par |

January 2025 in review / Récap de janvier 2025

January 2025 includes a big win, which is that since Zuckerberg’s a little shit and US big tech is somehow worse than before, I’ve managed to onboard three people I care about very much to Signal.

It also comes with less-enthusiastic news about my knee, as in, no news. It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s just painful. At least, I’m getting an MRI next week. Finally.

Also, I was overwhelmed all month so I still have a bunch of « best of 2024 » posts to write and/or publish, the exception being my reading recap of 2024.

What I’ve read / Texte

📚 Books / Livres

I didn’t read as much as I normally do this month, and this for two main reasons: I played a lot of Stardew Valley, and I put purposeful roadblocks on tracking. This year, there is no reading goal to achieve, and I’m not logging my progress every day like I’ve been doing for a decade (!!). This time, I’m only logging when I start and finish books.

In the past couple of years, reading a lot has become an attempt to « beat my record » and improve my performance. Reading isn’t a job, or at least, it’s not mine − I was here to have fun and learn things and relax, and reading hasn’t done that for me recently. So I want to start reading for pleasure again, even if that means I’ll very likely not get to the 200 book bar this year!

(Another reason is that I’m currently stuck on three massive books. For one, I listen to a 2-hour podcast analyzing each chapter, so there are a few days between each chapter. For another, I’m reading in sync with someone else. The third is just… not that good.)

In English

  • Fiction
    • I had started doing my Stephen King chronological readthrough in French, but the translation for the earlier books is absolutely horrendous, so I switched to English mid-way through Dead Zone. After that, I was delighted to read my favorite King of all, a Bachman book in fact: The Long Walk. Then, I started slogging through Night shift (I just don’t like it that much!). I’ll finish off next month (most likely) with Rage and get ready to face the 1980s.
    • Kate Foster’s The Maiden is a sad tale of being a woman in 17th century England, being in love, not being in love at all, and not having words to understand asexuality.
    • Nita Tyndall brings us into a powerful mystery thriller with Have you seen this girl. As girls start disappearing in a small town where everyone knows each other, Sid knows exactly what’s going on: the murders are identical to the ones committed by their own father a decade ago. They need to stop the murders, clean their own name, and figure out how to not fall in love with the new girl in town in the process.
  • Non-fiction
    • Barbara Ehrenreich begins Natural causes: an epicemic of wellness, the certainty of dying, and killing ourselves to live longer with the very simple fact that « I’m old enough that when I die, people will assume it’s of natural causes; and I’m done going through medical procedures trying to stop nature ». It was a very interesting point of view which resonated often with what I feel.

En français

  • Fiction
    • Série du Disque-Monde : Au guet !, Eric, Les Zinzins d’Olive-Oued (de loin le moins bon tome à ce stade).
    • Je triche, parce que je l’avais déjà lu en anglais, mais As de pique de Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé est absolument excellent (ça, je savais déjà), et très bien traduit (ce qui n’est jamais garanti avec cette maison d’édition). Si vous ne l’avez pas encore lu, jetez-vous dessus.
    • Sur recommandation de Sara, Alamut, de Vladimir Bartol. C’était une lecture fascinante, que je recommande !
  • Non-fiction
    • La série d’essais Vers une vie simple d’Edward Carpenter m’a beaucoup inspiré.

📰 Web links / Liens web

In English

En français

Les pourboires sont désormais taxés en France, c’est reparti pour les payer en liquide si vous aviez pris l’habitude de la carte bleue.

Sur Les Jours:

Sur Libération :

Dans Le Monde :

What I’ve watched / Vidéo

🎞 Movies / Films

  • Watched Whip It (2009) with the roller derby club. It didn’t age very well (outside of the obvious issue of the lead actor playing a girl).
  • Inspired by Ben, watched The sound of music (1965), which was so much more enjoyable than I expected. Although my mom taught me Do Ré Mi as a kid in French and hearing it in English was extremely weird.
  • Finally, watched The lives of others (2006), which, again, I didn’t expect to like so much. It was probably not the right choice since on that night I didn’t feel great and thought I’d watch a movie to get my mood up, but it was very good (although not historically accurate).

📺 TV Shows / Séries

M. and I finished The Good Place (a re-watch for me) and started Abbott Elementary season 4. When we’ll be up-to-date, we’ll move on to Severance season 2!

As for me, I’m still watching The Sopranos − almost midway through season 3 now. One episode that only cared about shock value got me off the show for a couple of weeks, but I’m back.

📷 Online video / Vidéos en ligne

What I’ve listened to / Audio

🎤 Podcasts

In English

En français

🎹 Music

My CD of choice recently is a S|Chostakovitch compilation.

What I’ve played / Jeux

I have played too much Stardew Valley.

I also played all the way through Stimulation Clicker, which was… an experience. (Thankfully I had sound off.)

Let me know in comments if you actually read these, and what you click − I feel like I’m dumping links with low context. Maybe a more visual layout would help? Maybe I could embed YouTube videos and podcast players directly into the page? What do you click on, and what do you not click?

❤️

Commentaire / Comment

Commenter