This week’s theme is a summer TBR freebie. I don’t do beach reads, as a rule, and I don’t accept the whole idea of guilty pleasures. But here’s some books I’m planning to read over this summer!
A rather random selection, I hear you say? Yep.
So what’re you gonna be reading?
Good morning, all! It’s been a good reading week for me, and one of my assignments is done and handed in, so… breathe a sigh of relief! How’s everyone else doing?
I love hippos, as in the cuddly teddy bear sort, so I’m not sure how I’m going to take River of Teeth. Possibly Helen Hippo will just be pleased that her relatives are so fierce.
The ratings sneak peek:
Four stars: Neanderthal Man, Sunbolt, Passion Play, and Harrowing the Dragon.
Three stars: Words and Rules, The Loveless Princess and How Your Brain Works.
One star: Sea of Rust.
–Relativity: Einstein’s Mind-Bending Universe, by New Scientist. Not exactly my area of science. If it’s your interest, I think you’ll enjoy it; the fault is in my lack of comprehension/interest in a lot of physics. 3/5 stars
–Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire. Not one of the stories that was crying out to be told after Every Heart a Doorway, to my mind, but still an enjoyable read. 4/5 stars
–Dangerous Women: Part II, ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. I remain unconvinced by this anthology. 3/5 stars
–The Pinks, by Chris Enss. Lots of stuff I didn’t know here; very readable and interesting. 4/5 stars
–Medical Frontiers, by New Scientist. Fascinating collection about the cutting edge of medicine these days. 4/5 stars
–Killing Gravity, by Corey J. White. River Tam with telekinetic powers, basically. It’s a lot of fun. 4/5 stars
–Dangerous Women: Part III, ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Even more mediocre than the other two parts. Basically: don’t bother. 2/5 stars
–Top Ten Tuesday: Books My Mother Should Read. What it says on the tin, as ever. Also generally a list of good books.
–What are you reading Wednesday. The usual update!
What have you recently finished reading?Words and Rules, by Steven Pinker, which had a lot of overlap with his other book, The Language Instinct. Interesting stuff, but mostly I let it wash over me unless he’s talking about brain structures, which is more my field. Once that was finished, I also promptly read Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani, all in one go. Fun, but the last half of it reminded me so much of Robin McKinley’s Sunshine that I’m tempted to revisit that now…
Oh, and then later today I finished up reading Sean Stewart’s Passion Play, which was powerful and disturbing and I need to sit with it a bit longer.
The New Scientist Instant Expert book on the human brain. My kinda thing, obviously, so I’ll probably enjoy it, though it’s more basic than I might hope.
Goodness knows. Whatever comes up next on my Kindle when I can’t sleep, probably!
This week is an [International] Mother’s Day freebie. Now the UK Mother’s Day was quite a while ago, but never mind. The thing with me and my mum is that we’ve always shared books, ever since I finally learnt to read — I went from children’s books to her shelves within a year or two. Rare is the letter or conversation that doesn’t involve books somehow, so here are ten books I’d like my mother to read already.
And for those who are not my mother, well, those are all good books anyway.
I love the kind of mother-child relationship I have with my mother, where we can discuss books and psychology experiments and space opera and the accuracy of portrayals of mental illness in books, and just about everything else under the sun. She always treated me as an adult in terms of my formed opinions, and that has undoubtedly enriched our relationship and conversation options greatly. I can recommend it as a mode of parenting pretty unreservedly.
A good week! But deadline crunch time is approaching…
I forgot to include Saga a couple of weeks back — my wife bought me it on a whim. Yay wives! And I bought Ruined when it finally came in at Fnac, after Cait @ Paper Fury‘s review aaaages ago.
A nice haul, though apparently Dark Exodus is a sequel, so I need to get on with reading the first book.
Four stars to: Herding Hemingway’s Cats, The Pinks, Killing Gravity, All Systems Red and The Builders.
Three stars to: Reinventing Darwin.
Two stars to: Dangerous Women (Part III).
–Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. This was the kind of reread that makes you appreciate a book even more. I enjoyed it the first time, but this time I was less distracted by the gender stuff and more focused on the story — which is darn good. 5/5 stars
–Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente. I didn’t expect to love this. I find Valente’s writing beautiful, but opaque. But for some reason, this grabbed hold of me — and kept a firm grip to the end. 4/5 stars
–Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Fascinating account of octopuses, part scientific, part philosophical. 4/5 stars
–The Bone Palace, by Amanda Downum. A stronger book than the first one, partly because it contains a character I can’t help but adore. Savedra steals this book entirely; the more time the narrative spent with her, the happier I was. 4/5 stars
–Virolution, by Frank Ryan. Could use being a lot more tightly focused. Most of it doesn’t seem directly connected to viruses at all. Interesting stuff about symbiosis and epigenetics, though. 3/5 stars
–Dangerous Women: Part I, ed. Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin. Some entertaining stories, but honestly, I found it remarkably weak for an anthology edited by such big names. 3/5 stars
–Reinventing Darwin, by Niles Eldredge. Apart from some stylistic tics that drove me round the bed — “we naturalists” would have received some serious red pen from me — I don’t disagree with the scientific theories presented here. 3/5 stars
–Top Ten Tuesday: Gimme More… A bunch of things I’d like to see more of in fiction.
