Sunday Stack: Live Aid Memories, Mid-Year Book Freakout, and The Week Ahead

A bit of a hodgepodge post today.

Photo by Nicolás Olivares on Unsplash

Much ado is being made about a certain anniversary today. No, not that one. I speak, of course, about the legendary Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985. This was an extremely big deal in my hometown of Philadelphia, for obvious reasons: it took place at our very own massive, deteriorating JFK Stadium (it would be demolished four years later) where, for $35 bucks a pop, 90,000 people saw dozens of musical icons performing all day long in the City of Brotherly Love and across the pond in London. (Phil Collins flying across said pond to perform at both venues was viewed as the stuff of miracles.)

I celebrated Live Aid not in my city where history was happening, but in California where our family was on a somewhat unexpected vacation. Less than five months earlier my father had died rather suddenly; that, along with another life-changing occurrence of mine, was the catalyst for my mom, brother, and myself heading west to visit some extended family.

That week, all I could talk about was Live Aid. Several people I knew were going, including one of my best friends who got me a program and t-shirt. My California second cousins didn’t seem to share my excitement. I made it clear that, come Saturday, I wouldn’t be participating in any family activities as I had my own agenda, thank you very much.

(What a great guest I was. We’ll blame my attitude on deep grief and, you know, being 16.)

I’d learned that a California radio station would be broadcasting the concert live in its entirety and my suitcase contained several packs of the highest quality cassette tapes just for this possibility. So instead of going to the waterpark with my cousins, I spent the entire day and part of the evening sitting indoors by the stereo tape-recording every possible minute of Live Aid. If I couldn’t be part of it in my city (not like I would have been allowed to go anyway), then I could listen in real time and record it to have forever.

And 40 years later, I still have all of those Live Aid tapes.

They’ve probably only been played a few times.

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

We have reached the year’s midpoint which of course means we need to check in on how 2025 has been from a reading perspective. (We don’t need to discuss how it’s been otherwise.)

Over on BookTube various creators have been doing the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag which is a fun and reflective way to recap one’s reading over the past six months. A few Substackers have brought this over here, too—shout out to Chelsey from The Eclectic Reader; Sara at Fiction Matters; Chhaya at Coffee Date; Andrea at Literary Merit; Mallory from On Mal’s Shelf; Brittany from One More Bookshelf; Christine from educate, inspire & entertain me; and probably others I’m missing.

Reading has been my saving grace in our current hellscape. You know this. We’ve talked about it multiple times. It’s my escape. So, let’s check out the stats:

• I’ve read 36 books as of this writing (9,691 pages).

• My average rating is 4.09, which is probably the highest ever or damn close to it.

• Nonfiction and fiction books are nearly split right down the middle. The former comprised 51% of my reading (18 books) and the latter is 49% (17 books).

• 5 star reads: 13 books

• 4 star reads: 12 books

And now the prompts:

Best Book I’ve Read So Far in 2025

• OK, well, with nearly three quarters of my reading being 5 or 4 stars, this is impossible. I don’t choose a “best book” of the year. I don’t even list my top 10. I just go with however many “best books” I’ve read.
  
  Here are the 5-star standouts, most of which I’ve already discussed in previous newsletters. Fiction: The Stepdaughter by Caroline Blackwood; Twist by Colum McCann as well as Everything In This Country Must; Live Through This by Kristen McGuiness; Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit by Nadine Sander-Green, Tin Man by Sarah Winman.

  On the nonfiction side, Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks; The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes; You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance by Chani Nicholas; The Things by Jeff Oaks (I’m sorry, poetry deserves its own damn category—fight me on this); On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder; The House of Being by Natasha Tretheway and Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams.

Favorite Sequel of the First Half of the Year

• I’m not a big series reader but I do enjoy Abby Jimenez’s books so shout-out to Yours Truly, the second in the Part of Your World trilogy.

New Release That You’re Excited to Read

• Two that I have out from the library: The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover by Jan Gradvall and The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley.

Most Anticipated Release for the Second Half of the Year

• I feel like I should be more knowledgeable about this but even with a quick perusal around Netgalley I have no idea.

Biggest Disappointment So Far

• Regrets, I’ve had a few—as in, 21 books so far that I’ve DNFed. I’ve rated four books 2.5 stars. (OK, fine, I’ll name one by an author that’s no longer living. Orlando by Virginia Woolf. As well as Women and Writing, a collection of her essays. It pains me to say it, but Virginia may not be for me—although Mrs. Dalloway will be one of my favorites until the day I die.)

Biggest Surprise So Far

• I’m going to cheat a little here and say my current read, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Holy cats, y’all. How did she DO THIS???!! Written in 1993, this is set in a dystopian future…IN 2025 and it is pretty damn prescient. I avoided reading this masterpiece for the longest time because I couldn’t get through Kindred and I tend not to like books that everyone raves about. Well, count me in among the ravers because this is (so far) phenomenal.

New Favorite Author

• Again, just one?! Caroline Blackwood, Kristen McGuinness, Nadine Sander-Green, Sarah Winman. A coincidence that they’re all women? Probably not; 75% of the books I read were by women-identifying authors.

Newest Fictional Crush

• I hate this question. None so far. Going out on a limb and saying probably none this year. (Now if we’re talking real live author crushes, that prize goes to my literary boyfriend Colum McCann.)

Newest Favorite Character

• Abigail Hawkes in Woodworking by Emily St. James.

Book That Made You Cry

• Can we go with “made you tear up” instead? If so, then Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and probably Twist by Colum McCann.

Book That Made You Happy

• Taylor Swift by the Book: The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets by Rachel Feder and Tiffany Tatreau. It was enchanting to read this. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.) A close second: You Were Born for This: Astrology for Self-Acceptance by Chani Nicholas.

Favorite Book-to-Movie Adaption You’ve Seen So Far This Year

• I don’t watch many movies, so this is another inapplicable question. Let’s change this to books that I predict will become a movie or series. And those would be Tilt by Emma Pattee and Live Through This by Kristen McGuinness.

Favorite Substack Posts I’ve Written This Year (on BookTube, this is videos instead of posts, obvs.)

• Including this one, I’ve managed to write seven posts this year. That’s utterly pathetic and I need to step it up. I wrote about it in my most recent post and it seemed like a few of you could relate. Thank you all for the kind and supportive comments. They really did help. If you missed it, here it is.

This was another favorite, even though (spoiler alert) I’m not doing a great job of protecting my peace in these times.

And there was this one, too.

Most Beautiful Book I Bought This Year

• We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life’s 20 Questions by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle. Purchased as my souvenir from one of the highlights of this year, seeing them with one of my college roommates on their “We Can Do Hard Things” Tour.

Books I Need to Read Before the End of the Year

• I don’t impose such obligations on myself, but what I will say is that I need to read more of my own books. Full stop. Of the 36 books I’ve read and the 21 that I’ve DNFed, you want to take a guess how many were from my shelves? Ten. Gotta step this up too.

The Week Ahead

It’s a busy one. I have a work conference in Connecticut which will involve a very, very early flight. It’s a jam-packed schedule but I’m hoping to get some reading time on the plane and maybe before bed. One of the highlights: a lunch date with a friend who lives in the same college town as the conference! Can’t wait to see her.

Hope you have a great week!