March 2025 | Reading, Watching, Living
sci fi + old movies (the usual)
LIVING
I was out of town for half of February and March, which meant a lot of time in hotels and other people’s homes and not much in my own. Every time I leave my house for a while and return, I see it with both fresh appreciation and a critical eye toward what I often overlook. I’ve always loved a good spring declutter, but this year I tackled my belongings with zeal. Gone are the extra humidifier and the yoga mat I haven’t used in years, the kitchen gadgets that have been unneeded since moving into this house, the clothing and books that have sat unworn and unread. I ended the month with a box of books to ship to Thriftbooks, a bag of clothing for ThredUp, several pieces of furniture to sell or donate, and another two bags of miscellaneous items to go to Goodwill. The house has never felt roomier.
READING
Seven books this month: one printed sermon, four sci fi novels, one classic, and one essay collection.
Earlier this year I picked up a few titles from Crossway’s Short Classics series and this month I read The Expulsive Power of a New Affection by Thomas Chalmers. I’ve seen this 19th century sermon referenced in a multitude of other articles and sermons about how the Spirit works in the human heart. Chalmers’ main idea is that it is not enough to say that a love of the world is emptiness; the love of the world must be replaced with the love of God.
I mentioned last month that I was reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series ahead of my sci fi book club’s March meeting. This month I read the last two books in the trilogy, Authority and Acceptance, and the club’s pick for the month, Absolution, the prequel to the trilogy. The series focuses on Area X, a mysterious zone of alien origin(?) in Florida, and the scientists who study it. VanderMeer’s writing is more abstract than other modern sci fi authors and forces you to read between the lines to understand the plot. I was confused by the point of the prequel, as it doesn’t add anything new to the series, but someone in our meeting said she found an interesting time travel theory online so I’m leaning into that.
And speaking of my sci fi club — Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds is one of the books that club members mention as an example of how to write storylines that cross huge spans of time. I picked up a copy at the science fiction bookstore in Malmö last year but didn’t read it until my flight to Amsterdam this month. Revelation Space is Reynolds' debut album, a hard sci fi tome following multiple people across space and time: an archeologist who discovers an alien civilization, an ancient technology disguised as a planet, and a spaceship full of characters unwittingly pulled into space politics. Clunky at times, overly long at others, but a great plane read.
I also brought Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy to Amsterdam. Earlier this year I decided to read all of Hardy’s books in order, and Desperate Remedies was his first published. Written as a sensation novel, Desperate Remedies follows a set of siblings, Cytheria and Owen, after the death of their parents as they attempt to find their own way in the world. Per the genre, it’s a wild tale with twists every few chapters, making for a very fun vacation read.
And finally, I read The Liberating Arts edited by Jeffrey Bilbro, Jessica Hooten Wilson, and David Henreckson, a collection of essays about the importance and value of a liberal articles education. I skimmed this one; if you’re in the classical education space online, you’re already familiar with the topics covered. Some of the essays I'd read before in Plough, others were new. A good collection, but no new ground covered.
WATCHING
Six movies this month: four old movies (one in French), a modern classic, and a “recent” release.
I found Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, UK, 1947) through Alan Jacobs’ blog, and watched it after seeing and loving The Third Man, another Carol Reed film, a few months ago. James Mason plays an Irish nationalist on the run after a botched robbery attempt. There’s love, intrigue, suspense, and an inescapable ending (and my favorite character type is sad brunette man, so this ticked all my boxes).
I watched Victim (Basil Dearden, UK, 1961) on the plane ride back from Amsterdam. A closeted lawyer risks his career and marriage to bring a blackmailer of gay men to justice. The film was released when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain, which is probably why it takes a preachy tone at times. Nevertheless, it remains a moving and influential thriller.
When I visited my friend in Charlotte this month, we discovered we were both working our way through Alfred Hitchcock’s films. Neither of us had seen Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1946), so it was our movie night pick. Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant are a fantastic duo; Bergman plays the daughter of a convicted German spy secretly working against her father’s old friends, and Grant is her handler.
My foreign film of the month was Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, France, 1950), a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus is in love with Death after witnessing a death in public. The visual effects are clever and the film has an overall quite dreamy quality, but I wouldn’t say I loved this one.
I avoided watching American Psycho (Mary Harron, USA, 2000) for years because it was my friend’s ex-boyfriend’s favorite movie in high school and he was, shall we say, not my favorite person. However, I finally dove into this satirical tale about an investment banker who devolves further into violence just to feel something, and to my surprise found it quite funny. A stylish, edgy, unhinged movie.
I somehow missed that Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh, UK/USA, 2017) was a Martin McDonagh movie, otherwise I would have watched it years ago. A mother puts up three billboards challenging the lack of progress in solving her daughter’s rape and murder case, and in doing so, unleashes chaos in the town. A funny, poignant, tragic film — some scenes made me laugh and cry at the same time. Frances McDormand, the woman you are.