My Favorite Fantasy and Historical Fiction Books

 

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Bangtan Herman Notes: The Power of Seven

At a pottery workshop with ARMY friends last month, while our hands were busy building pots and mugs, we were marveling at something we could suddenly articulate: BTS was designed to grow individually without growing apart. As separate clay projects took form side by side, the metaphor felt unavoidable. It is rare to witness fullness without fracture, change without loss.

That moment stayed with me long enough to send me back to Murray Stein’s Map of the Soul: Persona, Shadow & Ego in the World of BTS. The book is grounded in Jungian psychology, particularly the framework of individuation: the lifelong process of becoming whole through the integration of persona, shadow, and ego. Stein, a Jungian scholar, wrote with evident excitement about BTS’s thoughtful adoption of Jung’s ideas. This was the Map of the Soul era, when BTS was preparing for a world tour that would never come because of the pandemic.

I think, one of the most striking creative choices of this era lies in the rap line tracks themselves, Persona, Shadow, and Ego. Each song samples an intro from BTS’s earliest albums. Skool Luv Affair for Persona; O, RUL8 2! for Shadow and 2 Cool 4 Skul for Ego. This is not nostalgia nor is it just a creative design. It is musical intertextuality: BTS treats their own discography as a living text, returning to earlier works to make meaning of the present one. In Jungian terms, this is individuation, but in song and in sound. The present self revisiting its origin points, not to discard them, but to integrate them.

Stein reflects that “the number 7 completes things,” and that completion signals not an ending, but a time to rest after immense creative labor. In hindsight, Chapter 2 feels less like interruption and more like care. Care for the self. Care for the other. Rest became part of the work.

Seven, Stein reminds us, is also a prime number that is indivisible except by itself. In BTS’s 7, it exists as a single entity not by suppressing individuality, but by safeguarding it.

When I first read this book, it was during the pandemic, and I was a Baby ARMY learning alongside my ARMY daughter, who gently guided me through songs, names, and histories. I read Stein then with curiosity. I return to him now with recognition. Watching BTS today, sometimes alone, sometimes together with ARMY Daughter or with ARMY friends,I see the truth of Jung’s insight made visible: separation does not undo the whole. It deepens it. Seven remains prime. Seven is one. One is seven.

Apobangpo! Purple and true!

Media Literacy in Fandom: Always Check the Source

First Book Acquired in 2026

 

@titazeeh7

BTS Book Budol 💜😅💜

♬ Stay Alive (Prod. SUGA of BTS) - Jung Kook

Companion Reads for the New Year: I Say Thank You and The New Bicycle

Dear Teachers and Parents,

As we welcome the New Year,  I invite you and your young reader to reflect on gratitude and wise choices as foundations for new beginnings. My books, I Say Thank You gently introduces children to the practice of noticing kindness, care, and everyday blessings, helping them develop a habit of appreciation that grounds emotional growth. The New Bicycle, on the one hand, complements this by exploring patience, saving, and responsible decision-making through a child’s realistic and effort. Read together, these books support meaningful conversations at home and in the classroom about values we carry into a new year: thankfulness, self-control, and thoughtful hope.

Companion Reads for the New Year

I Say Thank You introduces young readers to gratitude through everyday moments, showing how noticing small kindnesses builds awareness and care. The book invites children to name what they appreciate in their lives, from people to experiences. It frames gratitude not as obligation, but as a practice that grows gently with habit.

The New Bicycle

The New Bicycle explores the idea of waiting, choosing, and valuing what one works toward. Through a child’s desire for a bicycle, the story introduces basic financial literacy concepts such as saving, prioritizing, and understanding needs versus wants. It emphasizes patience and responsibility without moralizing.

Why They Work as Companion Pieces

Together, these books speak to the New Year as a season of intention:

• Gratitude (what I already have)

• Agency (what I am working toward)

One looks inward with appreciation; the other looks forward with purpose.

Two Short Interactive Activities

My Thank You & My Goal Page (10–15 minutes)

How:

• After reading, ask children to fold a page into two columns.

  • Left: “I say thank you for…”

  • Right: “This year, I am working toward…”

• Younger children may draw; older children can write words or short sentences.

Why it works:
This links gratitude (I Say Thank You) with intentional planning (The New Bicycle), helping children see that appreciation and effort can coexist.

Choice Talk: Today or Later? (5–10 minutes)

How:

• Present a simple scenario: “You want something today, but you can also wait.”

• Ask:

  • What do I already have that I can be thankful for?

  • What happens if I wait? What might I gain?

Why it works:
This reinforces financial literacy ideas from The New Bicycle while grounding decisions in awareness and contentment from I Say Thank You.

My Reading Inventory 2025

Well. Here we are with another yearly tradition. 25 Books in 2025.

1.  Siddharta by Herman Hesse

2. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

3. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

4. Pretty Peach by Reni Roxas

5. Little Rhino Lost by Candy Gourlay

6. The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

7. Sa Ibang Katawan ni Lean Borlongan

8. Coming of Age in Second Life by Tom Boellstorf

9. Wayang Alimagnum by Joel Donato Ching Jacob

10. Just Not Today by Paula Joan Garcia-Casrtro

11. Alpabeto ng Kalikasan by Anya Santos-Uy

12. Josefina by Russel Molina

13. Sixty-Six Book 2 by Russel Molina

14. BTS A Little Golden Book by Ann Park

15. Lunatics by Russel Molina

16. Robot Versus Dinosaur by Jomike Tejido

17. Mars May Zombie by Chuck Berry Pascual

18. Life by Rob Cham

19. Galatea by Madline Miller

20. The Cat Who Saved the Library by  Sosuke Natsukawa

21. What You Are Looking For Is In the Library  by Michiko Aoyama

22. Sleeping With Dogs by Barbara Barth

23.Life Lessons by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

24. Strange Weather in Manila by Ali Calleja-Co

25. Pasakalye by Lean Borlongan

From ARMY of Bangtan's (AoB) BTS Reading List 2025: A Review of Jack-in-the-Box, A Short Story by Ray Bradburry

Ray Bradbury’s “Jack-in-the-Box” reads, for me, as a story of emancipation: about Edwin, a child who escapes a world built for him, but never with his consent or consideration of his being. His confinement is not merely physical. It is structural, ideological, and emotional. His world is carefully designed, orderly, and suffocating, shaped by fear disguised as protection and authority disguised as love.

When Edwin finally breaks free from this boxed world, his declaration is "I’m dead! I’m glad!” reframes death not as an ending, but as liberation. What dies is the imposed self, the obedient version trapped within manufactured boundaries. What emerges is the possibility of living again, this time as a self that chooses, feels, and experiences the world beyond fear (sounds like Ego, right?). In this story, death becomes transformation, and freedom is earned through breaking away and sundering.

I chose this short story as part of the AoB Reading List because I wanted Jhope to be represented. Last year, I revisited "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", a book Hobi read in high school and which later inspired Hope World. For 2025, with the HOPE ON THE STAGE tour marking a defining moment in his career, Jack-in-the-Box felt like a timely and necessary read.

Bradbury’s story resonates with Jack In The Box, the album, in concept, song lyrics and sonic qualities. Both confront boxed expectations, manufactured identities, and the cost of stepping outside what is prescribed. Both insist that emancipation is not always gentle, but it is essential.

This pairing honors Jhope not only as a performer, but as an artist continually choosing authorship over confinement, and selfhood over safety.

#ARMYofBangtanPH #ARMYofBangtanBookClub #BTS_JHOPE

Set Your Heart Ablaze!