Tag: Stacking the Shelves

Weekly Report

Posted July 18, 2020 by Nicky in General / 17 Comments

Gooood morning, folks! How’s your week been?

A few weeks ago, I let you know I was applying to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Well, thanks for all your well wishes — I’m in! I’m still working out whether I can take some prior credit in so I can skip the intro to biology module (given I have an entire biology degree), but I should be commencing my studies (part time, via distance learning) in September. I’m really excited!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of The Man Who Didn't Fly by Margot Bennett Cover of A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown Cover of Covid-19 The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened And How To Stop The Next One by Debora Mackenzie Cover of Dangerous Remedy by Kat Dunn

Cover of A Declaration of The Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry Cover of The Secret Life of Bones by Brian Switek Cover of Solve Your Stress Cycle by Emily & Amelia Nagoski Cover of The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune

Thank you to Moon Kestrel for A Declaration of The Rights of Magicians, Malou for Dangerous Remedy, and the bunnies for The Extraordinaries. I am being spoilt lately, and I love it! Also, thank you to K.B. Wagers for recommending Burnout — I’m normally pretty allergic to any kind of self-help stuff, but a) I need to read a self-help book for a reading challenge prompt, and b) there’s good stuff out there, it’s just hard for the genre to rise above some of the blatantly bad books.

Books finished this week:

Cover of The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole Cover of Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

I have a book voucher in need of using… and an order incoming from Portal Bookshop… so it’s going to be a busy week for my letterbox. What books have you been grabbing lately? Anything you’re ready to shake down the postman for?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted July 11, 2020 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Good morning, folks! It’s been a while since I was able to do this, but… this post was prepared on Friday evening! It’s nice to be ahead — and I’m even all up to date on writing reviews, and it’s been a good reading week! I know the cool, rainy summer is really disappointing to some folks, but I’m revelling in it; I loathe heat. (I wouldn’t mind a bit more sunshine, just keep the daytime temperatures below 25°C and the nights cool enough to be refreshing, and I’ll still be happy… but if I have to choose between hot weather and dreary rain, I’ll choose the rain!)

In any case, what have I been stacking my shelves with and reading this week? Here we go! Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole Cover of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows Cover of Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau Cover of Written In History: Letters That Changed The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Cover of This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Pomerantsev Cover of Period by Emma Barnett Cover of A Good Time to Be Born by Perri Klass Cover of Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

Thank you to the publishers for the eARCs of A Good Time To Be Born and Eight Detectives!

Finished reading this week:

Cover of Annabel Scheme by Robin Sloan Cover of Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette De Bodard Cover of Invasive Aliens by Dan Eatherley Cover of The Dead Shall Be Raised & Death of a Quack by Goerge Bellairs

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

  • Top Ten Tuesday: The Authors I’ve Read The Most Books By. As usual, it’s what it says on the tin — I mostly guessed rather than looking at actual stats, which would be dominated by the author of the Rurouni Kenshin manga I read when I was 17, and probably GetBackers as well. Not entirely representative of my current taste!
  • WWW Wednesday. The usual update on what I’m reading, with my thoughts on a couple of the books already mentioned here.

Out and about:

  • Postcrossing: Book Review – The Documents in the Case. It figures that my official introduction on the Postcrossing blog is about books! I’ve written a couple of posts for the blog before, but this little series will be my Thing, where you can see me reviewing books about post and mail systems. If you have any recommendations for epistolary novels or books that revolve around post in some way, can you drop a comment over there? (Or here works too!) In any case, I did a whole review of Dorothy L. Sayers’ epistolary mystery, The Documents in the Case. I’ve reviewed the book here before, but my write-up on the Postcrossing blog is all new, and hopefully still worth checking out!
  • Beeminder: Beeminding the Fuzzy Friends. If you don’t know about Beeminder, basically you set goals… and if you don’t meet them, you pay! My latest contribution to the Beeminder blog discusses how I track spending time with my rabbits, and how those efforts have paid off. If you want to hear about the really cute trick Biscuit can do, you want to read this post!

Full disclosure: I help out at Postcrossing and I’m the Support Czar for Beeminder, so obviously I have Ulterior Motives in boosting these blog posts. I hope they’re interesting, though — I don’t always highlight my blog posts elsewhere, but these seemed like they’d have some crossover appeal!

