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There’s a world where I didn’t read anything in 2021. Usually I keep very detailed records of books I’ve read—and bought—but ever since 2020, it’s been a little shoddy. Somehow, I have no records of reading a book in 2021. Not. A. Single. Book. Someone please surface evidence of me reading something in 2021, please.

Remember back in 2019 when I said “After last year’s debacle of twenty-two books read, I think it’s safe to say that I am no longer a reader.” Well friends, I am now officially no longer a reader. In total, it seems like I only read ten books between 2020-2022. I don’t even know how that’s possible but my guess it was video game related. Or just a simple lack of record keeping. The latter is possible because all ten of the books I jotted down from those years are hits, which seems nigh impossible. Here’s the list:

• A Phoenix First Must Burn, Patrice Caldwell
• Barbarian Days, William Finnegan
• Big Friendship, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman
• Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte
• Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
• The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
• Lurkers, Sandi Tan
• Minor Feelings, Cathy Park Hong
• Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
• Severance, Ling Ma

More on some of these specific books another time but what this showed me was that I need to return to my book tracking ways. (Everything digital I did fell off in 2020—pandemic related maybe, but also wasn’t I just indoors for months and right in front of my computer?) Toward this end, I explored alternatives to Goodreads such as StoryGraph or LibraryThing but decided to just settle back in to the so-so Goodreads experience.

[ Goodreads 2007 - 2024 ]

I updated all my books read since 2019—about sixty give or take—and in the process of exploring non-GR options, found out I could export a CSV of all my entries and get fun stats in spreadsheet form. Overall there’s 450+ books and I wanted to know the longest book I’d read and also the oldest book I’d read by publication date.

I can’t believe Lord of the Rings is the longest book here, but if Goodreads says it’s so, it must be so. There’s no way I would read a 1000+ page now. We read it for our first post-college book club so I’m guessing it was a lot of subway reading. I wonder how many hours of my life a thousand page book is nowadays. Also, I wondered how many books I’d read over the span of my entire life…a thousand? More if I add in childhood and textbooks?

Anyway, the “books by publication” year chart was less interesting than I would’ve thought. It’s got the usual suspects with only one fun entry, the last book I read in 2024, The Red House Mystery, which was published in 1922. I really need to get some more Chinese classics in there I guess. Oh, maybe brush up on the Bible? Wait, I took a class on the Brontes in college, where did those go? Well, whatever... 

Pleasingly, I already have a 900+ page book queued up for 2025: Middlemarch! It was published in 1872 as well, allowing me the shot to crack both top ten lists. Upon completion of Middlemarch I'll retire from reading any such long tome, because that's just a lot of words, isn't it? Note: I learned about George Eliot from Carolyn G. Heilbrun’s Writing a Woman's Life. Heilbrun quoted Virginia Woolf as saying Middlemarch was "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”

What I’m trying to say is: I want to be a book person again. Books are not a personality but why not? My friend Banshee and I trade long text chains about books and only books. She recently took a break from her job and picked up volunteering for a book store. “Yes. [I] feel like my life is all about books right now,” she wrote.

Yes, that’s exactly the vibe I’m heading into 2025 with. My life shall be books!!!

Toward that end, as previously stated, I am making the goal of reading forty fiction books this year. And with the help of my new Glocusent reading light--Wirecutter approved, of course--I’m going to make that number. In addition, my partner and I are going to update our reading and suggestions on our new Bookstagram @somewhatnovel. Or one day, BookTok! (Probably not.)

Another thing that’s happened since 2019 is that my eyesight has degraded to the point that I can’t read regular sized font anymore. A few years ago, my optometrist told me that if I get LASIK, the left eye would have to be made for reading and the right for nearsightedness. I scoffed, dismissing any need for an eye that can only look close up. "I'll just carry a magnifying glass!" Well, now I stand just a few years later, the text size on my phone cranked up to REALLY BIG and all my computer fonts at 16px and my browser shortcut ready to zoom in at any moment...

I guess you can always go back to reading, but it just won’t look the same.

• Goodreads: @jonyang | Bookstagram: @somewhatnovel
• Writing a Woman's Life, Carolyn G. Heilbrun
• "Liking Books Is Not a Personality" (2019)
• Wirecutter: Glocusent Bookmart Style Reading Light

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2024

Can you believe it? My first blog post in five years! I'm back baby! I know it's been dead around here since 2020 but I've never stopped blogging--in my head. I've got years of stacked up posts--okay ideas for posts--stacked up and ready to go.

I'll lead off with the classic annual review of stuff consumed! My tracking for all consumption was in dire straits in 2022-2022, but I've got it all down from 2023 forward so maybe I'll move backwards. Nothing says "fresh" like years old recommendations! Let's gooooo!

Books

I’m almost too embarrassed by my lack of book reading to lead off with this subject. I technically logged about twenty books read but some of those were awfully short, some were semi-graphic novel, and some of them I’m just in the middle of them, but past the fifty percent mark.

Of those reads, I can only cite four as semi-recommends: 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore, Chokepoint Capitalism, Let’s Go Let’s Go, and The Vulnerables. Note, one of those is a children’s book—I like everything by Jenny Offill so far—and one of them is just a non-fiction book that I dip in and out of and still haven’t entirely finished.

With all my video game playing the past few years, I now think of everything in S-themed tier lists. I saw someone do theirs online and decided it was the way to go moving forward. So see the image attached for my books tier list.

Also, with a newfound dedication to making my life about books for 2025, I updated my long dormant Goodreads and will be tracking better as I go. My goal for 2025 is forty fiction books—discounting all the old “cheat” books that I would throw into fiftyfifty.me, including graphic novels, etc etc. That number will also disregard non-fiction books as well, as ingesting those is quite easy.

Also, I spent about a week reading about other people’s To Be Read system and despite some dalliances with more complicated systems, I’m just gonna go with a basic one: Throw up five books, finish them (or quit), before moving on to other titles. More about books on a different post. Let’s just move on…

Movies

With sixty-plus movies watched in 2024, there were only a handful worth recommending. In fact, maybe only four: Dune 2, Prospect, Wingwomen, and The Wild Robot. Dune 2 is self explanatory, it was great and can’t wait for the third one! We watched it again a few weeks later so I can assure you that it’s double great. Prospect is a 2018 sci-fi Western starring Sophie Thatcher and Pedro Pascal. With a minuscule four million dollar budget, Prospect manages to create a wonderful atmosphere and story about a father-daughter trapped on an alien planet.

