Total: 10 books

— The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami;
— On Tyranny: Graphic Edition. Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder;
— Winter Recipes from the Collective by Louise Glück;
— The Flowers of Buffoonery by Osamu Dazai;
— The Pram by Joe Hill;
— Elder Sex by Marilyn Minter;
— Dear Congress: Voices of American Children Currently Being Abused by Conversion Therapy by Vellah Jones;
— Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix;
— In Bloom by Paul Tremblay;
— Big Bad by Chandler Baker.

October was a month of starting a book, being satisfied with the incomplete version I'd read, and setting it down forever XD Really, I just spent a lot of time writing and obsessing over Con O'Neill, so the fact that I dropped off on reading can be forgiven.

Books I read significant amounts of, but did not finish:

— The Israel-Palestine Conflict, 4th Edition by James L. Gelvin;
— Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet by Taylor Lorenz;
— Right-Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin;
— A Particular Friendship by Dirk Bogarde.

If I had to pick just one singular favorite from the first list, it would be "On Tyranny" -- apologies to Osamu Dazai! "Flowers of Buffoonery" was tailor-made for me, as ever, but "On Tyranny" is one I can whole-heartedly recommend to everyone I meet.

If I had to pick just one from the second list, it would be "Right-Wing Women" by Dworkin, which was insightful and addictive. The least rewarding of those four was "Extremely Online," which is ... really, more like a bland factual history of the Internet's most famous social media sites. Nothing new, insightful, or intriguing there. And the least rewarding of the first list is harder to choose. Obviously the "creature feature" novellas were all pretty bad, but I want to highlight "Dear Congress" -- this was only $2, so I guess it's worth the money, but its worth as a nonfiction resource is dubious. These letters are not really from children suffering from conversion therapy; they are cobbled together from dozens of individual stories and rewritten by an adult, so that nothing in them can be fact-checked or verified. And each short letter is introduced by an egregiously long, woefully bad poem, each one spanning 4-6 pages, while the letters themselves usually only last for 1-2. I'm not sure who wrote the poems but I suspect it's the same adult who rewrote the letters.

The book is also padded out with one-page quotes about child abuse in its different forms. At the same time, it's not NOT worth reading... it's a difficult book to rate.

Total: 22 books

— We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian;
— The Death of Experience: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Thomas M. Nichols;
— Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw;
— The War Prayer by Mark Twain;
— The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins;
— The Trial of Joan of Arc by Daniel Hobbins (translator);
— Star Trek DS9: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson;
— Star Trek DS9: The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack;
— Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer;
— Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman (reread);
— Mister Magic by Kiersten White;
— Transformations by Anne Sexton;
— The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris;
— Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston;
— Kaze to Ki no Uta Vol. 12-17 by Keiko Takemiya;
— My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell;
— Le Poéme du Vent et des Arbres by Keiko Takemiya.

It was a good month for reading!

My favorite nonfiction was "The Trial of Joan of Arc," a complete translation of the transcripts left behind after her death. It's a fascinating read, as an atheist, because I genuinely, immensely admire this kid's personality: frank, to-the-point, smart, defiant, and more than a little snarky. It doesn't fit the pious, Christ-adoring image of Joan that I grew up with; you come away from this with an image of a no-nonsense, rough-and-tumble military commander. But then you're still left to grapple with Joan's non-stop insistence that her orders really do come from God, and the question of why -- maybe a messy tangle of reasons. Assuming first that she's not particularly religious herself, you can imagine that the "voices" came about as a calculated way to give herself authority among men, and that she stuck to it at the very end both out of pride and from a desperate desire to keep herself in male clothes.

My favorite fiction ... I'll snub George Bernard Shaw and say it was "A Stitch in Time" by Andy Robinson XD I know that's a little silly, to bypass a great playwright for a Star Trek novel, but my reasoning is this: "Saint Joan" probably doesn't make anyone's Top 100 list of greatest English plays. But "A Stitch in Time" should be #1 for Star Trek novels, and is even a contender for Top 100 Sci-Fi Novels, imo. I've always said that Diane Duane is the greatest Star Trek tie-in writer, because her books are genuinely good sci-fi, but Robinson managed to craft good sci-fi (not hard sci-fi, like I'd classify Duane) while also pulling off a magnificent character study and steeping his book in queer themes.

( My Dark Vanessa and Kazeki - tw child rape and grooming )

(Despite this, I gave the book 4 stars, and I definitely recommend it; if you're reading this and thinking, "Hey, that sounds mildly interesting!" then I definitely suggest you read it. I too had only a mild interest in it, and very low expectations, but I was super pleased with the book itself.)

Total:
— War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges;
— Doubly Gifted: The Author as Visual Artist by Kathleen G. Hjerter;
— Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfield;
— Lazarus: The Complete Book and Lyrics by David Bowie;
— Yentl the Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer;
— Making Faces, Playing God: Identity and the Art of Transformational Makeup by Thomas Morawetz;
— Thin by Lauren Greenfield;
— Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card;
— The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel;
— T.E. Lawrence: Biography of a Broken Hero by Harold Orlans;
— Mission Child by Maureen McHugh;
— The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov;
— The End of Forgetting: Growing Up With Social Media by Kate Eichhorn.

Books I hope to crack open on vacation:

— Pageboy by Elliot Page;
— Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton;
— Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer;
— Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies;
— The Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder;
— The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune;
— Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn;
— Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy;
— Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler/

I don't see myself reading any tomorrow, so I'll just post this early! It was a very dry month for books.

Total: 3 books

— Gedoku: The Art of Sakiyama;
— A Study in Murder (Dr. John Watson #3) by Robert Ryan;
— Star Trek: Q-Squared by Peter David.

Books I read significant amounts of but didn't finish: 4 books

— Myra Breckenridge by Gore Vidal;
— The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell;
— Star Trek: Spartacus by T.L. Mancour;
— Star Trek: Rock and a Hard Place by Peter David.

No nonfiction this month. Maybe that's why I'm so slow. Usually, when I have these dry spells, I can break them by either reading some comics/manga or by plunging into a good nonfiction book!

Thoughts on these books:

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