Week of May 5th, 2025

Well! It’s been a busy week for me, since I was wrapping up my finals, but I’ve managed to do a little fun reading in there.

What I’m Reading for Fun

Nothing finished this week! I was not kidding about being busy. I’ve gotten to read a little more of Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits, which has been great, Felicia Davin’s The Scandelous Letters of V and J, which has been great, and E. L. Deards’ The Lavender Blade (thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!), which has been mediocre at best. Ah well, you can’t win them all.

ARC Count - 25 (1 in progress)

Fortunately there are some novellas in my NetGalley account hitting their download limits soon, so this should go down, assuming that I do not get approved for more of my requests.

What I’m Reading for School

Man, what haven’t I been reading for school? Earlier this week, it was a lot of scholarship on the pastoral in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and on women in Philip Massinger’s The Renegado. The Renegado can best be described as a lengthy tragicomic screed highlighting every European insecurity regarding the Ottoman Empire’s success. It is a fascinating play, and no one should ever perform it. I wish I could say it’s the most racist and Islamophobic early modern play I’ve ever read, but I have unfortunately read Robert Daborne’s A Christian Turn’d Turk, which is much worse in every regard.

I’ve now turned to research for my dissertation, which I recently discovered will involved Colby Gordon’s Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature. I’ve been meaning to read this book since before it was published, and I’m very glad to have an excuse to do so now. A 25-work annotated bibliography is due next week, so I’ve got a lot to do in between now and then! Will trade my firstborn for access to Springer+.

What’s on My Radar

Every day I open my NetGalley account to see if I have gotten approved or denied for S. T. Gibson’s Ascension, the second in her series about a Boston polycule and their magical adventures. I’m debating doing a spell, if I can find my copy of the Greek Magical Papyri. It seems topical for the book. ΑΑΑ ΕΕΕ ΙΙΙ ΥΥΥ ΩΩΩ or whatever.

STUNNING cover too

Random: Greatest of All Time

I reckon I’ll be a little boring and start out this section with my favorite books:

Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

My IRLs know this one already. The Locked Tomb is easily my favorite book series, and the second book in the series is my favorite of the series. Muir is one of the most talented writers in speculative fiction, and it shows in every aspect of this book, from the characters, to the prose, to the plot, to the insertion of mid-2010s tumblr memes. I listen to the audiobook to go to bed each night (which is DEEPLY deranged), and I have yet to get bored with it because of how much the text rewards rereading. It’s difficult to get too into the plot of this book, because the premise massively spoils the first book in the series, Gideon the Ninth. What I can say is that it’s a book about grief, a book about things changing so completely that you can’t ever go back to how things were before, and how you live with that. As a twenty-something, it rings very true. There’s also evil soup in it. Please read The Locked Tomb guys, you won’t regret it.

Doctor Faustus, A Text - Christopher Marlowe

This play frankly changed my life. They really gave this to a college freshman with a complex relationship with the concept of sin and expected him to be normal. This play is a great introduction to early modern drama, because it’s got everything: wordplay, just absolute bangers of monologue, homoerotic subtext, comedy that still plays pretty well, the ever-present fear of Christian hell, and stupid theatrical bullshit. There are two textual traditions, the A and B texts. Realistically the reason I like the A text more is because that’s the one I read first, but in my soul it’s because I know the A text is better.

Richard II - William Shakespeare

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to put this or Doctor Faustus on, so I decided to just put them both on, because it’s my Substack and I get to choose what I subject you all to. In my mind, this is hands-down Shakespeare’s greatest play. It’s either the only or one of few to be written entirely in verse, and it’s just stunning. Remember what I said about banger monologues in Doctor Faustus? Multiple it by like 10, and that’s how good the Richard II monologues are. And it’s even a compelling story about power, kingship, and the meaning of divine right. Coincidentally, this is one of the plays I’m covering in my dissertation. Funny, that.

Book News

Mira Grant’s Overgrowth was released earlier this week! I was lucky enough to receive an ARC for this book (thank you NetGalley). If you’re in the mood for an alien invasion story with an engaging protagonist and a sprinkling of body horror, I definitely recommend it. Read my full review here!

They’re making tranfemme The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s called This Wretched Beauty, and it’s written by Elle Grenier. I don’t even really read YA anymore, but I will be right there come February 17th, 2026.

I have eagerly been following the news of the A Million Lives book festival flop. I first heard about it from Booktuber “Book Lover Laura”, and I highly recommend her video about the event. Remember kids, there is always someone fucking up/being a scammer harder than you are.

End Poem

I’ll begin with one of my favorites: “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron. Fun fact: I sang a setting of this poem in a big choir event when I was in eighth or ninth grade and did have a gay crisis to the piece because the director told us to imagine someone when we sang it, and I thought about this beautiful girl in the alto section with whom I had approximately one conversation. Alto girl, I hope you’re doing great. Listen to a recording here.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

That’s all from me this week! Stay safe, and don’t forget that there is good in the world and good in people. I’ll see you next week.