Wingwoman, a French 2023 Netflix film directed by Mélanie Laurent—co-starring herself and Adèle Exarchopoulos—was a small budget action movie that delivered easy fun and laughs. Compared to most of the spectacle schlock I saw at the theaters this year, it was a gem. And then there was The Wild Robot, which was unexpectedly an absolute delight. While I didn’t enjoy the book (see below), the movie’s charming animation won me over immediately and in a shocker, I think The Wild Robot was the best movie I saw all year! Maybe not the “best” but definitely the most enjoyable.

Of course, I must also throw my heart at Wicked, but that is beyond biased as I’ve watched the Broadway show maybe a dozen times and was not going to be disheartened by any film adaptation. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were great—as was everyone else—and Wicked was definitely my favorite movie of the year, if not necessarily the best.

Some other notes: I decided I needed to pick a director to be a completionist and Wong Kar-wai was right there. His filmography isn’t that large—ten I believe—and I’ve seen most of it anyway but started again. Of the ones left to watch are As Tears Go By, Ashes of Time, and The Grandmaster (which I walked out on the time I watched it in the theater).

The Fall Guy was by no means great, or even good, but the Gosling and Blunt team up—my two favorite actor and actress basically—had to be seen and enjoyed. Gosling gets to Gosling and Blunt gets to be witty and fun. It was a blast! The last semi-recommend is Lady Snowblood, which Quentin Tarantino said directly influenced Kill Bill. Once you watch it you’ll see he just about lifted everything.

Television

It was a pretty great TV year actually, with nine series I’d wholeheartedly stand behind: Death and Other Details, Fallout, Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, Shogun, The English, Under Pressure, We Are Lady Parts S2, X-Men 97, and XG Xtra Xtra.

You’ll note that two of the above are documentaries following k-pop groups. Of the two, Pop Star Academy is the heavily produced, slicker version, but XG’s documentary series—available on YouTube—was better because it followed the group over a span of many years. You’ll marvel at not only how hard the trainees work, but at the vision of Simon, who is the superproducer behind XG.

Of all the shows I watched this year though, it was The English that stole my heart, and I’ve watched it twice already. Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer—of Twilight fame—star in this revisionist Western that was basically perfection. I tried to watch The English when it came out two years ago but kind of overlooked because of a slow beginning. This time around, I powered through the first twenty minutes and then was hooked for the next five and a half hours. Aside from the outstanding acting performances and breathtaking cinematography, Hugo Blick’s miniseries also (easily) takes the trophy for best woman-led Western. As I told my fellow Blunt enthusiast, “This is Blunt at her Blunt-iest, and being the best!”

A quick note about Death and Other Details, which stars Violett Beane and Mandy Patinkin as a detective duo. After suffering through quite a few not so good detective shows, this little seen Hulu show was the one that finally caught our attention. I tried to like Only Murders in the Building, I really did, but it didn’t scratch the right detective-y itch.

With 2023 in the rearview, I need to catch up on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and Arcane S2 asap…

Games

I’ll separate these out as digital / video and board game. Of course, there’s a crossover here as Dune Imperium, which started life as a physical game but then transitioned to digital, which is how I play it. Fired up by Dune 2, we got into Imperium heavy and even though I’m still getting good at it, I loved it very much. The Rise of Ix expansion is out now too, so that’ll be exciting.

Successfully avoiding Balatro for most of the year, I made my friend download it for a weekend and he got so addicted he subsequently had to delete it. Nearly everyone says how addictive Balatro is so despite owning it on two platforms, I’ve yet to actually dig in much. But I can recommend it for sure.

A part of my summer was spent playing Call of Duty Cold War Zombie mode, upon the insistence of my friend. Many a night we stayed up late just trying to escape from zombie apocalypse. Then I got us into Cuphead and learned what frustration—and addiction—really was. Both of us were determined to beat the levels and had to set timers to limit ourselves for game play each night. Needless to say, with the game’s legendary difficulty, we are still not done with the game. One game that was a nice refresher between zombie and cups was Cat’s Quest 3. I’d played the two previous versions before and they were both a delight, but CQ3 was the best of them all. High high recommend for a fun time and cuteness overload.

Also a nice shoutout for Disney Illusion Island, which is a simple platformer that was perfect for playing with my nieces. They have mechanics to help the players falling behind—namely throwing ropes down ledges—and that was helpful all around. Plus the art and animation are exactly as you’d want a Mickey and Donald game to be.

For real board games, we got into Detective Portal, upon the recommendation of an employee at Geeky Teas & Games in Glendale. It filled the niche of missing Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective nicely and it was fun to play a game where we could rely on any digital source. 

Follow ups to previous games we loved: Suspects Case 2 and Blowback, the second part of Enigma Emporium’s Predator or Prey series. These are postcard games that include puzzles of all types and while Blowback wasn’t as good as Wish You Were Here, we are certainly gonna stick around to do Parabola to finish out the arc.

And lastly, we quite enjoyed MicroMacro: Crime City, which is tiny characters moving around a huge map. I got us bigger magnifying glasses to use for the game and those magnifying glasses have come in good use for other games as well. MicroMacro’s series of hidden object crime solvers seem like consistent good fun, and playable for all ages!

The Quit List 🚫

The TV quit list was True Detective S4, Monsieur Spade, Mr and Mrs Smith, Grisse, and countless half episodes of stuff—many from Apple TV.

As for movies, I quit twenty-plus of them, with many being ones that were very highly regarded, so much so that I’ve lost all faith in reviewers and am now looking to go back to my old old system—following a single reviewer, and then calibrating off their taste.

Among those mega disappointments were American Fiction, Emilia Perez, I Saw the TV Glow, Shortcomings, and The Killer, which was not really a quit but we only suffered through it because we had already left one previous theater to watch it. See below for a new “which movies do I watch in theaters” strategy.

Also, as usual, I rewatch a ton of stuff unmentioned here—including a whole run of Robin Hood movies—but in mid-December we tried to rewatch Breakfast at Tiffany’s and it was putrid. Even accounting for Oriental Mickey Rooney, this classic film is pretty unwatchable. Prove me wrong…

For books, the quit criteria was similar to before: if I read over fifty percent, I could call it a “quit,” which we established back in the day of fiftyfifty.me, although that number has now been dialed down to twenty-five percent. Basically if I’ve gone past a quarter of a book, it can count as a “quit.” Among those were, again, a few critically acclaimed books that just flat out bombed for me: Ministry of Time, Chain-Gang All Stars, Incendiaries, Rejection (although I did enjoy some of it), Project Hail Mary, all of Sally Rooney, and The Wild Robot (loved the movie, but the book was too simple, which is not a fault but too childish for me). As I’m rededicating myself to reading in 2025, I hope to have a very full book section next year!

