culture consumed (January, 2026)

[hermionesviolin]

books

• [Jan 6 MPL Rainbow book group] My Brother's Husband v.1 by Gengoroh Tagame; translated from the Japanese by Anne Ishii -- and Volume 2; we were only reading volume 1 for book club, but I'm a completionist (and it reads quickly)
  
  
• [Jan 14 DEI book club -- Muslim American Heritage Month] Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America by Aymann Ismail (2025) -- memoir, son of Egyptian American parents 
  
  
• He Who Drowned the World by Shelly Parker-Chan (2023) -- the sequel to January's FSFBC book
  
  
• (skim-)read assorted children's books from Betsy Bird's "31 Days, 31 Lists"
  highlights this round:
  • Worm Makes a Sandwich written & illustrated by Brianne Farley -- about composting, narrated by a worm, so delightful! [2025 Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)]
  • Families of a Feather: A Celebration of Family Diversity by Fern Wexler, ill. Kelsey Buzzell [2025 Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)] -- the subtitular family diversity includes families with single dads, single moms, two dads, two moms, and (in acorn woodpeckers) polyamory/extended family
  • A Natural History of Bums: The Story of Evolution from Beginning to End written by Crab Museum & illustrated by Inga Ziemele [not from Betsy Bird]
  • I Eat Poop.: A Dung Beetle Story by Mark Pett [I clicked through to the website for the above-mentioned Blueberry Award, and this is from 2021]
  
  
  
• [Jan 25 OOYL book club] A Sharp Endless Need by Mac (Marisa) Crane (2025) -- it's YA -- a 17-year-old protagonist and women's basketball -- but
  
  
• 99% Chance of Magic: Stories of Strength and Hope for Transgender Kids edited by Amy Eleanor Heart & Abbey Darling (2019) -- more specifically, "the world's first literary collection for transgender children, all written & illustrated by trans women and (C)AMAB non-binary creatives"
  [Heartspark Press closed in 2021, so I think you can only get the book on Amazon now --  here's a Trans Family Alliance link. To be clear, I am not recommending you buy it.]
  
  
• [middle-grade] One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (2010) -- three young colored (their word) girls from Brooklyn go to visit their mother in Oakland in the 1960s, meet up with the Black Panthers
  
  
• [Feb 3 Rainbow Book Group] Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (2019); British Nigerian author, 12 main characters -- this book is LONG (like 450 pages), but read surprisingly quickly

I guess the only culture I consumed this month was books?

***

Currently Reading:

Um?

I'm intermittently making my way through Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan for Rewilding Every City on Earth by Steve Mushin (2025) -- from Betsy Bird's 31 Days, 31 Lists: 2025 Gross Books for Kids

I am also intermittently reading Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies by Andrea Ritchie (2023) -- which is due back at the library tomorrow, and I probably won't try to get it again any time soon.

Reading Next:

I have some trans anthologies on my TBR pile, inspired by being not taken with 99% Chance of Magic, but unclear if I'll actually read them -- or the other library books I have out.

I still have picturebooks to read -- and am also trying to find books to gift Nibling M for her 10th(!) birthday this June.

So, as usual, let's list book club books.

[DEI book club -- Black History Month] March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell -- 3-volume graphic novel memoir (2013, 128pgs and 2015, 192pgs and 2016, 256 pages)

3 of the 6 nominated books I had already read (the Toni Morrison and the Octavia Butler); I was glad the winning titled ended up being something I hadn't read.

nominated by me:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016, 305 pages) -- historical fiction, Ghana and the USA

nominated by AD:

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019, 224 pages) -- historical fiction/literary fiction, US reform schools

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987, 324 pages) -- historical fiction, US reconstruction era

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler (1993, 299 pages) -- speculative fiction, climate change, post apocalyptic

nominated by R:

Kindred by Octavia E Butler (1979, 288pgs) -- historical fiction, science fiction, time travel

March: Book One and Book Two and Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (2013, 128pgs and 2015, 192pgs and 2016, 256 pages) -- graphic novel, nonfiction, memoir [R listed the first 2 volumes and I asked if that was intentional or if he just hadn't realized it was a 3-volume series, and it was the latter]

[Feb 22 OOYL book club] Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes by Christine Yu (2023) -- I have yet to actually finish reading a nonfiction book for OOYL book club, so my expectations for myself about this are low

[Feb 22 FSFBC book club] The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa (Kuwaiti author, translated into English from Arabic; 2024, 272 pages) 

Comments

[lunabee34]

So much reading! Yay!