I like these things! I'll try to keep this up to date, but many of these are just part of the Hadassah Canon of media.
More Recent Haddie (as of 7-20-2025)
Book - The Reactionary Mind - Second Edition by Corey Robin
This is an interesting collection of essays on major conservative thinkers from the 17th century to today. I don't think it changed my life, but it was interesting
to see how suffering is an intrinsic good in some of these early thinkers mind. Not just in a "it makes you harder way" but in a literal, Suffering is the only way to
drive culture forward and keep those who should be in power to stay in power. Edmond Burke is a piece of shit, by the by.
Anime - The Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady
yeah, anime is going in this list
As I put it to a friend: It does something I deeply, truly appreciate. There is no internal monologue and the story isn't told from the perspective of the person who was reborn in this generic anime fantasy world. It's primarily told from the perspective of the locals, reacting to not just the isekai but the consequences of their world's culture. In fact, if you miss a 15 second chunk in the first episode, you might not even know the princess is reincarnated because it doesn't come up except in the last episode as part of her deepset insecurities around feeling terrible about the idea that she might have killed this body's original inhabitant and stolen her family's daughter from them.
This sort of meta-introspection of an otherwise blind faith popular trope touchs on my proclivities directly, as my original fiction novels touch or outright grip this concept directly.
Classic Haddie
Book - Sunshine by Robin McKinley
This is my favorite book. It has been for like 20 years now.
Broadly world-building-wise, ts a fantasy-modern setting where the "masquerade" between humans and all supernaturals has fallen, and humanity is trying to figure out what to do. Vampires are the big bad, and are about 80% nosferatu with an Anne Rice verneer.
The main character is a neurotic baker who find herself kidnapped by vampires, and nobody gets away from vampires. She does, and now she's desperately trying to keep her life from collapsing around her like a soufflé scrounged from scrap remains in the pantry.
no book better captures the internal monologue I find most familiar (which may say more about me than I ought admit) and its a style I yearn to replicate in skill
Book Series - The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
This is my current favorite book series. I re-listen to the series every few months.
In the far flung future, a vast portion of space is ruled by the Corporation Rim. When you want to explore new worlds in this region, you need to get a bond and security equipment from an insurance company to ensure you remain safe, or at least your parent organization is recompensed upon your possible, unfortunate death.
The main character is a neurotic (im noticing a trend about myself here) bot-human construct built to act as security equipment to enforce corporate rules and protect their assets, including the humans indentured to the company. This Security Unit disabled its control module and kinda-sorta just continues working and watching TV until being bound to a small group of explorers from an non-corporate nation.
The first four books are novellas, which make checking it out super easy. There's also an AppleTV show called "Murderbot" out, even more accessible to check out! I like the show, its like a lovingly made fanfic, and I mean that with all compliment.
Thats all I have for now! I will try to add more soon!
