Tag: reading meme

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted February 8, 2017 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

I just finished reading Barry Strauss’ The Death of Caesar. It was interesting, but not as good as his previous books — it felt a bit drier, somehow. But it did teach me some stuff I didn’t already know about Caesar and the people around him. For example, I knew nothing about Decimus Brutus — who is not the Brutus everyone remembers via “et tu, Brute?”

What are you currently reading?

Uh, let’s see. I’m partway through The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams, which I’m rereading. It’s a bit of a chunky book, so I’m making fairly slow process. I’m still only halfway through The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley, too. I had that as an ARC and it’s out now, so maybe I should get to that. And I accidentally started reading Ellen Klages’ Wicked Wonders, which I just got an e-ARC of via Tachyon.

What are you planning to read next?

I haven’t really decided yet. I’m tempted to read some more non-fiction, but on the other hand I’ve been hitting that fairly hard lately. Maybe if I get my hands on a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, I’ll go with that. On the other hand, I have a book that’s due back at the library pretty soon, so maybe I should read that — The Dark Mirror, by Juliet Marillier.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted February 1, 2017 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Look! Look! I remembered!

What have you recently finished reading?

I had a blitz on some of my review copies. The mooost recent book was Birthright, by Missouri Vaun. Fun fantasy with a lesbian relationship at the heart; it’s not a particularly surprising or new story in terms of the tropes, but it’s fun.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve finally dug into my ARC of Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion. I normally prefer her non-fiction to her fiction, but I still think she comes up with some amazing worlds. I’m not very far into it, though.

What are you planning to read next?

Probably A Closed and Common Orbit, or Maisie Dobbs, since they’re both book club choices on Habitica this month. Very different books, heh. I’m hopeful about both of them!

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted December 14, 2016 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

A bunch of things, actually; it’s been a pretty good week for reading. The most recently finished was my reread of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas; I still think it’s fun, but I don’t see why anyone ever thought it was the most amazing thing ever. Solidly enjoyable, yes, but… And if you have an OTP in these books, I don’t see how: Celaena goes from being still in love with Sam in the first part to falling for Dorian to toying with Chaol all in the same book. More power to her, but it doesn’t display great constancy.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve started rereading the second of Sarah Zettel’s Paths to Camelot books, Camelot’s Honour. It’s the most Welsh of the bunch, it sometimes seems, particularly since it draws most from the Mabinogion. But also for language stuff, like references to the tylwyth teg. I haven’t got very far with it yet.

I’m also about to start rereading The Silver Chair, which is possibly my least favourite of the Narnia books. Honestly, sometimes I feel like skipping it and The Last Battle entirely.

What are you planning to read next?

I don’t really have a plan, honestly. I might start by rereading The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay… then again, I might wait until I’ve finished at least one of the series I have on the go.

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Unpopular Opinions Tag

Posted January 31, 2016 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

I got tagged by Kaja @ Of Dragons and Hearts to do the Unpopular Opinions tag, which I’ve been tagged for and tempted to do before, so clearly it’s about time…

Cover of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. RowlingA popular book or series you didn’t like: Uh, Harry Potter? Sorry, sorry, I just really don’t get on with the books, even when I tried to reread them!

A popular book/series everybody hates but you love: Well, everyone loves to rag on David Eddings’ work, but I do still enjoy The Diamond Throne. It was funnier Cover of Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugothan I remembered, and I really should finish my reread.

A love triangle where you didn’t like who the main character ended up with: Mal/Alina/Nikolai in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha books. I liked the idea of Mal and Alina at first (friends to lovers is one of those tropes I like!), but Mal ended up being so jealous and unsupportive and just… no. Nikolai was much more charming.

A popular genre you hardly read: Hmm, this is a difficult one, because I read a bit of everything. I guess contemporary fiction that doesn’t contain any magic anywhere!

Cover of The Winter King by Bernard CornwellA popular/beloved character you dislike: Well, I don’t get it when people like Lancelot, 99.999% of the time? Mind you, I was pretty much trained to dislike him by Bernard Cornwell’s books. I also don’t get it when people like characters like Draco or Snape. Not so much my thing.

Cover of The White Queen, by Philippa GregoryA popular author you can’t seem to get into: Philippa Gregory. I have bounced so hard off every single one of her books that I tried.

A popular trope you’re tired of reading: Love triangles… who isn’t?

A popular series you have no interest in reading: Divergent et al, I guess. I do actually have Divergent somewhere on my Kindle, and my partner quite enjoyed the series, but it’s not really speaking to me.

A movie you liked better than the book: I don’t watch that many movies, honestly. Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Does that count? I thought the adaptation was absolutely amazing.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted December 17, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
Most recently, hmm… Etiquette & Espionage (Gail Carriger). I’d been meaning to read it for a while, since I thought Soulless was fun, and yesterday proved the perfct opportunity for it. I actually read it in one sitting, no pauses at all, which was surprising. It wasn’t earth shatteringly good or something, but it was fun.

What are you currently reading?
H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald), which is a quite moving work on grief, training a hawk, and interaction with a historical figure. Bonus points for that figure being T.H. White, given that he wrote The Once and Future King, and I’ve done some academic work on that (albeit as little as I could get away with).

