I spent a week of holidays in Southwest France, at my uncle’s place. He lives off-grid. Going to fetch water at the village every morning, not having electricity and therefore keeping my phone off, and spending our mornings at the closest city’s swimming pool made for a lot of physical activity and psychological healing. It was really wonderful and exactly what I needed to reset my mind after a tough few months. I hope the mood boost will remain!
What I’ve read / Texte
📚 Books / Livres
In English
The Lambda Literary awards shortlist has been published, so my reading is directly influenced by them and will probably still be for a few more months!
- Fiction
- Markless by C.G. Malburi is excellent fantasy that I wish was fantasy and not romantasy − this world is so interesting, the focus on the (very well-written) relationship(s) of a few key characters is almost disappointing. (Lambda Literary Award shortlist for Speculative Fiction)
- I read Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays (Lambda Literary Award shortlist for Speculative Fiction) without much previous exposure to Chuck Tingle beyond the memes, and it was actually really good.
- I Want You More by Swan Huntley is presented as a thriller. It’s more like anxiety-inducing literary fiction. It vaguely reminds me of Biography of X with its controlling, unhealthy love interest and weak-willed narrator.
- Eliza Clark’s Penance is presented as non-fiction written by a shady journalist who writes about true crime. It’s really good and deconstructs a few true crime tropes really well. (I think I enjoyed it particularly because I feel really icky about true crime, while being irresistibly attracted to the genre. Fake true crime is where it’s at. Watch me discover the idea of thrillers soon.)
- Make Room for Love really should be a Lambda Literary nominee for sapphic romance, but somehow it’s not. It has wonderful, lovable characters who actually communicate when they have an issue, which is pretty incredible.
- Sorry but I still have two!!!! This list goes on forever, but what can I say, I just had a month of only reading enjoyable books! A Shore Thing has a trans guy taking a cis woman on a cycling competition in Victorian England, and it’s charming and great. 10/10, well done Joanna Lowell.
- Finally, I read The Rivals without realizing it was tome 2 of a mystery series. It’s very good as a standalone and written by Jane Pek; I’ll make sure to read tome 1 at some point. It’s a mix of classic « private eye learns their client has been murdered » and « wow, dating platforms are weird », and it’s brilliant.
En français
- Fiction
- J’ai trouvé Sous les vents de Neptune de Fred Vargas dans une boîte à livres près de Prades, c’était un Vargas que j’ai pas encore lu, évidemment il me l’a fallu. C’était pas mal.
- Non-fiction
- Au-delà du mur : histoire de la RDA de Katja Hoyer donne un aperçu de la vie et des politiques en RDA sans la présenter comme une parenthèse dans l’histoire d’un pays qui serait revenu à la normale avec sa fusion dans l’Allemagne de l’Ouest.
- J’ai obtenu L’histoire d’un garçon comme les autres: Sur le chemin d’une nouvelle masculinité de Marie Baillard dans un panier surprise de la bibliothèque municipale. C’est un roman graphique (?) avec beaucoup de ressources, surtout sur le féminisme, ça se lit bien, c’est sympa pour un public d’ados et jeunes adultes surtout, et bonus, ça se passe à Grenoble.
📰 Web links / Liens web
In English
- On The Pudding:
- How are animals gendered in kids books? Not only is this super interesting, the differences between languages were also explored!
- How to dice an onion the mathematically optimal way? Will I do it? Probably not. But it’s good to know.
- Coming back to my previous comment on there being a great fantasy book that ended up being romantasy, added to the devastation of 20-year-old Alex when the dystopian young adult novel craze started to fade, I could only enjoy reading Tracy Durnell’s What’s up with sci-fi publishing?
- At The New Yorker (may or may not be paywalled), we’re making the case against travel. As a frequent traveller: yeah, true.
- My private parts hurt when I go cycling and sometimes I feel like I don’t want to go just because I’m anticipating the pain. Turns out, Bicycling Magazine tells us cycling’s silent epidemic is a real thing to the point where top-level cyclists often need vaginoplasties, and yes, I probably should stop using my dad’s old saddle.
- Nat Stevenson made the cutest comic to celebrate his partner’s transmasculinity.
En français
- Encore un post sur la lutte contre le monopole des big tech, avec les nouvelles formes des communs numériques, par Sébastien Broca chez Basta
- Qui, mais qui a commandé du PQ 3 feuilles ? Vous le savez, j’aime beaucoup la newsletter CDLT qui parle de rapport (et de souffrance) au travail. Sa série de l’été parle de thèmes graves avec un ton très, très léger, c’est rigolo, c’est top.
