Pop Culture – Chrys Buckley

My Year in Books 2025

January 4, 2026January 4, 2026 Chrys Buckley

cover of Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell

cover of The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This hasn’t been a banner year for me in number of books read. Grad school will do that. So will managing two departments of a press. So will having your own book in the works—I’m pretty sure I reread my book 9 times this summer for editing purposes. So will the state of the world.

I didn’t read as many books as I typically would. But, in all the chaos (internal and external) and busyness, I did read some excellent books. It was a banner year for quality, so I thought I would highlight some favorites.

My original intention was to post about books as I was reading them. I had that “I want to tell everyone in the world about how great this book is!” feeling, but then the list of books I wanted to post about but hadn’t found time for grew and grew. My next intention was to get a big Best Of list together by the end of 2025…and that obviously didn’t happen either.

So, time for a next next intention. I’m announcing it so I have to do it, this thing I’ve been wanting to do for months now. I still really want to share and exalt the great books I read and tell as many people as possible why I think they’ll love these books.

Over the next several weeks, on Sundays, I will post about my favorite 2025 books by category—completely made up by me—and write up about book in the gallery at the top of this post. I want to give each book its due, and share my excitement for each one.

In all cases except for one, these are books that I read in 2025, regardless of when they were published. Some of the books came out this year, and some definitely didn’t.

The order that book covers appear in the gallery at the top is randomized so that I wouldn’t play favorites with my favorites.

See you next Sunday!

Chrys

P.S. I also read some great manuscripts last year in my role at Ooligan Press and in independent editing work, books that are on their way to being out in the world but aren’t yet. Maybe that will be the next post series after this one because there are some incredible books in the pipeline that I think you’re going to want to know about.

Image Description: A gallery of book covers displayed in a 6×2 grid in randomized order: Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Who Killed One the Gun? by Gigi Little, Blazing Eye Sees All by Leah Sottile, Imagine a Door by Laura Stanfill, Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch, Cekpa by Leah Altman, Where We Call Home by Josephine Woolington, Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, The Winter Sister by Megan Collins, The Likeness by Tana French, and The Love of My Afer Life by Kristy Greenwood.

Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, TV, Writing

INVISIBLE VIOLETS is Available for Pre-Order!

November 19, 2025January 16, 2026 Chrys Buckley

The title says it all.

Cover image of Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley. Words are green against a textured background of different shades of purple. Near the top of the cover, there is an author blurb that reads, "A fierce manifesto about claiming your own story. This book will change you and linger long after the final page." This blurb was written by Tarn Wilson, author of In Praise of Inadequate Gifts. — Cover of Invisible Violets: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays by Chrys Buckley

This whole thing about a book of mine getting publishing still feels so surreal, and yet here’s one more step in the book publishing process that makes it more concrete. My book is up on all the sites, available for pre-order.

This collection of personal lyric essays took eons to write, and eons to edit. It went through so many iterations, and I plan to talk through and demystify the steps of the process on here in time.

For now, just know that I’m so proud of this book and each essay within. There is darkness in these essay-songs, but writing was always a joy. Even when it made me cry, which was almost always, because I’m a sap like that. I can’t wait for you to read this collection on MARCH 13th, 2026!

I’m also starting an email newsletter that you can sign up for here for all the authorly updates!

Links to pre-order INVISIBLE VIOLETS: A Mixtape in Lyric Essays

Signed and Personalized Books for Anywhere in the US through Annie Bloom’s Books

Full Details About Signed Books Here

pre-order signed and personalized copies of Invisible violets

Portland and Pacific Northwest Independent Bookstores

Pre-Order Invisible Violets from Annie Bloom’s Books

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From Powell’s Books

PRe-Oder Invisible Violets From Darvill’s Bookstore
(Orcas Island)

pre-Order Invisible Violets on bookshop.org

Other Booksellers

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From BOOKS-A-Million

Pre-Order Invisible Violets From Barnes & Noble

pre-Order Invisible Violets From Amazon

Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, Writing

Catching Up with Chrys – a Time-Lapse in Taylor Swift Songs

April 15, 2025April 20, 2025 Chrys Buckley

Before my last spate of posts about my publishing journey (on the submission, the award, and the call), it had been over four years since I updated this site. Last I left off, it was the fall of 2020, and I had decided to leave medical school.

A lot has changed since then, so I thought it was high time to catch you all up, bring some continuity to this site, and fill in the plot holes. Anyone who knows me or has read this site before will be unsurprised I’m doing it through songs.

Here we go.

time lapse still of a road going into hills

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Blindness and Disability, Music, Pop Culture, Science, Writing

After all the Years that I Stood There on the Sidelines Wishing for Right Now

March 19, 2025November 19, 2025 Chrys Buckley

Sometimes your dreams come true. Your ship finally comes in. You get your turn. This is one of those times for me. I hope this will be the first of many times I get this news. Even if that does come to pass, nothing will ever feel quite like it does right now. I know that, and I’m savoring it, because it still doesn’t feel real.

