Top Ten Tuesday: 2026 Goals

Posted January 20, 2026 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about goals for 2026 — bookish or not. I’ll keep things mostly bookish (that’s what you’re all here for, after all, and I have so many bookish goals, always!)… so without further ado, let’s take a look.

  1. Read (or not!) according to my whim. It’s easy to get caught up in reading for a reading challenge, or because I have a review copy, or because a book’s due back at the library. And sometimes that’s fine and fun, but whenever it’s not fun, I stop. Or try to: I can’t say I’m perfect yet at this!
  2. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. It’s kinda sad when I see people talking about “guilty pleasures”, or deriding their reading as “trashy” (though sometimes I think people mean “trashy” in a fun, positive way, I think that’s often still caught up in popular disdain for certain genres or tropes). If it’s fun for me, then it’s worthwhile. It doesn’t need to be any deeper than that.
  3. There’s no such thing as cheating. Reading novellas, reading manga, reading children’s books, rereading a favourite, all of it is valid toward stuff like reading goals, most challenges as long as it meets any prompts, etc.
  4. I won’t do book-buying bans (or book-borrowing bans, or bans on requesting ARCs, etc). I have limits (discussed below) to help ensure that I’m not just stacking up books I don’t plan to read… but if I really want some new books, I’m not going to make that a guilty feeling. It’s a joy to support authors, to have good stuff to read, to get a nice stack of books and devour them. Provided I have the budget, I’ll make it work.
  5. I won’t buy from Amazon if at all possible. In general, but especially books: that’s what indie bookshops and Bookshop.org are for. Sometimes they don’t have something in stock, and there can be relatively few places to turn in that case, but for the majority of what I read there are plentiful options to avoid supporting Amazon.
  6. I want to have no more than 20 books at a time bought in 2026 that I haven’t started. This sometimes results in me having a few books on the go at once that I turn out not to be in the mood for, but broadly speaking it’s been really great at helping me read review books on time, start books when I feel like it instead of waiting for “the right time”, etc. I worried I would find it overly restrictive, but I did this last year and really liked the nudge to read books while they’re relevant/exciting/exactly what I’m interested in, because I just got them.
  7. I want to start all the books I bought in 2025. As mentioned above, I had the same rule last year (a limit of 20 books not started), but at Christmas the total rocketed up, ahaha. So I currently have 32 books from 2025 that I haven’t started yet. I’m hoping to get them all started (at least) by June, always provided that’s the way my whim takes me.
  8. I want to read at least 100 books from my backlog (counting 2025’s books). I did great last year at weeding out my backlog — sometimes by just recognising I didn’t want to read something after all, but also by reading 100 books that had been on my backlog since the end of 2024 or longer. I’d built up quite a backlog for a bunch of reasons, and it was great to explore my shelves more and push myself to poke around in the depths of my Kobo, get to books I meant to review when they came out, etc. I’d like to keep going!
  9. I want to read 400 books again this year… or even more? I managed to read 400 books last year and the year before, while still studying on top of full-time work. I don’t have any new course or class lined up, so maybe I have more time for reading? Maybe not, if other priorities crop up, but I still figure that 400 books is a reasonable goal to start with.
  10. Any goal can be changed if it’s doing more harm than good. I set reading goals as a way to remind myself that I want reading to be a priority, because reading makes me happy, because talking about books on my blog makes me happy, etc, but if it’s not making me happy then it needs to change. There was a point last year when I dropped my goal to 300, gradually increased it back to 350… and then I eventually ended on 400 exactly. Flexibility is important.

And that’s it! The main goal, of course, is to keep on having fun with it. If I’m not, then for me there’s no point.

How about you?

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Review – Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word

Posted January 19, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word

Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word

by Megan C. Reynolds

Genres: Linguistics, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

A comprehensive and thought-provoking investigation into one of the most polarizing words in the English language.

Few words in the English language are as misunderstood as “like.” Indeed, excessive use of this word is a surefire way to make those who pride themselves on propriety, both grammatical and otherwise, feel compelled to issue correctives.

But what the detractors of this word fail to understand is its true function and versatility—as an exclamation, a filler of space, a means of subtle emphasis, and more. “Like” may have started out as slang, but it is now an intrinsic component of fun, serious, and altogether nurturing communication. And like any colloquialism, the word endears the speaker to its audience; a conversation full of likes feels more casual, despite its content.

