A great month of reading and watching! A fair bit of revisiting books and movies—with seasonal watching and reading and kickstarting my commitment to reread more throughout 2026, but more on that in another place at another time.
Started and ended the month with real strong reads that are new favorites—a brand new book and revisiting a classic that I’d liked in the past but never LOVED, until this read. i’m halfway through my post-phd year of rehabilitative reading! i’ve read 50 books so far and am having a great time. (i also finally concluded all my outstanding review obligations for AML and am committing to only volunteer for/request review copies for things that I absolutely want to read instead of anything that seems mildly interesting—we’ll see how well i keep that commitment!)
movie-wise things were great too, with at least two joining the top tier of my “new to me in 2025” list (precise placement will be revealed in due course in the forthcoming 2025 in review and 2026 hopes/aspirations/intentions/anticipations post).
BOOKS
Katabasis (2025), R. F. Kuang
This book RULES. Written for me. Read it at the perfect time too. About a grad student who journeys into hell to rescue the soul of her dissertation advisor so that she can finish her degree and defend her dissertation. And then is a delightful, pleasantly haunting exploration of self, desires, graduate school, and more. A cathartic read in this post-PhD season.
courtesy of the local public library
Agency (2024), Terryl Givens
Decent! Lots of provocative little nuggets in here, but was a little frustrated that all they are is little nuggets—feels like a sampler rather than really delving into some of the most compelling possibilities! More at AML.
review copy for AML
Take Me With You (2018), Andrea Gibson
Some great stuff here—always struggle a bit reviewing/responding to poetry. This isn’t totally my style to read, but I bet would be great to listen to read aloud. but even still some striking images and juxtapositions and lots of heart here on the page, which is worth quite a lot
courtesy of the local public library
The Three Nephites: Saints, Service and Supernatural Legend (2025), Julie Swallow, Christopher James Blythe, Eric A. Eliason, and Jill Terry Rudy
Just what you’d hope for from an academic folklore book on the Three Nephites—insightful, contextualizing essays followed by collections of stories themselves. An interesting and fun book!
review copy for AML
The Tragicall History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1599-1601), William Shakespeare
So good. Been quite some time since I’ve read the whole play—despite invoking it as part of the framing of my dissertation. Glad to revisit it on this side of the PhD and at this time of year as part of the Christmas ghost story tradition!
from the local library
Prince Caspian (1951), C. S. Lewis
A good time! Still not totally sold on Lewis’s prose, but continues to make Narnia an inviting imaginative landscape.
home library
To Be A Friend of Christ: The Life of Marion D. Hanks (2024), Richard D. Hanks
The final book I needed to read and review to complete all my outstanding AML review obligations that piled up during the final year or so of dissertation revisions! I’m free! You can read my longer form thoughts here for AML. But the essence is that the book is exhaustive in its portrayal of Marion D. Hanks and primarily interested in, successfully, demonstrating that he did indeed live a life as a friend of Christ. Unfortunately for me, I am most interested in the inner workings of the church bureaucracy and Duff’s experiences there and what that reveals about the church, mormonism, and religion more broadly. There are some nuggets along these lines in the book, but not its focus. If, however, you want a book that might inspire you to be kinder to others and better engage in pastoral care to your friends, neighbors, and co-religionists, then this might just do that.
review copy for AML
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), C. S. Lewis
Wild how distorted my recollection of this was! The monopods were center stage in my memory and they barely feature at all in the book as a whole! Some fun stuff for sure.
home library
A Christmas Carol (1843), Charles Dickens
My annual re-read. Love this little book so much. Fun to read it just for kicks after working with it in my dissertation over the last few years.
home library, top 100? (i don’t have a real, existing Top 100 Books list like I do for films, but i’d like to—i have various efforts in progress but it’s proven much more difficult! but regardless this would/should certainly be on such a list)
The Silver Chair (1953), C. S. Lewis
this was one of my favorites when i read the series in elementary school and i liked it this time around too, but probably not quite as much.
home library
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1972), Barbara Robinson
a proffit family favorite that i’m not sure i had ever actually read in its entirety? read the first chapter and a bit out loud to the kids but it didn’t quite stick (also lots of extended fat camp/fatphobia-esque stuff in that first chapter), so i finished on my own. fun, sweet, heartwarming.
home library
The Horse and His Boy (1954), C. S. Lewis
way better than i remember! which doesn’t take much haha. a bit of an outlier in some ways, but still definitely apart of Lewis’ theological project (all the bits from earlier books about being terrified of Aslan but in a good, nice way really crystallized for me here). anyway, enjoyed it.
home library
The Magician’s Nephew (1955), C. S. Lewis
also way better than I remembered! was probably my least favorite of the series as a kid. definitely maintain that it’s much better to read here, as the penultimate book in the series, instead of as the first one. intrigued by greta gerwig’s decision to adapt this as the first narnia movie in the latest effort to adapt the series, but i’ll definitely see it!
interesting to think about this as a reimagining of The Fall (and that could be a fun reading project to explore different reimaginings! but probably not one i’m interested in embarking on in the near future).
home library
Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship (2025), Jonathan A. Stapley
great stuff. I think Stapley’s previous book, The Power of Godliness, is like a top ten, maybe top five, essential mormon studies book for me, so i have awaited this with great anticipation! for a variety of reasons, i don’t think this one quite hits the heights of The Power of Godliness, but it is certainly an incredibly well-researched, dense, yet readable, exploration of temple worship that is absolutely worth your time if you are interested in the topic, academically.
definitely one i’m glad to have on hand to return to for checking little tidbits and nuggets, which it is chockful of.
home library, birthday present
The Last Battle (1956), C. S. Lewis
probably my favorite of the series? takes a bit of a left turn right upfront but then the action gets going and is close to nonstop until the wacky awesome extended conclusion.