So that’s everything for this week — how’re you folks doing? Grabbed any new books, or been grabbed by any?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted July 4, 2020 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Happy weekend! I’ve actually been reading this week, mostly because I stuck to what is clearly working for my brain right now… and I also got quite a few new books, through friends, ARCs, giveaways and preorders (plus my own one book from my wishlist per week).

I also submitted my application to do an MSc in Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (via distance learning), so hey, wish me luck, restrict non-essential time outside the house, and wear masks when you’re out in public; even temporary cloth masks are proven to help, and if everyone masks up, we can cut transmission waaay faster.

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired: 

Cover of Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire by Dan Hanks Cover of The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

These first two were received to review via Netgalley! Yaaay.

Cover of The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson Cover of The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso Cover of A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy Cover of You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson

Cover of How Contagion Works by Paolo Giordano Cover of The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso Cover of Seafire by Natalie C. Parker

The Murders of Molly Southbourne was via a giveaway (thank you again!) and a friend got me The Obsidian Tower and Seafire for being brave enough to actually press submit on my MSc application, ahaha.

(How do I have four other books when I’m meant to get one a week? Preorders don’t count in the one-a-week, and A River of Royal Blood and How Contagion Works were covered by promotional credit. Score!)

Books read this week:

Cover of The Covid-19 Catastrophe by Richard Horton Cover of Threshold by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of How Contagion Works by Paolo Giordano Cover of The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson Cover of A Ruin of Shadows by L.D. Lewis

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

Alright, I think that’s everything — and it’s only Saturday! Whew. Normally I end up doing this on a Sunday night. How’s everyone doing? Been stacking any great books lately?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted June 28, 2020 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Greetings, folks! Welp, I’m sort of caught up for right now, but I don’t know if it’ll stick. How’s everyone else doing?

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired this week:

Cover of The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper Cover of The Falling In Love Montage by Ciara Smyth Cover of The Covid-19 Catastrophe by Richard Horton Cover of The Woman in the Wardrobe by Peter Shaffer

Thank you to the kind folks who have bought me books this week… and the customer service folks at Waterstones who managed to get The COVID-19 Catastrophe shipped to me in the end!

Books read this week:

Cover of Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

Alrighty, that’s all done! And how about you folks? Got any awesome new books?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted June 21, 2020 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Hey folks! I keep thinking I’m on top of things again and then crumbling by the end of the week, but I swear there’s progress — and I’ve been reading a lot! I’ve also been getting a lot of books! I haven’t included them all this week, only up to Saturday morning, so I’ll still have something to show off next week. 😀

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Received to review:

Cover of The Conductors by Nicole Glover Cover of The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow Cover of How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi Cover of A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Cover of Seven Devils by Elizabeth May & Laura Lam Cover of The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates Cover of Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark Cover of Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

I missed Ring Shout and Boyfriend Material off last week’s post, so here they are now! I’m so excited for these books.

Books bought/gifted:

Cover of What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price Cover of Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway

Read this week:

Cover of Mr. Popper's Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwater Cover of How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi Cover of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Cover of The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude Cover of What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price

Reviews posted this week:

Think of England, by K.J. Charles. A whole new pair of flawed idiots to adore and want to smack. Exactly as I hoped. 4/5 stars
Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi. A deceptively light read that gets to grips with some problems in a utopian society. 4/5 stars
The Sussex Downs Murder, by John Bude. Pretty much what you’d expect from a British Library Crime Classic, which is not to say it wasn’t enjoyable. 3/5 stars
How to be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. If you’re hoping for a step by step manual, this ain’t it: it’s more of a memoir, though I think it’s helpful to guide you through your own journey. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Summer TBR. Okay, it was mostly just an excuse to do a list, I’ll admit.
WWW Wednesday. Chatting about Beneath the World, A Sea and How to be an Antiracist.

How’s everyone doing? Been getting any new books? Looking forward to any new releases? Let me know!