- Chez L’Équipe, on vous parle des gens qui courent nus. Non, non, calmez-vous : « nus », ça veut juste dire sans montre connectée et écouteurs. Quelle époque.
- Merci à Scott Allen Wilson pour ses 30 000 pas à Grenoble (et ses deux articles précédents), qui m’ont réchauffé le cœur et rempli d’encore plus d’amour pour ma ville si c’était possible.
- Chez Streetpress, un long format sur les espoirs et les rêves de la jeunesse enclavée du Haut-Jura.
- 🔏 Les Jours expliquent la résistance de la Haute Autorité de Santé contre les lobbys antitrans, ses enjeux, et pourquoi c’est compliqué.
In italiano
- Il Post ha scritto sul calo del turismo LGBTQ+ in Italia. C’è anche una bella parte di racconti storici sul turismo gay in Italia. Le ragioni della decrescita: l’Italia non è tanto inclusiva dei suoi paesi vicini, ma anche, il mondo è più inclusivo et le persone LGBTQ+ non hanno più bisogno di luoghi di vacanze specializzati.
What I’ve watched / Vidéo
📺 TV Shows / Séries
🔏 After going from Norway to Morocco by train, the DownieLive boys are going from Portugal to what I assume will be Turkey in their « Europe to Asia by train » season. It’s very nice.
🏅 Sports
Welcome, new section! Here are some sports I watched last month:
- Modern pentathlon world championships. Still my fave Summer Olympics discipline.
- Old roller derby games, because it’s nice to watch (and because I’ll be back on my skates in just a few days, which scares me a bit).
- A Monster Truck competition. I will happily refrain from having children to redistribute some of my lifetime gas emissions to keeping this great craíc going.
- There’s nothing quite like having the Tour de France femmes in the background when you’re working. Also, love when Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt wins stuff.
- Following the women’s rugby world cup with some attention.
- Following the women’s volleyball world championships with not a lot of attention, but I wish them the best!
- Watched that one France-Greece game of basketball and realized that I just can’t make myself enjoy basketball games, which is a shame because I love the idea of being the kind of person who enjoys watching basketball. Does that make sense?
The winter sports season is slowly coming back, and I’ve watched pieces of the Canadian short-track olympic trials while waiting for the world cup season to begin in October!
What I’ve listened to / Audio
🎤 Podcasts
I only include links if the podcast has bothered to have a website. All episodes are available for free on your favourite podcast app / web reader. 🔏 are Patreon episodes: send me a message and I’ll send you the file.
In English
- On You’re Wrong About:
- 🔏 The Gay Agenda with Chelsey Weber-Smith
- The Insanity Defense with Mackenzie Joy Brennan
- Recently started following 60 songs that explain the 90s and particularly enjoyed:
- Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know
- Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas is You
- If Books Could Kill once again released a banger with their analysis of He’s Just Not That Into You, a book that should be a sentence.
- Srsly Wrong wondered: Does parenting make you more conservative?
En français
- Chez l’excellent Torchon :
- On s’amuse avec SAS Terreur à San Salvador de Gérard de Villiers
- On réfléchit à comment transmettre la mémoire d’événements terribles avec Le Tatoueur d’Auschwitz de Heather Morris
- Block Party nous a parlé de coaching et d’auto-coaching
What I’ve played / Jeux
Tunneled into playing Hades quite a bit this past month before going on holidays; when my brain was healed, I stopped spending hours on a repetitive (and great) game, as I usually do.
Played It Takes Two with M. It’s a charming coop game, perfect for evenings at home with your partner. (It does explore the theme of divorce and making your child sad, so maybe only play it if the relationship is going well?)
Where I’ve been / Lieux
I have been to many places this month! First of all, went near Prades in Southwest France to spend time with my family and relax away from screens, as I said in the intro.
J’ai aussi visité plusieurs lieux à Grenoble :
- La piscine Jean Bron, qui ressemble à une prison de l’extérieur mais qui est en fait super agréable et jolie, et même pas bondée quand on y va le matin ! Incroyable !
- Le restaurant Tchoutchoura qui sert des spécialités bulgares, avec un gérant tout à fait adorable et des plats délicieux.
- Le restaurant indien Indikitchen, classique et très très bon.
Et avec M., on a fini le mois en fêtant le début de la saison de hockey sur glace : on est allés voir Grenoble-Zoug en ligue des champions, c’était laborieux mais ça a fait plaisir d’être de retour à la patinoire.