Author: Nicky

Review – Doctor

Posted March 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Doctor

by Andrew Bomback

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 176
Series: Object Lessons
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

A 3-year-old asks her physician father about his job, and his inability to provide a succinct and accurate answer inspires a critical look at the profession of modern medicine.

In sorting through how patients, insurance companies, advertising agencies, filmmakers, and comedians misconstrue a doctor's role, Andrew Bomback, M.D., realizes that even doctors struggle to define their profession. As the author attempts to unravel how much of doctoring is role-playing, artifice, and bluffing, he examines the career of his father, a legendary pediatrician on the verge of retirement, and the health of his infant son, who is suffering from a vague assortment of gastrointestinal symptoms.

At turns serious, comedic, analytical, and confessional, Doctor offers an unflinching look at what it means to be a physician today.

Some of the Object Lessons books are histories of the object under discussion, peeking into history through a very specific lens. Andrew Bomback’s Doctor instead looks at being a doctor right now, with only a little historical context in the form of his musings about his idolised father. There’s some contrast between being a doctor now and how it used to be, and some discussion of how doctors navigate the world — all alongside his experiences as a father, how his profession impacts his children, etc. It’s more of a memoir than anything: how enjoyable you find it will depend on how you find Bomback as a person, to some extent.

Bomback Jr isn’t one of those doctors perpetually driven by “making things better”, and his frustration with some patients — his contempt, even — drips off some of the pages. Without thought, he lists the patients he dislikes, ending with: “healthy, never sick, never really needed to see me, but convinced there is something wrong that I am yet to find”. He hates those patients more than the patients who refuse to comply with his treatment plans.

It’s fashionable and easy to hate on those with health anxiety (“hypochondriacs”, “attention seekers”), but consider: there is something wrong with us. That fear that we can never quiet is ultimately the problem we need help with — and it’s a doctor’s job to get to the root of the problems we present to them, and to help us, because they have the expertise to see what we do not. There are options: addressing underlying trauma, providing lifestyle advice, and yes, medication too.

If you don’t know that, if you can’t see that, if you just casually dismiss those people as not needing help, well… you’re a shit doctor, and you should feel a deep shame. And sure, he’s mostly concerned with patients’ kidneys rather than general practice, and maybe he himself can’t help with health anxiety (though I notice he was happy to prescribe Xanax if his patient’s wife said he needed it), but he can at least have some damn humanity and recognise that fear, rather than complain about them because their fear makes them question his vaunted expertise.

So needless to say, I did not end this book thinking “ah, Dr Bomback sure is a nice guy”, which I’m sure is what he’d like people to think. I know what he’d think of me, and I am profoundly relieved he’s unlikely to ever have to treat me. I’d hate to get on his nerves by so rudely having medical trauma.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Andrew Bomback, book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Magic Stars

Posted March 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Magic Stars

by Ilona Andrews

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 80
Series: Kate Daniels
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Scarred, solitary Derek Gaunt has separated from his Pack, and is truly a lone wolf. With no family he answers to no one; but is fiercely loyal to a chosen few. So, when several of those close to him are murdered, he’ll stop at nothing to hunt their killer through the magic-drenched streets of Atlanta.

Never one to be left on the sidelines, equally determined—some might say stubborn—Julie Lennart-Olsen soon joins in his pursuit; and what began as revenge turns into a race to save the city. Their search pits them against powers they never imagined and magic so old, it predates history. It may cost Derek his life, but there are things for which even he would risk everything.

Ilona Andrews’ Magic Stars is a fun short story from Derek’s point of view, featuring Derek and Julie. They fight crime! Well. They avenge supernatural murders, track down a couple of mysteries, and get themselves into big trouble — just as Kate and Curran would want. Wait a sec, no…

It’s a fun little taster of how Julie’s going to handle life, and also a glimpse at what she’s intending, where she sees herself in the world. She’s in touch with Roland, she knows about the caveats and side effects of what Kate did to save her, and she’s ready to grow up and be a bit of a wrecking ball herself, Kate-style.

There’s not a lot here to dig one’s teeth into, but it’s a different look at the familiar characters, and adds a little bit more colour to their world.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Ilona Andrews, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted March 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

Wednesday again already? Time is flying by, but as usual, we’re asking:

What are you currently reading?
What have you recently finished reading?
What are you reading next?

And linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What are you currently reading?

