Every January, I see so many people posting about how it’s the month that won’t end. I like January, so that’s never my experience. July, however, stretches on and on. Mentally I have been in August for weeks now, and am continually surprised to find that it is not actually the case. Well, we’ve reached it now.

read: Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd (2026). It’s not often that the second book in a mystery series outdoes the first, but that just might be the case here. I read Murder at Gull’s Nest last August, and especially loved former nun Nora Breen’s journey of rediscovering herself outside the convent. The follow-up has her investigating the death of a medium during a seance, looking for employment so she (and the gull she’s befriended) can eat, and continuing on that journey. Nora Breen is the best new protagonist I’ve encountered in a long time. (Library book.)

film: The Sheep Detectives (2026). Speaking of unlikely sleuths, I watched the ovine murder mystery with pals and found it weird and delightful in ways I did not expect. Did I figure out the culprit before the sheep? Yes. Did I laugh helplessly several times? Also yes.

read: The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery (2026), performed by Joe Jameson & Derek Jacobi. Locked room murder mystery made extra locked due to the murder happening on a tide-locked island in a house sealed up against the catastrophe that the victim was sure would descend due to the passing of Halley’s Comet. The detectives are an elderly lady scientist and a young footman. Wonderful duo, satisfying mystery and setting, excellent audio production. (Library audiobook.)

film: Now, Voyager (1942). Pulled this from my friend’s “Having a Weird Time on Vacation” letterboxd list, and I loved it. A woman who has spent her life under her mother’s thumb is sent to a retreat to recover her mental health, and then from there her doctor conspires to get her on a cruise to South America so she can discover herself. She does, and falls in love. I loved how truly odd Bette Davis’s character is (she does scrimshaw for fun!) and how deeply bittersweet the romance is. Paul Henreid, best known for playing Ilsa’s husband in Casablanca, could yearn for England.

read: On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle (2003). On the whole, I avoid the scores of cosy mystery series with increasingly ridiculous punny titles involving cats, bakes, knitting, and tea. For one I don’t care about knitting and tea, and for another I hate puns. However, with my dog currently recovering from medical treatment and needing to be sedated all day everyday for a month, I am spending a lot of time on my sofa with half my brain on her breathing. My library has most of this series, so I’ve been tearing through them. They’re fine! Written (and set) in Greenwich Village in the early aughts, they are so much a product of their time but have still managed to surprised me. (Ymmv: some egregious moments of white-people-writing-Black-dialogue, extremely pro-gay but bizarrely anti-bi??). The mysteries are good, the setting is really solid, there are SO many descriptions of coffee, and I’m having fun. (Library ebooks.)

film: Predator: Badlands (2025). Caught this on the plane to Oregon and loved it. It’s a deceptively simple story with a lot of action and emotion packed in, in the vein of Mad Max Fury Road (which I also adore). I came late to the Predator franchise, having only seen Prey (2022) and now this, and in my very unstudied opinion Dan Tractenberg is doing great things in this sandbox.

dog:

cat: