Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 5, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Happy weekend! It’s been a busy week at work, what with getting back from holiday, so the weekend is very welcome.

Books acquired this week

Alright, time for more of my birthday trip book spree! Part one is here and talks about Forbidden Planet (in Bristol) and the indie shop Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights (in Bath), and the first part of this post covers the rest of the day in Bath at the delightful Topping & Company branch there. Their stores always feel magical, with wooden shelving, wooden ladders on rails around the rooms, and somehow more rooms in the spaces than you’d think could be possible.

So let’s take a look at what I picked up there!

I don’t know anything about the three non-fic choices except that they looked intriguing: I love stuff about old and weird manuscripts, and I’ve found the recent books focusing on women of ancient Rome really interesting in how they pick apart inconsistencies and give us much more complicated images of the women in question (like Emma Southon’s Agrippina). And of course, I couldn’t resist a book about the history of universities, given my… proclivities. (I finished my fourth degree last year and there is a literal betting pool about when I will next enroll.)

I did also pick up print copies of a couple of books I’d already received as eARCs:

I haven’t finished any of them yet, so I’m hoping having physical copies will help me get to them, ahaha — plus I do like to support authors by getting their books, of course.

That was it for the Monday. I was intending to drop into Waterstones in Cardiff on Tuesday while we were visiting my aunt and some of my nostagic spots from when I was a student, but I discovered that there’s a lovely new indie bookshop in Castle Arcade: Love Stories Bookshop. So of course, I had to get some books there!

I did also go to Waterstones, both in Cardiff and in Bristol… but that’s a story for next week!

Posts from this week

As ever, I’ve been posting away this week and have had plenty to say, so let’s dig into the roundup. Reviews first:

Classic crime: The Party at No. 5, by Shelley Smith (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
Graphic novel: Fence: Challengers, by C.S. Pacat et al (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt, by Charlotte Booth (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy romance: Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 3, by Feng Yu Nie (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Poetry: The Weather Wheel, by Mimi Khalvati (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Manga: Cat + Gamer, vol 5, by Wataru Nadatani (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy: The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper, by A.J. Fitzwater (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, these aren’t books I’ve necessarily read recently; check out the section below for what I’ve been reading this week! I have a big backlog of reviews written and ready to post, and I try to vary what I post in order to avoid spamming people with sixty danmei reviews at once.

Also, 3/5 is not a bad rating, and even 2/5 ratings mean the book had some redeeming qualities. Please do take my definitions literally; when I say 3/5 stars means I liked a book, that means I liked the book, even if you wouldn’t rate a book you liked 3/5 stars. Thanks!

Now for the other, non-review posts:

And that’s all for the wrap-up!

What I’m reading

As I mentioned, it’s been a busy week, so I haven’t been reading as much as I might’ve hoped. Still, I’ve read one of my new books and two classic crime novels, so I’m pretty happy!

For this weekend, I’m not sure what I’ll be reading — hopefully more of Teddy Bears Never Die, The Villain’s White Halo, and my classic crime binge? But we’ll see! It’s always whatever grabs my interest, after all. I’ve also started a non-fic about British medieval manuscripts, after all…

So really, it could be anything. Whatever I read, whatever you read, here’s hoping it’s a good weekend!

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

Review – The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper

Posted September 5, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper

by A.J. Fitzwater

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories
Pages: 145
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds and find adventures beyond their wildest dreams. Let Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning storyteller A.J. Fitzwater take you on a glorious journey about finding yourself, discovering true love and exploring the greatest secrets of the deep. Also, dapperness.

I read this ages ago and realised I’d never posted the review! So I dug it out for you now…

I’d heard about this book quite frequently, but only picked it up recently, for some reason. I love the idea of a dapper, polyamorous, lesbian pirate capybara, and the introduction to the book states something really vital: queer joy is important. Yes, we still have fighting to do, to ban conversion therapy and reverse the recent erosion of trans rights… but to do that we need to nourish ourselves. Our joy is needed too. Plus, a happy queer person is one in the eye for the haters.

So… I wanted to love this book, and I definitely did enjoy the diverse cast, the inclusiveness of Cinrak’s crew and world.