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted June 14, 2020 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Hey folks! Regulars around here might have noticed a small change over the last few days: I’ve changed the spelling of my name from “Nikki” to “Nicky”. WordPress won’t allow me to change it for my past comments, so you’ll still see it around in some places. “Nikki” just wasn’t quite me anymore. It’d be great if everyone can try to use the new spelling, but I know it’s not always easy to remember, so I won’t yell at you if you forget!

Also, I’m really sorry, but I’m still behind on comments. I’m still going to post my link to this week’s linkups and keep right on top of replying to comments here, while going back through my backlog to reply and visit folks in return. Thanks for understanding! Weird times we live in, huh?

Aaand yep, my site had some downtime again today. Not sure what happened there, so fingers crossed it’s over.

All that said, here’s some books I got this week!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of The Spoilt Kill by Mary Kelly Cover of Crossed Skis by Carol Carnac Cover of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Cover of Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran

Cover of The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter Cover of Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James Cover of Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

Few more than I should have been buying, hahaha. Partly that’s due to gifts and preorders, though! As usual, it’s a biiiit of a mixture.

Books read this week:

Cover of The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken Cover of Burning Roses by S.L. Huang Cover of Think of England by K.J. Charles Cover of The Science of Monsters by Matt Kaplan

Reviews posted this week:

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, by Zen Cho. A Wuxia story that just didn’t quite work for me… partly because, though the idea appeals, I don’t actually know that much about the genre. It’s hard to appreciate the cleverness and context that way! 3/5 stars
Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, by The Secret Barrister. Rather enlightening (and also frightening) look at how Britain’s legal system is completely fucked up and failing. 4/5 stars
The Science of Monsters, by Matt Kaplan. Ugh, this was promising but… the author continually pushed his ideas too far and made them ridiculous. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books from the Backlog. A little collection of books that, for one reason or another, have slipped to the bottom of my TBR.
WWW Wednesday. Including my thoughts on How to be an Antiracist and Burning Roses.
Ereader Review: the Onyx Boox Poke2. I thought I’d write up my experiences with my latest gadget — the bottom line being that it’s a really great ereader if you’re prepared to put in the time to get things set up for yourself.

How’s everyone else doing? Get anything good this week? Reading something stunning? Personally I’ve been enjoying the cool rainy days, but I know they can’t last…

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted June 7, 2020 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Hey folks! I don’t know if anyone noticed my site going down for a day, but that was a whole mess. It’s been a fairly quiet week here: not much reading, at least, though there’s been plenty of other stuff to do. I have spent around three hours today reading, which is nice!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Received to review:

Cover of How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi Cover of Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette De Bodard Cover of Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston Cover of The Key to All Things by Cindy Lynn Speer

Purchased:

Cover of This is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender Cover of Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Books finished this week:

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill Cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviews posted this week:

How to Invent Everything, by Ryan North. Fun gimmick, didn’t always work for me as a reading experience. Think I might know a bit too much to get the best out of it. 3/5 stars
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I tore through this… and also thought it could have been a more profound story with less about Evelyn’s love affair, and more about one of her relationships with one of her husbands. 3/5 stars
Language Myths, ed. Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill. Fairly slight but a decent primer. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books by Black Authors. Some of my four- and five-star reads from Black authors, for no reason and apropos of nothing…
WWW Wednesday. This week’s update, discussing Evelyn Hugo and Language Myths.

How are you all doing? Times are rough for many people for many reasons, so if chatting about books is the distraction you’re seeking, drop me a comment! <3

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted May 31, 2020 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Greetings, everybody. It’s been a heck of a week out there, so I hope you’re all okay.

Here in self-imposed self-isolation (for the foreseeable future, though my dad may come over and converse with me from two metres away while pulling up weeds) it’s been quiet, including on the reading front…

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Acquired this week:

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill

Books read this week:

Cover of Around the World in 80 Words by Paul Anthony Jones Cover of How to Invent Everything by Ryan North Cover of The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons

Reviews posted this week:

The Ghosts of Sherwood, by Carrie Vaughn. This review’s been waiting for a while to go up because of Tor’s restrictions on when you can publish — which means the book is due out soon! It’s an enjoyable aftermath of the Robin Hood myth, with some nice characterisation when it comes to Marian and Robin. Not wholly sold, but I do have the sequel to review! 3/5 stars
Around the World in 80 Words, by Paul Anthony Jones. Not bad, but a bit random at times and more for dipping into than reading in a couple of sittings. 3/5 stars
The Colour of Murder, by Julian Symons. An interesting psychological take on a potential murderer, with questions left trailing at the end. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Opening Lines. A real mix here, with mystery, fantasy, SF and historical fiction.
WWW Wednesday. Discussing… lots of books at once, as usual!