–What are you reading “Wednesday”. The weekly update. On “Wednesday”, also known as Thursday.
How’s everyone? Any exciting new books on your stacks?
Shush, it’s Wednesday. Totally.
I finished Killing Gravity, by Corey J. White last night. It’s basically if River Tam was a lot more active about chasing down the people who messed with her brain, and a bit more sane. I love the idea of voidwitchery. I do wish it hadn’t ended there, though; I want Mookie to be safe!
Within the Sanctuary of Wings! I’m sort of pacing myself with it, because I don’t want it to be over. Also, I got to a certain bit in the middle and just… yelped and immediately laid hands on copies for my wife to read. Like, now. Now. Why isn’t she reading them???
I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe Martha Wells’ Tor.com novella, All Systems Red. I wanted to read Sean Stewart’s Passion Play, but the Kindle version from Netgalley is just a mess, missing all kinds of punctuation and the middles of some words. Whaa.
Good morning, everyone! This week’s theme for Top Ten Tuesday is “things you want to see more of”, which sounds easy enough…
Whoops, got all rambly. Looking forward to seeing what other people post for this!
Good morning! How’s everyone? My exams are still approaching, but I got a bit more reading done this week, hurrah.
It’s been a while since I read anything by Sean Stewart, but I remember enjoying his work!
I’ve been meaning to read Chameleon Moon and Sunbolt for ages, and they were each 99p on the Kindle Store. So, grabbed ’em. As for Reinventing Darwin, it was recommended to me, and I can’t help a satisfied sigh at the words brazenly quoted on the back cover: “No one doubts that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is correct.” Overly optimistic, perhaps, but a delightful window into a world I’d like to inhabit, where no one does doubt evolution.
Technically I’ve read parts I & II of Dangerous Women, with part III still on the pile, but I’m not going to upload the identical-but-for-colour separate covers!
Five stars to… Ancillary Justice.
Four stars to… Radiance.
Three stars to… Dangerous Women: Part I & II.
Two stars to… The Soul of an Octopus.
–The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi. Don’t think too much about how this would work! If you ignore that, it’s an interesting setting for a mystery. 4/5 stars
–Byzantium, by Judith Herrin. A labour of love — too much love, perhaps, to be objective and to pick the right incidents to discuss for a non-specialist audience. 3/5 stars
–Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel. This really hooked me despite, or perhaps even because of, my qualms. Must. Know. What. Happens. 4/5 stars
–What is Life? How Chemistry Becomes Biology, by Addy Pross. What it says on the tin, and hardly revelatory for me. 3/5 stars
–The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery. Touching, but more of a memoir than a scientific book, even a pop-science one. 2/5 stars
–The Drowning City, by Amanda Downum. A reread, and one I enjoyed maybe more than I liked the book the first time! 4/5 stars
–Top Ten Tuesday: Cover Love. Some covers that have really struck me.
–What are you reading Wednesday. An update on what’s been crossing my bookshelves this week.
What have you recently finished reading?I just finished a reread of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, yesterday. I actually liked it more this time — I think because I wasn’t thinking about the clever treatment of gender as much, but just about revisiting the world and story. And it did help that I knew what to expect; I’m one of those people who likes spoilers.
Catherynne M. Valente’s Radiance. It’s my book club read on Habitica (in the Legendary Book Club guild, if you’re a member). I didn’t actually expect to get sucked into it so quickly — I tend to struggle with Valente’s work because the imagery is just so dense and I’m not visual at all. I thought that’d go double for a book revolving around cinema. But no, I’m intrigued and eating it up.
I’d like to read Within the Sanctuary of Wings, and maybe start rereading City of Stairs and City of Blades, ready to read City of Miracles once I get back to Britain and my copy has arrived. But knowing me, I might get distracted by something else. I have some books due back at the library, after all.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is about covers, so here’s some I really love (even if the books don’t always live up to it!):
I can be kind of a sucker for a pretty cover, or a design that really catches my attention, like the butterfly on Natural Histories. (Click it to embiggen; it’s fascinating!)