December 2025
Monthly recap as usual - will not be doing a yearly one
I was sick for most of December and managed to dislocate some ribs from coughing. I’ve had some bad pain before but this was actually the worst.
What I read
In December I finally got to Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. My podcast buddy and I had scheduled this book for December on our bookclub/challenge thing for many reasons, one of them being able to continue the tetralogy in 2026 if we were so inclined. We are indeed continuing it this year, so succes!
I also continued reading Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, which I started in August (after having started back in 2019) and am yet to finish. After a few more pages (I’m more than halfway through btw) I decided I wanted to read some graphic novels or children’s books instead, so I read Roaming, by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Margery Williams Bianco’s The Velveteen Rabbit (in a lovely Portuguese edition, and also somewhat a Christmas book), one of my Christmas gifts Urusei Yatsura, Vol. 5 by Rumiko Takahashi, Léonie Bischoff’s Anaïs Nin biography of sorts and vol. 9 of Bad Guys which is a silly children’s book series I’ve been enjoying.
What I got
Not only December brings us Christmas, I also went on a short holiday to Bilbao/San Sebastián early in the month. From Bilbao, I got The Basque History Of The World by Mark Kurlansky, which had been on my wishlist for years, Lo que mueve el mundo by Basque author Kirmen Uribe and, totally unrelated, Te di ojos y miraste las tinieblas by Irene Solà.
I received my Black Friday order from Walt’s Comic Shop: Rare Flavours by Ram V (I liked Laila Starr), Medea by Blandine Le Callet, Night Fever by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips, Little Bird: The Fight For Elder's Hope by Darcy Van Poelgeest, The Mysteries by Bill Watterson (super curious to see him in a different tone than Calvin&Hobbes) and the major classic From Hell, by Alan Moore.



A friend offered me Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg. From a publisher’s yearly sale, I got the Portuguese editions for Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks, King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes, Symbolic Misery, Volume 1: The Hyperindustrial Epoch by Bernard Stiegler and Mad Love by André Breton. After watching a video on YouTube by Bob the Bookerer, I had to get a copy of A Five Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens.
From my La Kube subscription I got La Douceur du piment rouge by Laurie Heyme. Author Ana Gil Campos sent me her latest work, Amanhã Será um Dia de Sol. For Christmas, my boyfriend offered me Feral by Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez and Brad Simpson, Sailor Moon vol. 11 by Naoko Takeuchi, Urusei Yatsura, Vol. 5 by Rumiko Takahashi, L’art de perdre by Alice Zeniter and The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez.
Other things
Are you someone who plans your reads or are you a mood reader? I’m more of the latter, but I’d like to know if there are any books you’d really like to finally read in 2026. For me I guess it’s The Color Purple and The Talented Mr Ripley. I’d also like to finish a lot of the books I’ve DNF over the years for no particular reason other than mood changes.
My one major goal for 2026 is to write my opinion on a book pretty much as soon as I finish it. Due to not being dilligent on this before (also due to my lack of motivation stemming from the always lovely Instagram algorithm and Blogger’s death), I have a bunch of super “late” reviews I’m still catching up on.
I’d also love to start posting periodically. On a fixed schedule? I’m not sure how to phrase this. Basically: what do you think would be a good calendar/schedule? Twice, three times a week? What days? Etc etc kindly let me know.




Infinite Jest… I have tried many times. Maybe now I have matured enough. 🥸
Loved this! Very good ones here!! I have a post on Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s The informers - I really recommend this book if you like his writing! 🙌🏼