biblio creep – august 2024 newsletter

Hello, creepy friends! I hope you’ve been doing great. Thanks to all of you, the Biblio Creep YouTube channel achieved a major milestone this month, reaching 1000 subscribers! I am so thankful for all of your support and kind words throughout the past year, and I am excited to continue to bring you fun and relaxing videos. I also added a new type of content to the channel this month, with reading ambience videos, which I talk about more in the YouTube section of this newsletter. I hope you enjoy, and wish you a wonderful August!

Book Reviews

Below are some short reviews of the books I read in July. Longer versions will be posted on bibliocreep.com a little bit later in August. I’ve been in a little bit of a reading slump this summer, but I read some interesting things this month. And, three of them are translated fiction written by women, just in time for Women In Translation Month!

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

Fiction – Literary, Surrealism, Magical Realism
My Rating – 5/5 stars
Translated from Norwegian
This turned out to be another “I don’t know what I read, but I loved it” situation, which seems to be what I have been loving lately. In this short novel, a young Norwegian woman moves to England for school, and sets out to find an apartment to rent. She moves into a strange, converted brewery with an intriguing woman, and nature begins to take over the building, and their bodies. I found the imagery in this book so beautiful, conveying the cycle of birth and rebirth. There were also strong allusions to the garden of eden, Eve with the serpent, and the danger and monstrosity of being a woman. I highly recommend this for lovers of weird literary fiction, gorgeous imagery, and uncanny vibes.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yū Miri

Fiction – Literary, Magical Realism
My Rating – 3.5/5 stars
Translated from Japanese
This story tells the tale of one man’s life, exploring his memories from his later years, and touching on his connections to others, especially his family. The writing style was beautiful, incorporating some stream-of-consciousness sections and snippets of overheard conversations. Many of the characters are unhoused, living in plywood huts around Tokyo Ueno train station, and this is the first time that I’ve seen that representation in a book from Japan. This book empathetically shows a look at old age, and how many older people are forgotten, as well as how income inequality disproportionately affects older people. This was an emotional and gorgeously written book, and I recommend it to those who like to get in their feels.

Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada

Fiction – Literary, Contemporary
My Rating – 4/5 stars
Translated from Japanese
This is the first book I’ve read from Tawada, and I am intrigued to read more. This is a story of found family set in the near future. Japan no longer exists, due to flooding from climate change, and the Japanese people are scattered all over the earth. Though this is told in multiple POV’s, there does seem to be a main character, a Japanese woman living in Scandinavia, who is on a journey to find at least one other speaker of her native language. The highlight of this book are the characters. Tawada weaves the multiple POV’s together expertly, and they were all engaging, with the characters feeling like real people. This is part one of a trilogy, so I’m excited to see where the rest of this hear-warming story goes.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Fiction – Literary, Surrealism, Magical Realism
My Rating – 3/5 stars
Translated from Japanese
This is another of Murakami’s early novels, written in the 1980’s. As I work my way through all of his catalogue, I am finding myself not quite as enchanted by his earlier work. Although there was some of his signature magical realism in this one, I found it to drag a little bit, and a I didn’t care very much about the characters. I did enjoy the setting and atmosphere of Hokkaido that Murakami included. As with most of Murakami’s books, the representation of women is a little bit weird and objectifying. Again, while I enjoy his writing style, I don’t think this one is a win for me, personally.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Fiction – Horror, LGBTQIA+
My Rating – 4/5 stars
This was a campy romp of a horror novel, set in Hollywood. The horror in this book is fueled by capitalistic greed, which I think is pretty relevant at the moment. The book also pokes fun at the performative, and often empty actions, of corporations to appeal to the LGBTQIA+ community, with shallow representation and rainbow merch. It was gory and full of action, and there was never a dull moment. I also really appreciated the diverse representation, with an asexual/aromantic major character, which is sorely lacking in a lot of LGBTQIA+ stories. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys humorous or satirical horror.

July YouTube Videos

Below are links to all of the YouTube videos I released in July. A new addition, as mentioned in the introduction, are the “read with me” ambience videos. I wanted to add another type of bookish video for you all, while still maintaining the schedule of my other book review and journaling videos, and ambience videos seemed to fit the bill. I have both one hour and 30 minute videos with calming sounds, such as rain, thunder, crackling fires, bird song, etc., that you can use as background ambience while reading, studying, relaxing, or falling asleep. I hope you enjoy!