A Bug's Life

Books
2022 In 25, read 57, unread physical 388, unread total 399, -37 on previous year.
2023 In 84, read 54, unread physical 410, unread total 424, +25 on previous year.
2024 In 124, read 119, unread physical 400, unread total 430, +6 on previous year.

What a year! I put most of this down to my health being a bit better in general, but not enough to work. I went to Eastercon and Worldcon virtually which both gave me a ton of new authors to buy and try, birthday and Christmas gifts from Toby added a lot of new directions I hadn't yet explored, and book club pointed me at a few things. And there was the time I went to a charity shop and they had 8 Joanne Harris books who I'd just started reading. And all these 99p Kindle deals I don't resist (and can't think of much reason to resist). I rejoined the library in the autumn but haven't used it yet.

I had a great deal of enjoyment from reading, but retained very little due to how my brain works these days. Part of the reading more I think is because I just started reading anyway, not waiting "till my brain was clever enough to properly appreciate it". And luckily there is Goodreads which keeps my list - and it's handy to click through for the summary/review reminders. My list is here: (unless it only shows "Bridget's" books because I'm logged in as "Bridget")
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/144059146?ref=nav_mybooks

In 2025 I'm aiming for 120 books, as a nice round 10/month. I have my books bought in 2023/24 on separate couple of shelves, as "new/recent", and they are overflowing. Of course I can read whatever I like from this enormous buffet but I'm going to guide myself with trying 5 a month of the 2023/24 books (which will finish them by the end of the year), 2 non-fiction, 1 new, and see what happens with the rest. I do want to clear those 2023/24 shelves and take a chunk out of my non-fiction.

In 2024 I watched 244 films which was super and more than strictly necessary especially if I want to do more crafting in 2025 and I need to find the time from somewhere.

Letterboxd has my log:
https://letterboxd.com/MovieBug/films/diary/

I like to go through my list and check how much I'm getting from my cinema memberships and streaming services.

48 at The Light, my local cinema which is a whole 10 minutes walk from sofa to screen, with a £16/month unlimited deal. Check! I saw a mention of plans for redeveloping the Leisure Park it's in, including that there would be a new version of The Junction (theatre/live music/comedy/clubbing/arts venue) so I don't know what is on the cards for the future. There are three other cinemas in Cambridge but they're all more like 30 minutes walk away which is significant for me.

11 at Picturehouse for example, where I have a membership and they have good films and I still have ten free member tickets outstanding but I'll just watch things at The Light because it's so close and convenient.

44 on Mubi, arthouse streaming, tons of good stuff. I have a weekly Film Club zoom and we often pick from here. £95/year but it's going up so quickly (£70 in 2021).

46 DVDs - I had forgotten I had spent much of March going through my unwatched DVD shelf so they could go in a cupboard not sit around as clutter.

41 at Film Festivals. I do like these - great collections of things I may not otherwise see, a deep dive for a week.
Soho Horror Fest was a new one to me - https://www.sohohorrorfest.com/ They have physical festivals but I went to the online ones which were lovely! And wholesome! And so inclusive! The Pride fest was in the summer, the general one later in the year. Mitch who runs it is so enthusiastic and does intros before each film. I was going to pass on Scared Shitless from the title, till he described it as "Like Tremors but with toilets" and it was a hoot. Wholesome like in the films selected they rip people's intestines out but they don't rip a lady's clothes for gratuitous exploitative nudity. 25 features over the two festivals, which were each shown with 1 or 2 shorts which are great for exploring an idea or effect or character. Horror has such a huge range. Gore, psychological, historical...
Cambridge Film Fest in person - https://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/ - a 25 minute walk cinema. 15 films over the week, plus a few 90-minute shorts programmes which I didn't include in my count.
WOFFF Women Over 50 Film Festival online - https://wofff.co.uk/ - featuring films where the director, writer, and or key cast is a wof. Just shorts, presented as 90-minute programmes. I watched all 8 programmes but only counted it as "1 film" in my list. The first year they ran, it was great - there were obviously lots of sound films that hadn't found an audience. A few years on, and it has a weaker pool to draw from. Still some great shorts but I had to watch through several middling ones to find them. Next year I'll give it a miss, and spend 12 hours knitty granny squares or something :-)

In 2025: more The Light! Use those 10 Picturehouse tickets that expire in April! CFF! Mubi! Soho Horror Fest but probably just one of them!
I want to make more time for other activities as I said in the Books post (taken up patchwork and cross stitch again but they don't naturally fall into my day so I'll have to consciously make space for them), so maybe only 4/week and try to watch them after 4pm when my energy for other things is flagging.

I'm not back to the film review radio show I used to do - not reliable enough physically, and not coherent enough to pull my thoughts together. I did try to write some thoughts about Cambridge Film Festival but ran out of steam after three. It seems like I would be super at doing reviews of all these films (people often say I should), but while I can often bring interesting things to an exchange with someone else who's just watched the film too, it's not the sort of thing I can turn into paragraphs for an audience who haven't seen it and don't know the detail or plot point I'm talking about.