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Books I read in August 2025 + film diary
Sep. 2nd, 2025 08:31 amTotal: 11 books
-- Fear Street: The Prom Queen by R.L. Stine;
-- Witches' Children by Patricia Clapp;
-- The Sensuous Dirty Old Man by Isaac Asimov;
-- Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost;
-- The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes by Scott Frost;
-- Moral Panics by Erich Goode and Nachmann Ben-Yehuda;
-- The Salem Witch Trials Reader by Frances Hill;
-- Boarding School Homosexuality by Michael Hone;
-- A Very Private School by Charles Spencer;
-- Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution by Patrick Boyle;
-- Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts by James Renner.
Felt like a rather light reading month but I guess in retrospect that's not so! Nothing on the fiction side that required much thought or attention, but plenty of nonfiction books. I reread Prom Queen because Mom and I watched the movie together, and then hopped into a Salem Witch Trials phase (a return from childhood), then into Twin Peaks from there.
Twin Peaks reviews: Both books I read are written by one of the Frost brothers, who wrote for the TV show -- Mark Frost as the main writer, Scott Frost as a guest writer. Weirdly, Scott Frost's book is much, much better. He seems to "get" the vibe of the show better than his brother, somehow; Mark's book, The Final Dossier, is very dry and feels more like an outline than a novel; it also contradicts the show's lore in ways that don't make much sense, such as giving Norma a tragic backstory that fits her poorly and doesn't work well with the episode where we meet her mother. Both brothers make up their own backstories for characters at times, but I found that I really liked Scott's inventions, and felt that they fit perfectly, whereas Mark's inventions seemed lazy and cliche. If anyone's looking for recs, skip The Final Dossier, but definitely read My Life, My Tapes -- it suits Coop to a T, and it's laugh-out-loud funny.
Nonfiction books:
I'll skip Moral Panics and the Salem Witch Trials Reader as I've talked about those before. A Very Private School is a memoir by Princess Di's younger brother (though I didn't know that when I bought it, I was just looking for memoirs about boarding schools). It's well-written and focuses entirely on Charles' elementary school years at Maidwell, an extremely abusive boarding school run and staffed by pedophiles in the 70s. Found it especially valuable for insight into the culture and traditions of upper-class families in the 70s, which helped explain why they sent their kids to boarding school in the first place -- as Charles describes it, there was a socially-enforced distance between parents and their children which encouraged even the most loving parents to largely avoid their kids and to send them off as soon as possible. Basically, parents believed it was good for the kids to be distant from their parents and to be toughened up at boarding school.
Writing it out now that seems obvious -- I think we all know that about British culture. But it's vividly described and brought to life here in a way that makes it seem new.
Boarding School Homosexuality -- I got this book last year from Giovanni's Room in Philly. It's a tongue-in-cheek, breezy read, not actually super informative. More a collection of anything that strikes the author's fancy, so long as he can vaguely relate it to the title -- gay Greek poems that might have been taught in boarding schools, for example; lives of famous gay men who didn't attend boarding school but lived during the time where it was common, etc. There's a lengthy section on Lawrence of Arabia.
Scout's Honor -- fairly comprehensive nonfiction book about Scout leaders who molested the Scouts in their care, with particular focus on Carl Bittenbinder. Bittenbinder cooperated with the writer over several years, so that's part of the reason for the focus. The other part is I assume that, at the time this scandal broke, Bittenbinder was the exact opposite of society's stereotype for a pedophile -- Navy veteran, young and handsome, outgoing, loved and respected, active, good with kids, straight. I think by now most people understand that that IS the stereotype, not the outlier. Overall very good book. Boyle interviews both abusers and victims, and is generally very humanitarian. I was a little disappointed on one count, though. I bought this book specifically because I saw that it addresses a scandal in Louisiana which I was interested in -- I wanted to figure out if this scandal actually happened, if any of it was true, because to me it had the hallmarks of a Satanic Panic incident. This was the only book I could find addressing the scandal, and as I read, I thought, "OK, cool, this guy's done the research, I can consider this a good source." Then, later in the book, Boyle references three famous Satanic Panic incidents, but acts as if they were real. He doesn't mention anything about them being witch hunts, or being discredited. So...
Scout Camp -- my friend Lilly read this book earlier this year and didn't like it, but I can't remember why (she hasn't answered my most recent text asking about it yet). I loved it. It's a memoir by a man who attended the Seven Ranges Boy Scout camp in Ohio as a child and returned as a counselor at age 17. That year, there were multiple incidents at camp. An adult counselor attempted to rape a teenage counselor, then killed himself when he got caught; another adult counselor raped one boy, molested others, and eventually ... I don't know if I should say he "molested" the author or if the author prefers a different term, because there was no touching involved, but it was certainly sexual, inappropriate, and traumatic. A lot of the book revolves around a strange secret society at the camp called Pipestone, the rituals of which involve physical violence, nudity, and very inappropriate adult/child conversations. Large portions of the memoir detail the author's realization of his trauma as an adult, his trouble with the law, reconnecting with boys he knew at camp who were also abused, and his journey to cure PTSD with psychedelics -- those portions might not be interesting to some readers, but I enjoyed them.
Film Diary:
Aug. 7: Final Destination: Bloodlines
Aug. 8: American Psycho
Aug 9: Paranorman (rewatch)
Aug 9: The Crucible
Aug 10: The Parent Trap
Aug 14: Twin Peaks
Aug 14: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (rewatch)
Aug 16: Twin Peaks: The Return
Aug 23: The Monkey 2025
I liked all of the movies listed above, and ofc Twin Peaks. The reason Fire Walk with Me is listed as a rewatch but the series is not is because I watched the movie 10+ years ago because David Bowie was in it. I did try to watch Twin Peaks first, but couldn't get into at the time; I rewatched Ep1 last year and loved it, but found it too exhausting to pay attention to more than one episode per day, so I resolved to watch one a week, and promptly forgot about it. This month I turned it on for background noise and before I knew it, I was sucked in and obsessed -- watched the entire series in, like, 4 days, and have already rewatched several episodes, read two books related to the show, and bought a few related albums (Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, The Return soundtrack, and David Bowie's Outside, which is inspired by the show and which of course I've listened to many times before, but without appreciating any of the Twin Peaks connections).
Can you believe I lived through the 90s and early aughts without ever seeing The Parent Trap? We weren't a Disney Channel type of family. I was mostly just renting R-rated horror films as a kid.
-- Fear Street: The Prom Queen by R.L. Stine;
-- Witches' Children by Patricia Clapp;
-- The Sensuous Dirty Old Man by Isaac Asimov;
-- Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost;
-- The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes by Scott Frost;
-- Moral Panics by Erich Goode and Nachmann Ben-Yehuda;
-- The Salem Witch Trials Reader by Frances Hill;
-- Boarding School Homosexuality by Michael Hone;
-- A Very Private School by Charles Spencer;
-- Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution by Patrick Boyle;
-- Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts by James Renner.
Felt like a rather light reading month but I guess in retrospect that's not so! Nothing on the fiction side that required much thought or attention, but plenty of nonfiction books. I reread Prom Queen because Mom and I watched the movie together, and then hopped into a Salem Witch Trials phase (a return from childhood), then into Twin Peaks from there.
Twin Peaks reviews: Both books I read are written by one of the Frost brothers, who wrote for the TV show -- Mark Frost as the main writer, Scott Frost as a guest writer. Weirdly, Scott Frost's book is much, much better. He seems to "get" the vibe of the show better than his brother, somehow; Mark's book, The Final Dossier, is very dry and feels more like an outline than a novel; it also contradicts the show's lore in ways that don't make much sense, such as giving Norma a tragic backstory that fits her poorly and doesn't work well with the episode where we meet her mother. Both brothers make up their own backstories for characters at times, but I found that I really liked Scott's inventions, and felt that they fit perfectly, whereas Mark's inventions seemed lazy and cliche. If anyone's looking for recs, skip The Final Dossier, but definitely read My Life, My Tapes -- it suits Coop to a T, and it's laugh-out-loud funny.
Nonfiction books:
I'll skip Moral Panics and the Salem Witch Trials Reader as I've talked about those before. A Very Private School is a memoir by Princess Di's younger brother (though I didn't know that when I bought it, I was just looking for memoirs about boarding schools). It's well-written and focuses entirely on Charles' elementary school years at Maidwell, an extremely abusive boarding school run and staffed by pedophiles in the 70s. Found it especially valuable for insight into the culture and traditions of upper-class families in the 70s, which helped explain why they sent their kids to boarding school in the first place -- as Charles describes it, there was a socially-enforced distance between parents and their children which encouraged even the most loving parents to largely avoid their kids and to send them off as soon as possible. Basically, parents believed it was good for the kids to be distant from their parents and to be toughened up at boarding school.
