146
Or, March 2026 Review
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Reader,
Happy New Month and Happy Easter Monday if you celebrate!
This was supposed to go out last week but between another 2-day blackout and all the activities that come with Holy Week (plus my ambitious goal to clean up my Ray Bradbury Challenge entries), today was the earliest I could send this out. Thank you for your patience and please share your March media highlights in the comments!
Books
I finished 15 books in March. I’ve continued doing weekly book reviews on the blog so you can read extended thoughts there.
I read some long books and some short ones, some in translation, and non-fiction, so I feel pretty good about it all round. Also pretty chuffed that 80% of the books were by women during Women’s History Month.
Some highlights:
The two books I finished at the start of the month - The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad, One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon - were both dystopian texts that centred the Black (as in African American) experience. Highly recommend both.
Solitaria by Eliana Alves Cruz, translated from Brazilian Portuguese (original title: Solitária) by Benjamin Brooks was also a Black book, this one set in Brazil; with that country and region’s complications. Quick, punchy, read.
If you’re looking to read short stories from the 1980s and earlier, get into The Heinemann Book of African Women’s Writing, edited by Charlotte H. Bruner. As with all anthologies, it’s a mixed bag but the good stories are well worth it.
Films
I watched 5 films in March. It was another month when wasn’t able to get back to watching a short film a day so please send short film recommendations and feel free to share accounts 😉 to help me get back to it.
I watched two of the 3 films I had chosen for my turn with the film club I’m in (the one with which I watched Our Little Sister) and here are my highlights:
Bamako (2006, directed by Abderrahmane Sissako) which I picked instead of Saint Omer (2022, directed by Alice Diop) because I was after a courtroom drama set in Africa. It was…something all of its own and I’d love to watch it in a room with other folks
National Theatre Live: The Importance of Being Earnest (2025, directed by Max Webster); which was available to watch for free on YouTube for a week was such a delight. Watching it with YB reminded me why I love theatre.
Essays, Poems & Poems
These 3 sections will have to come later this month because I struggled to log and write about my Ray Bradbury Challenge reading in March (I haven’t written anything more than placeholder text since 2nd March) and I hope I can deal with that backlog over the coming fortnight.
In April, my plan is to write about my reading regularly (the 2-day blackout didn’t help things) so I’ll be able to report accurately in May. Wish me luck!
Feel free to send reading and watching recommendations (better yet, share a library card!) - community is always the best way to discover great work :)
Quick news/ things that may be of interest:
This Thursday:
Also on Thursday:
Ongoing:
February to April Queer Times Book Club selections:
Treat someone you like (me, for instance, I have a Switch) to the Tiny Bookshop Game (which is also on Discord)
Subscribe to my WhatsApp channel for texts I find while I spend time online
Film folks: Solidarity Cinema, for your consideration
If you’re in the Global North and would be open to engaging in the North-South solidarity that is sharing a library card, please email or message me so we can figure things out. Thank you!
The Queer Liberation Library 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️, which is free to join here
Digital Library of Korean Literature, which is free to join here
Film folks: Check out the Japan Foundation’s JFF Theater online streaming platform
How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the visually impaired
Links to Reading Lists, Free Books, Book Recs, Book-related Items, and Calls for Submissions in this document (most recent links at the top)
Since Elon seems to want (some of) us gone, I’m trying to post more often on Bluesky. Follow me there if you’re on it!
You can send me books, postcards, letters, and assorted items via PO Box 102439, Jamia Posta 00101, Nairobi, Kenya (I write back!)
I have finished seven books since I last wrote to you: Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America by Brendan Ballou (e-book and audiobook narrated by Kevin Kenerly), The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins (Stetson) Gilman (free e-book via Project Gutenberg), Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park; illustrated by Denise Brunkus (e-book), Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe (e-book and audiobook narrated by Nneka Okoye), The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (e-book and audiobook narrated by Frankie Corzo & Barton Caplan), Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State by Mahmood Mamdani (e-book) and Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Commonwealth subtitle: Inside the reckless race for total domination) by Karen Hao (e-book and audiobook narrated by the author). I’m primarily using Storygraph now (passively updating Goodreads as I read most e-books on Kindle via the library), doing weekly blog posts reviewing books and I hope to get back to making videos soon.
As ever, please write back to me and tell me what books you’re reading or looking forward to reading — it’s always a great time talking about books.
Thank you for reading 🙂
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Enjoy the week ahead and have a lovely time reading. Talk to you soon!