In this book, culture writer and editor for Dwell magazine Megan C. Reynolds takes us through the unique etymology and usage of this oft-reviled word, highlighting how it is often used to undermine people who are traditionally seen as having less status in society—women, younger people, people from specific subcultures—and how, if thought about differently, it might open up a new way of communication and validation. Written in a breezy yet informative and engaging style, this is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a grammarian, a lover of language, and an advocate for the marginalized in discussions of cultural capital, power, and progress.

I’m not entirely sure where I originally heard about Megan C. Reynolds’ Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word; I thought it was on Litsy, but the review I’d have been most likely to see there was fairly ambivalent. Maybe it was Litsy and I was just curious despite the reservations. In any case, I’m glad I gave it a shot, even though I agree that I wasn’t bowled over by it.

First: I agree with Reynolds’ points that the word “like” serves a useful purpose in casual and spoken communications, for sure, and that those who really hate it often do so out of sexism and ageism because it’s associated with young women in particular (despite actually being fairly widespread).

However, I did find that Reynolds’ introduction rambled and went on a personal tangent several times, while the various chapters wandered around, visited anecdotes, went off into blind alleys, etc. This book is as much about Reynolds’ feelings about communicating as anything, and she admits she isn’t a linguist. So that’s worth knowing going in for a start: it’s rambly, with lots of personal stuff squeezed in so you know that she has a cousin who she doesn’t speak to anymore who said she talks too much in a rude way, etc, etc. You get to know way too much about her fear of being vulnerable and her interest in stuff like “radical candour”. This is a matter of personal taste — maybe you like this in your books, but I don’t. Or at least, I didn’t in this case, not least because I don’t think I’d get on with the author.

It’s also worth knowing that despite stating her fear about robotics and AI, Reynolds is all-in on AI. This bit was honestly just bizarre to read:

Despite the obvious and alarming implications AI software and machine learning carry, ChatGPT is a tool that can occasionally be useful. Embarrasingly, ChatGPT is a useful starting point for guidance in interpersonal situations that you’ve already talked through to death with every single one of your friends and anyone who will listen, so much so that by now the opinions of others have merged with your own. When a situation calls for true impartiality, AI is a neutral party with no skin in the game. If you ever find yourself in a position where you desperately and immediately need a list of suggestions on how to set and uphold boundaries, ChatGPT will deliver, providing useful information that answers the prompt in an objective manner. The results are serviceable and delivered in a tone devoid of personality or opinion.

It goes on, but I got tired of typing it out. That’s all the lead-in to her explaining that she tried to get ChatGPT to sound a bit more human, and when she prompted it to talk in a “valley girl” style, that’s when it did sound kinda human to her.That was apparently worth boiling the planet for, laying aside any other thoughts about how she completely doesn’t understand LLMs, which are explicitly programmed to be sycophantic, and which cannot offer you any kind of opinion on anything because they do not think, they are just glorified auto-complete — a glorification which she’s enthusiastically contributing to, apparently.

Just, overall, really weak — and weaker the more I think about it, since the main points would be more impactfully stated in a much, much shorter essay, with a lot of extra padding cut out. I should probably have DNFed it when I hit the LLM part, but… sunk cost fallacy, I guess?!

Rating: 1/5 (“disliked it”)

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Review – Invisible Weapons

Posted January 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Invisible Weapons

Invisible Weapons

by John Rhode

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 288
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A classic crime novel by one of the most highly regarded exponents of the genre.

The murder of old Mr Fransham while washing his hands in his niece's cloakroom was one of the most astounding problems that ever confronted Scotland Yard. Not only was there a policeman in the house at the time, but there was an ugly wound in the victim's forehead and nothing in the locked room that could have inflicted it.

The combined efforts of Superintendent Hanslet and Inspector Waghorn brought no answer and the case was dropped. It was only after another equally baffling murder had been committed that Dr Lancelot Priestley's orderly and imaginative deductions began to make the connections that would solve this extraordinary case.

