Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted June 20, 2026 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

Happy weekend! I’ve been in a reading mood for the last couple of days, so I’m very much looking forward to a lazy day.

Books acquired this week

This week’s been a busy one! My wife and I went to Manchester last weekend to go to the art gallery (to see their WORN: the life within clothes exhibition) and, let’s be real, get some books. I was hoping I’d pick some up at Queer Lit, but I confess to having found the (lack of) organisation of the shelves a bit too annoying, so I didn’t manage to get anything at an indie, despite Independent Bookshop Week.

Still, I did find myself some books, and absolutely no one is surprised by that.

So first up, the fiction! I’m also including one book I got via this week’s Top Ten Tuesday wishlist sharing, kindly sent me by Emma from Words and Peace, which made me smile.

I love both Ilona Andrews and Cat Sebastian, so I’d been looking out for those, and I’ve been meaning to try the graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea for a while, so that was a nice find too.

I also picked up a little more poetry, since I’ve enjoyed Mary Oliver’s work recently:

I’ve read both of them already — not my favourites among her collections, but there’s always something lovely about her work.

Finally, I got some non-fiction, some of which I’d been anticipating for a while:

Overall a nice little haul, and I’ve started most of them already! Impulse buys turning into impulse reads has turned out to be a very good thing for my reading mood at the moment.

Posts from this week

Right! As ever, I’ve done a fair few posts this week, so let’s do a bit of a roundup. Reviews first:

Fantasy: Solo Leveling light novel vol 7, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Crime short stories: Puzzles of the Parish, ed. Martin Edwards (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
History: Queer Georgians, by Anthony Delaney (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Poetry: In the Hollow of the Wave, by Nina Mingya Powles (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Manga: Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 5, by Itaru Kinoshita (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

As ever, most of those aren’t very recent reads, because even with my slower reading lately, I’ve got a huge backlog of reviews written but not yet posted… I’ll talk about what I’ve been reading this week below!

And now the other posts!

I’m getting off to a good start with 20 Books of Summer, too, with two of my chosen books finished!

What I’m reading

I’ve been reading a lot more this week, which is a relief! I’ve been reading a few books in tandem, as usual, but very actively, so I expect I’ll finish a bunch of them this week. Thinking about it, that’s how I used to read all the time — reading a chapter of one book and then swapping to another! All this focus on finishing books, whether for ARCs or just because I feel like I “ought” to for my stats or whatever, has maybe not been serving me super well at the moment. I think the variety is helping my attention span.

Anyway, first let’s talk about the books I did finish this week:

As you can see, it’s a bit more like my usual reading! I completely mainlined The Wife Comes First vol 1, and my wife is probably going to venture out and snag me volume 2 today, since it grabbed me.

The four books I’m currently rotating through most actively are Harry Tanner’s The Queer Thing about Sin, Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain, A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World and Jean-Yves Mollier’s A History of Booksellers and the Bookshop, and I’m kinda hoping I’ll finish all four of those this weekend. When I finish one of the non-fiction books, I’ll probably slot Charlotte Booth’s Lost Voices of the Nile into the rotation, while I think Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Trade in Blood might be next up in fiction…

I do also want to read a couple of poetry collections so the library can have them back, so I might fit them in somewhere, too. But it’ll depend on my whim in the moment: I’ve only just got back my urge to read after a few weeks of very little reading, I’m not going to spoil it now!

I hope everyone else has a lovely/restful/enjoyable weekend planned. ♡

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 – Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 5

Posted June 19, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Dinosaur Sanctuary

by Itaru Kinoshita

Genres: Manga, Science Fiction
Pages: 200
Series: Dinosaur Sanctuary #5
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
RELATIONSHIPS ARE COMPLICATED--BOTH HUMAN AND DINO!

Suzume is getting to know ankylosaur section head Katase Shogo. They're the same age, so they should get along, right? Wrong... Can Suzume keep from butting heads with him until it's time for her to move on to ceratopsians? The humans aren't the only ones with drama on their hands at Enoshima Dinoland, either! Centrosaurus sweethearts Umeko and Shoukichi are going through ordeals of their own...