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2019

Well, it's that new year's tradition, time to go over last year's consumption! Why isn't this spreadsheet more filled out and organized? Why isn't there an app for this?! I'm gonna go with final numbers of 57 movies and 20 books, give or take. That's um, not great. That's even down from last year's pathetic totals. Should there be a penalty for not hitting the goals? There should be right?

[2019 Consumed Sheet]

BOOKS: Well, this is just embarrassing. Despite being home most of the year, I only read very few books. After last year’s debacle of twenty-two books read, I think it’s safe to say that I am no longer a reader. The sum total of books read for 2019 was only twenty, plus six graphic novels. I think cutting out graphic novels in the count is probably the way to moving forward, because yes, I'm using them to pump up my weak numbers.

There were probably some other books I read for research but that’s just a pile of stuff sitting on my desk. Lots of how-to and craft books, along with many others that are related to the book I'm writing. So yeah, in my defense, I was working on a book most of the year and so had no time to read. Ahem. Okay that’s not true but let’s pretend it is. Twenty twenty, the year I'm ready to read again!

The good news is that our San Diego book club is starting up again -- the famed Celebrity Book Club -- because L has returned and that will spring us forward into the year new. Could our book club from a decade ago, Literary Urbanites also make a return? 🤞

I found out there was a Speaker for the Dead graphic novel and read it asap, dying to know what Lusitania’s pequeninos look like. After I read it online — all five issues can be found here — I bought the paper version just to have it. The other book I want to recommend is Six of Crows — and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom — by Leigh Bardugo, which just blew me away. Away! It was so good. (And here is Kevin Wada's character art, and again.)

And I kept seeing Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties on my feed forever and finally got around to reading it. It’s fabulous and you can read the first story here: “The Husband Stitch” (2014). So yeah, books read this year, an embarrassing fail!

MOVIES: The biggest event of the year was Frozen II, which was about as expected. Better maybe? I dunno, I need to watch it again. The past month has just been me pushing Parasite onto anyone who would listen — strangers and friends alike, and also Knives Out if I think they’d be remotely into a whodunit. (If you watch it multiple times like I did, here’s the Rian Johnson audio commentary.)

But in my late year enthusiasm, I cannot forget that April brought me double bill of Go Back to China and then Swing Kids / Seuwingkizeu. I had a whole post in draft about Go Back to China but I guess I’ll wait on it since it was just bought of distribution and will be out in March 2020. The Emily Ting directed, Anna Kana starring, vehicle hit so close to home. I’ve moved to China before to work at the family factory and this film brought up so many personal touch points.

And then there was Seuwingkizeu, which was undoubtably my favorite film of the year. I mean, I gushed hard already. The sad news is that the official version lacks captions for the English lines, which makes it a tough watch — especially if I was trying to share it with non-native English speakers. Who does this? Offers subtitles but not through all the dialogue regardless of language?!

Overall it was a light year for movies, with fifty-six consumed. The Marvel auto-tens were Avengers: Endgame and Spiderman: Far From Home, with the other ones being Seuwingkizeu, Go Back to China, Parasite, Knives Out, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

2019 was also the year the Deadwood movie finally came out, which was mostly fan service-y but led me down a rewatch path. Still a top five show ever! And shout out for two Penélope Cruz films, Almodovar’s Pain and Glory and Farhadi’s Everybody Knows. It’s a tough call who I liked better as her co-star, Bardem or Banderas, so we’ll call it a tie. Actually on, it has to be Bardem, it’s always Bardem!

Underwhelming: Uncut Gems, Hustlers, The Farewell, Beverly Hills Cop 1/2/3 (I’ve been listening to a lot of Rewatchables so we’ve been watching a lot of old stuff), and the truly awful The Dead Don’t Die, which pretty much almost killed a new friendship before it had a chance to fly, because I recommended it and we had to suffer through it together.

TELEVISION: The hits were Sex Education, True Detection S3, Russian Doll, Mindhunter S2, and Watchmen. I’m not even done with the latter as it just needs to be slow dripped. Also I quite liked The Boys and The Society (also unfinished). I guess I didn’t watch that much TV this year actually! I really wanted to like Umbrella Academy but ultimately lost interest, and with Netflix throwing out some Taiwanese movies and series, I was sure A Thousand Goodnights would be a hit with my mom but it wasn’t good, like at all.

And even though this is a yearly staple, I need to mention the most recent season of MTV’s The Challenge. It was called War of the Worlds 2 and featured a US team versus a UK team. We bought the entire season on Amazon to go ad-free and it was a great decision. Even better, we suckered AMR into watching it with us and he led us to an Alliance Reality Bites victory. It was thrilling. Also I got my friend a Cameo from Johnny Bananas himself, which was truly a highlight. Bananas!

GAMES: I played many a game this year, the product of being homebound and also having a Switch. Lichtspeer is a fun two-player game that can be challenging but also meditative. I loved the art and action of Guacamelee 2 but have yet to finish it. Actually I’ve yet to finish any of the games I’m about to talk about because, well, I guess that’s just what I do?

Most of my Switch buys are for local co-op and of there were two throwbacks that were wonderful: New Super Mario Bros. U is a Wii rerelease but it features simultaneous four player action. Yes, that means classic Super Mario action with four players at once!

And then there’s River City Girls, which is a semi-follow up to one of my favorite games of all time, River City Ransom. Playing as Kyoko and Misako, the girlfriends of Kunio and Riki, makes River City Girls even better than the original. I mean, teen girls punching and kicking their way through malls and squads for cheerleaders? Bring it on!

Oh, also Marvel Alliance 3, which is kind of a throwback. I’ve already spent many hours on this game and will continue to play it over and over, leveling up Spider-Gwen and her friends. All of the old X-Men Legends and Alliance series were great and this one is more of the same. Am I lacking three friends to come over and play with me all the time? Yes, I am, but I push on. Other good co-ops: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Yoshi's Crafted World.

To start 2020, I will be continuing on my quest to catch them all. After some debate between Sobble and Scorbunny, I chose Scorbunny to start, a decision I haven’t regretted. Oh and I got Shield because well, I need Galarian Ponyta. Need! I’ve spent more hours organizing my various Pokemon boxes than actually catching Pokemon, but that’s just setting the foundation for a beautiful Pokedex.