How’re you all doing?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted May 24, 2020 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Squeaking in at the end of the weekend, here’s my usual weekly roundup!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books bought:

Cover of Network Effect by Martha Wells Cover of Goldilocks by Laura Lam Cover of When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey Cover of Dangerous Spirits by Jordan L. Hawk

Cover of Guardian Spirits by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of Invasive Aliens by Dan Eatherley Cover of Princess Princess Ever After by Kate O'Neill Cover of The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert

A weird mix, as ever! 😀 And this really truly is my last spree for a while; I’m now on a steady diet of one book per week.

Received to review:

Cover of Human kind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Breman Cover of The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal Cover of The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky

I… I still need to read The Fated Sky, I’ll be honest. It’s just that my brain is stupid sometimes.

Books read this week:

Cover of 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Cover of Princess Princess Ever After by Kate O'Neill Cover of Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles

Reviews posted this week:

The Replacement Husband, by Eliot Grayson. This is okay but not stellar; enjoyable in the moment but not something that will linger with me, and with which I had a couple of bones to pick. 3/5 stars
Finna, by Nino Cipri. This has some fun stuff in the background and mostly was just too slight for me in the end to bear the weight of the complaints about capitalism, which sort of overshadow everything else now I’m thinking about it over a week later. 3/5 stars
84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. This is really sweet and often funny, though there is a rather sad surprise waiting toward the end of the first section for those who didn’t immediately look up Helene Hanff… 4/5 stars
Princess Princess Ever After, by Kate O’Neill. Really short, but cute. 4/5 stars
Unfit to Print, by K.J. Charles. As fun as you’d expect from K.J. Charles, and I rather like the two main characters. It all works out a bit quickly, though… 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I Love Romance. So many reasons! #10 will surprise you. (Or not, actually, if you know me at all.)
WWW Wednesday. Featuring me rambling around reading too much at once, as ever.

How’s everyone doing? Been buying anything shiny?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted May 16, 2020 by Nicky in General / 5 Comments

Greetings, folks! How have you been? I’ve had an up-and-down-y week, but next week will be better (because I say so). And I have a lot of books to show off this week!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Bought:

Cover of Hold Back The Tide by Melinda Salisbury Cover of Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco Cover of Finna by Nino Cipri Cover of Arabella The Traitor of Mars by David D. Levine

Cover of The Lost Boys by Gina Perry Cover of The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski Cover of The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Cover of Restless Spirits by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

And that’s alllmost the last spree for a while, though I have a pending order with Portal Bookshop to come through still…

Received to review:

Cover of Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler

Though it seems to be a PDF format, so I’m not positive I’ll read it… maybe if my new ereader is as amazing with PDFs as they claim, whenever it arrives!

Books read this week:

Cover of Infernal Affairs by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of The Atlas of Disease by Sandra Hempel Cover of The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Cover of The Beautiful Librarians by Sean O'Brien Cover of The Replacement Husband by Eliot Grayson Cover of Finna by Nino Cipri

Reviews posted this week:

The Atlas of Disease, by Sandra Hempel. I just wish I had this in a physical format instead of in PDF via the library. It’d be great to study some of the figures more. 4/5 stars
Infernal Affairs, by Jordan L. Hawk. Not my thing, alas, though the non-binary protagonist and love interest is cool. 2/5 stars
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow. I did not love this one the way I expected, but it was fun. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: The Last 10 Books I Abandoned. I chose to go with books that I’ll probably come back to, rather than list books I didn’t finish and don’t intend to ever finish.
WWW Wednesday. Featuring quite the array of books I’m currently reading!

Out and about:

NEAT science: ‘The awesome thing about dinosaurs. I mean, there’s a lot of awesome things about dinosaurs, but I’ve picked out one…

So that’s my week! Have you all been stacking your shelves high?

Tags: , ,

Divider