November Nostalgia & Movie Marathons

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Photo by Christian Grab on Unsplash

I don’t know what it is about November, but for me it’s a very nostalgic month. Something about the cold and snow sweeping in on the heels of a vibrant autumn, the enveloping gloom, the time change, and the burgeoning anticipation of the holiday season all conspires to make me want nothing more than to be cozy and re-watch all my favourite action/adventure movies.

I’m not sure why action/adventure is specifically the genre I go for. Maybe to counteract the urge to hibernate? While the natural world slows down and beds down, we as a society keep grinding, and so I suppose I seek out some fun and adrenaline to revitalize me in this nippy, busy time without…actually exhausting myself by doing more*.

*Fittingly, a lot of these movies take place in warm, sunny tropical or desert climes, so it only makes sense that I want to watch them when everything’s grey and freezing outside.

If there’s one uniting thread to experiencing winter around the world (for those who have winter, anyway), it’s that it’s a time of story telling. After all, what better way is there to pass the long cold nights than to gather with friends, family, and community and entertain ourselves?

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November Reading Challenge

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November Reading Challenge: Read A Book by an LGBTQIA2S+ Author

Our reading challenge for November is to read a book by an author who identifies as LGBTQIA2S+. Whether you’re reading outside your identity or within it, it’s always a good time to read books from marginalized voices. But lately it seems particularly apropos to highlight queer authors (I’ll use that as an umbrella term for simplicity’s sake). It’s hard not to be concerned about the storm brewing below our border; book bans (or more accurately, attempts at them) are on the rise, the target of which is largely books with queer themes (and books that deal with race—doubly so if a book contains both, such as George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue). PEN America compiled a detailed report earlier this year investigating these attempts at censorship, for those who would like to learn more. Across the pond we’ve also seen an alarming uptick in transphobic rhetoric, a sort of transphobe-mania gripping the UK, famously spurred on by She Who Must Not Be Named.  

Books can be tools for exploring the human condition, tools for advocacy and for empathy, for validation and support—and also, just for fun. In June, Vogue asked “Is this the golden age of queer literature?” While the answer is basically “not really”, it’s still certainly a better literary landscape than in the past. Queer authors have always existed in all genres, though not as openly (or as mainstream) as today. We’ll go over some of these genres paired with some recommendations! 

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Modern Myths

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Modern Myths

The cover of The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood

I have always been fascinated by mythology and, to a lesser extent, the religions surrounding it. Or that created the myths in the first place. Having been raised religious only to eschew that way of life as I get older, as many people in my generation have, I still remember the stories that are part of the mythos of Catholicism*1: God creating the world in seven days*2, Noah’s ark, David and Goliath, The Book of Revelation, and others. These are shared archetypical stories transcending cultures, even if details differ. The Creation Myth*3, The Ark*4, Divine Intervention*5, and The End of the World as We Know It*6 link with the stories mentioned. With these tales being archetypical, it’s only natural that they get repackaged and repurposed as time passes. Sometimes they’re brought into modern times but maintain the same message or ideas. Other times authors take them in a different direction or focus on characters that were sidelined in the original tale, which is particularly common with female characters. These rewrites can be serious, satirical, feminist, drive home An Aesop*7, or just stories that use mythology as a jumping-off point for something otherwise original.

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