September Reading Wrap-Up

Posted October 1, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

September saw the temperatures here finally cooling down, and the world going a bit greener again… just in time for autumn to hit as the leaves start browning. I do enjoy autumn, though!

September in general:

It was a busy month for work once more, but hopefully that’s drawing to a close now… but other than that, it’s been a pretty quiet month with a lot of mood reading. Some energy has been spent on getting my ebike spruced up so I can ride again, after a year where I kept off it for fear of re-injuring my wrist (which is pretty much healed now unless I really try to hurt it).

I’ve been doing a lot of crochet, and have added two entire “shelves” to my bookcase blanket since the last update photo:

I’m pretty happy about the way it’s coming out. I have one more “shelf” to do, and then provided it’s the length I wanted (which I think it should be), I’ll be working on the border. That’s quite a hefty task, with some fiddly bits, but it encloses all the raw ends, so there’s almost no weaving in of ends to be done.

Gaming-wise, the big headline of the month is Dressmaker, which is really cute, has a fun story, and involves a lot of design work on pretty dresses. There are some weird requests, but for the most part I’ve just been able to create some really fun things, and there’s a reasonable degree of realism to the game. Definitely recommended. Other than that, it’s been a fairly quiet month for gaming, but I did finish A Building Full of Cats 2 and pick up Flats Full of Cats, both of which are the usual Devcats “hidden cats” fun (and Flats Full of Cats has a bunch of free levels).

Finally, my group did see the end of M12S in Final Fantasy XIV, and knocked out our ten clears for the achievement too.

That means a break from raiding for a while, though we intend to revisit M8S (from the previous set of raids) if possible, since not everyone got the mount from that before we switched to the new raids.

Reading stats:

Total books read: 23
Total pages read:
Rereads: 0
ARCs: 1
Series finished/up to date: 2
Books owned pre-2026: 3
Books owned from 2026: 10
Borrowed books: 11

Fiction: 18
Non-fiction: 4
Poetry: 1
Comics, manga, manhwa, etc: 3

I read a little more this month, and it’s probably fair to say it’s got a lot to do with just reading by whim. Getting the game Dressmaker definitely led to me reading a bit less than I might’ve, but it was still a solid month.

Progress on reading goals:

Overall total books: 239/300 (14 books ahead)
Overall pages read: 57,638/75,000 (1,337 pages ahead)
Books read from backlog: 35/50 (2 books behind)
Books owned since 2026 and not yet started: 37/40

I haven’t made great headway against the overflow of books I permitted myself for my birthday… but you know what, that’s okay. Clearly it’s not the season of my life to focus on that. I would like to avoid having a net gain in number of unread books for the year as a whole, so I’ll work out what’s to be done there. Overall, though, lowering my goals and relaxing my limits has made things feel better all round, so I don’t regret it… even if I cherish secret hopes of somehow hitting my original 400-book goal anyway.

Blogging stats:

Views: 11.2k (down)
Visitors: 10.2k (down)
Likes: 396 (down)
Comments: 377 (down)
Reviews: 25
Other posts: 24

A quiet month, overall, but it started picking up toward the end. Maybe everyone’s settling back into the routine after summer holidays…?

Most viewed posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: British Library Crime Classics (59 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Welsh Books (46 views)
Book Blogger Hop: Overlooked Book (36 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Fall 2026 TBR (36 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’ve Met (31 views)

My own favourite posts:

Stuff I loved from elsewhere:

From Books, Bones & Buffy: SHE’S A DOLL by Barbara Truelove, by Tammy
From Books, Bones & Buffy: KISS SLAY REPLAY by Rachel Harrison, by Tammy
From Becky’s Book Blog: Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison – ARC Review! by Becky
From Foxes and Fairy Tales: ARC Review: Strange Cases, by Louise
From Books, Bones & Buffy: NEWBOURNE PARK by Jennifer Thorne, by Tammy
From Reactor: Finding Your Recipe for Literary Comfort Food, by Molly Templeton
From Becky’s Book Blog: Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske – ARC Review! by Becky
From The Guardian: The New Dark Ages by James Marriott review, by Anthony Cummins
From The Bibliosanctum: Book Review: The Court of Venus by Bel Banta, by Mogsy

It felt like it was a pretty quiet month on my blog, with views, visitors and comment numbers all down… I wonder if the back-to-school season was keeping people too busy, compared to the lazy days of summer? Or maybe everyone’s been snatching last-minute holidays!