But it feels a little like a collection of stories based on an existing world that the reader should already be familiar with. Things aren’t explained, they just happen. Oh, Cinrak has salt magic — okay, but what does that mean? What are the bounds on it? I initially got the impression it was all sea-related, then it can also sense danger, then it can bust open other magic to save the day… Cinrak and crew always suddenly had the resources/capabilities needed in any given situation.

There were a lot of gaps, and they weren’t the kind that are just part of figuring out the world; I like worldbuilding that makes you do the work, but this wasn’t that.

This collection is enjoyable — and hey, a dapper polyamorous lesbian pirate capybara is a glorious concept and one I’m glad to have met — just didn’t quite work out for me.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: A.J. Fitzwater, book reviews, books, SF/F, short stories

Book Blogger Hop: A Book That Deserves More Love

Posted September 4, 2026 by Nicky in General / 5 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 bigging up a book you love and think doesn’t get enough attention:

What book do you think deserves more love but flies under the radar?

This is really difficult! So I’m just going to go with a recent read that I actually had trouble finding other people talking about: Liu Gou Hua’s After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine. It’s a danmei novel in translation, in four volumes (three out so far), and despite the funny title, I think it’s one of the better danmei I’ve read recently.

If you haven’t read danmei before, or come across me talking about it, danmei are gay love stories which often mix in a variety of genres. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s works are set in a variety of fantasy worlds and often features elements of horror (the buried head in Heaven Official’s Blessing comes to mind) and mystery (in both Heaven Official’s Blessing and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the protagonists spend a lot of time investigating things), while Priest’s Guardian is modern fantasy/mystery, others are more historical, etc.

After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine is mostly historical in tone, though there’s a fantasy element (one of the characters is a modern professor who transmigrates back into a period of history he’s studied). Once there, he quickly realises that he’s become a certain prince who was forced to marry a prisoner of war who later kills him and hangs his head off a wall, and the professor is very keen for that not to happen to him. He starts meddling in court politics and trying to help the prisoner of war heal and escape, trying to avert his fate — and, because it’s danmei, they end up falling in love. It’s an exquisite slow burn, and I can’t wait for volume four to be out in translation.

For those who are interested in danmei and know The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, there’s a bit of a Liushen vibe to Huo Wujiu and Jiang Suizhou.

But, since I know most people visiting my blog aren’t into danmei, I’ll offer another option as well — if you’re into Arthurian legends, Phyllis Ann Karr’s Idylls of the Queen is a very fun murder mystery and examination of the character of Sir Kay. I’ve been meaning to reread it for ages, since the last time I read it was when I was writing my dissertation chapter that featured it, (mumble) years ago now.

Tags: Arthuriana, Book Blogger Hop, books, danmei, discussion

Review – Cat + Gamer, vol 5

Posted September 3, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cat + Gamer

by Wataru Nadatani

Genres: Manga
Pages: 160
Series: Cat + Gamer #5
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Office worker Riko Kozakura supports her entire band of adventurers—including the two cats she cohabitates with, party members Musubi and Soboro!

Follow along as the three live, learn, and grow together. New quests and challenges offer the trio plenty of XP! “Leveling up” in skills, surprises, and adventures extends to real life, as Riko discovers what it’s like living with two cats!

Wataru Nadatani’s hilarious manga series is translated by Zack Davisson (Demon Days, Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan) and lettered by Susie Lee of Studio Cutie.

In the fifth volume of Cat + Gamer, Musubi and Soboro (the kitties) are bonded and definitely up to a lot of hijinks. It continues to be a cute and fun concept, though personally I could do with a bit less of the “verbal” communication (with speech bubbles) between Musubi and Soboro — when Musubi was alone, the bits from his POV felt more like realistic cat behaviour (somewhat anthropomorphised, but less silly, I guess).

Still, who hasn’t imagined the daft conversations that might happen between two pets, and the way they might be interpreting the weird world we put them in? I know I’m constantly anthropomorphising our bunnies…

Definitely still cute, anyway, and I love the double trouble.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, manga, Wataru Nadatani

August Reading Wrap-Up

Posted September 3, 2026 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

August was my birthday month and featured a little holiday getaway to see family and chill in a hotel room, so it’s a month well-worth lingering on! Let’s dig in.

