Over the course of the last year, I read a bunch of stuff that was adjacent to our assigned reading for Humanities 110 book group. Some fiction, some non-fiction:

Eric Shanower, Age of Bronze
- Vol. 1: A Thousand Ships (2001)
- Vol. 2: Sacrifice (2004)
- Vol. 3, Parts 1 and 2: Betrayal (2008, 2013)

Epic graphic novel series aiming to tell the complete and coherent story of the Trojan War, weaving together sources from Homer to Shakespeare, as well as contemporary archaeological research.

( an epic project )


Michelle Ruiz Keil, Summer in the City of Roses (2021)

A very loose retelling of the Iphigenia story set in 1990s Portland. With respect to "loose retelling", I spent most of the book mildly confused as to whether this Iphigenia and Orestes were meant to be those Iphigenia and Orestes. HOWEVER. I didn't really care about that, because I absolutely adored this portrait of 1990s Portland, and particularly of the feminist counterculture scene in and around SE Division and Hawthorne. (Remember when SE Division was working class and lesbian? I do.) Yes, those were the books we were reading that year, and yes, that was when Cinemagic played nothing but The Secret of Roan Inish for, like, a year. (Was it a money laundering scheme? grrlpup and I were never sure.) Our protagonist, Iphigenia, is five-to-ten years younger than we were (she in her last year of high school, us fresh out of college), but I remember that scene vividly. I only caught one anachronism: during the 1990s that wasn't the "Portland" sign yet; it was either still the White Stag sign, or (during the closing years of the decade), the Made in Oregon sign.

As a love letter to a particular time and place and social scene, it was amazing. Re the Iphigenia retelling, the heavy slide into magical realism at the end didn't really work for me, mostly in that it seemed to take narrative agency out of the hands of the characters. And for some reason

(spoiler)

it's Orestes who gets sacrificed and turned into a deer? Because, um, feminism, I guess? Hm.

But whatever, that wasn't what I was here for. Loved the characters, loved the setting, loved their adventures, I hardly cared that it didn't stick the landing.


Charles Freeman, Egypt, Greece, & Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, 3rd ed. (1st ed 1996, 3rd ed 2014)

Veritable doorstop of a book at 700+ pages. I read the first half, at 360 pages: Egpyt and Greece, which also includes chapters about ancient Mesopotamia and the rest of the fertile crescent before we begin in on Egypt. In fact, this book almost perfectly mapped to our progress through the first year of our Hum 100 book group: every month we'd be assigned new primary sources in bookgroup, and every month I'd read the next two-to-three chapters in here to get the historical context.

Engaging and clear high-level overview of what we know about these societies, built from a combination of the literary and archaeological records. Some chapters are about the rise and fall of empires; other chapters are about the cultural goings-ons within and between those empires. There is a generous supply of maps, plus two sections of full-color plates of art. Plus lots and lots of in-text pointers to more in-depth discussions of this or that topic, should you want to dive deeper about anything. I know there's a ton of detail that didn't make it into this volume, but if you want an accessible high-level overview of these societies, their major figures, and what we know about what they did and made, this is superb. I enjoyed it immensely, and the only reason I didn't finish it is I lost my library access to it. (And also I just don't have the bandwidth to spend the next year reading about the Romans in depth on my own while simultaneously reading about Mesoamerica in book group.)

*sorrowfully removes my seven bookmarks so I can return it to the library*


John R. Hale, Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy (2009)

So, at some point along the way my Hum 110 bookgroup figured out that I was a maritime nerd (shocking, I know!), and decided that made me the in-group expert on triremes. (Spoiler: I knew jack shit about triremes.) But hey, classical Athens had a maritime empire, and its navy (and the sea battles it fought) was super-important in both Herodotus and Thucydides, and I'm game: I said I'd see what I could find out.

Lords of the Sea pulls from multiple sources to build a coherent and continuous history of the Athenian navy from Themistocles and his first advocacy for a navy (ca. 494 BCE), through Athens' defeat in the Lamian War and the death of Demosthenes (322 BCE, post-Alexander the Great). Includes diagrams and maps of the ships, the campaigns, and the battles, plus useful additional context for things that Herodotus, Thucydides, et al. did not feel a need to explain because they would have been obvious to Athenian audiences.

( maritime nerdery )


Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (2011)

Explicitly queer novelization of the Achilles-and-Patroclus story. This was wildly popular (and apparently still is -- even though it's over a decade old, at my local library there are perpetually 80-100 holds on the hardcopy and 100+ holds on the ebook).

Reader, I hated it.

( woobify those gays! )

I might've waited longer to make a post, but I just finished The Listerdale Mystery, which is a collection of twelve short stories, and I had such a fun time I had to post ASAP! It's different from the previous short story collections I've read in that only one is a proper murder mystery, while the rest are murder without the mystery, murder adjacent, or do not come anywhere near murder at all! (Look at me being so excited, when it may turn out Christie has plenty of these.)