Regardless, I think it’s been a pretty good month.

Tags: books, monthly wrapup

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 30, 2026 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

What have you recently finished?

I actually finished a book this morning, since I was giving myself a lie-in after working extra hard earlier in the week. I’d started on Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time last night, and was fascinated to see where she took it exactly. I can see why it’s such a classic. Obviously she’s very much on the Ricardian side of the mystery (which centres on whether Richard III killed the princes in the Tower, if you don’t know the book — an injured policeman finds himself curious about it while bored with an injury and decides to investigate) and quite biased — but I did actually think it was quite a fun book, all round.

What are you currently reading?

I’m about 30% of the way through Juliet E. McKenna’s The Green Man’s Heir, and currently feeling pretty unsure about it. It’s a bit… oversexed? I feel like I’m reading a teenage boy describing women, yeesh. I think it’s partly a character thing, rather than the author, and that’s… fine up to a point, but I’m not sure I’m going to want to keep spending time with this character.

On the other hand, I know a lot of readers I trust enjoy the series, so I’m giving it a solid chance.

What will you be reading next?

I’m grabbing a book from my backlog which I suspect might not be for me, Craig Rice’s The Sunday Pigeon Murders. It’s adjacent to my interests, being a mystery from 1942, but it’s American rather than British, and sounds like it leans into a part of the genre that I generally don’t enjoy. We’ll see, but it might be a DNF.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall Covers

Posted September 29, 2026 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a fall freebie, and it’s been a while since I looked at book covers… so I’m going to dig out some fall-themed covers to enjoy! Some of these are set in fall or around Halloween, or have creepy Halloween-y vibes; some are just orange/red colours.

Bit of a random mix, and not all books I’ve necessarily loved, but I enjoy the colours and had fun getting a chance to really look at and think about book covers again — it’s been a while!

I know there’s another cover-themed prompt coming up, so let’s hope I can pick different covers for that one, hehe.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Rummage

Posted September 28, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Rummage: A History of the Things We have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go

by Emily Cockayne

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Rummage tells the overlooked story of our throwaway past. Emily Cockayne extracts glittering gems from the rubbish pile of centuries past and introduces us to the visionaries, crooks and everyday do-gooders who have shaped the material world we live in today - like the fancy ladies of the First World War who turned dog hair into yarn, or the Victorian gentlemen selling pianofortes made from papier-mâché, or the hapless public servants coaxing people into giving up their railings for the greater good.

In this original and fascinating new history, Cockayne illuminates our relationship to our rubbish: from the simple question of how we reuse and recycle things (and which is better), to all the weird and wonderful ways it's been done in the past. She exposes the hidden work (often done by women) that has gone into shaping the world for each future generation, and she shows what lessons can be drawn from the past to address urgent questions of our waste today.

Emily Cockayne’s book Rummage is all about the recycling and reuse of items, some of them items that we don’t recycle now — sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. It’s organised a bit oddly, to my mind, with discussion of the World Wars early on and going backward in time to discuss the Victorian period, ultimately getting as far back as the 1630s. It never gets to properly discussing modern recycling, though it’s referenced now and again, which felt like a serious lack to me, because it would be a very useful comparison point, and there’s lots to be said about it.

It’s all a bit dense, rich with examples but not exactly scintillating reading. I did enjoy learning about some random weird new facts, like a kind of plastic made using slaughterhouse blood, “bois durci”… but mostly I think I got a bit lost in the detail.

I did also find some of the author’s interjections/commentary a bit… childish? Unnecessary? I think it’s meant to lighten up the tone a bit and make it feel chattier, but it just… doesn’t get there.