Volume five of Dinosaur Sanctuary gives us some more of the uneasy working relationship between Suma and Katase, which continues to be a bit rocky, and some background into the vet, Shiranui, along with a glimpse of Karin handling a group of schoolkids as well.

Dinosaur-wise, we get some more time with the centrosauruses, which is really the main plotline of this volume and extends into volume six. As a warning, this volume includes a dinosaur (the Centrosaurus Umeko) with an osteosarcoma, and the story doesn’t conclude in this volume.

About that: I remember learning from David Hone’s books The Future of Dinosaurs that dinosaurs and birds can isolate infection in a certain part of the body rather than seeing the kind of systemic spread that humans do. Maybe that gives Umeko a better chance with cancer, too, since there’s less chance of metastasis? The manga doesn’t mention it, but I’m going to let that give me hope!

Slightly less light-hearted overall than some of the volumes, but still fun, and the variety does help to add depth.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Itaru Kinoshita, manga, SF/F

Review – In the Hollow of the Wave

Posted June 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

In the Hollow of the Wave

by Nina Mingya Powles

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 96
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
In the Hollow of the Wave, the second collection by Nina Mingya Powles examines orientalism, art and artmaking in a time of ecological crisis. Engaging with the work of artists such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Yayoi Kusama, Etel Adnan and the fashion designer Guo Pei, these poems rework the notion of ekphrasis into something elemental and tactile, shaped by memory and landscapes of the body.

Nina Mingya Powles’ In the Hollow of the Wave is a bit of a multimedia collection, mixing poems with images of various bits of craftwork and images with words pasted onto them (a bit reminiscent of times of A Softer World, if anyone but me remembers that!). There are some interesting poem formats too.

I found it readable and there were some that stuck with me — the one about her grandfather(?) making quilts for her and her cousins was lovely. I didn’t get along with all of it, as ever with poetry (picky, I am, I know), especially some of the more experimental ones… but I’m glad I gave it a shot, and I am still left with the image of the retired biologist, making his grandchildren quilts. It seems like a lovely warm memory.

I wouldn’t mind trying other poetry by Nina Mingya Powles, either way.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Nina Mingya Powles, poetry

Review – Queer Georgians

Posted June 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Queer Georgians: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers and Homemakers

by Anthony Delaney

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 352
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In this dazzling work of restorative history, Dr Anthony Delaney has traced the stories of people daring to challenge society's expectations, unearthing archives and court records to reveal the tragedies and the joys of queer life three centuries ago. Breathing new life into the forgotten and offering radical new interpretations of celebrated figures such as Anne Lister, Queer Georgians is an invitation to view our shared history in a whole new light.

The celebrated Chevalier d'Éon, soldier, diplomat and spy, challenges a rival to a fencing match. The sweepstake is not over who will win, but whether the Chevalier is a man or a woman.

Mother Clap's Holborn coffee house is open to all comers, a place of companionship and community, until a tip-off leads to a midnight raid.

Two women, exiled from their families, set up a utopian homestead in a remote Welsh cottage, inspiring a generation of Romantic poets.

Anthony Delaney’s Queer Georgians sets out to tell the stories of various Georgian people who in various ways managed to live and love in an environment not friendly to queer experiences. Sometimes these stories aren’t what you might expect, where the people in question — the Chevalier d’Éon and Anne Lister, for instance — have become well known (at least in queer communities) and have had a narrative built up around them.

Some of that’s uncomfortable: Anne Lister was deeply manipulative, out to get control of her partner’s money, and by her own words she sometimes loathed Ann Walker in that process. The Chevalier d’Éon is far from a non-binary icon who slipped between male and female dress as pleased them, but rather someone whose gender presentation was forced upon them, sometimes to their distress. (I’m using neutral pronouns as it isn’t clear to me what they would have finally preferred if they had had any choices left, and I can’t exactly ask.)