About a month and a half ago, I did a thing.

Today, I get to tell you that my book manuscript won the Wandering Aengus Press prize for nonfiction, which means MY BOOK IS GETTING PUBLISHED!

We haven’t set an exact release date, but are looking at sometime next spring, perhaps next March.

I’ll have a lot of work to do for my book over the next year. I couldn’t be happier to be working with Wandering Aengus Press and their team. I worked on my manuscript, an essay collection, with their due date in mind and didn’t submit it anywhere else.

The contracts are signed, the process is underway, and most days it still doesn’t feel real. I have waited and worked for this since I was a little girl writing stories in my room.

There’s so much more to say. I plan to post lots about the process as it happens, as well as the process that led to this book and this press. So stay tuned for lots more goodies.

For now, I’m just basking in this once-in-a-lifetime feeling of this writer dreams coming true for the first time.

Chrys

Podcasts, Pop Culture, TV

My Unofficial Guide to (Smart, Funny, Thoughtful) Bachelor Podcasts

October 13, 2020June 24, 2024 Chrys Buckley

The Bachelorette comes back tonight! As I mentioned last week, I’m excited for this season even though I haven’t watched in awhile (didn’t watch Peter’s season at all; it would’ve been a different story if they’d chosen MIKE). I’m excited because of the drama we know about, and being compelled by having some different types of leads, and seeing how it’s’ going to play out in quarantine, and also let’s be real because nothing else is on.

So yeah, for all those reasons, I’m psyched. For the show, and for the return of podcasts recapping the show.

(Oh and I’m going to take a side note to say that something I said last week is a bit wrong, and I couldn’t be happier. In Matt James’ season, currently filming in PA, there is a contestant who’s hard of hearing, so that makes a second person on the show, in what, eighteen years, with a disability).

Back to podcasts! I listen to a lot of Bachelor-related podcasts out there. Even more during this endless quarantine. While writing this, I may or may not but definitely do have an old episode of a Bachelor podcast playing in the background.

Broadly, I’d divide the podcasts into two categories: those hosted by people associated with the show, and those hosted by people who aren’t associated with the show, by fans. There are some fun ones hosted by people who’ve been on the show, and I’ve listened to some, (Bachelor Happy Hour, A Beautiful Podcast to Fall in Love, Almost Famous, etc) but I personally enjoy the ones by fans and commentators a lot more.

So I’m going to highlight four podcasts hosted by people who aren’t associated with the show. All of these can be found on Apple Podcasts or wherever else.

2 Black Girls, 1 Rose

I love this podcast so much. During the early days of quarantine, I heard about it from another podcast (either Here to Make Friends or Bachelor Party) and binged the whole podcast from the beginning and spent way too many hours addicted to Justine and Natasha’s commentary on the show.

One thing I love about 2 Black Girls, 1 Rose is how they incorporate so much into the podcast. Their recaps go from discussion serious topics of race and representation (and their was an episode, and I don’t remember which one because I binged them all so quickly, where they talked about disability on the show, and you know I’m here for that) to commenting on fashion.

Continue reading “My Unofficial Guide to (Smart, Funny, Thoughtful) Bachelor Podcasts” →

Pop Culture, TV

Better Call Saul Episode 106 “Five-O” Recap

October 11, 2020June 24, 2024 Chrys Buckley

bcs106 Wow, the Netflix description of this episode is…almost misleading. It’s all about Jimmy going to further lengths than he thought he would to help Mike. While this is technically true I suppose, it amounts to spilling a cup of coffee. And very little screen time for Jimmy.

This episode is all about Mike. After knowing him from the Breaking Bad Season Two finale onward throughout his time on that show, now in this prequel, we finally get Mike’s backstory.

Episode Summary

Teaser

It opens with Mike getting off a train in Albuquerque. Inside the train station (which is so fancy it took me quite awhile to figure out it was the train station), he meets Stacey, his daughter-in-law, who seems, well, not exactly thrilled to see him. Before leaving, Mike indicates without outright saying it that he needs to use the bathroom. He goes into the women’s room and gets a maxipad from the dispenser and then goes into the men’s room, where he reveals a bullet hole in his shoulder. He changes the dressing, using the maxipad to redress the wound.

Then Mike is at Stacey’s house, outside, playing with h is granddaughter Kaylee on the swings. Eventually, she goes inside while Mike and Stacey sit down and talk outside. She wants to know how long he’s staying. “For the duration,” he says. They talk a bit about Mattie, Mike’s son, Stacey’s husband, Kaylee’s dad, who died. Mike says he’s here now, he wants to help. He’s better than he was, he says. This is the first hint that Mike had quite the drinking problem after his son’s death.

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Podcasts, Pop Culture, TV

My Origin Story with The Bachelor franchise

October 6, 2020June 26, 2024 Chrys Buckley

It’s kind of an odd show for me. I’ve never been into reality TV all that much.