If you’re fascinated by the history of reuse and recycling, I think there’s plenty here to interest you, but it is a bit of a slow one.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Emily Cockayne, history, non-fiction

Fantasy with Friends: Seeing Reality Better

Posted September 28, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Monday means Fantasy with Friends time! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about methods of worldbuilding:

Sometimes people talk about fantasy as allowing readers to see or realize things about our real world that they would not otherwise have seen (that is, they argue that fantasy can more effectively help us see reality than realistic fiction or even nonfiction can). Has this happened to you? Is there something you think about differently now because you were initially inspired to by a fantasy story?

I guess my answer is… not really. At least, not anything I could specifically point to.

I’ve definitely had realisations re-enforced by fantasy, for instance (and I’ve written about this before) the whole thing in Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea where Ged learns that he has to turn and face his shadow in order to be free of it. It makes a stunning metaphor for anxiety, honestly, and probably other mental health stuff. Once one comes face to face with what one fears, and looks at it closely, there’s often less to fear than one imagined — and while I don’t think anxiety is my superpower or anything like that (I hate that kind of faux-positivity about my mental health issues), the fact that I have this knowledge does help my everyday life significantly!

Also, despite the fact that it’s blatant Christian allegory, C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle ends with a man who worshipped Tash being accepted into Aslan’s Country, because though he worshipped Tash, he did good all the same. Again, the series is blatant Christian allegory so I don’t actually think Lewis would be on the Unitarian Universalist train with me, but I suspect all the same that that’s a part of what made me interested in Unitarian Universalism: the suggestion that all those who are good will go to the right place in the end, that perhaps there is no wrong god to worship as long as you live well. It’s a kind view of things, and that’s perhaps inevitably attractive to me.

(I don’t go in for discussing politics or religion much in detail on here, so it isn’t really the place to get into what exactly I believe now; I’ll just leave here the reminder that UUs can believe in more or less a Christian God, or the Muslim Allah, or anything else, or indeed be atheist, agnostic, humanist, etc. You can assume precisely nothing about what I believe in other than the Seven Principles, and I’d rather any comments don’t try to get any deeper than that.)

Otherwise, I can’t think of much… though perhaps when I see other people’s posts I’ll immediately realise there’s so much else I could’ve talked about.

Tags: books, discussion, Fantasy with Friends, SF/F

Review – The Rasp

Posted September 27, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 240
Series: Colonel Gethryn #1
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
The Rasp introduces the world to the amazing Anthony Gethryn, an ex-secret service agent, and occasional newspaper correspondent. He is assigned to cover the story of a cabinet minister, John Hoode, who was found murdered in the library of his country house, battered to death with a wood-rasp. Scotland yard has only one suspect Hoode’s secretary Alan Deacon. But Gethryn is convinced that Deacon did not do it. To prove that he’ll have to investigate himself and find the real killer. But everyone else who might have had a motive has a cast-iron alibi. Can he crack the case and bring the killer to justice?

I picked up Philip MacDonald’s The Rasp because he’s a Golden Age crime writer I hadn’t read yet, and I do love to read even an indifferent classic crime story when I’m in a bit of a funk. This book introduces his series detective, Anthony Gethryn, who ends up being asked to enquire in a private capacity by a friend who works for a newspaper. He ends up more deeply involved than that after a love-at-first-sight moment with someone who seems to be part of the whole mystery, leading to a couple of dramatic moments.

All in all, I quite liked it; it reminded me most of Sayers’ work, in part because Gethryn’s very prone to quotation and piffle. I find him somewhat less charming than Wimsey, all the same, perhaps because the two characters are handled in different ways. Gethryn’s meant to be charming and plausible and people are (for the most part) enjoying his tendency to quotation, and overall he comes across as maybe a bit too perfect and a bit too much to everyone’s taste — while Wimsey is both presented as getting irritating sometimes (which he surely would in real life) and with self-deprecation that somehow helps the reader swallow it all and find him charming anyway. Sayers is probably the better writer, even if she was a bit too in love with Wimsey herself.

