An increasing interrogation of the stories told to us by the schools now felt essential. It felt wrong not to ask why, and then to ask it again. I took these questions to my father, who very often refused to offer an answer and instead referred me to more books. My mother and father were always pushing me away from second hand answers. Even the answers they themselves believed. I don't know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers 1/2

Perhaps there has been at some point in history some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it.
But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal.
America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist.
1/2

2025 Favourite Non-Fiction:
Top row: Horror, Topics of Special Interest
2nd row: Book and word focused, Important Topics
3rd row: Animal/Nature, Greek Myth, Clothing History
4th Row: Essays and Memoirs
5th row: More memoirs! ☺️

2025 Favourite Graphic Novels
Predictably top heavy with DC selections. My absolute favourite Nightwing series ever finished this year, loved every volume.
2nd row has more DC plus some spooky picks and the fantastic Cats of the Louvre
3rd row = great LGBTQIA+ line up,
Bottom left corner = non-fiction
Bottom right = continuing series

Managed to cram all my other novel length favourite fiction plus poetry into this frame!
Top row = 2025 favourite fantasy
2nd row = Horror, Mystery, Classic
3rd Row = Contemporary, Short Stories, Historical
4th row= One more classic 😅 plus poetry!

Let's start the 2025 favourites recaps with my favourite genre: sci-fi.
Top row = best of the best,
Middle row = more robot-forward picks,
Bottom row= sci-fi horror and sci-fi mystery

A fantastic final read for 2025. Unusually for a novella, I think it was just the right amount of plot for the page count. There are aspects to this science fictional world that I'd love to explore further, side characters I wish we'd spent a bit more time with, but the main arc for the protagonist is satisfying, and still leaves room for things to be weird and wonderful and truly eerie. 1/?

I identify as zero chill. This is indeed intrinsic to my sense of self. 😅

Published in 2020.
These times remain unbelievable. 🤨

Spectacular adventure with one major caveat, apparently it's the FIRST book in a series! Had a decent stopping point, so I'm less aggrieved on the cliffhanger front, but oh dear does it sting that this was published this year, which means I have to WAIT to find out what happens next.
I've done ND Stevenson a great disservice in mostly remembering how the art told the story of Nimona, and thus was initially disappointed that this is 1/?

Accurate. 🫣🍌🍞💥

Inversion of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
How delightfully creepy.

Part literary experiment (phonetical reproduction of English, how would you write it if you mostly only heard it? How does an author write it to convey this while also ensuring the reading comprehension isn't hampered?), part environmental and animal welfare statement, part exploration of trauma and its aftermath.
Fox 8 finds many things enchanting about the human world, 1/?

An excellent re-read. Forgot how absolutely jam-packed the first book in this series is. I think it's that only book series where I would recommend the audiobook over the physical and insist on 1x playback because Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is THAT GOOD of a narrator/performer. The jazzy chapter intros don't hurt either. Might take a bit with the library hold list, but I think I'm set to reread the whole series at this point. 1/?

Ambiguity in books is usually not my favourite but this one really worked for me.
I read it twice in a row, made me think differently about certain parts but the answers are not forthcoming, and the book still works. Will definitely be looking into other works by this author/artist. 1/?

Beautiful art and message. Feels like a kin to Sharks Don't Sink, in promoting women of color in the vocation of shark scientists. The art is for all ages; I do think the writing is a little bit more advanced than your average picture book, would be a good 'read with parent ' pick.

Okay, I get the hype now. Enchanting and fascinating, to have a window into an exceptional circumstance, a mostly wild hare allowed to come and go, trusting enough of a particular human to witness behaviours and appearance up close, without hampering its ability to survive in nature. While we get a handful of reflections from the author, mentions of her life elsewhere, this is a book primarily about observing a hare 1/?

Some of it is prosaic, truly a snippet of a day in the life as much as more profound life lessons, but I kept getting slapped by the sudden elegance in a turn of phrase.
I think I just wanted more, ditch the regular quotes and poems featured from other authors, and give me more first hand experience, more of those striking sentences. Also, more of the gorgeous woodcut style illustrations by Joanna Lisowiec. 1/?

