beach. Eine Interpretation. → “just” a reread for this one – we got the second volume of this in Feburary and I had to do a reread, partly because I rushed through it the first time.

Classic Author A/B/C/D/E: Angela Davis: Women, Race & Class → originally, I borrowed this one because I wanted to “just quickly” check something for an essay I was writing. Ended up reading the whole thing; immensely interesting and very well (& accessibly) written. Once again, I really need to read more Angela Davis.

Adaption (of a play, into a film, etc): James M. Barrie: Peter Pan → this has been on my TBR for a while and apparently it was originally a play, so I’m counting it for this square. In 2022 I read Austin Chant’s “Peter Darling”, Christina Henry’s “Lost Boy”, and K. Ancrum’s “Darling” and thought, oh, what nice dark spins on the Peter Pan story, since my previous exposure had only been the “Hook” movie and a local theater group putting on “Peter Pan” as a kids’ play. Yeah, turns out, the darkness was already fucking there in the book. I did not realize that. I will eventually have to read it again in English and annotate it heavily and then reread all three of the mentioned books. Also, I knew to expect some racism, but wow, the racism and sexism really were off the fucking charts.

Philosophy or Literary Criticism: Sara Salih: Judith Butler → picked this up for a paper I had to write for class, because I (unfortunately) chose Butler as foundational theory. This book really helped clear up some of the concepts and theories of Butler’s works, so I decided to read it entirely instead of just looking for the bits I needed. Of course, it’s not the same as reading Butler herself, but I did get a lot more out of this than I did from Gender Trouble. I’m still shaking my head about the entirety of psychoanalysis tho, and I’ll be glad if I never have to read the words “libidinally invested” ever again.

Novella or a Book of Short Stories: Ben Aaronovitch: Tales from the Folly. A Rivers of London Short Story Collection. → pretty quick, extremely fun read. Just what I expected. No notes!

Published before 1940: Thomas Mann: Tonio Kröger → was interesting, I enjoyed how much Tonio being bi(?) was an utter non-problem, the outcast-vibes were very relatable, however I did not particularly enjoy the blond-and-blue-eyed as a marker for the cheerfully living. But he’s getting a pass for it, because a majority is set in Lübeck/Denmark and a vast majority of the population there simply just looks like that.

Classic Author F/G/H/I/J/K: Aldous Huxley: Brave New World → this has been on my list for a while as well and this square was a great reason to finally get to it. It certainly was an interesting read; if I was doing British Studies I’d definitely attempt to write a paper about it at the next possible opportunity. And I KNOW I can’t really complain about this considering the book was published in the 1930s, but I’m really starting to get annoyed at how books like these treat their female main characters in comparison to their male counterparts. And again, probably part of the times, queerness as an identity (as opposed to a behavior) wasn’t even that old yet, but it’s always interesting how books like these come up with worldbuilding for whole societies, in this case even abolishing the concept of family, of parents, etc pp, but still don’t even give a passing thought to queerness in any way (apart from an erased intersex condition). Additionally, I borrowed a 1980s “study edition” from my college’s library and it’s. uh. fascinating how much some of the footnotes are absolutely crawling with (scientific) racism.

Children's Literature or Young Adult: read A Lot of Three Investigators novels as usual, but also revisited the first Skulduggery Pleasant book, which unfortunately was still so much fun I’ll have to reread the entire series. Or at least Phase I.

Historical, Dystopian or Science Fiction:Suzanne Collins: Sunrise on the Reaping. A Hunger Games Novel. → What do I even say about this. Suzanne Collins knows how to write, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen intro quotes used with more skill, and it’s truly insanely hard to stop reading until you’re done with the book. A few things felt a liiiitle too “on the nose” in this one, but then again, this is YA and she was trying to really hammer home her point and, gods, did she succeed. I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.