Some of it is just sad, or sordid, too. But it all adds up to a world that was queerer than we sometimes think, in which queer people found ways to live authentically and get what they needed, and through their words and other evidence about them it becomes obvious that (though it shouldn’t be any surprise) there have always been queer people, trans people included.

I enjoyed it a fair bit, and though I didn’t check the endnotes myself (it’s just not my area at all), the author is forthright about sources and interpretations, and clearly did his own digging into the evidence in order to celebrate the truth of these queer Georgians. Definitely enjoyed it, even if it sometimes felt sad or uncomfortable. Warts and all, these people have been worth learning about.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: Anthony Delaney, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction

WWW Wednesday

Posted June 17, 2026 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters, which was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I found the world-building a bit goofy: these people literally eat books, like… chew and swallow them. And that transmits the information into their brains somehow? But someone within the story refuses to call that magic, and other stuff frames it as biological? Yeah… no. That’s not how any of that works. If it’d just called it magic, I’d have got along with it a lot better — but then other stuff wouldn’t have worked so well.

On the other hand, the discussion of monstrousness and motherly love and family, all of that was pretty powerful and well done.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve started even more books at once, because it sparked joy in the moment, so I’ll mostly highlight those! I started two queer books and one about booksellers, and the three of them are additive in interesting ways: A.K. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, Jean-Yves Mollier’s A History of Booksellers and the Bookshop, and Harry Tanner’s The Queer Thing About Sin. The latter has a premise I’m very curious about, that acceptance of queer relationships is stronger when there’s higher levels of economic and political equality; I hope Tanner carries it through the book and reflects on it more, because I’d like to see more evidence than just ancient Greek city-states.

I also started on volume one of Lv Ye Qian He’s The Wife Comes First, which is leaning into court intrigue type stuff that I’m very curious about. Jing Shao definitely didn’t deserve Mu Hanzhang’s loyalty in his past life, and I’m wondering whether it’ll ever show us why Mu Hanzhang was so loyal. Either way, I’m enjoying Jing Shao’s eagerness to please Mu Hanzhang now that he understands how amazing he is.

What will you read next?

I got a couple of poetry collections by Mary Oliver at the weekend, and Fred Fordham’s graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea, so those are high on my list! I also need to get round to some of my library books, like Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, because the library wants them back.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Puzzles of the Parish

Posted June 17, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Puzzles of the Parish

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 333
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
A pernicious parson outwits the thieves of a priceless chalice from the parish treasury. A beloved vicar contemplates a perfect crime when a blackmailer comes knocking. Poisoned pen letters lead to a fall from grace for a rector’s wife, and a suspicious fall from the second storey for the rector.

Gathered here in this new collection are some of the greatest mystery tales in which the tendrils of crime steal into the churchyard, featuring clergymen and nuns as victims, amateur sleuths and villainous perpetrators of the devil’s work. Replete with a fascinating introduction and notes from one of the guiding lights of crime fiction, Martin Edwards, this anthology delivers cosy brainteasers and fiendishly-fashioned stories with a sting in the tail, from a congregation of writers including Joyce Porter, H. C. Bailey, Cyril Hare and Edmund Crispin.

Puzzles of the Parish is the latest collection of short stories edited by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics series, and as usual it’s an interesting survey of short stories on the topic (churches, clergymen, etc), ordered from oldest to newest in a way that lets you see, if you’re interested, the way the genre was developing.

The authors represented include some of the usual suspects, of course. I did find that the selection of several quite modern stories raised my eyebrows a bit, honestly; I know it’s 2026 already, but a story published in 2006 is not a classic and I’m really not sure how it can be included… but this series has been tending this way a bit, perhaps by way of providing variety. There are plenty of genuine classics, though, and I wish they’d stick to them or admit the series has lost its purpose.