John Rhode’s Invisible Weapons is a fairly passionless mystery story, and I don’t actually mean that in a bad way. It’s a conventional classic crime story, with fairly low stakes (there’s no real suspense element, aside from the suspicion of murder, no straight-up serial killer stuff, etc) and the traditional ending in which order is restored and the culprits arrested. It’s more of a puzzle than anything, calmly putting piece by piece of the evidence in front of the reader.

I found it to be a pretty fair-play mystery, substantially helped by Dr Priestley’s hints and line of inquiry; by the time the story got there and nailed the criminal, so had I — not because it was too easy, either, but in a satisfying sort of way. As ever, it’s a bit overly engineered, but sometimes that’s the joy of it.

It made me remember I want to read more of Rhode’s work, and have some on hand for reading slumps, because I think there’s nothing quite like these chill classic mysteries. You get what you expect, and sometimes that’s excellent.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Swordcrossed

Posted January 17, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Swordcrossed

Swordcrossed

by Freya Marske

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 384
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The cozy, low stakes of Legends & Lattes meets the scorching bodyguard fantasy of Jennifer L. Armentrout's From Blood and Ash in this enemies-to-lovers romance where, yes, the swords do cross.

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family's wealth, something that Matti has been trying—and failing—to do for the past ten years.

What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn't plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible—and inconveniently handsome—wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti's business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti's wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti's house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca's secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

I think the title and emphasis on swords might slightly mis-sell Freya Marske’s Swordcrossed, because though they’re a part of it (and how the main characters initially begin to connect), the story is really more focused around Matti and the problem of his House’s slide into poverty. You could take the swords away and make Luca a dancing teacher, and much would remain the same. One does rather contemplate whether Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint had something to do with the swordplay elements here; there are certainly some points of similarity. (Though I’m not saying it’s a carbon copy, by any means.)

I think much of the plot is pretty predictable, but there is some genuine tension built up between Luca and Matti — some of their scenes were pretty scorching (especially the ones where they didn’t have sex). I was less sure why I should think they make a good couple; there’s some “opposites attract” sort of stuff, and Luca getting Matti to be a bit more spontaneous, but… I don’t know. When I look back at the story, I’m not sure they had enough that was real to build a happy-ever-after on — the chemistry is there, but not the understanding of how they’d work on a day-to-day basis.

I genuinely loved the detail around the wool industry, though. That offered a bit of weight and detail to it, though a lot of the other worldbuilding was somewhat glanced over.

I didn’t feel this way at all about A Marvellous Light, and the author’s note says that Swordcrossed was actually written first, so maybe I’m being a little hard on it. All in all, I liked it, but it feels a bit thin when I sit and look back at the experience.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 17, 2026 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Happy weekend! And happy start of my time off — I won’t go back to work until 2nd February. I don’t often take chunks of time off, so this is nice.

Books acquired this week

This week has been kind of busy, between some review books, some more manhwa from my wife to keep me occupied, and my British Library Crime Classics subscription book! Let’s take a look — first the new manhwa…

Cover of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint manhwa vol 5, by Umi Cover of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint manhwa vol 6, by Umi Cover of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint manhwa vol 7, by Umi

Next up, my review copies, thanks to Hachette (who sent me a finished copy of Nightshade & Oak in the post) and Tor (via Netgalley):

Cover of Night Shade & Oak, by Molly O'Neill Cover of And Side by Side They Wander by Molly Tanzer Cover of Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher Cover of The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

I’m a little hesitant about both Wolf Worm and The Poet Empress, because I’ve heard the former is genuinely pretty scary, and the latter is pretty dark… but ultimately I was tempted enough to request them anyway.

Finally, here’s the British Library Crime Classic for this month. I’ve enjoyed a couple of Gilbert’s books before, so I’m curious!

Cover of Sky High by Michael Gilbert

Hopefully this should be more than enough to keep me busy during my time off!