I mean sure, I watched some early seasons of The Real World back in the day, and there was a summer where the guy I lived with watched a lot of reality TV (the summer of 2006) so by proxy I saw a lot of Big Brother that summer, and Rock Star (I think that’s what it was called, where people competed to be the lead singer in a band) and some real trashy shows I only vaguely remember. I’ve seen a season or two or three of Survivor and got majorly turned off when there was a contestant with a disability, I think she had a prosthetic leg, and some other girl on the show bullied her and all these people said all these horrible disability tropes like she’s doing it for sympathy and shit like that. I was OUT.

But other than a couple other random shows here and there, none that I remember enough to even know by name, and other than singing shows, I prefer my TV scripted.

And then…enter The Bachelor.

bradandemily

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Pop Culture, TV

Better Call Saul Episode 105 “Alpine Shepard Boy” Recap

October 4, 2020June 26, 2024 Chrys Buckley

bcs105 This episode starts something that continues through much of Better Call Saul, and that’s Jimmy and Mike having separate storylines. Sometimes, an episode will cut back and forth between them, that’s more typical, but in this one it’s more like a relay race, with Jimmy’s world getting the bulk of the airtime before he passes the baton onto Mike.

Summary

Teaser

Unlike some others, this one doesn’t jump into a different timeline but picks up right where the last episode left off, with the five-dollar bill Chuck left on his neighbor’s driveway when he stole the newspaper. The neighbor has called the cops.

Two cops go to Chuck’s door and ask him to open up. “We know you’re there, you’re casting a shadow through the peephole.” Chuck says he’d rather not, that he has a condition, that he can’t go outside. They don’t believe him since he was just outside stealing his neighbor’s newspaper.

He starts to cite law on probable cause when one of the cops goes around to the other door and calls the other one over. They see all of Chuck’s camping stove fuel and they think he might be cooking meth (hello, Breaking Bad resonance) and go back to the front door. Chuck still refuses to open the door and says they can only come if they don’t bring any electronics. No cell phones, no flashlights and especially, especially, no tasers..

They break open his door, and go in, and taze him.

Continue reading “Better Call Saul Episode 105 “Alpine Shepard Boy” Recap” →

Music, Pop Culture, Writing

The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Four: Recovering a Sense of Integrity

October 1, 2020June 26, 2024 Chrys Buckley

orkilapostcard

She says we might feel volatile this week and I…feel volatile. And pissy. I suppose that’s part of the process that happens when reading and doing this book and all that comes with it, the ways that you get more real with yourself and how you feel about things, a big theme in this chapter and in the book as a whole.

I hope doing this book will eventually bear fruit, and also that this post isn’t too volatile and pissy to read. I thought of erasing so much of it (and did some) but also felt like the realness of what this process is like is important to share.

Some part of me feels lighter for having written this and being real, and I’m reminded that as stagnant and persistent as the volatility and pissiness may feel right now, they aren’t permanent and eventually will become something else. To quote House in one of my favorite episodes, (the season one finale, where he’s treating his ex’s new husband and talking to her on the roof), “Something always changes.” But for now, here we are.

Week Four: Recovering a Sense of Integrity

Honest Changes

The meat of the chapter. In length and in topic, this feels like the crux of it. And it spoke to me.

First, the part about the kriyas, that physical manifestation of big change. I’ve felt that throughout my life at big moments. I’m reminded of a time, probably in the fall of 2004 but that might be off, when I read something I wrote to my writer’s group. We met and shared weekly but this week I read something that was more difficult and that felt like spilling secrets in a way that made me feel both ashamed and flooded with relief to say it, out loud, to people.

The next day, I got sick with a cold that hung on for over a week. And I always felt the two were connected, that somehow clearing out that writing by speaking it aloud cleared something out of my body too, the tension of having held something in for so long.

More recently, anytime I’ve taken a step towards leaving medical school, like writing to a dean about it, writing to my parents about it, and then most strongly after posting about it here, I’ve gone through a bout of is “Is this covid or an emotional hangover?” because I felt so worn down.

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Music, Pop Culture, TV

My Pop Culture Digest – September 2020

September 30, 2020June 26, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Music

For music, along with sprinkling in a whole host of other albums, the ones I’m listening to over and over are largely unchanged from last month. folklore, Gaslighter, Such Pretty Forks in the Road and Petals for Armor are my mainstays.

Taylor Swift

Earlier this month, Taylor performed “betty” for the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony. This was the song that got to me most on my first listen to folklore and has stayed one of my favorites off the album ever since, so of course I tuned in. I don’t have cable, but, there are ways around that.

Her performance was pitch-perfect, from the music to her voice to the outfit to the guitar. Here it is:

Since this was on TV and all, she had to change “Would you tell me to go fuck myself?” to “Would you tell me to go straight to hell?” and it most definitely doesn’t have the same punch as the original line. God I hope we get live concerts again before too long because I want to scream this line, the real line, along with Taylor and tens of thousands of fans. I miss live music.

I hope one day, I can play this song on guitar. I reeeeeeeally want folklore guitar and piano books!

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