For iOS, I kept buying games but not playing them, but of the few that I did, Meteorfall sucked me in the hardest. I spent a week trying to perfect a particular strategy — at one point even throwing my phone down on the couch with some force, which for me is a huge display of disrespect to my phone. When I finally beat the Lich King on hardest difficulty with Queen of Shadow Rose, I felt like I had conquered Everest. It’s the small victories my friends…

Two wonderfully meditative and beautiful games: Alto’s Odyssey and Sky: Children of Light, Apple’s game of the year. We were taken with Alto’s Adventure when it came out and then AMR started playing the follow up, Odyssey, which is basically the same thing but still splendid. And Sky, from the makers of Journey, was just magical. You meet friends and wordlessly join them in traversing the world, flying and twirling around. The only communicate is by emotes and hand holding and I think I made many deep connections to people who helped me along the way. You’ll be forever in my heart, random helpers of the internet!

Also, this was a big moment for me in my LOL career. H-U-G-E. Taliyah forever...

• Destructoid: River City Girls
• Sky: Children Of The Light Review - Flying Free
• 13 Minutes of Sky: Children of Light Gameplay

EVENTS: I must have done something between January and August right? Well, the records tell me a resounding "no!" So I guess it was just a Carly Rae concert in August, followed a few weeks later by a Kacey Musgraves show, and then Poolside right around Christmas. Oh and a Todrick Hall, I can't forget that! Very dancey concert, as expected.

I apparently only saw one musical this year, The Book of Mormon in Mexico City, which was super fun mainly due to sitting right in the first row -- with nobody else around us. Being close to things is the way to go. We were a few rows back for Carly and that was life changing. The lesson to be learned is to be very close to things...and to Carly. Fave song off Dedicated: "Too Much."

PODCASTS: I was on the community panel for Self Evident, a new Asian American podcast that debuted this year. Episode one came out in May and the season ended a few months later. Hosted by Cathy Erway and featuring an experienced and ultra-competent team behind her, Self Evident should have another season coming soon!

I swore my cousin introduced me to The Empty Bowl, “a meditative podcast about cereal.” Alas, it was not her I should thank for this gift. The deep dives into cereal life are indeed meditative, if you can believe it.

For months, writer and all everything Mary HK Choi was making daily minipods with "a focus on mental health and creativity," as part of her Hey, Cool... banner. As a fan of Mary HK, it was like getting her piped directly into my life. The mini format was interesting and I was sad when the episodes got less daily. I would love to see more people do this sort of thiung.

And then there’s Deadline City, which is Dhonielle Clayton and Zoraida Cordova’s new bookish podcast. I listen to quite a few YA podcasts and this one has a friend and is just super fun!

Michael Lewis’ Against the Rules was great. And while this isn’t exactly a podcast, Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers audiobook is pretty much exactly that and I heard that his audiobook was outselling his physical and ebook, and it’s probably because the audiobook is just a podcast. If that makes sense.

• Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
• Deadline City | Stitcher
• Hey, Cool Life Is The Perfect Podcast For An Anxiety-Driven Age Life | Hey, Cool Life
• The Empty Bowl

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2018

So I made this brand spanking new Stuff I Consumed spreadsheet, to track everything I consumed — inclusive of books, movies, TV shows, music, games, podcasts, and events — and then promptly didn’t really update it as I got lost in the swirl of traveling and, um, not updating. So I find myself scrambling to figure out how many books I read and how many movies I watched in a nod to Fifty Fifty, even if we had retired it for this year. In the end, I watched approximately 62 movies and read 22 books, a far cry from last year. Still, on with the recommends!

[2018 Consumed Sheet]

BOOKS: Despite starting strong with a string of good books earlier this year, I really faltered down the stretch. I can still readily recommend The Girls and Annihilation — which I endorsed in my lone 2018 issue of Cool It Now — and I can add to that two more. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen was fantastic, and I liked it much better than The Refugees. I also enjoyed Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, a two-book companion graphic novel set about the Boxer Rebellion.

And then there’s my long time friend Dhonielle’s solo debut, The Belles, which came out in February and has a sequel, The Everlasting Rose, coming out in March. It’s a thrill to see friends publish, especially people that you were friends with way before the writing thing. The Belles hit the New York Times Bestseller list right out of the gate and deservedly so!

MOVIES: I feel like I missed almost all the major “good” movies this year, so much so that I just made a list of things to catch up on for the beginning of next year. So Burning, Shoplifters, Roma, First Reformed, The Rider, Skate Kitchen, Wildlife, The Favourite, Shirkers, I’m coming for you!

I changed my film rating system from A-F to 1-10 and ended up with only four ten-score movies: Avengers: Infinity War, Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and A Star is Born. Clearly three of those four were auto tens and A Star is Born blew me out of the water. I wanted to drag my sister to go see it on the big screen but she just wouldn't go with me! Ultimate sibling fail.

There were only six movies that netted a nine and they were Go-Go Sisters, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, All the President’s Men, First Man, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and this lovely Japanese movie I saw on an airplane, Kako: My Sullen Past. Still, to be honest, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend any of these for everyone as they seem pretty genre specific.

Of course, I’ve dedicated my life to watching every remake of Go-Go Sisters so I guess I’d recommend that, but only if you are open to teenage tales that’ll make you cry. So far I’ve seen the original Korean Sunny, the Japanese remake, and Go-Go Sisters twice on the big screen on two different continents. Plus I watched 1995’s Now and Then for research. My favorite remains the Vietnamese version.

My big downvote? Minding the Gap, which is a documentary that is getting lauded everywhere but I found mostly unwatchable and not compelling in the least. Nice skate scenes though. But overall, bleh.

TELEVISION: I finished ten TV series and most of them were so-so, but I really loved The End of the F***ing World (again), Succession, and Maniac, which we haven’t even finished yet. A special shout out for Jean-Claude Van Johnson, which was a nostalgic, and unexpectedly fun, delight.

Oh and if you’re looking for some Taiwan/American romcom, Netflix is carrying A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities, about two women who swap locations. It’s not for everyone but the Taiwanese cultural stuff and overall FOB-ness is spot on and hilarious.

GAMES: I bought a Switch this year, mainly to play Overcooked 2. I’ve been afraid to jump into more games because well, I’m bad at regulating my time with games. So more on this next year. In the meantime, for iOS games I can wholeheartedly recommend Antihero, Polytopia, and Soul Knight, the latter of which is a free-to-play rogue like dungeon crawler that works seamlessly for local co-op. High recommend for all three! And although I’ve yet to play it on any platform I’ve bought it on, Stardew Valley for iOS dropped and I can’t wait to get into it.

EVENTS: I didn’t get to that many events this year, but did see Katharine McPhee on Broadway in Waitress and then an absolute highlight of the year, Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour, which is now showing on Netflix as a concert film. My friend offered me two free tickets that morning and a few hours later I was out in the rain, singing along to Tay Tay!