All that said, I found it an enjoyable collection. For me, there’s always a part of my mind looking at it in an academic sort of light, when it comes to classic mysteries, so there’s that level of entertainment for sure… but also there are genuinely interesting/fun stories here with interesting detectives/mysteries/culprits/scenarios. I had fun.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, Martin Edwards, mystery, short stories

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Wishes

Posted June 16, 2026 by Nicky in General / 19 Comments

Every so often, the Top Ten Tuesday theme is all about the books you’re hankering for right now, and sharing your wishlist so that people can get them for you if they feel so moved! So let’s see.

Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works, by Helen Pearson.
This was reviewed recently in New Scientist, and it sounds like an intriguing look at how evidence-based science works!
If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, by Daniel Hahn.
I saw someone mention this (I think Keira?) and it sounds fascinating. Translation is such a knotty problem, and Shakespeare is extra difficult because there’s a double-barrier of time as well as language.
A Widow’s Charm, by Caitlyn Paxson.
I’ve seen some good reviews of this, and it sounds like fun!
Murder at the Black Cat Cafe, by Seishi Yokomizo.
It’s always interesting to broaden my experience of crime/mystery stories and read in translation, so I’m curious about this one.
Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes, by Eleanor Houghton.
Clothes tell us so much about the period they came from, the person who wore them, and the kind of life they lived. I’m very curious.
All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now, by Ruby Tandoh.
I’ve been curious about this one for a while, as food history is another thing that I enjoy dipping into.
The English House: A History in Eight Buildings, by Dan Cruickshank.
I’m a sucker for histories that are a history of X in Y things… and while I’m not super into architecture, it’s still a field where buildings of the past tell us an awful lot, and I’m capable of being interested!
The Apothecary’s Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How it Became a Commodity, by Karen Bloom Gevirtz.
I haven’t heard much about this, but the topic is fascinating!
Ode to the Half-Broken, by Suzanne Palmer.
This doesn’t seem to be out yet in the UK, but Amazon has it, and I’ve been reading some very positive reviews! It sounds right up my street.
The Nightmare before Kissmas, by Sara Raasch.
I’m not sure that Raasch’s books are 100% my thing, but I’m happy to try outside my comfort zone, especially since I’ve been seeing glowing reviews from people I trust! So I’d like to give this one a shot — though I’d have been interested in The Entanglement of Rival Wizards instead if it’d been out in paperback in the UK, so I wouldn’t mind an ebook copy of that if it fell into my ereader, ahaha.

My Amazon wishlist is here, and I’m also game for ebook copies if you’d rather buy a book voucher for me to get an ebook with, in which case I suggest a National Book Token or Kobo voucher, since I prefer not to use Kindle anymore. My email address is bibliophibianbreathesbooks [at] gmail [dot] com.

(Buying me Kindle books and sending them to that email address does work as well, since I do have a Boox ereader and can still access the Kindle app, it’s just not my preference. Kobo deserves more love!)

Excited to peek at other people’s lists and spread a bit of bookish love today!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Solo Leveling (light novel), vol 7

Posted June 16, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Solo Leveling

by Chugong

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels
Pages: 288
Series: Solo Leveling (light novel) #7
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The murders of several distinguished S-rank hunters rock the world, and Jinwoo knows it's only a matter of time before the perpetrators strike again. The declaration of war comes earlier than expected, however, in the form of a colossal gate looming in the skies above Seoul. With the Hunter's Association of Korea struggling to adjust to its new normal and the Monarchs picking off the top hunters one by one, will Jinwoo be able to keep everyone safe from the biggest disaster mankind has ever faced?

Volume seven of Chugong’s Solo Leveling light novel is a little bit uneven. The plot is really accelerating at this point, with Jinwoo ready to fight all comers, Monarchs or Rulers, and the mystery about Jinwoo’s father being resolved as well… but the pacing doesn’t work amazingly, with an interlude in the middle of pitched battle while Jinwoo essentially watches a flashback of what happened to the original Shadow Monarch.