Still, it was entertaining. I’d say the murderer is a bit of a cheat because I don’t think the evidence is presented to the reader with enough weight to really be fair-play, though I did myself guess who it was going to be based on who I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Someone else says that you can’t guess because the person is never investigated, and that’s sort of true. I did figure out what happened with the titular rasp before it actually got to that, though, so there are clues.

The denouement being mostly a long letter from Gethryn that elucidates everything a bit really slows everything down and wasn’t the best choice, while the romances are fairly shrug. Like Wimsey, Gethryn falls in love more or less at first sight, but he doesn’t nearly earn his happy ending in the same way.

It’s perhaps unfair comparing this to Sayers, given she was deservedly one of the Queens of Crime, and is a favourite of mine besides… but it’s the comparison that felt inevitable given the givens. It’s still fun, all the same.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery, Philip MacDonald

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 26, 2026 by Nicky in General / 30 Comments

Oof, I’m so glad it’s the weekend! It’s been a busy week, but this weekend should be a pretty good one for staying in to read, crochet, play video games and recharge.

Books acquired this week

Last week I wrote that I was heading out to bookshops in York over the weekend, and hoping to pick up some spooky-themed reads to fit in with the Haunted Shelf readathon. It was really fun last year, but I didn’t read a lot of seasonal/spooky/creepy books… so I decided to fix that.

I had some success, so here’s a peek at the books I got while in York, mostly at Topping & Company and Portal Bookshop. Of course… they’re not all spooky, because I did find some other books I couldn’t resist.

First up, here are the books going straight on my Haunted Shelf list:

And yep, you do see a sneaky non-fiction about ghosts in there. But wait, there’s more…

All in all, I made really good use of the remaining National Book Token balance I had left, plus my recent payment from selling books to World of Books (that’s my referral link, which would get you an extra £5 on a first trade, by the way).

And finally, I did also get an advance copy in this week, something I’d totally forgotten I’d requested:

Somehow I’ve never got round to reading anything of Wexler’s yet, so hopefully this’ll be the time!

Posts from this week

Here’s the usual roundup, starting with the reviews, including a rare five-star review!

Fantasy: The Poet Empress, by Shen Tao (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
Mystery: Tenant for Death, by Cyril Hare (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works, by Helen Pearson (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: A Short History of the World in 50 Lies, by Natasha Tidd (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Manga: Cat + Gamer, vol 7, by Wataru Nadatani (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy romance: The Wife Comes First, vol 4, by Lv Ye Qian He (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

As usual, a quick note to believe me when I say that 2/5 stars is a book that I found “okay”, and 3/5 stars really does mean I liked the book! As usual, as well, most of these reviews are for books I read a while ago: I write the reviews as I go, but hold my posts back a little so I don’t spam you all (given I read more than one book per day when I’m in the right mood), can post plenty of variety in genres etc, and have plenty in the tank for a quieter time.

Aaaand here are the other posts:

What I’m reading

It’s been a pretty good reading week; I think my deliberate leaning-in to mood reading has been working out well for me. Certainly last weekend I had more than one instance of sitting down and reading a book all in one go, which is always a lovely feeling.

Here are the books I’ve finished this week that I plan to review (less a manga that isn’t worth reviewing here):

Over the weekend, I’m still leaning into mood reading heavily, knowing I’m going to try to do some more directed reading in October for Haunted Shelf. Still, I’d like to finish the classic mystery I’m reading at the moment (Harriet Rutland’s Knock, Murderer, Knock!) and perhaps the third volume of The Villain’s White Halo, since that finishes off the series.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Book Blogger Hop: Best Blog Investment

Posted September 25, 2026 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like!

This week’s prompt is about the backstage parts of blogging:

What’s the best investment you’ve made for your blog?

Well, I’d say it’s hosting it myself, but actually I’ve been kindly hosted by friends for free ever since I went self-hosted (currently hosted by Adam Wolf, a friend I’ve worked with for a couple of the same clients now!). So it’d have to be the Nose Graze Ultimate Book Blogger plugin, along with the Tweak Me theme. Both have helped make my blog the way I want it, and made things a bit prettier and more useful.