Biography or Non-Fiction: Ellen Thiemann: Wo sind die Toten von Hoheneck? Neue Enthüllungen über das berüchtigte Frauenzuchthaus der DDR. [no engl. title/translation; lit.: Where are the Dead of Hoheneck? New Uncoverings about the Infamous Women’s Jail of the GDR.] → I read Thiemann’s memoir about her imprisonment at Hoheneck as a political prisoner (for trying to leave the GDR) many years ago and came across this book by accident while browsing my new library and couldn’t not read it. And it was indeed very interesting to see how there were still new files found and made available like 20 years after the GDR collapsed and there’s STILL more that kind of HAS to be sifted through at some point.

Translated from the Original: Laurent Binet: Die siebte Sprachfunktion [org. Title: La Septième Fonction du langage/engl. title: The Seventh Function of Language] → another book I picked up because we talked about it in a lecture on literary theory in postmodern literature. And this was just insanely fun. Five years earlier? Hell, two months earlier? I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it fully. But by now I got enough literary studies background, and Salih’s Butler book gave me precisely the last insight I needed (mostly into Foucault & Austin) to be able to Get this book. I adore Binet’s narrative voice, that has an extremely distinct character while still staying vague and decidedly outside the diegesis. I loved this. I just wish, anyone on ao3 had written some Simon/Bayard fic :/

Classic Author L/M/N/O/P: Robert Musil: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß [engl. title: The Confusions of Young Törless] → very interesting, sort-of queer, did like it, but also went in expecting more Frühlings Erwachen/Spring Awakening kind of vibes rather than the psychological study I got, however the specific kind of boarding school is certainly going to help me write one particular characters background/an episode of his life, if I ever get to that again.

Poetry or a Play: Ken Campbell: Pilk's Madhouse → We did this play in our high school theatre group years ago. I then spent like ten years trying to locate the English original, because most lists of Campbell’s works simply omit this one for whatever reason. However, got my hands on it late last year and now spent an evening reading it and comparing it to our translation/adaption. Fascinatingly, the scenes in the edition I got my hands on were only like 60% identical with the translation we used – there were like three scenes I had never read before, while almost a dozen of the scenes we did perform weren’t in the original. So the mystery kind of lives on.

Detective, Horror or Suspense: Jonathan Kellerman: Open Season. An Alex Delaware Novel. → Kellerman’s Alex Delaware Novels have a very special place in my heart due to the gay second main character. They are, however, not very high quality in literally every other regard, so I didn’t exactly go in expecting a masterpiece. It was fun, the friendship of the two main characters once again made me very soft, the plot wasn’t quite as contrived as it has been in the past. My main complaint is that the second main character’s partner got a total of one (1) passing mention and once again zero screentime :(

LGBTQ Author: Richard Siken: War of the Foxes → after having had this on my wishlist for my parents for birthdays/christmas for a couple years, I caved in now and bought it myself. Enjoyed it!

Classic Author Q/R/S/T: Leo Tolstoi: Der Tod des Iwan Iljitsch [org. title: Смерть Ивана Ильича/engl. title: The Death of Ivan Ilyich]→ I had no clue what to read for this square, so I took a look through my brother’s bookshelf and came across this. Genuinely enjoyed it, particularly the heavy “conformism/living your life the way you’re ‘supposed’ to won’t make you happy” theme.

Published between 1940-1999: David Lodge: Small World. An Academic Romance. → read it because we talked about it in a class and it sounded interesting. Was certainly extremely fun from an academic point of view, especially as someone who has had more than their fair share of literature classes. However, (possibly because it’s from ‘84) it was also at times wildly sexist, weirdly racist/orientalist and vaguely homophobic/aphobic. Certainly a book more fun to analyze than to simply read, I think; I’d actually kind of like to write an essay or two about it.