August in general:

The first half of August was pretty busy; I was making sure to work ahead and square things up so the deck was clear, so I’d have an easy time jumping back in. But the start of my holiday came soon enough, and we had a couple days at home before setting off — meaning on my actual birthday my wife baked me Welsh cakes, and before we left we had dinner with my parents as well from our favourite Chinese takeout.

After that, it was off down to Bristol, where we had a lovely stay; the room was huge, and the food options nearby were pretty great. We didn’t even have to order room service or takeout to the hotel, because there were appealing options really close by every night. I had a great time visiting bookshops and venturing into Wales to see my old haunts and catch up with my aunt, and we went to St Fagans, which is a great open-air museum.

We planned the trip with a lot of reading time, but it took a few days for me to realise that I wasn’t getting anywhere much because I wasn’t feeling inspired by the lists/challenges I was still trying to complete. Once I let go of that and just picked a couple of random classic crime books, I got my mojo back somewhat… though not before deciding to relax my various reading goals and catch a bit of chill.

I didn’t take my crochet with me, but nonetheless I’ve made a good amount of progress, including doing a tricky panel with some unorthodox stitches (top middle shelf, the ikebana). I quite like how it came out!

Credit where it’s due, the original charts are from this pattern, though I’ve been adapting them and going ‘freestyle’ for a lot of it.

As far as gaming goes, it was a somewhat quiet month since I stayed off the PC more while we were away, but my raid group in FFXIV came tantalisingly close to beating the second part of M12S (the last fight of the current set), and I did play a few small/relaxing games. I’m deep into Whisper of the House, which is a cute Unpacking-type game, and Leaf It Alone, a game which involves collecting leaves to tidy up a garden… and I raced through the hidden object games Nippets, Find My Frogs and Find My Frogs: Branches. I also zoomed through two new-to-me incremental games, Snap the Cat (super cute, your objective is to take good pictures of cats until the whole world has seen them!) and Lyca (which involves a magical wolf restoring a barren wasteland).

I’ve also got a new productivity “game”, On-Together, which is really cute — and of course, I snagged the Magical Library DLC for Spirit City.

Reading stats:

Total books read: 21
Total pages read: 6,162
Rereads: 0
ARCs: 2
Series finished/up to date: 3
Books owned pre-2026: 0
Books owned from 2026: 15
Borrowed books: 6

Fiction: 13
Non-fiction: 6
Poetry: 2
Comics, manga, manhwa, etc: 3

I read less than I’d hoped, even with my holiday, but I’m okay with that. I know I was having a bit of a struggle settling down and enjoying reading, and with crochet and gaming as well to keep me occupied, sometimes my time is more limited at the moment — especially while my group continue to try to beat the raid in FFXIV.

The name of the game in the next month or so will be trying to focus on just reading whatever takes my fancy and having fun.

Progress on reading goals:

Overall total books: 216/300 (15 books ahead)
Overall pages read: 51,634/75,000 (1,497 pages ahead)
Books read from backlog: 32/50 (1 book behind)
Books owned since 2026 and not yet started: 40/40 (temporary increase allowed)

20 Books of Summer: 12/20 (2/5 bonus)

As I mentioned above, during my holiday I realised that my challenges and lists were actively hindering reading, because I didn’t want to read my “assigned” books. Once I got my head out of that space, I read more and enjoyed it more, which is a sign to take it easy on lists and challenges for a while!

That means I gave up on finishing my 20 Books of Summer (though I definitely read more than 20 books over the course of the summer!). That said, that doesn’t mean I won’t join in any other lists and challenges in future. Sometimes it’s motivating and fun for me and sometimes it isn’t, and right now it isn’t — and that’s okay, but I know it’s a temporary state. I know for others it’s a more permanent burnout, but for me I know I get a lot out of a little structure sometimes.

I also relaxed my yearly reading goals, lowering the books/pages goals and cutting the backlog books goal in half. I allowed myself a temporary increase to 40 books owned and not yet read, as well, in order to allow for my birthday book spree. I’m hoping to whittle that back down, but we’ll see — in general, these goals haven’t been working as well for me this year as last, and that might require some adjustment, or maybe just a fresh start next year.