“...streaks of vital light laughing the season in.“
That one's going to stay with me. ☀️

Just a field of grass...on an organic farm.
Modern agrochemicals and industrial farming = threat to biodiversity.

Gambolling by moonlight 🥰🐑

Ever-luminous sheep. 🐑🌟

Nine million well-fed squirrels - approximately. ☺️🌰🐿️

The flexible magic of statistics...😏🐸📊

The cuteness continues! Feel like Nadatani is hitting his stride, there was a heavier proportion of linear narrative in the first few books as things were established, but now the reader can enjoy vignettes of Kozakura and her cats, still strong on the gamer girl and cat care themes. They're adorable and silly and I love them all.

Ranks among my favourite book dedications. ☺️

Priorities...😏

Sucks to 'learn the hard way' on an industrial scale, and it does feel like a lot of agricultural practice I've read about lately is attempting to mitigate or undo what seemed like a good idea before. 😖

Evocative, idyllic, but also, thank goodness for laws that keep children off heavy machinery, and advances that add cabs and roll bars to heavy machinery.

What can you say about a beloved classic that's been such for more than a century?
They're right and they should say it!
I'm sure these are all redundancies from worthier critics, but I'm going to mention them anyway.
Turns out there are legitimately spooky/terrifying passages, as much tension and description related to the ghostly visitations as contemplation of the inability to change one's grim fate and that good old spine-chilling 1/?

His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. 🥹🕯️

Just a possible future, told briefly in text, but still utterly heartbreaking. 💔😭
Mr. Dickens, the writer that you were. 😔

A comprehensive breakup speech. 🫤

Big fan of the Fezziwigs. 😁

A truly marvelous description. 😊

Too much. This book tried to do way too much. As a premise, I love the idea of an art educator, someone who has spent serious time in creative fields, investigating through reading previous research and interviewing various scientists (ethologists [animal behaviour], evolutionary biologists, psychologists and neuroscientists, etc), and collating the results to convey how animal behaviours lend credence not just to the emerging preponderance 1/?

Ah, the Belt of Eldritch Horrors. A key accessory to any phantom. 😱

I needed that. Truly a splendid collaboration. I usually have difficulty with graphic memoirs - the balance is off between depicting the wealth of information in text versus conveying the narrative through images, this one got it just right. It also had a wealth of story to tell: you get the beats of Takei's life, with a strong thread of recognizing and hiding the gay part of his identity, not a source of self-loathing, 1/?

EEEEEEeeee! 🥰😍

Pure fun, with a cliffhanger? The low stakes nature of this series makes me think it's just a silly bit of drama tacked on the end, but it's certainly not an element I remember from previous volumes.
The motif of the game girl engaging with her cats in ways that echo game play continues, but this volume was better at letting it stem more from natural actions of the cats and the gamer girl creatively engaging with their behaviour and 1/?

Officially adopting level achievements for birthdays! 😁

Hey, this party spot has a water park! 🐦‍⬛😁

McCarthyism: “no one will ever know how much inventive and progressive talent during that period was stifled and stultified.“ 😔

“I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.“
Nope. No thank you. 🫣

“There's more of gravy than of grave about you...“ 😅
Plausible denial: Ghosts = indigestion. 🤢👻

“clementines, bright orange as lit coals...sweetness haunts her still“
Conveys such a sharp sense of the bleakness that rare pleasures like dessert and true warmth are fighting against.

Oh yes, Shea is definitely best experienced in the full rainbow. I love that Unicorn thinks Goat is pretty great, and Goat thinks Unicorn is pretty great, but there is something a little concerning about Unicorn putting himself down in the same breath that he's admiring Goat's qualities. Goat thinks Unicorn is great, but does Unicorn know that? Unicorn seems like a happy beast, so I assume I'm reading too much into it. 1/2

These endpapers make me wish I could find the pattern in fabric. Happy little cupcakes! 🧁☺️

Currently devouring Bob Shea's picture books, amd went for the seasonally appropriate next. Dinosaur is definitely meant for very young readers given the simplicity of the narrative, and Shea's colourful palette is somewhat restricted by sticking primarily to a red and green motif, but I love the switch between snarly face and truly adorable expressions, and there's something inspiring in the 'roar about it but get shit done' tackling of to-dos.