Freak energy

Such good news! A professor offered me a student job at uni for the next academic year!

Also, I've been doing a (variable) number of Sun Salutations (A and B) since the beginning of the year and friends, my bicepses and tricepses got so big that they're visible even through my arm fat when my arm is relaxed. (I can now finally do a few proper push-ups. Not too many¹, but they're possible.)

The first book of this period was Bad Friend, which is about friendship breakups. It gets slightly repetitive in certain parts, but overall, I still got a lot of food for thought. Elman really pushed the idea that friendships aren't less important than romantic relationships.

Then I spent some time reading fiction books, starting with The Shadow Cabinet, which I liked even less than the previous book in the series (it's probably the characters, who are a bit likeable and a bit not), but not enough to cross out the final book off my list. Then there was Cinder House, which was great in most parts. It was a bit grotesque and it really worked for the story.

Finally, finally, I read La Belle Sauvage. I've been waiting to read it since it came out—there was book fair locally a month after this book came out and La Belle Sauvage was all over it. I held off because I knew it was going to be good and the wait for the sequel was going to be terrible. I was right. It was so good. I loved Malcolm, his curiosity and steadfastness. I can't wait to dig into The Secret Commonwealth. (I'm literally looking at it right now, on the shelf, and I'm only containing myself because I'm currently reading a Pulley novel.)

Then I read a really bad book in Croatian called Ljubav u Berlinu (transl. love in Berlin). Why do local critics have such a bad sense of what is actually good? This was published in 1995 and set before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was written by a man, the narrator was male as well, and it was just so self-indulgent. There were no subverted tropes, although I kept hoping because the narration was actually good. I got another reason why I should avoid the literary genre.

As a palate cleanser, I picked up a murder mystery that has been on my list for a while, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late. The first chapter is excellent. While the mystery wasn't much—in fact, it felt almost like an afterthought in some parts—the novel itself had a lot things that I personally like, from community building to a small town type of character cast.

Another thing that I've been doing most days since the beginning of the year, aside from Sun Salutations, has been journal. Now that there's a practice in place, The Book of Alchemy came right on time. It's a collection of 100+ short essays followed by journaling prompts currated by Suleika Jaouad. Most of them have a food-for-thought potential, although I just straight up read it rather than journal with it as it was intended.

• Michelle Elman, Bad Friend: Why Friendship Breakups Hurt and How to Heal
• Juno Dawson, The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty's Royal Coven 2)
• Freya Marske, Cinder House
• Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust 1)
• Željko Ivanković, Ljubav u Berlinu
• Harry Kamelman, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (The Rabbi Small Mysteries 1)
• Suleika Jaouad, The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life

_{¹ "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." (Michael Pollan)... is what I thought about when I wrote that.}