Posts from this week

Alright, that’s enough of that! Now for the roundup of what I’ve been posting this week…

And other posts:

What I’m reading

Amongst all that busy work, I haven’t been reading a lot this week, but I did get a couple of things finished and read a few manga. Here’s a peek at what I read this week and intend to review on the blog:

Cover of Like: A History of, Like, the World's Most Hated (and, Like, Misunderstood) Word, by Megan C. Reynolds Cover of Enshittification by Cory Doctorow Cover of Cat + Gamer vol 6 by Wataru Nadatani

Cover of Cat + Gamer vol 7 by Wataru Nadatani Cover of Cat + Gamer vol 8 by Wataru Nadatani Cover of Death at Breakfast by John Rhode

Not sure what I’ll be reading this weekend — maybe I’ll get stuck into the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa, or one of the books I’ve received to review.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

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Review – Loving You When the World Ended

Posted January 16, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Loving You When the World Ended

Loving You When the World Ended

by Gene

Genres: Manga, Romance, Science Fiction
Pages: 146
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

An apocalyptic event forces two strangers to navigate a world where the old order is shattered. Is it survival of the fittest or survival of the richest? Spoiled Nuowan can’t stay alive in this new reality without the help of skilled hotel worker Yu Sen, whom he met only moments before the world ended. Yu’s former military training comes in handy but is kissing out of the blue a survival tactic?

Gene’s Loving You When the World Ended is a pretty short manga focused on the relationship between Nuowan and Yu post-apocalypse. Nuowan is a spoiled rich kid, and Yu’s an ex-military man who saves his life and works hard to keep him alive, since it seems possible that they’re the only humans left.

The apocalyptic stuff is very very light, and the focus is more on the relationship drama: Nuowan is demanding, childish, and wants Yu to put him first and love him no matter what, while ignoring Yu’s feelings. He acts on impulse and all his relationships are really rushed.

The art is OK, cute sometimes, but the story and relationship are pretty meh.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – Roses for Hedone

Posted January 15, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Roses for Hedone

Roses for Hedone: On Queer Hedonism and World-Making Through Pleasure

by Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 112
Series: Inklings
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

When a society marginalises a people, their humanity is revolutionary - in all its hunger and joy. Although long demonised, hedonism in all its forms has played a central role in how queer people sought to organise as a symbiotic system. In fact, when viewed through a queer lens, hedonism undergoes a process of transformation and embodies the "power for change", as described by Audre Lorde in The Uses of the Erotic. Today, when the queer community worldwide faces rampant transphobia, rising hate crime, and unequal access to support services - all in the context of humanitarian crises, a climate crisis, and a destabilised political landscape - such hedonism is no less necessary or, indeed, present. As we face ongoing and new challenges to creating a more fair world, let us borrow from the Ancient Greeks' understanding of love's multiplicity to explore queer hedonism not as a momentary phenomenon, but rather a transformational route through which we can learn from our past, connect in the present, and look towards the future with hope - together.

Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin’s Roses for Hedone is an exploration about how hedonism and pleasure-seeking can be part of self-care and of activism, making a space for queerness in the world and taking defiant joy in it.

Not all of the aspects of hedonism discussed are ones I really “get” (like attending raves, or casual sex), but some parts of it do ring true in terms of togetherness and helping one another — though if caring for one another is hedonism, then yikes, what a world we live in!

It’s an interesting short read, and a good reminder to take joy where you can, and make space for it, in order to fuel your ability to survive and fight for your rights and needs.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Algospeak

Posted January 14, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – Algospeak

Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language

by Adam Aleksic

Genres: Linguistics, Non-fiction
Pages: 246
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A viral linguist’s account of the ways our vocabularies are evolving, the internet’s influence on communication, and what our use of language reveals about the modern world.

From the rise of leetspeak and words such as “unalive” to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. Thankfully, Algospeak is here to explain. As a professional linguist, Adam Aleksic understands the gravity of language and the way we use it: he knows the ways it has morphed and changed, how it reflects society, and how, in its everyday usage, we carry centuries of human history on our tongues. As a social media influencer, Aleksic is also intimately familiar with the internet’s reach and how social media impacts the way we engage with one another. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform language as we know. Our interactions—and our social norms and habits—shift into something completely different.

As Aleksic uses original surveys, data, and internet archival research to usher us through this new linguistic landscape, he also illuminates how communication is changing in both familiar and unprecedented ways. From our use of emojis to sentence structure to the ways younger generations talk about sex and death (see unalive in English and desvivirse in Spanish), we are in a brand-new world, one shaped by algorithms and technology. Algospeak is an energetic, astonishing journey into language, the internet, and what this intersection means for all of us.