Blogging stats:

Views: 14.3k (down)
Visitors: 13.2k (down)
Likes: 468 (up)
Comments: 521 (up)
Reviews: 30
Other posts: 24

It’s been a bit of a weird month for stats; I can see a dip on my graph while my wife and I were away, even though I kept on posting and kept up a reasonable level of engagement! But then the number of likes and comments being up suggests I had good quality engagement in August, even if the hits were lower… so that’s really nice.

Honestly, I think maybe my time off just coincided with some lower bot activity which exaggerated the effect, though I’ve got no way of distinguishing bot traffic from real people.

Most viewed posts:

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing (manhua), vol 1 (81 views)
Top Ten Tuesday – Best Bookshops (69 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Book Series I Want to Catch Up On (65 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Danmei and Baihe Covers (52 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: British Library Crime Classics (50 views)

My own favourite posts:

Stuff I loved from elsewhere:

From The Bibliosanctum: Book Review: The Traveler by Joseph Eckert, by Mogsy
From The Bibliosanctum: Book Review: A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett, by Mogsy
From Little Frog Scribbles: The Lion’s Tusk – Robert Jackson Bennett, by calypte
From Books, Bones & Buffy: A PLAGUED SEA by Kim Bo-young – Review, by Tammy
From Pages Unbound: Reviewing Children’s Books as an Adult, by Briana
From Reactor: The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand, by Molly Templeton
From Books, Bones & Buffy: DEVIL INSIDE by Clay McLeod Chapman – Review, by Tammy
From Becky’s Book Blog: Fantasy with Friends – Does the Modern World Belong in Historical Fantasy? by Becky
From Marked for Plot: For Real – An Antitrope Romance, by Cosmic

As ever, it was tricky to narrow down my favourite posts by other people, especially since I’ve steadily been following more and more sites of interest via my RSS reader! So many wonderful bloggers and writers. ♥

Tags: books, monthly wrapup

Review – The Weather Wheel

Posted September 3, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Weather Wheel

by Mimi Khalvati

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 80
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
In these new poems, each of them written in couplets and contained within the space of 16 lines, Mimi Khalvati takes the weather, the seasons, and the passage of night and day as the ground on which she draws her emblems of human life and love. An extended elegy for her mother, the book is also a series of meditations on the small details of animals' lives and on the vulnerable animal within the human being.

I didn’t enjoy The Weather Wheel as much as I enjoyed the other collection I’ve read by Mimi Khalvati, though there were a few images and poems that struck me and will probably stick with me, mostly surrounding her grief for her mother, like this couplet:

I measured distances by her. My mother my compass,
my almanac and sundial, drawing me arcs in space.

Overall, not a favourite collection, but all the same, my feeling when I finished it was fairly positive, if that makes sense! Something I’m glad to have read, more for the overall impression than for individual poems.

I liked the Afterwardness collection quite a bit more, though.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Mimi Khalvati, poetry

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 2, 2026 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Sanah Ahsan’s poetry collection, I Cannot Be Good Unless You Say It, which I was not a big fan of — sadly, just not a style of poetry I gel with, I think.

Before that, I was reading Philip MacDonald’s The Rasp. I found his name on a list of Golden Age crime authors, while I was trying to find something to jog me out of a reading funk. I quite liked The Rasp, though I think his detective (Gethryn) is a bit annoying at times, with a tendency to quotation that rivals Peter Wimsey. I need to properly write up my thoughts, though; I’m a bit delayed in writing my review.

What are you currently reading?

I cleared my “on deck” considerably of late, but with the new books I got for my birthday, I do have a few going at once again. For more classic crime goodness, I’m reading Henry Wade’s The Duke of York’s Steps, which is beginning to hot up now at around 40%. Definitely a slow burner, which I don’t necessarily mind.

Other than that, I started on Michelle P. Brown’s Illumino, which is a history of Great Britain through manuscripts. It’s alright, and beautifully illustrated, though I found the first chapter a little rushed and lacking in focus.

And for something quite different, I’ve got stuck into volume two of Hao Da Yi Juan Wei Sheng Zhi’s The Villain’s White Halo, which I’m enjoying so far.

What will you be reading next?

Probably more classic crime, honestly. A lot of them are available for free on Kobo Plus, or pretty cheap, and if that’s what’s grabbing my attention at the moment, that’s what I’ll read!