Some of the stories were centered on a twist that, by virtue of being a short story, made the twist far more important to the story itself, like anthology episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Twilight Zone (in terms of story structure, but with mundane concepts instead of fantastical). By the time I got to story ten there were some tropey repeats, especially featuring a man being pulled into an adventure by mysterious girl, but overall it's a fun mix and I really enjoyed myself.

Only caveat I would say that classism is particularly strong throughout in terms of justification for certain characters' successes or assumptions being proven right, but sometimes it seems earnest and others it seems ironic. I say that because another repeated topic of the stories is to not believe that people are who they say they are without proof, but the working class characters who get scammed this way tend to be rescued by their honesty, while the upper class characters who get scammed are either able to brush it off or are able to notice just enough truth through the scam to be rewarded by it.

Particular shoutouts to:

• The opening "The Listerdale Mystery", about a widowed mother who finds a house for rent that seems to good to be true; the story is, if you think about it for two seconds, a ridiculous concept, but it's a particular kind of romantic id that you'd be well used to if familiar with Bollywood films and I found it kinda charming for that;


• "Philomel Cottage", the most Alfred Hitchcock Presents of the bunch, with a recently-married woman realizing that her new husband might be planning to murder her;


• "Accident", where a retired inspector suspects that a neighbour is a twice-murderess who is going to kill her current husband and wants to try to prevent it, ( spoilers )

Besides that, I've also read two more Christie short story collections, both of which are Poirot collections and thus more traditional mysteries: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and Murder in the Mews. The best thing about short Poirot stories is that Poirot can show up at a scene of the crime, take one turn of it and solve the mystery immediately. Which is neat!

In Christmas Pudding, I did like the one about the elderly estranged twin men, which kind of deceives you into thinking it'll be a switcheroo between the twins but is actually a switcheroo of a different kind. But quite a few (three, I think) stories involve disguises to make the murder appear to have happened differently or at a different time, and it kind of kicked my disbelief a bit too hard, especially the one that hinges on the murderer leaving it to chance that another character won't see the body after the murder.

Murder in the Mews has four short stories, with three being meatier than the fourth, and they’re kind of bound together with the theming of the "crime" isn’t exactly what it looks like. Well, the third one, "Dead Man's Mirror" is way more in line with Christie's precise murders, right down to the layout of the room being key to what's happened, but all of them are in the same realm. The only qualm I'd have is with the last one, "Triangle at Rhodes" which is the shortest of the lot and the assumptions are a bit of a stretch for me, in terms of what Poirot observes of the relationships that's happening vs. what we the reader are shown of those same relationships.

A friend and I had a loose resolution to check out more non-pop orchestral performances next year (since the ones we've gone to so far have all been for pop culture music, eg. movie and video game soundtracks), so she shared the 2026 season for the Malaysian Philharmonic and I thought maybe I'd check out their upcoming Mozart concert which is in conjunction with his 270th birthday.

Coincidentally, or maybe not because of said birthday, there's a new adaptation of Amadeus! Looks like a miniseries instead of a movie, but still, excitedly hopeful!

I must've gotten Mara Wilson's memoir Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame during one of my trips to UK, because it has a price tag in pounds, but heck if I can remember when. What I do remember is that I put the book at the back of the drawer because I was annoyed and/or upset at her for something she'd said online. I no longer remember what it was! So I suppose it's time to be reading.

There is a feeling at the start that Wilson was way too young to be writing a memoir, but upon reading it it does make sense, because the bulk is about her time as a child actress and the fallout of that into the neuroses of teenhood and young adulthood. And going through that same thing we all do, where in growing up we become conscious of certain kinds of privilege we don't have and having to reckon with that, except Wilson's realization of the importance of looking traditionally pretty isn't just about trying to fit in and get friends, but also to get acting work. (Ow.) She namechecks as specific examples her peers Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson who beat her to roles and did get to make the transition to acting adults, and her raw frustration that this was not something she could balance out with talent.

Tangled up in that is the intense celebrity-adjacent subculture of growing up in Burbank, California surrounded by peers who want to "make it" into the business and thus have feelings about those who do when they do not. Mean girl culture in a greater Hollywood setting, baby! (Ooofff.) This is probably the most fascinating section of the book to me, of how that world warps the expectations of children and teenagers who feel they're in the pipeline to showbiz greatness. Also, by her reckoning, there's lore than the Californian school subculture of show choirs that she participated in was what inspired Ryan Murphy to make Glee, though that may be more guesswork than cold hard facts.

Wilson specifically lived through some rough times (including the early death of her mother), but she got out of showbiz with relatively less trauma than other child actors, but it's still only other child actors who could understand what it was like to grow up in that environment and have so much of your personality and looks dissected by people who don't know you. Also, to have creepers think it's fun to ask a child questions about mature topics they haven't yet grappled with. Toxic and sadly familiar.