Harlem Renaissance: Nella Larsen: Quicksand → My first instinct was to go for more Claude McKay poetry, but I specifically wanted to pick a female Harlem Renaissance writer, and a short bit of research brought up Nella Larsen. I chose “Quicksand”, mostly because I had heard of “Passing” in class and wanted to read something I didn’t know anything about yet. It was… fascinating and sad and beautiful. Helga’s struggle touched me, even if I wanted to shake her sometimes, and I particularly liked the exploration of how racism in Denmark works and looks different than in the US. And while it obviously was a story dealing fundamentally with race and the “tension” of being mixed race, there was also something very universally relatable in Helga’s inability to fit in anywhere for longer stretches of time.

Romance, Adventure or Western: D.H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley’s Lover → Why did I pick this? Not quite sure. Curiosity, mostly. And boy, did I not enjoy it. My sighs got deeper with every mention of “her womb” doing this or that, my highlight was “whom one adored in one’s bowels and one’s womb”, like, first of all, what do the bowels have to do with it, and second, girl, you just had one (1) decent orgasm with a guy you *barely* like. And also “her bowels fainted” mostly sounds like she shit herself, sorry, Mr Lawrence. The pages and pages of description of the miners reminded me a bit of Suzanne Collins’ descriptions of District 12, except hers have warmth and kindness and his has this utter terror of modern industry.

An Audiobook: Ernst H. Gombrich: Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser [engl. title: A Little History of the World; gelesen von/read by Christoph Waltz] → had a seminar at the end of last year/beginning of this year with a guy who recommends this book for a short, easily digestible overview over world history and when I found out it’s on spotify read by Christoph Waltz, I didn’t have any other choice really. And yeah, it’s neat, it’s actually not that long (less than ten hours total), it’s informative, even if some parts are heavily simplified or a little outdated by now. The first edition is from 1936, so there’s a lot of casual orientalism, use of the n-word and I*dian, but at least he didn’t shy away from stating outright that the crusaders/Cortez/etc basically committed crimes against humanity. Also, the post scriptum recounting WW2, the Shoah, and the fall of the soviet regimes almost made me cry.

Classic Author U/V/W/X/Y/Z: Stefan Zweig: Brief einer Unbekannten. Erzählung. [engl. title: Letter from an Unknown Woman]→ I have been meaning to read something by Zweig for a while, and then this book unexpectedly got dropped into my hands, so I decided to treat that as a sign. Some of this made me deeply uncomfortable in a very unfun way, ngl, but generally I really enjoyed the style, and I might have to check out more of his work.

Gothic Fiction, Fantasy or Magical Realism: James Oswald: The Damage Done. An Inspector McLean Novel. → This one left a few too many threads open for my taste, I missed the neat bow on all the plot threads at the end, but I guess he can take some liberties with that due to the supernatural elements of the story. Was all in all another very enjoyable supernatural crime novel, and Tony continues to be a poor little meow meow.

Essays or Satire: Michail Bulgakow: Der Meister und Margarita [org. title: Мастер и Маргарита/engl. title: The Master and Margarita] → picked this up on a whim at a used book sale (bc I’ve seen @borealopelta post about it) and then found out it’s a satire, so win-win for me. Enjoyed it immensely! Particularly a fan of the metaphors and descriptions, the level of Bureaucracy Nonsense you truly only get in Soviet (& related) and German novels, and the amount of references and symbolism. Even if most of what wasn’t Faust- or early modern witch tropes-related went over my head. The afterword by the translator (Alexandra Berlina) was both enlightening and amusing; I definitely need to either download a couple scientific articles about the book or buy/borrow a critical edition eventually. Maybe both. Begemot and Annuschka are the true heroes of this book TO ME (half joking. they lowkey are my favorites tho). (Also, as someone who grew up with Russian fairy tale movies, I’m a little sad the translator did not keep the “Iwanuschka” nickname for Besdomny :( He IS a poor little Iwanuschka.)