I suppose there is also my URL, which is nice and memorable!

Overall, though, it’s mostly the time I put into it, rather than money spent. The more time I spend writing and commenting, the livelier my blog feels, and that’s always nice, and has led to getting more review copies and the like, which is a nice perk.

Tags: Book Blogger Hop, discussion

Review – The Wife Comes First, vol 3

Posted September 24, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Wife Comes First

by Lv Ye Qian He

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels, Romance
Pages: 417
Series: The Wife Comes First #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
“OVER TWO LIFETIMES, I HAVE ONLY EVER LOVED YOU.”

Welcomed back to the capital with unbelievable rewards, Jing Shao and his princely consort Mu Hanzhang fall into a new routine at home and at court—involving challenging but satisfying duties that Mu Hanzhang takes on with pleasure.

While the two men contend with scheming princes, unexpected visitors, and volatile in-laws, new trouble is brewing. The earlier revenge taken on Mu Hanzhang’s behalf set off a chain reaction that now threatens his father’s clan and his mother’s life. And when a death unearths secrets from the past, Jing Shao may have to use all that he’s gained just to survive the machinations threatening him.

But with his brothers—both blood and sworn—at his side and his wife in his arms, Jing Shao vows that this time, no matter the danger, he’ll find happiness with Mu Hanzhang.

Volume three of Lv Ye Qian He’s The Wife Comes First wraps up the series, bringing Mu Hanzhang and Jing Shao back to the capital and back into the thick of the political plotting. Compared to how slowly the first two books moved, this feels like there are a few time jumps, to give time for all the manoeuvring: it’s not a bad thing, but if you don’t keep track of the weeks/months slipping by in the story, some things seem very sudden!

Mostly, it’s an excellent ending for them, almost tipping into a reprise of Jing Shao’s first attempt… and then, at the last, it’s averted. There are a couple of surprises and twists, one of which (I think all in the extras) I guessed in advance from certain scenes. I can’t really say much about all this since it would be very spoilery at this point.

There are actually a couple of extras, which skewed my perception of how much time was left in the story and made the pacing feel confusing. In themselves, they don’t add a ton (and one is just a silly short from Lil Sunbeam’s point of view), but there’s some cute stuff there.

Sadly, the Right Guardian and Left Guardian don’t follow up on Mu Hanzhang’s veiled hints(?), as far as I can tell…

Anyway, I don’t think this series is super well written, and there are plenty of quibbles with it and needlessly evil concubines, etc, etc (there are some positive female characters, like Ge Ruoyi and Mu Hanzhang’s mother). But I was won over by Jing Shao being a big stupid puppy, and Mu Hanzhang being a clever schemer — for his loved ones’ sake. Definitely one I’m rating on enjoyment more than technical skill, which is worth taking into account.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, light novels, Lv Ye Qian He, romance, SF/F

Review – Cat + Gamer, vol 7

Posted September 23, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cat + Gamer

by Wataru Nadatani

Genres: Manga
Pages: 160
Series: Cat + Gamer #7
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Office worker Riko Kozakura lives to play video games, but her life changed forever when she adopted a kitten! Now she has two cats and takes lessons from video games to help raise them.

Riko Kozakura continues to learn and grow with her two cats. With twice the fun, twice the laughs, and twice the trouble, Kozakura has her work cut out for her! “Leveling up” in skills, surprises, and adventures, Riko discovers what it’s like living with two cats!

Volume seven of Cat + Gamer features the perils of working from home with kitties! There’s no explicit reference to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but it felt pretty pandemic-coded with everyone working from home and chatting via Zoom (and discussing Riko’s cats when they make themselves known).

I actually loved how clear it is that Riko is a great worker and really good at her job, as well as being such a nerdy gamer — she even saves her team member’s butt by coming in all competent and to the point. It’s easy when the manga’s silly most of the time to think of Riko as kinda ditzy or a slacker, but this was a reminder that her co-workers actually look up to her, and that she’s super professional.

Also, I loved the “mystery game” part when a kitty caused chaos and Riko tried to play the detective.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, Wataru Nadatani