A Summary Of Things Read And Watched In July 2025

Inspired by a woman I follow on Bluesky, I thought I’d write a short summary of each of the books I read in July and maybe mention some of the TV I watched. I don’t know if this will become a regular feature on this blog, I suppose that depends on if I read enough and watch enough to have anything to mention going forward!

I read nine books in July, which is almost twice of what I had done in my previous two most read months, at five in January and March. Very cool! One of the books wasn’t really a book though, but the second edition of the Josimar magazine for 2025, which I decided to support after they did a campaign to save themselves earlier this summer. It’s great to have football writing back in my life after about a year since I unsubscribed to The Athletic!

On to the books!

A Spy Like Me, by Kim Sherwood.

Ever since I was a little child watching the James Bond movies on TV, I’ve absolutely loved the movies. I’ve watched them all several times, and own them on DVD and Blu-ray both. I was never really interested in the books when I was younger, but late last year I dove in, and was nothing but shocked to find that the original Ian Fleming books are EVEN BETTER than my favorite movies! Mind shattered.

Since the death of Ian Fleming, the Bond series has continued with different authors writing books ever since, some in the original 50s/60s setting, some updated to the current year of the 80s, and some even later. And the movies have obviously continued as well.

Double Or Nothing and A Spy Like Me by Kim Sherwood are spin-offs set in our current 2020s, and follows modern day double O-agents in a world where James Bond is peripheral. Or rather, he had been kidnapped and the books follow other agents trying to get him back while also dealing with a shadow organization and some standard Bond villains.

I rather like these books a lot more than I thought I would! They’re the first two books in a planned trilogy and the writing is great and the plots are fun! I highly recommend these for fans of spy novels. And a nice bonus is the diversity in these books, it’s not all white men!

The Night Guest, by Hildur Knutsdottir

One of many books and authors I’ve discovered on Bluesky, this is a short horror book that you’ll read in one sitting in an evening! It follows Idunn, a young Icelandic woman who is always waking up tired and no one can figure out what is going on. One night she falls asleep with her smartwatch on and when she wakes up it says she’s taken 40,000 steps during the night! I really liked it.

The Black Loch, by Peter May

I’m not a big crime reader, even though it’s the biggest genre in Norway or even Scandinavia from what I know, but I somehow ended up reading the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May. The Black Loch is the fourth book in this trilogy. Yep.

I liked this series a lot. The setting is cool, the plots are cool, and the pain the characters are going through is powerful. You get a good look into how some lives can break, how choices in our past can shape our entire lives for better or worse.

Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

My first Clarke book, and a really good one! I got it as a gift from my brother a few years ago, and randomly picked it out of the bookshelf when I decided I was going to read a physical book and not a Kindle book for the first time since September or so. Because I’ve suddenly started sitting outside in our winter garden (if that’s what a vinterhage is called in English!) and it’s very nice and bright and wonderful, I love it.

This book is classic sci-fi, of which I’ve talked about my love for on this blog in the past, and there’s something about these old visions of the future that is really comforting to me. I haven’t looked too deeply into why I like these types of stories so much other than that I find comfort in slipping into these different worlds. Because the world as it is in 2025 isn’t a fun place to be and escaping into fiction is a privilege I choose to indulge in.

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

I borrowed several books from my older brother and his wife before they left for the USA a year ago, and suddenly noticed these books on my shelf this month and that I’d only read one of them. They have just gotten back and I need to return these books, so I’m reading them all as fast as possible. I talk about my strained relationship to Gaiman, a known sex pest, in my essay on creativity that you can read elsewhere on this blog. Anyway, this book was fine.

Factotum, by Charles Bukowski

Another book acquired a year ago, this one gifted to me by my sister-in-law, and I really loved this book! I read this one in one go, as I did with The Graveyard Book, but this one was on another level. Set in America in the 1940s it follows a guy from job to job, girl to girl, and it’s just lovely I think.

For whatever reason, I had in my mind that On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, was instead written by Bukowski, and that I was reading my second book from him, and was so surprised at how much I liked Factotum better, but of course they are different authors and I’d just made a strange mix up in my brain. I’ll read more Bukowski in the future!

Spock Must Die!, by James Blish

A Star Trek novel, I ordered this from a used book seller through Amazon on a whim to see if the quality of used books through Amazon was something I’d like. And it is! It’s pretty cool to have an old book in my shelf, and I’ve since ordered more Star Trek novels through the actual website of this seller, and ordered some other used books through different sellers on Amazon, and am very excited about this!

Spock Must Die! turned out to be the first standalone Star Trek novel, not based on any episodes of the original series, and I think that’s a pretty cool thing to have in my shelf! And I really liked the book too!

All The White Spaces, by Ally Wilkes

Not a book I’d normally encounter, but I signed up for Talia Lavin’s paid newsletter after being on the free one for a while, and she’s organizing a book club for this book there so I had to read it! And I’m glad I did, it was a cool book!

On television I continued my first time watchthrough of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m on season 5, having started the show over a year ago. Binging isn’t really my thing so it takes time! But I’m very excited that I still have more than 60 or so episodes left of this show, and then several other Star Trek shows to watch after! I should have several years of new-to-me Trek coming up!

I also watched a lot of weekly shows this month, Family Guy and Murderbot ended their 23rd and first seasons, while there were eight ongoing weekly shows. I loved Murderbot!

My fiance and I are watching Countdown and Dexter: Resurrection together and I like these new Dexter shows a lot and think they are much better than they have any right to be! Countdown, the Amazon Prime cop show, is okay but not something I’d usually watch.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia started its 17th season and is still really funny and good, Foundation started season 3, and while I initially wasn’t sold on this being as good as season 2, the third episode has me hopeful it might still be.

South Park aired its first episode of season 27 and it was the funniest episode in many years, and you’ve probably heard about it.

Poker Face season 2 finally came to streaming in Norway, after the entire season has been out in America for a while, but I don’t really love the show that much so I’m fine waiting, even though it is absolute bullshit that I don’t get shows I pay for when they actually come out and instead have to wait for months and months. Streaming era is thrash.

8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown started season 28 and I absolutely love this silly show! And Last Week Tonight continued its twelfth season after a month-long hiatus.

I also watched Fifty Shades Of Grey 2 and 3 early in the month and I still think these movies are really funny! They hold up!

Okay! That’s it for now!