Smoke, Mirrors, and Missing Time by @exoticlittlebird Gen Fic, Extra Kudos, One Shot, Written in 2025 | T | 1k

The Farmer isn't impressed by Mr. Qi's recruitment tactics, so he's forced to try a more... creative approach.

Stardew Drabbles by NovemberFlowerz Drabble, X Reader, Rarepair, Under 5 Comments, F/F, New (to you) Author | NR | 1.1k

Challenging myself to write some shorts exactly 100 words long. Ship name in chapter title. Caroline/Reader + Gus/Reader + Maru/Penny + Robin/Demetrius + Abby/Reader + Penny/Elliott + Maru/Harvey + Leah/Reader

Hell Is a Teenage Girl by @folatefangirl F/F, Rarepair, Under 5 Comments, AU, Written in 2025, Mythological Characters, One Shot | M | 2.8k

Being ex-best friends with a demon wasn't easy, especially when one intended to quite literally stab her in the heart. And maybe also the back, for good measure.

maybe when we're older, maybe never at all by @benjineedssleep Under 5 Comments, Post-Canon, Written in 2025, One Shot | M | 9.2k

It's been months since Sebastian's last seen Sam, given he's chosen not to come back home from college for winter break. Something about opportunities. Amongst fleeting conversation and cancelled plans, he's come to terms this next time they see each other will be the last. No more back and forth, awkward yearning, or words unspoken. As hard as it will be, this has to be the last time. For both of their sake.

Dreams in Phaylo Blue by @astellus Post-Canon, X Reader, One Shot, Written in 2025 | G | 2.6k

Elliott rarely voices his dreams out loud. He's content with you. With his daughters. With the life you've built together. But when a chance to make a dream a reality surfaces, will he take it, or try and talk himself out of it?

Blowing Smoke: On My Knees for the Sexy Cigarette-Smoking Camel by @oddshro0m Crackfic, Crossover, AU, Written in 2025, One Shot | E | 1.8k

Sebastian's out of cigarettes, but Joe Camel is there to give him his fix-- and Sebastian gives him a whole lot more. Tingler-Style cover art included.

obsidian in the moonlight by @burekforsatoru X Reader, One Shot, Written in 2025 | G | <1k

kissing sebastian. that's it, that's the fic.

Family by spaceeyeball Krobus, New (to you) Author, Platonic Relationships, One Shot, Under 5 Comments | G | <1k

A family can be a wife, husband, and a sewer creature.

The Valley Burns Blue by @oddshro0m WIP, AU, Written in 2025 | E | 30k+

Five years ago Albert Stanczyk, nicknamed Grandpa by his young trainees, retired from the FBI to live a quiet life on a small farm nestled deep in the Stardew Valley. Now he’s gone missing, and agent Nick Spencer must move into the farmhouse posing as his grandson. Following the trail his mentor left behind, Nick uncovers a conspiracy larger than anyone could anticipate, along with his very unlikely new partner. Despite its welcoming facade, something sinister is afoot in Pelican Town. Can he unravel this mystery before the trail goes cold?

Cracking the Stones by @hullygeee Junimos, Platonic Relationships, Written in 2025 | T | 13.3k

Running from the past isn’t sustainable. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives for those who are able and willing to find them.

Twelve Days of Winter Star by Pixiigh Written Before 2020, Krobus, F/F, Platonic Relationships, New (to you) Author | G | 5.3k

Going off some prompts I found on Tumblr related to Christmas! Or, as they call it in Stardew Valley, Winter Star :) I will update the tags and the list below as I go. Day 1 - Holiday Decorating - Shane/Female Player (and Jas!) Day 2 - Mistletoe - Maru/Female Player Day 3 - Holiday Movie - Haley/Male Player Day 4 - Holiday Music - Sam/Female Player Day 5 - First Holiday - Harvey/Male Player Day 6 - Holiday Baking - Penny/NB Character Day 7 - Krobus & Female Player Day 8 - Holiday Shopping - Abigail/Male Player