I have a few books on the go at once, as is usual for me: I guess the primary one right now is Big Ben Strikes Eleven, by David Magarshack. I’m not very far into it and I’m finding it kind of slow. I mean, classic mysteries often are, but it feels like it’s being described in a needlessly complicated way. The facts so far are simple enough, but there’s a whole scene with the detective (not the same one as from the opening chapters, of course, sigh) trying to familiarise himself with the case and just tying himself in knots.

So I’m not sure how warm I’m going to feel about this one, but I’m giving it time.

What have you recently finished reading?

I’ve been digging into the Object Lessons books I got last week, so the last thing I finished was Sara Rich’s Mushroom. I liked it a bit more than Spacecraft and Sticker, neither of which really focused on the topic in the way I’m interested in. Mushroom didn’t really either, though, being much more about mushrooms as a metaphor and mushrooms as being involved in various kinds of mysticism and religion. There’s also what seems like some honking great hypocrisy (going on about even the land being alive and how much she respects Native American beliefs about it, and then referring to “my family’s land” in Kansas, which of course was home to Native Americans not long before). Maybe there’s an explanation for that, but, hmmm.

What are you reading next?

I probably shouldn’t start anything else new! According to the Bookly app, I’m partway through seventeen different books. So I’m hoping to focus on finishing some of those! I started The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, over the weekend, so probably I’ll turn my focus to that next. The Sherlock Holmes parallels are so far very obvious in terms of characterisation (though eccentricities are taken to extreme).

How about you? Anything fascinating open on your ereader or lurking on your desk?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: To Reread or Not to Reread?

Posted March 12, 2024 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about books that you’re scared might not stand up to a second reading — books you originally loved, but are scared to reread. I heard about the concept of the Suck Fairy from Jo Walton, and that’s exactly the problem here: maybe the book just isn’t as good as you remember. Times have changed, or you’ve changed, or the book isn’t really what you remember… that’s the Suck Fairy!

Anyway, let’s give this a shot. Note that I’m not saying these books necessarily do or will suck now (in fact for some I’m sure they’re really good but maybe not for me). I’m just afraid that if I reread them, I won’t love them the way I did before.

Among Others, by Jo Walton. I don’t really think the Suck Fairy can have visited this book, surely. It meant so much to me. On the other hand, I read it in my early twenties, fresh out of being a teenager, and it meant an enormous amount to me then. Can it stand up to that weight? I think it probably can, but it’ll be a very different experience now.
The Magic Faraway Tree, by Enid Blyton. I have very fond memories of so many Enid Blyton books: so much so that I get tempted to revisit for the nostalgia hit. That said, everything’s coloured by what I know about Blyton now, and by having seen some of the sexism and racism lurking in her stories the last time I read them (which was in university, for a children’s literature course). I’m not sure that can be unseen.
Idylls of the Queen, by Phylis Ann Karr. I did this to myself: I wrote my MA dissertation about this book, in part. Mostly I was looking at character, and the use the author made of the sources. That said, I did semi-recently reread Exiled from Camelot (Cherith Baldry), which I also wrote about in that dissertation — and Idylls of the Queen was the better book. I think this’ll probably be OK to revisit.
Camelot’s Shadow, by Sarah Zettel. This is quite possibly where my interest in romance fiction in general really began, a little foot in the door. And again, I wrote about it in my dissertation. I keep thinking about revisiting, but are Gawain and his brothers as enchanting as I remember?
A Sorcerer’s Treason, by Sarah Zettel. I remember really liking the Isavalta books, and I keep wondering about a reread. I don’t remember much about them, though? Only the fact that I liked it at the time. Seems a bit worrying.
Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay. There was a time when I’d have dived on a new Guy Gavriel Kay book instantly, but I’ve been really lax in keeping up of late. Around about when Under Heaven came out, I think I started… going off his work? Which is a shame, because there’s much I loved about The Summer Tree, Tigana, etc. I did read Under Heaven, and I liked it, but it didn’t stick in my head in quite the same way. Maybe I’ll have to just give it another shot, though, and see.
Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. Mum and I were pretty obsessed with these books, and a lot of it is probably packed into my reading self on a DNA level. But… could I stand rereading Fitz’s teenage whinging? Presumably one doesn’t need to be an adolescent to put up with it, since Mum could, but maybe also she was just in practice due to me and my sister!
Sabriel, by Garth Nix. I loved Sabriel and Lirael, and found so much of the world-building fascinating, and then… didn’t really like Abhorsen for a few reasons, and have barely kept up since. Something went pear-shaped for me at some point in all this. I kinda want to give it a second chance — but what if it was pear-shaped all along, and I just didn’t see it yet back then?
Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel. The first book of the trilogy blew me away several times, and I remember liking this as well — and yet somehow I never went on to the third book. Maybe the answer to why is found in Waking Gods, and will spoil everything?
Spillover, by David Quammen. I give this book a lot of credit for my current path (my MSc in infectious diseases), but it’s probably getting a bit long in the tooth now. Science doesn’t stand still. Still, I have an enormous affection for it, because it’s also the book that made me a bit less scared of infectious diseases by helping me be curious about them.

