things I liked followed by the things I did not (read the first half of the year’s likes and dislikes here)
the things I liked
books1
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (have you heard? I read it TWICE)
Bad Attitude(s) on Trial: Pornography, Feminism, and the Butler Decision by Shannon Bell, Becki Ross, and Lise Gotell
works by Tanith Lee: Night’s Master, Heart-Beast, Dark Dance, Companions on the Road, and The Silver Metal Lover
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Not in Front of the Children: ‘Indecency,’ Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth by Marjorie Heins
The Doctor’s Discretion by E.E. Ottoman
re-reads
Starlit Surrender, Black Silk, Bliss, and Dance – I began my Judy Cuevas/Judith Ivory re-read in June. I wrote about the first two but have been creatively blocked from writing about Bliss and Dance. it is my hope that the floodgates open in 2026, and I write what needs to be written about this duology.
McMurtry May! Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
articles, posts, videos, podcasts
Black Actresses Are Carrying One Battle After Another by Angelica Jade Bastién
Guilty by Affiliation – Mohammed El-Kurd
A Love Letter to Erotic Cinema by Bunny Harper
that’s a wrap on Every Line in American Movie!
Reconciliation is Central to Romance: Comparing masters of the genre Loretta Chase and Sherry Thomas by Beth at Ministrations
A Society-Shaped Monster: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at 50 by Fred Barrett for inreviewonline.com
Sick of the anti-porn bullshit – by Cathy Reisenwitz
Golden Age Gooning – by Noelle Perdue – Porn World & What do we have to lose? – by Noelle Perdue – Porn World
Silicon Valley Can Befoul Anything, Even Death the tech bubble
Cellulioid Now, More Than Ever by Olivia Hunter Willke
Three Square Meals a Day:Design for Living (1933) by Fran Hoepfner for brightwalldarkroom
A Life in 102 Years by Sami Gold at Shmulik’s Takes
Death is Just a Change by Kaleb Horton2
A History of Mills & Boon and A History of Harlequin from Reformed Rakes podcast
be your own algorithm by pagemelt on youtube3
Why Movies Just Don’t Feel “Real” Anymore Like Stories of Old on youtube
Why Every Kitchen Suddenly Got Cold by Kendra Gaylord on youtube
T Avery Norkey performances of LEGO Phantom of the Opera on tiktok4
films
The Red Shoes (1948, dir. Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Spontaneous Combustion (1989, dir. Tobe Hooper)5
Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948, Basil Dearden)
Panna a netvor/Beauty and the Beast (1978, Juraj Herz)6
Man of the West (1958, dir. Anthony Mann)7
Le Vourdalak (2023, dir. Adrien Beau)
the favorite(s)
The Shrouds (2024, dir. David Cronenberg)8
Kuroneko (1968, dir. Kaneto Shindo) Academy Theater
seated at the repertory theater (re-watches)
In the Mood for Love (2000, dir. Wong Kar-Wai) Hollywood Theatre
Blade Runer: The Final Cut (1982, dir. Ridley Scott) on 35MM, Hollywood Theater
Eyes Wide Shut (1999, dir. Stanley Kubrick) Academy Theater
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, dir. David Lean) Academy Theater
Black Christmas (1974, dir. Bob Clark) Academy Theater
re-listening to albums I love
Washing Machine by Sonic Youth
Disintegration by The Cure
Suki Suki Daisuki by Jun Togawa
Jacqueline du Pre & Daniel Barenboim – Elgar Cello Concerto
The Last Waltz by The Band
The Lost Boys Soundrack
Hot Chocolate The Greatest Hits
Tim (Expanded) by The Replacements
miscellaneous likes
fountain pen ink by iroshizuku:
TWSBI Diamond Mini fountain pen
soaps made by witches. also, this roll-on fragrance thing made by witches. from now on I’m only buying self-care products from witches.
UNION ORGANIZING!
sewing my own clothes9:
support the people that make things you love to read, watch, and listening to. I am proud to support:
Gretchen Felker-Martin | Creating Filth | Patreon
Reformed Rakes | A historical romance podcast. | Patreon10
pagemelt | videos about bOoKs, art, and internet culture | Patreon
Madwomen & Muses | Angelica Jade Bastién | Substack
the things I disliked
streaming (movies, music, etc.). I quit and you should too!11
the Laurelhurst Theater
too many romance scholarship papers to list that are written from the perspective of a loser
synthetic fibers
state-by-state passing of online age verification laws
Moleskine notebooks, specifically the paper:
books
Vile Pucker: A Dark Gothic Hockey Romance by Kate Raven
Pornography, Feminism, and the Individual by Alison Assiter
bullshit book boxes featuring sprayed edges and ugly covers13
film/tv
Hamnet (2025, dir. Chloé Zhao)
Heated Rivalry (book, show, etc.)
Frankenstein (2025, Guillermo del Toro)
The Crow (2024, dir. Rupert Sanders)
- I read fewer books this year than in years past. . . which is good! I read slower, I re-read, I dnf’d, I returned to things I put down. ↩︎
- RIP My Eulogy for Kaleb Horton – Dave’s Place ↩︎
- join their Patreon for $3 USD/month! ↩︎
- BETH THANK YOU FOR THIS GIFT ↩︎
- this post inspired the watch: I Can Almost See the Core – by Fred Barrett ↩︎
- read this by Angelica Jade Bastién Movies That Fuck No.1: Juraj Herz’s Beauty and the Beast (1978) ↩︎
- for the past two years I have been working my way through Gary Cooper’s films, in no particular order. I watched Man of the West because of this post: Land of Trouble and Anguish – by Peter Raleigh ↩︎
- I am obsessed with this movie. I can’t stop re-watching it, I think it is sad and funny and erotic and HUMAN. also, I love when people agree with me:
My 20 favorite films of 2025 – by Fran Hoepfner
My favorite movies of 2025 – by Matt Erspamer
The Year In Productive Tension – by Peter Raleigh
↩︎ - I have learned how to sew shirts, a dress, pants! I ordered a bolt of fabric and 2026 will see me wearing the perfect pants of my dreams! ↩︎
- I was a guest on this podcast which is fucking unreal to ME a simple guy! honor of a lifetime. ↩︎
- only if you can, ofc.! instead of 6 streaming services, try to narrow them down: borrow things from friends, see what your library has, check out local no-buy or resale groups. ↩︎
- writing – and sucking at it – is frustrating and humiliating! the struggle is real. the struggle means I am real (and cheesy). I think about this passage, written by Rayne Fisher-Quann, about AI and slamming up against your limitations:
“Expressing ideas effectively through writing is not something that people are born being able to do or not do; it’s a muscle that anyone can develop and that anyone can let atrophy. Even now, when I’m lucky enough to be able to write exactly what I want to write with very few external constraints, writing often feels difficult for me in the same way it did when I was pumping out listicles — slow, sticky, clunky, painful, humiliating. I wonder if this, too, is part of the appeal of AI: it is so often humiliating to push up against the limits of your ability. But I’ve had a lot of practice with it, and it’s that practice — not the books I’ve read or the ideas I’ve had — that has materially made me a writer. I’m no fan of the exploitative, low-paying media industry that forces young writers to churn out content with no job security, to be clear, and I’m no fan of academia, either. It’s strange to balance my distaste for those institutions with a sense of gratitude that I was forced to figure out how to write even when I didn’t want to, even when it didn’t matter, even when it didn’t feel good. Because it really did get easier, and I really did get better.” ↩︎ - this is a dig at Julia Quinn’s book box. to be fair, I have not seen these covers, they have not been released yet. but come on! sprayed edges are so fucking stupid and always look like vomit. unless someone with Quinn’s influence is going to use that influence to get out-of-print books re-published – books that are sold for exorbitant prices on resale sites – ENOUGH with the ugly pastel cover book boxes. ↩︎
scarr 