PODCASTS: As for podcasts, I already gushed about Night Call, and I’ll add Shedunnit to the list, "storytelling podcast that unravels the mysteries behind classic detective stories.” I had been following Caroline Crampton’s No Complaints newsletter and her podcast was a real thrill. Plus I’d like to push my cousin’s podcast, APT 504, which is Ashley and Emily talking about their pop culture and celebrity obsessions. I also love their tagline: "It's time for pillow talk.”

• Nightcall
• Shedunnit
• APT 504

It's a Small Book After All

It’s a throwback, a Stuff I’ve Been Reading column! Well, actually, it’s just a Stuff I’ve Bought collection because while I’ve been reading, it’s more interesting to look at what I picked up in New York recently. It’s rare nowadays that I bother with physical books, unless it’s used, graphic, or a friend’s book. Everything else is digital because nothing beats the portability of a Kindle.

[Note: This is the last post I'm going to bother italicizing titles of movies, books, TV shows, etc. It's just too much work to highlight and italicize things. But just know that I have now learned how to italicize properly, thanks.]

However, I grabbed a handful of stuff in New York because I figured I’d never see them again. My stroll through Williamsburg took me to Book Thug Nation and the new-ish McNally Jackson there. Overall, I bought the following:

Masculinities is Cindy Crabb’s interview with men about well, masculinity. Which is interesting coming from the Doris creator, as Crabb's zine was a defining feminist zine. Personally my attention span nowadays for men talking about masculinity is low but if Crabb’s asking the questions, I’ll read the answers. Also snatched up issues #56 and #58 of Cometbus, because I always get Cometbus if I see them. And then a real throwback, as I saw Ayun Halliday’s East Village Inky on the rack and it brought me back to years ago when I interviewed her about Zinester’s Guide to NYC. Hello 2010, hello East Village Inky, still going strong with issue #58!

Also at Book Thug, I got a copy of The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa, which explores why architecture caters mainly to only one of the five senses. (Spoiler: it's sight.) It promises to be very interesting. I realized most of the used books I buy are old ones about buildings or traffic -- or personal essay collections. Eyes of the Skin should dovetail nicely with this mini-book I got at the Whitney gift shop, Confessions of a Poor Collector, which was a speech Eugene Schwartz gave in 1970 about his rules, discoveries, and principles of art collecting. Despite it being only thirty-nine pages long and costing $18, it seems like an excellent purchase already. I hope to be a budding art collector. But you know, not really...

The other area I tend to hit up in bookstores is graphic memoirs, especially little pocket sized ones. I grabbed Trying Not to Notice by Will Dinski and Square Comix #16, by Ian McMurry, neither of whom were familiar to me. If it’s physically small and the pages are filled with cartoonified images your quotidian life, I’ll probably buy it. And since I have aspirations of making a similar type of book myself, I picked up Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti at McNally, which condenses Brunetti's cartooning instructions into a short (and small) book. Perfect!

• Interview: Cindy Crabb's new Masculinities zine! (2015)
• Confessions of a Poor Collector, Eugene M. Schwartz
• Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, Book Trailer (2011)
• Interview with Ian McMurry (2015)
• When to Italicize

Stuff I've Been Consuming: 2017

[fiftyfifty.me | Google Doc]

I bought forty or so books this year, starting with Kiersi’s Shy Girl & Shy Guy at the beginning of the year and ending with The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin during the last week of December. Two finds: A huge coffee sized book, Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, by my longtime favorite Julia Wertz. And also a book published in German, Kunstblut, by Alexandra Kleeman. I’m always gonna get a Kleeman book, even one I can’t read, but the fabulous cover also dovetailed nicely with the colors in my house, so it’s really a decorative piece.

But let’s not bury the lede here, in 2017 I read 45 books and watched 85 movies. Yes, that’s right, I almost made 50/50 this year! Of course, clearing the marks would have been nice, but this is the best I’ve done on the books side in years. But enough self congratulations for a job not quite done. Let’s just get to it, shall we?

BOOKS: I started off the year on a fast pace, jamming in about a dozen books in two months. I was sure fifty was gonna be reeeeeal easy. Unfortunately I slowed down a lot in the coming months and it wouldn’t be a lie to say that I haven’t quite finished all of these books. But anything I went over 75% or so on, I’m counting. To be honest, some of these books were just great so I’m savoring them.

I’ve already talked about my three books in three nights binge reading of Anne Patchett. But I also wanna throw in recommends on Dom Casmurro, I Am a Magical Teenage Princess, Sour Heart, all of the The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (I had only read the first one or two before), and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which has been twenty years in the waiting from Arundhati Roy.

And who would I be without plugs for friends’ books such as Malinda Lo’s A Line in the Dark,  Cindy Pon’s WANT set in a near future Taipei, Maurene Goo’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us, and Dhonielle and Sona’s follow up to last year’s debut, this one is called Shiny Broken Pieces.

Something I wasn’t into, the highly acclaimed and recommended series by Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle. I finished the first one, The Name of the Wind, and wanted to love it, but was really just annoyed at Kvothe’s over-competence in everything. Maybe I’ll try the series again since I would love a fantasy world to obsess over, but this wasn’t it. Also, I read most of Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series, which my YA book club is super into. I’m a little more "eh," but they do get better as they go, and are quite addictive.


Speaking of book clubs, I joined a local young adult book club in 2017, and they were probably single-handedly responsible for pushing my book numbers higher this year. I spent many a Saturday night cramming in the monthly selection just so I could show my face at the next day’s meeting. And I love how everyone in the book club are voracious readers, with plenty of recommendations, and geeky interests to share with me. Thank you Children's and Young Adult Literature Book Club: San Diego! Also, the selections they picked were often not ones I would have naturally gravitated towards, so overall the experience was a very interesting insight into what mainstream YA fans are into.

I think I’m gonna have to give up the fifty books goal next year, although I’m considering just high diving into this year’s Tournament of Books, and going straight down the eighteen book list. Basically the other key to success this year was to just read read read, who cares if I was in the mood or liked what I was flipping through, just keep going!

MOVIES: Despite watching 85 movies, and reading that 2017 was a great year for film, I can’t say I saw that many amazing things. Nothing I was even super passionate about, now that I look over the list. The seven straight-A films were: 20th Century Women, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Lady Bird, Logan, Mon Mon Monsters, OJ Made in America, and Thor Ragnarok. Taking out the two Marvel movies -- albeit legit non-fan goggles good ones -- and we’re at a mere five A-ranked films. Add in the A-minus movies and we’re looking at only maybe a dozen films I really truly liked. Recommends: The Babysitter on Netflix, which was just hilarious, so fucking hilarious. Actually that’s like my top recommend for the year for an unexpectedly fun throwaway movie full of useful quotes and high rewatchability.