Funnily enough, there are a few books that grew for me on rereads, and stuck in my head in astounding ways. Maybe someday there’ll be a topic about that, but for now, shoutout to Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey, Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons, Robin McKinley’s Chalice, Mira Grant’s Feed, and probably many others…

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – The October Faction, vol 2

Posted March 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The October Faction

by Steve Niles, Damien Worm

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 140
Series: The October Faction #2
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
The Allan family has inducted Dante, a.k.a. Robot Face, into the fold and Geoff and Vivian have begun their training in the family business; monster hunting. All looks well for the Allans, but Sheriff Chambers is slowly catching on to their occult activities. Collects issues #7-12.

I’m kinda hanging in there with The October Faction by Steve Niles et al. This second volume didn’t really assuage my fears about how rushed the first volume felt, or add a lot to the character development, so in a way it’s not really what I’m looking for.

That said, now that I’m used to the artwork it does seem to fit with the story so well it feels wrong to complain. Though sometimes it is so dark and stylised that it’s not 100% clear what’s happening, in places.

All the same, clearly something’s got me curious enough to keep going with reading these. There’s something just compelling enough about the art and the characters, and wondering what bananas thing is going to happen next.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Damien Worm, SF/F, Steve Niles

Review – Tell Me The Truth About Life

Posted March 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Tell Me The Truth About Life: A National Poetry Day Anthology

by Cerys Matthews (editor)

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 192
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Tell Me the Truth About Life is an indispensable anthology which celebrates poetry’s power to tap into the truths that matter. Curated and introduced by Cerys Matthews, this collection draws on the wisdom of crowds: featuring poems nominated for their insight into truth by a range of ordinary and extraordinary people: from Britain’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, to sporting heroes and world-famous musicians, teachers, artists and politicians.

Their choices include contemporary work by Yrsa Daley-Ward, John Cooper Clarke and Kei Miller alongside classics by W H Auden, Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas. Here you will find poems to revive the spirit, ballads to mobilize and life-lines to hold you safe in the dark.

Compiled for National Poetry Day’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Tell Me the Truth About Life is a book that reminds us we are never completely alone in our search to glimpse the truth.

Containing nominations from a number of high-profile poetry lovers and poets, including Michael Morpurgo, Mark Gatiss, Dolly Alderton, and Helen Sharman, among others.

The poems featured in Tell Me The Truth About Life, edited by Cerys Matthews, are a bit of a mixed bag. Some are the type you come across in every single similar anthology, the famous ones that people like my grandmother have memorised. There were also a few surprises, poets I’d like to read more of.

I didn’t find that the little introductions written by various other readers were that helpful or added much, sadly: sometimes, reading someone else’s interpretation of a poem or what it means to them opens a poem right up, but the descriptions were too brief to offer much, and not very insightful.

What it did remind me was that I’d like to read more poetry again; it’s been a long time since I did, but I do have some favourites. Here’s one of them, while we’re here — Derek Walcott’s “Love After Love”:

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, poetry

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 9, 2024 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

Well! Made it through another week. I had a long weekend and then also tried to take it easy, so I’m feeling a bit less stressed and snowed under, and got back to reading (whew!).

As per usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Acquired this week:

So… there was a bit of a book spree. I’d like to say it was because of the British World Book Day (which we have earlier than everyone else so it doesn’t fall into our school holidays), but nope, I’d already indulged plenty before that. Classic retail therapy.

One thing I got was a bunch of new-to-me Object Lessons books. I love these as a concept, and try to get myself a little batch of new ones every so often!

I love how they all look together on shelves, too, so neat and tidy.