That said, I have a lot of fascinating new books as well, and it’s not impossible I’ll pick up one of those, or return to something that I paused for a while. I really am trying to go by whatever’s actually caught my interest at the moment, rather than constraining myself too much.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 3

Posted September 1, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Mistakenly Saving the Villain

by Feng Yu Nie

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels, Romance
Pages: 308
Series: Mistakenly Saving the Villain #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
SOME MISTAKES ARE DESTINY

After a dramatic confrontation with An Long, Song Qingshi and Yue Wuhuan finally begin to speak openly about their feelings. Their relationship deepens—an oasis of tenderness in a world that has offered them little peace.

But shadows remain. Even with treatment, Yue Wuhuan’s illness still festers, and Song Qingshi faces his own sickness: the slow collapse of his cultivation. Worse yet, the system—the mysterious voice that first bound him to this story—is far from satisfied with his failure to save the “right” person.

As the truth behind Song Qingshi’s biggest mistake unravels, so does reality itself. Perhaps he and Yue Wuhuan are nothing more than puppets of fate, destined to be twisted and broken by the heavens. Is anything in the world strong enough to break that cycle?

Volume three of Mistakenly Saving the Villain opens on that horrible cliffhanger, and predictably the two of them solve it in the most stupid possible way, by not talking about it properly and just sort of sliding into a relationship anyway. I say this as someone who basically did that in my own relationship with my now-wife, to be clear: I am affectionately talking about it as the most stupid possible thing.

I love that Song Qingshi is not actually as ignorant of what Yue Wuhuan is thinking and feeling as he sometimes seems, and that he works out what Yue Wuhuan is doing, coaxes him to act on his feelings, and starts helping him distinguish between what is real and what is his trauma/illness. So far it hasn’t much stopped Yue Wuhuan getting worse, because Song Qingshi doesn’t do a good job of boundaries, but… Yue Wuhuan’s unhinged devotion to Qingshi is what we’re here for, right?!

This volume then… goes places. It’s quite the ride, and I have no idea how this is all going to wrap up: the system has reasserted itself (sort of), and we get a glimpse of the bigger picture, a whole bigger tangle that Yue Wuhuan (or whatever he’d like to be called now) and Song Qingshi are part of, which I assume will round things off.

I’m trying not to say too much because a) I’m not sure I’m fully following everything yet and b) I don’t want to spoiler the wild ride for anyone else. But I’m enjoying it a lot and very eager for the last volume in October.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, danmei, Feng Yu Nie, light novels, romance, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday: Welsh Books

Posted September 1, 2026 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is technically about books with nationalities in the title, but I didn’t have enough on my shelves and prefer to stick to books I know… so instead, you get ten Welsh books and books about Wales!

