The True Story of My “To-Be-Read” Pile of Books: Pink Slips, Topple-Warnings, and The Ever-Prepared-Aunt
Are you stressed out? Are you anxious? Are you soothed by the thought of organization and just want to zone out? Well that makes two of us, and I’m here to help with the ASMR equivalent of reading articles. I know a deep-dive into “what exactly is happening on the multitude of haphazardly collected tables around Zora Grizz’s bed” is something you’ve desperately wanted to cozy up and read about - likely for years. Inquiring minds do, after all, want to know things. So: let us begin.
Beneath The Garden Magazine recently asked it’s staff two delightful questions,
What books do you keep at your bedside?
What movie adaptations do you love?
…But I found my answers were not very concise or simple at all. And so I present to you: the true story of my unhinged bedside-table books situation, and my happy thoughts on Good Omens, season 2: The Much Needed Gay-ening.
Question 1: What books do you keep at your bedside?
There are things you should know:
I have not one, but five, precariously stacked towers of books on my hodgepodge of bedside tables. The tables themselves are scrounged items that are exclusively there to hold the books. One is apparently the middle support-section of an old, expandable, dining-room table. I turned it upside down and stuck it in a corner (Baby, it is not), and now it holds books.
The 5 stacks of bedside-books are categorized thusly:
Stack 1: Books I am currently "reading", or suspect I will want to be reading soon. There are also a lot of favorite re-reads in this stack. I rotate its contents often, as my mood and interests shift (Height: 1.75 feet…but it tells everyone it’s 2 feet).
Examples: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas, Frontier by Grace Curtis
Stack 2: Cool non-fiction books that I'm very interested in and want to know all about what's inside their covers, but that I will in all honesty probably never read because my brian desperately, mercilessly, craves fiction and will tolerate nothing else (Height: 1.01 feet).
Examples: Wolfish by Erica Berry, Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews
Stack 3: Books that I’ve obtained relatively recently (in the cosmic sense), through money, luck, bargain, or barter, that I definitely want to be reading, but that have not yet made it to Stack 1: Books-That-I-Actually-And/Or-Theoretically-Am-Reading-Right-Now. I daren’t put Stack 3 books on or near the bookshelf, in case I forget about them. Books in Stack 3 are, admittedly, usually there for a very, very, long time. I decline to define how long that may or may not be (Height: 2 feet. Truly).
Examples: The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Stack 4: All of the cool picture books that I have. These include a few from when I was a kid, a few of my favorites from my time working in children’s literature, books I’ve bought for my niblings, books I’ve used for projects when getting my graduate degree in Library Science, books whose illustrations I find utterly delightful, etc. etc. etc.. These are kept at-the-ready so that when my teeny-tiny niblings video-call me for storytimes, I can read them bedtime tales at a moment's notice. (Height: Measured sideways - because to stack them vertically would be disastrous and they may very likely topple over and kill me in my sleep - 2.3 feet).
Examples: The Legend of the Christmas Witch by Aubrey Plaza, Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes
Stack 5: Library books. Unless I keep them firmly sequestered, there's no telling where these borrowed books may end up. If they did a disappearing act into the voluminous stacks of books floating around me at any given moment…they would likely ne’er return. I would then (...once again) have to go through the mortifying experience of staring at my shoes as I explained to the librarian that I permanently lost their temporarily loaned book, and then I would receive an embarrassing bill for said book from the library administrators, printed on damningly-guilty pink paper (I don't know why the combination of pink paper and dollar signs makes me feel like a wanton criminal but it’s true). And then I would (...once again) have to pay the library my own hard-earned monies for said missing book. All of that is to say: my library books get their very own, carefully-monitored, Stack-of-Books-Belonging-To-A-Responsible-Adult-Who-Is-Terrified-of-Pink-Paper. (Height: Constantly shifting, like my respectability).
Examples: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
On to question 2! What movie adaptations do you love?
Good Omens, second season.
So season one’s plot (based on the book), hinged heavily on a troupe of marauding children. There's obviously a lot I love about the first season, but using child-actors always grosses me out. I don't think it should be allowed. Children working on-set is labor, and is also a toxic, abusive, environment from what most child stars reveal as adults.
But season two was not built upon child actors. Season two was brand new content with original storylines, and it got QUEER-ER, which, as you may know, makes me very excited. The original novel and season one have potential queer vibes/coding, but it’s not definitive or integral to the story.
In season two (cover your eyes for the next few sentences if you have yet to see it), there is absolute, definitive, queerness that is driving the storyline. We have the sub-plot of Nina and Maggie’s will-they-won’t-they situationship, and then of course, we have The Kiss - that climactic scene where Crowley grab’s Aziraphale’s face and shows him exactly what he means by “we could have been us”. I think it’s safe to say that queer and queer-allied fans everywhere were ecstatic that the cast, showrunners, and crew made the queer representation of Crowley and Aziraphale definite and delicious.
Season 2 also hit that other sweet-spot of mine: nebulous, undefined, incredibly important, core-relationships. Read more about my thoughts on that particularly delicious phenomenon in my article, The Astrophysics of Earthly Relationships.
And that, dear reader, is what is going on with my bedside tables and with my thoughts on Good Omens season 2.