Writing it out now that seems obvious -- I think we all know that about British culture. But it's vividly described and brought to life here in a way that makes it seem new.
Boarding School Homosexuality -- I got this book last year from Giovanni's Room in Philly. It's a tongue-in-cheek, breezy read, not actually super informative. More a collection of anything that strikes the author's fancy, so long as he can vaguely relate it to the title -- gay Greek poems that might have been taught in boarding schools, for example; lives of famous gay men who didn't attend boarding school but lived during the time where it was common, etc. There's a lengthy section on Lawrence of Arabia.
Scout's Honor -- fairly comprehensive nonfiction book about Scout leaders who molested the Scouts in their care, with particular focus on Carl Bittenbinder. Bittenbinder cooperated with the writer over several years, so that's part of the reason for the focus. The other part is I assume that, at the time this scandal broke, Bittenbinder was the exact opposite of society's stereotype for a pedophile -- Navy veteran, young and handsome, outgoing, loved and respected, active, good with kids, straight. I think by now most people understand that that IS the stereotype, not the outlier. Overall very good book. Boyle interviews both abusers and victims, and is generally very humanitarian. I was a little disappointed on one count, though. I bought this book specifically because I saw that it addresses a scandal in Louisiana which I was interested in -- I wanted to figure out if this scandal actually happened, if any of it was true, because to me it had the hallmarks of a Satanic Panic incident. This was the only book I could find addressing the scandal, and as I read, I thought, "OK, cool, this guy's done the research, I can consider this a good source." Then, later in the book, Boyle references three famous Satanic Panic incidents, but acts as if they were real. He doesn't mention anything about them being witch hunts, or being discredited. So...
Scout Camp -- my friend Lilly read this book earlier this year and didn't like it, but I can't remember why (she hasn't answered my most recent text asking about it yet). I loved it. It's a memoir by a man who attended the Seven Ranges Boy Scout camp in Ohio as a child and returned as a counselor at age 17. That year, there were multiple incidents at camp. An adult counselor attempted to rape a teenage counselor, then killed himself when he got caught; another adult counselor raped one boy, molested others, and eventually ... I don't know if I should say he "molested" the author or if the author prefers a different term, because there was no touching involved, but it was certainly sexual, inappropriate, and traumatic. A lot of the book revolves around a strange secret society at the camp called Pipestone, the rituals of which involve physical violence, nudity, and very inappropriate adult/child conversations. Large portions of the memoir detail the author's realization of his trauma as an adult, his trouble with the law, reconnecting with boys he knew at camp who were also abused, and his journey to cure PTSD with psychedelics -- those portions might not be interesting to some readers, but I enjoyed them.
Film Diary:
Aug. 7: Final Destination: Bloodlines
Aug. 8: American Psycho
Aug 9: Paranorman (rewatch)
Aug 9: The Crucible
Aug 10: The Parent Trap
Aug 14: Twin Peaks
Aug 14: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (rewatch)
Aug 16: Twin Peaks: The Return
Aug 23: The Monkey 2025
I liked all of the movies listed above, and ofc Twin Peaks. The reason Fire Walk with Me is listed as a rewatch but the series is not is because I watched the movie 10+ years ago because David Bowie was in it. I did try to watch Twin Peaks first, but couldn't get into at the time; I rewatched Ep1 last year and loved it, but found it too exhausting to pay attention to more than one episode per day, so I resolved to watch one a week, and promptly forgot about it. This month I turned it on for background noise and before I knew it, I was sucked in and obsessed -- watched the entire series in, like, 4 days, and have already rewatched several episodes, read two books related to the show, and bought a few related albums (Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, The Return soundtrack, and David Bowie's Outside, which is inspired by the show and which of course I've listened to many times before, but without appreciating any of the Twin Peaks connections).
Can you believe I lived through the 90s and early aughts without ever seeing The Parent Trap? We weren't a Disney Channel type of family. I was mostly just renting R-rated horror films as a kid.