Afonydd, ed. Sian Northey and Ness Owen.
This is a bilingual poetry collection in which poets contributed a poem in English or Welsh, and the editors arranged translation into the other language. I found it a lovely experience, a respectful one that acknowledges that many Welsh people only speak English thanks to centuries of suppression by the English. The editors also have another collection, A450, which is similarly put together but not a favourite for me. Something about Afonydd resonated just a bit more.
Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones.
Didn’t expect that, did you? But if you’ve read the book (rather than watching the Studio Ghibli adaptation), you’ll know that Howl (Howell) is Welsh, and his Welshness is played on multiple times in the story, from his rugby jersey to the “nonsense” song sung by Calcifer (which is of course “Sospan fach“). I love highlighting the Welshness of this book to people who somehow missed it (it isn’t subtle) or only saw the Studio Ghibli version.
Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves.
I didn’t know much about typically Welsh food other than the best-known standbys: Welsh rarebit, bara brith, Welshcakes, cawl. I enjoyed this book, and laughed a bit at how stereotypically Welsh some of my tastes (like my love of cheese and of sweet, fruity cider) apparently are.
Vanished Wales, by Carwyn Jones.
Has some unexpected gaps, making no mention whatsoever of Capel Celyn (a Welsh village which was forcibly cleared of people to create a reservoir to serve a city in England)… but nonetheless, a fascinating survey of places in Wales that are now gone, some of which I knew about even though I was born after their destruction, because they remain that present to people.
Castles of the Welsh Princes, by Paul R. Davis.
If you have a fascination with castles, welp, look no further! Note that this one does not discuss the Norman castles built in Wales, so some of the best known Welsh castles aren’t here.
The Grey King, by Susan Cooper.
As a teen, the fact that this book is set in Wales and heavily influenced by the Welsh landscape and Welsh mythology meant a lot. And it’s a lovely story, though I don’t suggest reading it in isolation — start with Over Sea, Under Stone, or if that doesn’t quite work for you to hook you into the world (it’s aimed at a younger audience), skip to The Dark is Rising and then go back to Over Sea, Under Stone if you’re interested in reading more (just read it before Greenwitch).
The Owl Service, by Alan Garner.
This is a retelling of the story of Blodeuwedd that scared the pants off me as a kid. It is genuinely creepy and powerful, and remains really good.
Country Dance, by Margiad Evans.
I read a lot of Welsh fiction in English when I was at university, both because I studied the topic and because the university library had it in copious amounts, but it’s been a long time and many of them are blurry in my mind, so I’ll choose just a couple of books to stand in for all of them — this one because it was the first book I’d read by a Welsh writer while intending to do so. The introduction (by Caitrin Collier) mentioned the way Welsh literature wasn’t valued, the fact that writers like Margiad Evans are barely mentioned outside Wales (and for her, weren’t even mentioned in Wales when she was looking for Welsh writing)… and yep, I’m familiar.
Feet in Chains, by Kate Roberts.
The current translation available is by Katie Gramich, who taught the module on Welsh fiction in English that I took. I don’t think I’ve actually read this translation, but I loved the class, and this book was a revelation. The fact that Welsh soldiers’ families were notified of their deaths in English, a language that none of them spoke and which no one around them spoke, is a fact that clings to my mind ever since.
Postcolonialism Revisited, by Kirsti Bohata.
The book which made me understand that Wales, too, was colonised — and the effects of that on my own life. It is a somewhat technical read, but one which I wish a few more people would attend to, because the utter incomprehension of the effects of colonisation on Wales and the Welsh language online is a regular irritant.

I’ve run out of space to add more, like Glyn Jones’ The Dragon Has Two Tongues, which contains a quotation I’ve said many times: “To me, anyone can be a Welshman who chooses to be so and is prepared to take the consequences.”

But you get the drift!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Lost Voices of the Nile

Posted August 31, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt

by Charlotte Booth

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
When we think of ancient Egypt, we think of the gods, the pharaohs and the pyramids. However, life for the average Egyptian was very different from this glorious perception and was not so unrecognisable from the lives we live today. This book tells the history of the ordinary population of ancient Egypt, using the stories of real people - often strange, at times amusing and ultimately very recognisable. Booth introduces us to a number of fascinating people, including Taimhotep, who married a man twice her age and turned to the god Imhotep to help her to conceive a son; Naunakhte, who disinherited her children for neglecting her in her old age; Kenhirkhopshef, a man seemingly obsessed with making lists; and Paneb, the 'bad boy' of Deir el-Medina. History is made up of people and personalities, and each of these characters has a story to tell.

Charlotte Booth’s Lost Voices of the Nile is a pretty thorough discussion of, as the subtitle says, day to day life in ancient Egypt. It does touch on the lives of the rich (especially as we have plentiful evidence for that), but digs through all kinds of sources, not just the tombs of the rich, to figure out what life was like for people of various different social strata in ancient Egypt.

The problem of course is that’s a huge scope: we refer lightly to “ancient Egypt”, but that covers an immense stretch of time. Booth’s pretty good at indicating when the sources she uses come from as well as where and what they are, which helps, but it all adds up to a lot of dense and sometimes dry information… and sometimes there are still inevitable gaps where we’re guessing.

As someone who’s read quite a bit about ancient Egypt, because I never grew out of that phase, I enjoyed a lot and learned a few things — including about the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, plausibly identified as potentially representing a romantic relationship between the two (though other interpretations are discussed for what they’re worth).

Overall, yeah, a good one, with numbered footnotes (which I always prefer as it makes it much easier to check on sources), but maybe a little dry if you’re not super interested in the topic.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Charlotte Booth, history, non-fiction