Anyway, other than that I also bought some other books I’ve had my eye on for a while:

The Walnut Tree sounds kinda grim, but I’ve read it already and I loved it! A Bookshop of One’s Own is kinda grim, too: I’m partway through it, and of course Silver Moon was established during the Thatcher era…

I also received a book from my mum. Sort of. For Christmas, my wife and I gave my mum a reading subscription from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. Each month, she receives a book chosen for her based on her preferences in the (quite extensive!) interview. However, since she has macular degeneration, the print is often too small, so after she’s had the fun of getting a package and seeing what’s been chosen for her, then I get her an ebook copy and the physical copy goes to someone who’s interested in it. Since we share quite a lot of our taste in books, it’s quite likely that will often be me… and thus did I get given her book choice for February! (My sister has claimed the book from March, Alice Roberts’ Ancestors. That’s okay, I already read it.)

And finally, I did get a new eARC this week as well — I’ve been meaning to read The Fortunate Fall for a long time, but I have no idea where my copy is, and I’m not sure if this version contains any updates. Thank you, Tor!

And — wait, that was not the end! Sneaking in at the last moment, as I was writing this post I spotted that the latest volume of A Side Character’s Love Story is out! I haven’t written a lot about this manga series here, since I read it when I wasn’t blogging or reviewing much, and also I never expected to be breathlessly devouring all (at the time) 14 volumes. It’s a sweet, slow-burn romance (though a quick read). If you’re curious about it, most or all of the series is available on Kindle Unlimited in the UK, and maybe elsewhere. Just sayin’.

Posts from this week:

It was a slightly slower week again here, since I didn’t post reviews on days I had a different post going up, but it’s still worth going over the list:

Fantasy YA comic: Stone Star: Fight or Flight, by Jim Zub et al (2/5 stars)
Non-fiction ranging through history: The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, by Roland Allen (5/5 stars)
Fantasy: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett (4/5 stars)
Non-fiction about archaeology: Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond, by Alice Roberts (5/5 stars)

And non-review posts:

What I’m reading:

During my long weekend, I got a bit of my reading mojo back and managed to devour the second Emily Wilde book and Kate Morgan’s The Walnut Tree. I haven’t finished a lot of books, but I’ve been enjoying myself greatly. So here are the books I’ve read in the last week that I plan to review on here:

Over the weekend, I plan to finish A Bookshop of One’s Own (Jane Cholmeley), and maybe make a start on Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup. As ever, though, I’ll let my whim guide me.

And how’s everyone else doing?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Crypt

Posted March 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond

by Alice Roberts

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 352
Rating: five-stars

Synopsis:
In her previous two bestsellers, Professor Alice Roberts powerfully and evocatively revived people of the past through examining their burial rites, bringing a fresh perspective on how they lived. In Crypt, Professor Roberts brings us face to face with individuals who lived and died between ten and five centuries ago.

The stories in this book are not comforting tales; there’s a focus on pathology, on disease and injury, and the experience of human suffering in the past. We learn of an episode of terrible brutality, when hate speech unleashed a tide of violence against an ethnic minority; of the devastation caused by incurable epidemics sweeping through medieval Europe; of a protracted battle between Church and State for the heart of England – a battle that saw the most famous tomb in the country created and destroyed; and a tumultuous story, forged in the heat of warfare, that takes us out of the Middle Ages into the sixteenth century and the reign of Henry VIII.

In the Middle Ages, there’s barely a written note for most people’s lives. The information we can extract from archaeological human remains represents is an essential tool for understanding our history. Most of these dead will remain anonymous. But, in the thrilling final chapter, Professor Roberts introduces an individual whose life and bones were marked by chronic debilitating disease – and whose name might just be found in history…

I was really excited about Alice Roberts’ Crypt coming out, because I enjoyed both Ancestors (my review) and Buried (my review), and this essentially concludes the trilogy, making it a survey through time about burial practices and archaeological finds in Britain. Crypt in particular was extra-exciting to me because it promised to discuss palaeo/archaeopathology, meaning looking in more depth at how people died, including whether infectious disease may have been involved. There are three chapters (of the seven) which deal heavily with this, discussing leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae), the Black Death (Yersinia pestis), and syphilis (Treponema pallidum) — obviously right up my street as someone who is fascinated by infectious disease (and especially leprosy’s cousin, Mycobacterium tuberculosis).

It was everything I’d hoped for, discussing deaths throughout the Middle Ages and going pretty in-depth about the stories we can see written into bone, plus the ways we’ve been able to find the trace of infectious diseases that are less apparent, or potentially ambiguous. The methods used weren’t too much of a surprise to me (“fishing” for ancient disease DNA using primers definitely occurred to me as a possibility), but it’s still fascinating to see it discussed at a bit more length.

As usual, Roberts writes clearly and engagingly, though maybe I could’ve done with slightly less about Henry VIII’s Mary Rose — I get that context is important, but I’m just not that interested in the Tudors and their squabbles, and I think it could’ve done with a bit less about that.

One thing I do wish is that the book used numbered references. I know it’s for a wider audience, but it’s so hard to follow up any particular interesting claim if I can’t find the paper or book it’s from, even when a detailed references section is included (as here).

Still, I enjoyed it very much, and I wish I had three more lined up just like it.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: Alice Roberts, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, science

Review – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Posted March 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

by Heather Fawcett

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Pages: 315
Series: Emily Wilde #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones — the most elusive of all faeries — lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all — her own heart.

In getting me to give Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Heather Fawcett) a shot, the key was the comparison to Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons. And it’s true: Emily Wilde definitely has a kinship with Isabella Trent, and I think they’d respect each other, and there is a similar sort of shape to the stories in some ways.

I was also promised something “whimsical” and “cosy” by the cover copy, and I have to say that I really wouldn’t call it those things. It takes faeries seriously, and that means taking seriously the cruelty of the Fae in many, many stories. It means missing children, sacrifice, compulsion, and blood. Emily’s research gets her swept up in a bigger story, and her main tool is her encyclopaedic knowledge of fairytales, her ability to know how the narratives work, and what to expect.

There is also a romance element, and that one is playful and full of banter. I didn’t really enjoy that aspect at first, wondering how it’d work out, but by the end I’d bought into it, because it doesn’t require Emily to be anything but herself — that is, prickly and awkward, and never quite sure how to handle other people.

Emily herself is a fun character. Though I said she’s like Marie Brennan’s Isabella (and certainly you could talk about the “deranged practicality” of both of them), and I can see both of them falling into exactly the same traps, she’s not a carbon copy, nor as reckless, and her relationship with Bambleby is quite different to Isabella’s relationships with those around her. There’s also less emphasis on geopolitical circumstances — they’re both scholars, but they don’t move through the world in quite the same way. At least not so far!

I’m keen to pick up the next book and see where it goes. I wonder if there’ll be any recurring characters? It would seem unlikely for most of them to turn up anywhere but their own home, but Emily certainly got swept up in a big story, and you never know what those will do.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Heather Fawcett, mystery, romance, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted March 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Happy Wednesday! Time for the usual trio of questions:

What are you currently reading?
What have you recently finished reading?
What are you reading next?

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What are you currently reading?

Thankfully, after a few days of feeling too stressed to read, I actually found my way into it over my long weekend. Right now I’m reading a new-to-me Object Lessons book, Spacecraft, by Timothy Morton. Sadly, I’m not really a fan: it’s not about real spacecraft, but about the idea of spacecraft, and it’s illustrating all its points by way of the Millenium Falcon. I liked Star Wars when I was a kid but haven’t watched the more recent movies (no, not because of Rey, just because I don’t watch much of anything), so… It’s talking to an audience that’s not me half the time.

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I finished The Walnut Tree (Kate Morgan), which is a history of how the law has treated women in the UK. Which sounds quite dry, but I loved her book on murder which took a similar tack, and this was just as fascinating. She uses examples and case studies to illustrate the point, and it works really well.

I also finished Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Heather Fawcett) yesterday, and now I’d like the next book, please. I love Emily and how bad she is at human interaction, and how much she cares about Wendell and Shadow and Ariadne.

What are you reading next?

I don’t know for sure. Chances are my next fiction read will be Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup, because I guiltily bought myself a copy after failing to read my advance copy before publication. I’ll probably start a non-fiction read as well: possibly another Object Lessons book, in which case Sticker (Henry Hoke) is catching my eye, or possibly A Bookshop of One’s Own (Jane Cholmeley), which is a history of the feminist bookshop Silver Moon. (Man, I’m hoping there’s nothing transphobic/enbyphobic in there.)

How about you, dear reader? Anything great on your bedside table or about to drop through your letterbox?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday