August Happiness
Aug. 29th, 2025 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingThis is what’s been making me happy this August:
A good book: I can’t recommend this book without reservations, but I enjoyed Leigh Bardugo’s novel The Familiar, which was published back in April 2024. My reservations are that (a) the beginning of the story is going in too many directions at once, and (b) it doesn’t get good until around 180 pages in, once it settles on a direction. Despite its opening pretensions of historical fiction, what The Familiar is really about is a fancy magic competition between problematic wizards at a luxurious country estate in Spain at the turn of the seventeenth century, and I am always here for romance with a dubious wizard mentor.
A good manga:
Nightfall Travelers Leave Only Footprints is a two-volume episodic slice-of-life story about two high school girls who investigate urban legends after school in their sprawling suburban town. The first twist is that nothing supernatural is going on (the ghost that appears in a field is just the reflection of a tree in a pond, etc); and the second twist is that the town is infinitely large and labyrinthine. Essentially, the reader gets to explore an intricate and beautiful cityscape with two friends, like urban exploration without the spookiness. The art is lovely, and the story is very sweet.
Another good manga:
A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch is an adventure fantasy comedy series that’s complete in five volumes. During a ritual to summon a “demon beast,” an old woman who lives alone in the forest ends up getting a regular housecat who becomes giant in the process. The first volume is about the woman’s small slice-of-life adventures with the elephant-sized cat, but the rest of the series follows a surprisingly fast-paced plot in which the woman and her giant cat save a kingdom by deposing a silver vixen evil queen. Also there’s a handsome demon king, because of course there is.
A good book about video games:
Jaroslav Ŝvelch’s Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Video Game Monstrosity is an academic book published by an academic press, but it’s short, inexpensive, accessible, and a lot of fun to read. I could tell that Ŝvelch spent a lot of time with Bloodborne and just really wanted to talk about it, and honestly? Same. I also get the feeling that the entire book was leading to the extended discussion of Undertale in the final chapter, which is fair. Undertale stands on its own feet well enough, but what Toby Fox and Temmie Chang were doing with this game is even more interesting in the context of a deep dive into how the gaming medium handles the concept of “monsters.”
A good Tumblr post:
(This) post on Tumblr is an illustrated + animated guide to (very) easy stretches for your hands, fingers, and shoulders. After spending way too much time at a desk last month, I had to spend this month recovering, and this post is probably the single most useful resource I found. I love not having to watch videos. <3
A good book: I can’t recommend this book without reservations, but I enjoyed Leigh Bardugo’s novel The Familiar, which was published back in April 2024. My reservations are that (a) the beginning of the story is going in too many directions at once, and (b) it doesn’t get good until around 180 pages in, once it settles on a direction. Despite its opening pretensions of historical fiction, what The Familiar is really about is a fancy magic competition between problematic wizards at a luxurious country estate in Spain at the turn of the seventeenth century, and I am always here for romance with a dubious wizard mentor.
A good manga:
Nightfall Travelers Leave Only Footprints is a two-volume episodic slice-of-life story about two high school girls who investigate urban legends after school in their sprawling suburban town. The first twist is that nothing supernatural is going on (the ghost that appears in a field is just the reflection of a tree in a pond, etc); and the second twist is that the town is infinitely large and labyrinthine. Essentially, the reader gets to explore an intricate and beautiful cityscape with two friends, like urban exploration without the spookiness. The art is lovely, and the story is very sweet.
Another good manga:
A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch is an adventure fantasy comedy series that’s complete in five volumes. During a ritual to summon a “demon beast,” an old woman who lives alone in the forest ends up getting a regular housecat who becomes giant in the process. The first volume is about the woman’s small slice-of-life adventures with the elephant-sized cat, but the rest of the series follows a surprisingly fast-paced plot in which the woman and her giant cat save a kingdom by deposing a silver vixen evil queen. Also there’s a handsome demon king, because of course there is.
A good book about video games:
Jaroslav Ŝvelch’s Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Video Game Monstrosity is an academic book published by an academic press, but it’s short, inexpensive, accessible, and a lot of fun to read. I could tell that Ŝvelch spent a lot of time with Bloodborne and just really wanted to talk about it, and honestly? Same. I also get the feeling that the entire book was leading to the extended discussion of Undertale in the final chapter, which is fair. Undertale stands on its own feet well enough, but what Toby Fox and Temmie Chang were doing with this game is even more interesting in the context of a deep dive into how the gaming medium handles the concept of “monsters.”
A good Tumblr post:
(This) post on Tumblr is an illustrated + animated guide to (very) easy stretches for your hands, fingers, and shoulders. After spending way too much time at a desk last month, I had to spend this month recovering, and this post is probably the single most useful resource I found. I love not having to watch videos. <3
