November Updates

Hi everyone!

I hope you're all well and are planning to get some rest over the festive season. My month has sped by -- I've unfortunately been on-and-off ill for most of it, and my personal life has been busy. Video progress has been minimal, but I do have a bit of time off over Xmas so am hoping to put it to good use. I really want to get the video done by the end of the year (maybe my latest video ever? lol).

Otherwise, though, I've been reading quite a bit (in hopes of making my modest end-of-year goal of 13 books -- almost there!).

I read:

Phillip Larkin's Collected Poems -- I love some of his poetry but was a bit underwhelmed by the collection and also unfortunate tones of sexism.

A Simple Intervention by Yael Inokai, a short Swiss German novel about a nurse who supports the delivery of surgical psychiatric interventions to troubled women. I wasn't sure what to think of this one -- it's an interesting concept, but this feels secondary to the portrayal of the protagonist's own emotional state which I was varyingly engaged in. I did enjoy some passages.

How a Game Lives, the annotated essays of Jacob Geller -- Jacob Geller is my favourite video essayist, YouTuber, generally one of my favourite writers and a huge inspiration. This is a huge, beautiful book from Lost in Cult, but I daresay I'm not sure it met my expectations (and the price tag was hefty). Jacob's essays are, it goes without saying, stellar, and I don't think they suffer much for being removed from their original medium. The books primary new offerings are its art, its annotations and essays *on* each essay by writers chosen by Jacob. The art is great and the book is a wonderful display piece, but I didn't find most of the new essays phenomenally insightful or enjoyable, nor Jacob's annotations -- he's a great writer, and so naturally, the essays need no supplement. I saw a Goodreads review refer to the annotations as asides that didn't make the final cut, and I unfortunately agree. I do think there was an interesting opportunity here to delve more into the origin stories of and general reflections on the essays, but as is, the short asides didn't really offer much and it sometimes felt like Jacob himself was struggling for things to say. I've been interested in Lost in Cult's products for a while and have also pre-ordered their deluxe VA-11 HALL-A book, so will be interested to see how this compares.

Finally, I read Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. This one has been sitting on my shelf for years -- shame, as it's tiny. This was a great piece of academic writing, not at all pretentious or difficult to understand. Particularly with the book being about the American prison system and its links to slavery, I learnt a lot. Prison abolition is an ever-contentious subject that I'm still delineating my own thoughts on after studying and working in criminal justice contexts, and the book unfortunately weakens itself for not delving further into alternatives or more directly addressing the sometimes very legitimate fears and concerns that swirl around the debate. I feel there was particular scope for this with Davis' particular interest in feminist analysis, but I still think this book packs a mighty punch for its age and length.

I also watched the third season of Alice in Borderland. I have an absolute love-hate relationship with this show. I'm at this point quite invested in the cast and find it hugely entertaining to watch, but also constantly question the writing decisions. I feel like it consistently misses its potential. Even so, I really enjoyed the experience of watching this series, and was particularly impressed by the caliber of the visual effects, cinematic presentation, set design, fight choreography, stunt execution and more. I have the full intention of reading the manga (which I know the show diverges from) and perhaps even talking about it one day.

I also want to shout out Bowl of Lentils' amazingly researched video on the history of sound novels, Dani from Lines in Motion's video on autism and ADHD representation in the manga Spacewalking With You and i am a dot.'s video on Ace Attorney.

Speak soon!