+ Interview With The Vampire had me nervous about the shift in setting and tone, but the season 3 trailer has me extremely hyped! I only watched it once as I want to avoid soaking up too many details up front, but toe-curling excitement!!

+ Finished Alien Earth and enjoyed it for the most part. They did the alien dirty though. And that ending sure cheated me out of a bit of satisfaction; Somebody owes me a horrid death scene.

Got screengrabs from the pilot up on capshare this morning.

+ They announced a new Rey and Leia book at NYCC, by Madeleine Roux. Please please please be good 🙏

+ I'm hopefully getting my Covid booster sometime next week, and I also talked my mom into getting it. Now to get to work on my friend group 💪 Maybe shoot them this article. Light and easy read, but very clear on the benefits of keeping the boosters going.

The new research also “calls into question the idea that younger individuals and those without risk factors don’t need the vaccine,” Viswanathan says. Instead the data show that, while the shot is most effective for older individuals and those with comorbidities, “it was also protective in those without risk factors,” she says.

Additionally, Viswanathan says that the study design made the evidence “more compelling” because the authors included enough women and younger individuals, which made the results more balanced and provided a fuller picture of vaccine effectiveness for all cohorts.

+ Some good news on that front: Scientists finally reveal bio-markers of long COVID brain fog.

I picked up The Epic of Bidasari (and other tales) during a book fair ages ago in trying to support a local publisher, Silverfish Books, though sadly since then said publisher has gone under, apparently due to business troubles during lockdown. The book is a 2012 republishing of a 1901 publication by The Colonial Press (actual name!) which was a translation work from Malay to English of the older text, though it's unclear if they also did the Malay transcription from the oral form.

I adore the 1964 black-and-white film Bidasari starring Sarimah and Jins Shamsudin. (Shockingly, I can't find an upload of the full film on youtube to share here!) It's because of that I picked up this book, and I really enjoyed reading the full English-translated poem, which makes up the meat of this book, though I do wish I had a Malay original as well because you can just SEE glimpses between the words of what the original was, plus as with all translations the vibes would just be different. Also, the dialogue of the Bidasari film is almost entirely in verse, and I would've loved to see if they'd ported anything over from the poem.

Bidasari is a folktale/fairytale about a princess, Bidasari, who is abandoned as a baby by her royal parents when they (the parents) are chased by a garuda and have to flee into the desert. Bidasari is rescued by a merchant of another kingdom, who prospers as he raises her. Bidasari grows up beautiful and kind and flawless (etc etc) which puts her in the radar of the queen, who is beautiful but not that beautiful, and fears that her husband the king will take Bidasari as his second wife if he sees her. So the queen has Bidasari brought to her and locks her up to abuse in the hopes of ruining her beauty, eventually seemingly killing her, but due to certain magical shenanigans Bidasari isn't dead dead, but only partly dead. Bidasari's body is returned to her merchant father, who puts her in a secret house-tomb in the woods that the king eventually stumbles upon while hunting.

Obviously there's some similarity to Snow White, and the filmmakers of the movie saw that, too, and made the queen a witch of sorts who has a magic mirror that she uses pretty much the same way as the Snow White queen does. But the biggest change, which surprised me, too, is that instead of Bidasari being the queen's stepdaughter, she's the queen's rival for the king's love, and that just makes so much sense! Of course that only works in a folktale setting where polygyny is a thing, and vanity is a good enough sin for these kinds of stories regardless, but the queen's intense, preemptive jealousy just feels more organic this way, which I thought was neat. Like, the queen created her own problems by targeting Bidasari, more or less. (The Bidasari movie has the love interest prince be the evil queen's stepson instead.)

( Cut the rest for length. )

+ All I've done since making it home is sleep, download some stuff, watch the entire season of Wayward, and play undemanding video games. Man have I slept. Would like to lie down right now and sleep some more, but I'm headed back to work for the day (we abruptly left Thursday instead of Friday as planned, so I left behind a wee bit more chaos that I'm comfortable with).

Surprisingly smooth ride on the ferry though, given the weather.

+ Dear Vidder letters for Festivids are cropping up, and they're such a pleasure to read through. Aww fandom ❤️

+ Hunting down the digital singles for Birds of Prey, bc waiting for the trade to drop in six months is just not on the table. More Big Barda and Tiny Bat NOW. And they cancelled it, so I ain't giving them extra money, no sir :p

Now to figure out how to read them in an enjoyable manner.

Oh! And posted some scans to capshare from the second and third trade.

+ Watched the new Fantastic Four. It was cozy! I'm enjoying this new return to more child-friendly superhero movies. Like, I can see letting my nephew watch both this and the new Superman movie with me. I don't need all this dark stuff for grownups; the world is dark enough as is, gimme escapism!