Adam Aleksic is a little bit famous (I guess; I hadn’t heard of him) due to his Tiktok videos on linguistics. He thinks he’s really great, anyway, to judge from the way he talks about his own videos and their high quality etc etc. He never lets you forget his experiences as a linguistics enthusiast on social media, either: his story of that is deeply intertwined with his analysis of trends and how algorithms are driving changes in the language we speak. He’s as subject to them as anyone, as he at least does make clear.

As you might guess from that intro, I found certain aspects of Algospeak a touch frustrating. Aleksic is so deeply embedded in it, it’s hard to believe that he has any real measure of objectivity here, though I don’t actually disagree with much of what he writes (which feels like common sense and/or matches what I know from elsewhere).

It was overall an interesting read, albeit one that made me feel fairly old and out of touch when it discussed some of the memes, and sent me calculating dates going “no way” about how old certain memes are (and how old I was when they first appeared).

It’s also inevitably going to feel dated pretty much immediately, though I think the examples stand.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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WWW Wednesday

Posted January 14, 2026 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Cover of Cat + Gamer vol 7 by Wataru NadataniWhat have you recently finished reading?

I haven’t actually been reading a lot, it’s been a pretty bad start to the year on that front — I’ve been busy, preparing for some time off I want to take by working ahead, and cleaning the house for a landlord inspection, and starting the new raid tier in Final Fantasy XIV! But I did make some time last night to read the seventh volume of the Cat + Gamer manga, which was cute as ever.

Cover of The Meteorites by Helen GordonWhat are you currently reading?

I have a few books on the go concurrently, but mostly the same as last week because things aren’t really moving. The last in-progress book I actually opened was Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites, which I’m finding interesting but a bit slow, and also kinda anxiety-making just because thinking on the scale of meteorites and deep time makes me feel very, very small.

I do have a volume of Solo Leveling on the go as well, and I suspect that’ll be my best route back into settling into books again, since I find it very soothing. (Despite, you know, all the monsters and battles.)

Cover of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt DinnimanWhat will you read next?

My wife got me a few more volumes of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa to keep my brain occupied while awaiting a dental appointment for a broken filling (I have a phobia of dentists), so that’ll probably give me some easy reading while I’m coping with the busy time! Other than that, I don’t know for now what I’m likely to read, though Dungeon Crawler Carl is past due at the library…

(I find it funny how similar the premise is to books like Solo Leveling and Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint. Clearly my reading is themed lately, despite the different cultures the books come from and different formats!)

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Review – Henrietta Who?

Posted January 13, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Henrietta Who?

Henrietta Who?

by Catherine Aird

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 248
Series: Calleshire Chronicles #2
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A hit-and-run murder unearths a case of mistaken identity in this “well-bred, well written and genuinely superior” mystery by the Diamond Dagger winner (Kirkus Reviews).

Early one morning in the quiet English village of Larking, the body of a woman named Mrs. Jenkins is found in the road. Miles away, her daughter, Henrietta, receives the bad news while working in the university library. Poor Mrs. Jenkins appears to have been the victim of a horrible car accident.

When an autopsy proves not only that this was no accident but also that Mrs. Jenkins had never had a child, young Henrietta’s life is thrown upside down. If she’s not Mrs. Jenkins’s daughter, then who is she? It’s up to Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan of the Calleshire police force to bring the murderer to justice—and a sense of order back to Henrietta’s life.

Proclaimed by the New York Times in 1968 to be one of the year’s best books, Henrietta Who? is a first-order English whodunit that’ll keep you guessing until the end.

Catherine Aird’s Henrietta Who? is a pretty typical classic crime story. I found it a bit flatter than the first in the series, with a bit less warmth somehow — especially since it’s weirdly very dismissive about the bond between adoptive parents and adopted children, somehow. Henrietta immediately stops referring to the dead woman as her mother, which threw me a bit. Trauma makes sense, but… I don’t know.

Anyway, the whodunnit was something I worked out from a variety of clues and the way the story was shaped, and doing that was pretty fun — it’s a fair-play mystery, I think, and if you read enough of these you start getting a spidey-sense for it.

Not a favourite, but a pleasant enough read.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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