A Wrinkle in Time (1962), Madeleine L’Engle
I read this as a kid and it didn’t really click for whatever reason, re-read it before Ava Duvernay’s film adaptation in 2018 and liked it, but this readthrough I LOVED it. Not sure why it didn’t click before but wow, this is so incredibly my jam! love the wild, bonkers way that L’Engle weaves together theology and science and imagination to create this earnest, delightful adventure. thrilled to have discovered a love for this classic and to continue roaming through L’Engle’s imagination as I read the rest of the series. Wept quietly reading the final chapter as I snuggled my older two kids to sleep. Powerful, moving, fun, tense, timely, incredible stuff. love love love.
there’s a particular pleasure that I don’t often experience of loving something that I’ve already read but didn’t love previously. delighted to have that experience here.
FILMS and TELEVSION
Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
spoilers ahead!!!
a movie tailor made for me?!?!?
riffing on golden age classic detective fiction? some poppy cultural commentary? pretty interesting and compelling blockbuster treatment of religion/spirituality?
sold.
not quite as tight as knives out but still top notch work. can definitely see myself revisiting this one with some regularity (gotta rewatch with cec to see how it holds up/settles upon a rewatch but since my initial viewing and drafting of this response it has grown more favorably in my reflection)
love all the performances and the way you can tell that everyone is having a blast on set. really like the way benoit’s rant against religion is enriched by the almost blip of a scene from glass onion making him canonically gay.
love the way the genre works here to interrogate questions of guilt and grace and all that—and JUSTICE—and uses the twists and turns of the genre to dramatize the life of faith and father jud’s own personal journey. really great stuff
also the couple of light coming through the window scenes are so fun
and the emotional climax had me in tears.
a delightful time at the movies!
at my local independent cinema
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Using my fairly recently acquired credentials to authoritatively say that this is the definitive adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Thrilled my kids love it too.
movie night with the fam; top 100; dvd at home
Love Actually (2003)
there are about a million reasons to dislike this movie, and yet, it somehow manages to be incredibly delightful and rewatchable, transforming those reasons into strengths. but, uh, you are either sold on it or not, and i have no rational, logical case to make for this—just the simple recognition that every year, cec and i end up watching it, baffled and delighted, mocking it good-naturedly, basking in its utter absurdity.
on dvd at home with cec
Joyeux Noel (2005)
I LOVE this movie—a deeply meaningful, touching, rich, tragic look at making peace in the midst of war. it’s so so so good. there’s a lot of ways this could’ve ended up saccharine or melodramatic or just bad, but somehow it threads the needle just right (probably helps significantly that it’s not an American/Hollywood production).
at home on dvd with cec; top 100
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)
very sleepily watched and dozed through this--seemed fine? pete holmes was really phoning it in, not channeling any of his usual energy and stage presence
could radically alter my thoughts (for better or for worse!) if i was fully awake watching the whole thing
on dvd courtesy of the local public library with cec
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
love this one. a true classic.
movie night with the fam, on dvd
Frosty the Snowman (1969)
probably my least favorite of the classic specials? but the kids like it, so watch it i will.
movie night with the fam, on dvd
Hamnet (2025)
SPOILERY THOUGHTS BELOW
opened me up, shattered me completely, and somehow knit me back together again
never have i sobbed with my entire body in a movie theater like i did watching this
everything works together for a stunning, moving, devastating, beautiful cinematic experience—the performances are incredible, as you’ve no doubt heard, the score enhances and compliments everything, and the cinematography is just sooo good. the way nature is wrapped up in the themes and narrative and woven throughout is poetic and emotionally evocative.
i’ll be feeling this one for a long time. theres also something powerful and i couldn’t help but read mormonly about that final hand clasp and veil-rending that speaks to embodiment and its place in mourning and grieving for others—clasping hands with the dead by proxy and allowing the dead to move beyond, to another place, tearing down the gaps between this world and the next, our ghosts living all around us
also just the power of art and literature to communicate across gaps that can’t otherwise be crossed and facilitate mourning and grieving and catharsis and connections
breathtaking work
at the local, beloved independent cinema
The Holiday (2006)
a fun classic to revisit with cec every year.
on dvd
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
a delightful, lovely time with a truly unhinged premise. like god intended rom-coms to be.
on dvd
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
always a delight to watch and have the kids, especially E—, quote and sing-a-long!
on dvd, movie night with the fam, featuring most of my hilton fam of origin
A House of Dynamite (2025)
hmmmmmm
really wanted to LOVE this and it was fine?
gotta rewatch fail safe for some of what’s going on here but much better
streamed
One Battle After Another (2025)
what a great time! a radical blast!
long live sensei benicio!!!
¡Viva la Revolución!
also a surprise christmas movie!
streamed
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
gender-swapped jason bourne by way of the nice guys with a few splashes of just wild bonkers stuff
in other words, loved it
streamed
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
only one more sleep ‘til Christmas!
movie night with the fam, featuring some of the proffit clan
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
the beginning of our annual journey to middle-earth post-christmas. always a rich, nourishing delight
extended edition on bluray with cec and company, top 100
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