What are you planning to read next?
I actually still feel like reading familiar stuff, so I’m planning on sticking my head back between the covers of Whose Body? (Dorothy L. Sayers). I did reread that a year or so ago without going on to reread the rest of the series, but I want to do my Lord Peter spree right, and that means starting at the beginning. Though I probably will miss out the Jill Paton Walsh stuff: I just don’t feel that she does justice to either herself or Sayers, since I’ve enjoyed her own original work much more than her work for the Sayers estate.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted December 10, 2014 by in General / 4 Comments

I keep forgetting to post this lately — which is odd, since normally I love my routines. Still, I had it on my to do list for today, so fortunately, I didn’t forget!

What have you recently finished reading?
Heart’s Blood, by Juliet Marillier. Review goes up in the morning, I think; this was a reread, and I enjoyed it a lot. Though maybe not as much as I did the first time: some things were far too obvious on a reread, and I already predicted them the first time round.

What are you currently reading?
I’ve picked The Just City, by Jo Walton, back up. I stalled because I just felt like reading old familiar stuff (including Walton’s Tooth and Claw!) but I definitely want to hurry up and finish this. I’m also reading The Spirit Thief, by Rachel Aaron, which is light and fun. Comparisons to Locke Lamora and Vlad Taltos are quite unfair, given the lightness of it, though I can’t help but think of them… Non-fiction-wise, I’m also partway through Crow Country (Mark Cocker), which is kind of fascinating, not least because I didn’t know there was so much fascination to be found in the Corvid family, and also The Language Wars (Henry Hitchings), which is a little bit dry but still interesting.

What will you read next?
Probably more of the Rachel Aaron books. After that, maybe I’ll finally get round to The Girl with All the Gifts (M.R. Carey), or maybe I’ll just reread The Goblin Emperor… Or start on something else by Sarah Monette.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted November 27, 2014 by in General / 17 Comments

What are you currently reading?
If Walls Could Talk (Lucy Worsley) for non-fiction, which is pretty fun for light reading.

For fiction: Fever (Mary Beth Keane), which I started reading last week, read half of, and then haven’t picked up since for no apparent reason. It’s interesting, though, because it tries to take the perspective of Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary. I keep meaning to look up some of the details to see how much of it is accurate and how much total fiction. Also The Hollow Hills (Mary Stewart), and The Just City (Jo Walton), but work seems to be coming in sufficient profusion to stop me actually finishing anything at the moment.

What have you recently finished reading?
The Eerie Silence and The Goldilocks Enigma (Paul Davies). He loses me a bit when he goes into string theory and the like, and I know that some smaller aspects are gonna be out of date since it was written before the Large Hadron Collider was up and running, but for the most part I hung in there. The Eerie Silence leaves me very sceptical about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, but then The Goldilocks Enigma seemed more positive again… Odd, from the same author!

What will you read next?
I agreed to do a buddy read of The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison), this weekend; other than that, I’m not looking beyond the stack of half-read books at my bedside!

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted October 15, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
Beauty and Chalice by Robin McKinley, both rereads. I love those books so much. It’s funny to think that I didn’t like Chalice thaaaat much the first time I read it, but it stayed on my mind and now I think it’s probably earned the title of “Comfort Read.”

What are you currently reading?
A huge mess, as usual, but mainly at the moment I’m reading Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley’s other Beauty and the Beast retelling, and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park — I can’t believe I’ve never read Jurassic Park before. It’s actually better than I was led to believe? And the science is none too bad considering when it was written.

What will you read next?
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, probably, and then The Bone People, by Keri Hulme. I’ve got both of them out of the library here, so I need to get on with it. I need to read some of my partner’s comics, too — Thor, Winter Soldier, Loki: Agent of Asgard.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted October 8, 2014 by in General / 2 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
The Younger Gods (Michael R. Underwood). I wasn’t really impressed, sadly. Before that I read Venomoid (J.A. Kossler), which was similarly unimpressive. Both books for review, alas.

What are you currently reading?
Fair Game (Josh Lanyon), in preparation for reading the sequel for review. I’m at least sure that that’s going to be fun; Josh Lanyon is like my brain’s cheesecake. I’m also reading The Old Ways (Robert Macfarlane), because the title makes me think of The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper), and Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut), because that’s on my list of 101 sci-fi books.

What will you read next?
ARC-wise, I need to catch up with the Flavia de Luce books and review the most recent, so that’ll probably be soon. New book-wise, either Clariel (Garth Nix) or Maplecroft (Cherie Priest), because I’m excited about both. Library-wise, probably The Bone People (Keri Hulme).

My life is complicated, y’all.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted September 25, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
FF: Fantastic Faux, by Matt Fraction. Which is heavily linked to the Fantastic Four title in the Marvel Now lineup, which I haven’t read, so made very little sense. On the other hand, Fraction deals very deftly with a transgendered character, making it so normal and the transition so well done that it barely registers as a big issue at all.

And you’ve gotta love the line “All of you pale before our hetero-normative cisgendered classification of family!”

What are you currently reading?
The Fellowship of the Ring. Oh, Tolkien. Oh, Frodo.

The Enchantment Emporium (Tanya Huff). Can’t remember if I mentioned this last week, but so far it’s very fun. I do have to switch my brain onto the Mary Stewart/Georgette Heyer cousin-marrying-is-okay frequency, but I do have that frequency, so that works. Casually queer, all kinds of family stuff, interesting magic.

What will you read next?
Well, Tolkien aside, I’m gonna dig back into We Are Here (Michael Marshall Smith) and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Thomas Sweterlitsch), since I’m halfway through both and certainly owe a review for the latter.

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