For some reason the past couple of years I've been seeing my favorite movie of the year in January, and this year was no different, as I saw Mike Mill's 20th Century Women pretty early on. I need to rewatch it though to confirm my love for it. But I fear it was like Lady Bird, which I really really admired -- it’s no coincidence Greta Gerwig was in/behind two of my favorites -- but I think I still liked Beginners better so it’s hard to be as passionate about 20th Century. And oh yeah, I almost cried watching Sho Tsukikawa’s The 100th Love With You, which is a contemporary Japanese romcom that involves time travel. I can’t tell if it was the plane watch that got me so emotional, but I think it would have hit me the same either way.

As for disappointing films, the list this year was long. Very long. I went through a stretch of such horribly disappointing (much hyped) films that I thought I was going to have to take a movie break to cleanse myself. There was a back-to-back hopping of Dunkirk and The Beguiled that almost killed my friend and I. Dunkirk was fine, but not anywhere near great, and thank goodness there was nobody else in Beguiled with us because we were trashing it as we watched. Loudly. Sorry Sophia, Beguiled was just awful, and I ranked it my worst movie of the year, which is saying something since I also saw the new Pirates.

Also, this year I volunteered to help program for SDAFF, San Diego Asian Film Festival. From March until November or so, we watched a ton of shorts, and some features -- that I didn’t always count on the sheet unless I theatred it. Through this process, I actually did find a film that I super loved. It’s a twenty-seven minute short but so packed with genius that I couldn’t stop showing it to anybody within range. So yeah, my favorite film of the year is Makoto Nagahisa’s And so we put goldfish in the pool ／そうして私たちはプールに金魚を. Luckily for you, you can watch it right here right now, just click on the link!

TELEVISION: Just like last year, I started tracking the TV shows I was watching. Actually, with so much television, it’s almost just as fruitful to track the series I wanted to watch but haven’t dived into yet. Can you believe I haven’t seen Sherlock S4 or Orange is the New Black S5 yet? I’ve been waiting for the right binge moment I guess. Some of the things I did want to watch but haven’t gotten around to yet include Legion, Preacher, the revamped Twin Peaks, Mr. Robot, Broadchurch, and The Keepers.

However, there were some great things I saw this year, namely finally getting into The Wire, which I spent most of January running through -- I skipped S2 because I read that was okay to do. I also loved Brown Nation, Riverdale, American Vandal, The Young Pope, Attack on Titan, and Terrace House: Aloha State. In fact, getting into Terrace House in the fall of this year is contributing directly to my wanting to go live in Japan next year. “A love worth dying for…."

Also I have to push two series I just crammed in December: Alias Grace and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Sarah Polley adapted Margaret Atwood’s book into a miniseries, writing all six episodes herself, and Alias Grace is better than Handmaid’s Tale to be honest. I haven’t actually finished Handmaid’s but I’m gonna just take a swing and say that Alias was better. And then there’s the insanely delightful Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino of Gilmore Girls fame. And well, I’ll stop right there. “Of Gilmore Girls fame…” should be enough of a recommendation.

Absolute trash: 13 Reasons Why. Sorry, if you liked this show I’ve already judged you. It's problematic on just about every level and I couldn't even finish hate watching it. And I wasn’t very high on Dear White People either, which was exactly like the movie: the title was the best part with everything else being pretty disappointing. I quit a lot of shows this year actually.

Anyway, here’s to going into 2018 like Lenny Belardo... what a fantastic opening credits scene right? And here's the Young Pope "you'll never forget" track: "Recondite" by Levo.

If you've read this far, you're clearly interested in my new and revamped Stuff I'm Consuming spreadsheet, which is not only much more detailed and customizable, but also about to have some fancy auto-stats once my spreadsheet wizard gets done with it! Try out a beta version!

[Stuff I'm Consuming 2018: Blank]

Stuff I've Been Consuming: Jan - Feb

Listening to: “Shut Up,” Anna Marina. From Riverdale’s soundtrack, which is superb.

So San Diego is cooooold! Who knew! I haven’t been back for a San Diego winter in awhile and it’s all I can do to stay in sweats and blankets all day. Toward that end I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to tons of things — and some writing too. Off the top I’m heavyweight obsessed with Riverdale right now. George and I grew up reading Archie comics and this CW version — described as Twin Peaks meets The O.C. — is not only good but heavily nostalgic. Throwing in a murder mystery and noir feel to Archie was just what an update needed. And the casting for Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead is spot-on. Plus, Luke Perry plays Archie’s dad...!

Additionally I’ve been following NBC’s Emerald City very closely, waiting for Ozma to ascend the throne. I’m not sure this Game of Thrones-y version of Wizard of Oz will get a second season but it’s been great to me so far. However you feel about the admittedly erratic plotting and sometimes sparse characterizations, there’s no argument that the sets and costuming are amazing. For example, Emerald City is now literally Park Guell and the show uses a lot of other beautiful Gaudi locations.

The entire first season of Emerald City is directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) and while his movies can be messes, there’s no arguing they’ve got visual panache. So yeah, Emerald City! If there was ever a crossover between two things I love, Emerald City with Oz and Barcelona has it in spades. (Plus a Faruiza Balk 2.0 in Ana Ularu, who plays a delicious Wicked Witch of the West.)

• Where Was the Emerald City Filmed
• Emerald City Is So Shallow That It Almost Appears Deep
• Emerald City's Costume Designer Reveals the Magic Behind Lady Ev's Magnificent Masks

While I’ve seen about twenty movies in the past two months, the only one I can wholeheartedly get behind is Mike Mill’s 20th Century Women, which I absolutely loved. I'll have to rewatch Beginners again to see which one I liked more, but Mike Mills is just wow. I'm still getting my head around how well Mills writes female leads and then I think about his relationship with Miranda July and suspect that he's probably the only male director capable of doing it. Or maybe I'm overstating his on-pointness. Either way, Mike Mills!

And obviously I loved the shit out of La La Land, which means I was/am on the wrong side of "it's some white people shit," and I haven't been on that side for something popular culture in awhile. I can't defend La La Land against any of its racial downfalls but find myself wanting to celebrate its musical-ness and Gosling-ness first and foremost. So reading all the anti-La La Land posts and seeing people (rightly) savage the film has been quite the novel experience. Something you like so much, hated by so many you respect, how does that change your take on it you know?

Anyway, onto reading! I’m up to fourteen read books this year, which is huge considering where I usually am. And while I’ve read a few really good things, I have to go out of my way to discuss Ann Patchett. I really loved Patchett’s Truth & Beauty, a memoir about her intense friendship with Lucy Grealy, back in 2012. Truth & Beauty immediately vaulted itself onto my all-time favorites list but I hadn’t gone to any of Patchett’s fiction yet — I did read The Getaway Car, but that was a short memoir about writing.

Well, in three don't-sleep-till-I-finish nights I ripped through three of Patchett’s books. First it was Commonwealth, then State of Wonder, and then Bel Canto. I literally haven’t read nonstop like that in ages, and much less back-to-back-to-back of just one author's work. I couldn't stop or gush enough to other people and now I want to make everyone read Patchett.

I'm not sure how to push her though. Literary Michael Crichton? That’s how I'd sell State of Wonder I guess. Aside from her instantly engaging writing, Patchett is brilliant at plot building and throwing incongruous things side-by-side. For example, Bel Canto is about a terrorist hostage situation, plus opera. State of Wonder is a bit more straightforward, with a scientist who goes into the Amazon to recover a wonder drug, but it also has multiple surprises. And then there's Commonwealth, which has no high concept at all and focuses on just one (extended) family. Overall, I just can't recommend Patchett's stuff highly enough. Go read her now, thank me later.

Also, my friend Kiersi’s middle-grade horse series just came out, and of course I read them all right away. Kiersi’s one of the most prolific writers I’ve ever met -- plus genre spanning -- and her published stuff is just starting to come down the pipeline. When I was young I read every horse-related book I could get my hands on so getting a chance to read Kiersi’s horse books has been a delicious throwback. If you've got middle-grade aged people in your life, check out the Quartz Creek Ranch series!

And somehow Kiersi presciently knew that the Falcons would make it to the Super Bowl but then become ultimate losers. I read that section a few days after the Super Bowl collapse and um, let’s just say it hurt. Deeply.

• Meet the Author: Kiersi Burkhart
• Shy Girl & Shy Guy (Quartz Creek Ranch)
• At Top Speed (Quartz Creek Ranch)

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2016

[fiftyfifty.me | Pinterest | Google Doc]

Well, here we are again, at the end of another year and I’ve failed to finish fiftyfifty.me once more. However, this is my finest effort in years, as I got to 33 books and 64 movies. I spent my NYE trying to cram in one last movie and book -- a very excellent Mustang and a confusing The Hour of the Star, respectively. Obviously I went into the new year right, and totally set the stage for twelve months of productivity and progress. Ahem. Anyway, let’s just get right into it shall we?

MOVIES: Considering I’ve averaged eighty-four movies for the past four years, this year’s sixty-four seems awfully low. But that’s okay, quality over quantity! And there were some good ones on my list. But first, where do I watch my movies? Apparently the breakdown is forty-two movies in the theater and twenty-two at home or in airplanes. I recently calculated that I spent about $1,000 at the movies last year, which comes out to a whopping $23.80 per movie I watched. (By comparison, I spent $300 buying books, clearly many unread ones.) Something about that seems awfully wrong, but it just goes to show that I either paid for a lot of other people's tickets, went to some real luxurious theaters, or I rewatched a lot of things. Like Captain America: Civil War, saw that gem three times. And La La Land, which I saw twice in four days, and almost another time last week.

Stop right here. Pay attention... LA LA LAND!!! I was so in on this movie beforehand it was hard to be overhyped. Ryan Gosling. Emma Stone. Singing. Dancing. The director of Whiplash. More Gosling (check out my all Gosling edition of Cool It Now). How could it fail!? For the most part, La La Land totally lived up to my expectations, and it actually got better upon a rewatch. Needless to say, I’ve been slamming the soundtrack hard the past two weeks. I don’t care what (some) haters say, La La Land is amazing -- and it's gonna take the Oscar this year.

The best movie of the year was probably The Lobster though. I need to watch it again but I just remember how simultaneously weird and fantastic I felt after walking out of the theater. If I had to name a film of the year, it would have to be The Lobster. With La La Land a close 1B if you want to feel happy instead of intensely morosely "whoa" — the after effects of a Lobster viewing -- then go with La La Land. Actually, Gosling + Stone in The Lobster would be interesting too. Gosling + Stone in anything really, and especially a new Sound of Music, as Juliet and Amanda from this Ringer podcast episode suggested. Semi-blasphemy, I know...

2016 list of straight A movies: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Arrival, Captain America: Civil War, The Lobster, The Handmaiden, Moonlight (which I watched by myself in an empty theater as we descended officially into Trumpworld), La La Land, and Moana.

I also gave high marks to these too: Dearest, Dope, Hateful Eight, Love & Friendship, Manchester By the Sea, Mustang, The Revenant, and Zootopia. Here’s me talking about how much I giggled through Zootopia. And I guess that's about it for movies. I’ll have to get another MoviePass now that I’m back in the States. That almost $24 per movie figure is ridiculous right? All-you-can-watch please!

BOOKS:  Considering I read eleven books last year, I think this year’s thirty-three books read is a big win! I mean, right? Come to think of it, have I ever hit fifty books in a year after that inaugural 2012 year? Um, the sad answer is “no.” It's just been downhill ever since. So I guess 2016 was a semi-resurgence!

The numbers breakdown comes out to fourteen fiction books, ten non-fiction books, six graphic novels, and um, three zines. I know, do we even count zines? They were long zines, so I don’t care! Actually, moving forward, I think to be honest with myself, I need to eliminate graphic novels and zines from the list. So fine, I only read twenty-four “real” books this year.

Of the ones I want to push, at the top of the list is Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others. With the release of Arrival in multiplexes recently, I finally read some Chiang earlier in the year. Wait, looks like I already plugged Chiang on this very blog. So I'll skip the re-gushing. Next on the list is Shawna Yang Ryan’s Green Island, which again, I’ve plugged already. But if you read one book about the White Terror in Taiwan this year, let this be it! And also, another recommend I briefly mentioned was The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits.

I know I didn’t talk about United States of Japan though. It’s an alternative history action-y book about what it would have been like if Japan had won WWII. While it falls into a few too many tropes, I did like the ideas Peter Tieryas threw into the east defeats west setting. “A fun romp, plus giant mechas,” is what my one line review would say. My final recommend is Michael Lewis’ The Big Short. I watched the movie twice, finally read the book, and got all fired up about the 2008 mortgage crisis (again). Fuck Wall Street right? Lewis is consistently great and The Big Short is one of his best.

Stop me if you’ve heard this, but I also really liked the graphic novel Asterios Polyp, which I (once again) talked about already. Ugh, drone drone drone.

TELEVISION: Yeah, we don’t count television shows as part of our fiftyfifty.me diet because really, there’s no challenge to TV. Just sit back and watch the hours float away. Still, for the first time ever I documented all the shows I watched this year. And man was it a long list… Just like yours I’m sure.

Of the high recommends I’d put Atlanta, Black Sails, Chewing Gum, Orange is the New Black, The Night Of, and Westworld at the top. And I guess Stranger Things but everyone already watched that this summer. I want to especially put in a plug for Black Sails, which gets really good after a so-so S1, but then the subsequent seasons filled the Game of Thrones hole for me, with 80% of the conniving and plot twists GoT serves up. Too bad I have nobody to talk Black Sails with… And Tatiana Maslany finally won a well-deserved Golden Globe for Orphan Black, as she is simply amazing. We ripped through all four seasons of Orphan Black in short order, and can’t wait for the finale.

Along with all that, I watched some of The Get Down, Luke Cage, Black Mirror S3, and Joe Swanberg's Easy, but didn’t finish those quite yet. And to be honest, may never return to them. I wanted to like Luke Cage better, wanted to love Easy a lot, but both were pretty hit-or-miss. And Black Mirror, as a series, tends to disappoint on the regular so I may have to give it up altogether. All in all, I effortlessly finished fifteen shows — who knows how many seasons — and that just proves how easy TV goes down.

Sidenote: 2016 also marks the year my mom discovered binge TV, as she was high on Grand Hotel (basically a Spanish Downton Abbey) and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a serialized detective show from Australia. She never used to watch television, like at all. And since she's not the best with technology, she didn't realize there were many more seasons of each show until I navigated to them. Now she loves her Apple TV more than she loves me, I'm sure. Netflix, bringing joy to all generations!

Okay, that's it for all things consumed 2016, thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe to Cool It Now, my newsletter for pop culture left behinds to feel less behind, as I'll soon be putting out its twelfth issue. And teaser: it's all about Gosling!

Skyline To

I went down to Barrio Logan for The Little Big Art Show at La Bodega Gallery over the weekend. Truthfully, it’s likely the only art thing I’ve been to in San Diego for at least ten years. I was curious what the crowd would be like mostly. Short answer: the same as anywhere else! Although maybe it skewed a little older than I expected. Then again who am I to talk about age?

And while on the subject, support Susie's campaign against Francesa's, who has been ripping off indie designer's designs for their own store. Susie has long been a champion of artists' rights and what Francesca's (among many other companies) is doing is just deplorable. There's more than one way to draw a cat but Francesca's just had to steal Susie's eh? If you're against rip offs, go support Susie!

• Barrio Logan Arts District has officially arrived (2014)
• Local artist claims Francesca’s ripped off her art

While shopping at a nearby record shop before the art show, I grabbed a zine about Indian casinos and a short self-published book about cholos in college. Published in the Eighties, this book seemed intriguing on the surface but I read it and basically wanted to puke. The author was not from the community, didn't present things in an anthropological manner, and the whole thing was basically a self-congratulatory ode to himself: a professor who played self-styled savior for gangsters from the area. Big pat on the back! I would quote from the book directly but it’s just too much and I wouldn’t want to shine any light on this terrible tome.

Whew, that felt good. It’s rare you read something that makes you so angry right? I mean, offline that is. The main issue with the book was how condescending it was, and you guessed it, it’s a white dude trying to show how “down" he was, with all the lingo set off by quotes. Trash, absolute trash. But at least I’m one book closer to fiftyfifty. I’m currently at 18 books and 44 movies. I’m behind on books obviously but there’s an outside chance I could cross the finish line if I shape up for the rest of the year.

And since I’ve yet to talk any books in 2016, let’s plug some! First up, I can’t stop shutting up and recommending Ted Chiang’s short stories to people. I went to go see him speak at AAWW a few months ago but finally finished his collection of short stories, Stories of Your Life and Others. The titular story is brilliant, as well as many others, but the one that really caught my attention was "The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate," about a mirror that enables time travel. Anyway, go read this book! And then get ready for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, and looks downright amazing.

• Your First Look at Arrival, the Adaptation of Ted Chiang’s Novella Story of Your Life
• The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF

And speaking of New York, I finally got around to reading Asterios Polyp, a graphic novel that my friend highly recommended years ago. So long ago that I think we were both still living San Franciso. Anyway, Asterios Polyp really is great, even if the plot seems a little under hatched. But the art style and thematic elements are so strong. Everyone says it gets better with each read, and I’m excited to dig into it again.

• New York Times Review of Asterios Polyp: Shades of Meaning (2009)
• Comics Relief: Finally, the great New York (graphic) novel (2009)

Also on the graphic novel tip, I got the first volume of Monstress, written by Marjorie Liu with art by Sana Takeda, aka two Asian-American women putting out a comic book in an overwhelmingly male dominated industry. (I mean, what industry isn't right?) The fantasy world they’ve created is filled with intriguing characters, a two-tailed cat, and when you're done you'll just with there was more Monstress to catch up on.

• Monstress: Inside The Fantasy Comic About Race, Feminism And The Monster Within (2015)

And although I haven't left the house much recently, I did get out to La Jolla Playhouse to watch Tiger Style!, a play from Mike Lew about growing up Chinese-American. You can see how it was right up my alley… And it proved to be exactly what I wanted: witty and arcastic, unapologetically direct about ethnicity and race, and very very funny. The line that sums Tiger Style! up perfectly, as spoken by a U.S. customs officer who is giving two characters a hard time and refuting their calls of discrimination: “I don’t hear race."

• Angry Asian Man Interview with Tiger Style Playwright

It’s been a pretty bad year for movies but I can recommend Dearest on Netflix and Hell or High Water in the theater. The latter is a neo-Western about two bank robbers down on their luck, and Dearest is a powerful “based on a true story” account of child abduction in China. Both are real crowd pleasers! Okay, don’t quote me on that...

And last thing, my friend Cindy wrote a cyberpunk YA novel set in near future Taipei. WANT features an Asian-American male on the cover. And I repeat: An Asian-American male on the cover. I stopped updating my CoverMale Pinterest board two years ago, but WANT would have been a fine edition. Just look at that beauty. And did I say it’s set in Taipei?! I can't wait to read this thing.

• Diversity in YA: WANT Cover Reveal