I don’t know how I’d prefer that section to be done — maybe the flashback was necessary! But it feels a bit rushed, like the author has to suddenly cram in all the info we need to make the upcoming conflict make sense. Obviously an extended flashback with Jinwoo just watching wouldn’t be super enjoyable, but… maybe we should’ve seen stuff from Ashborn’s point of view again?

All the same, the final chapters of the book ratchet things back up again, with Jinwoo’s minions appearing, and then the beginning of the end — perhaps for the whole world. It genuinely feels high stakes, and I think does it better than the manhwa for my tastes. I felt a bit choked up when Jinwoo asks what his future will be. Knowing how the story ends makes that more poignant, of course.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Chugong, light novels, SF/F

Fantasy with Friends: Merch

Posted June 15, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Another new week, and thus a new Fantasy with Friends post: the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about the merch you’d like to see:

If you could design merch based on any fantasy books, what items would you want?

I don’t buy a lot of merch because I don’t have a lot of room for it — or rather, there’s room, but I tend to find it feels cluttery and I don’t know of many items that have uses that I’d want to be fantasy-themed. Except the biggie: bookmarks. I collect free bookmarks, of all stripes: my favourites are ones that advertise bookshops, especially indies, but I have a soft spot for ones that display books I’ve actually read, too. I got into the habit because of the free bookmarks the Book Depository used to do, and now… well, I have far more than I can use, even though I tend to use multiple bookmarks at a time (marking out stuff like where the chapter ends or other convenient stopping-points).

And even though I have more than I can sensibly use, I’d still love more. I’d love some danmei-themed ones: I think I have a couple based on Heaven Official’s Blessing, if I remember rightly, but I’d love them for other danmei as well, because the illustrations are often gorgeous. These covers in particular, for example:

But really I could go for bookmarks of anything I’ve read, even if the cover isn’t particularly pretty! There was a fun set somewhere with stats from a book/series, maybe Game of Thrones? With like a body count and other stats like number of battles… that kind of thing could be neat.

Some stuff like that is out there, but it’d be kinda nice if every book came with it — my British Library Crime Classics books do, for instance, due to my subscription!

Other than that, I do enjoy bookish t-shirts: I have some for Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s books, like a t-shirt with “OOC OOC OOC” on it (from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System) and one with cute bunnies representing Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian (from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation). I’m always game for that kind of thing. Maaaaybe a tote bag here or there? And I’ve had a few necklaces with pendants that looked like specific books, or earrings like that. I have some Hua Cheng-inspired earrings, too; I don’t wear earrings a lot, but I do like to be able to be nerdy when I do.

Anyway… “mostly bookmarks” is probably a fairly boring choice, but it’s honest, haha.

Tags: books, discussion, Fantasy With Friends, SF/F

20 Books of Summer: Getting Started

Posted June 14, 2026 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

NB: I made my own banner for this as the official one used generative AI. I used a stock photo from Pexels.com, and added some text. It’s not the most beautiful, but please feel free to use it if you would like to.

I’m a little late to the party, and I don’t think I’ve ever participated before… but better late than never, right? The challenge is a simple one: read 5, 10, 15 or 20 books over the summer, between 1st June and 31st August. You can sign up over at AnnaBookBel’s blog and join the monthly link-ups there.

I usually read a lot more than 20 books over the course of the summer, so I’m going to narrow things down a bit and use it to try to read specific books — but if that starts feeling unpleasant or annoying in any way, I’ll stop or swap in other books: the below are just a preliminary list of ideas, though I’ll try to stick to the categories I’ve set up here.

So let’s see…

Five non-fic:

I love non-fiction, especially when I’ve been stressed and struggling to read, so let’s start with some of those! (Not that I’m planning to read these in any order, but I’m hyping myself up here, shush.) I’m not going for any particular theme here, just picking some that I feel enthusiastic about in this moment.

And yet a bit of a theme emerged anyway, ahaha. Technically I’ve started the first three, but I’m not far into them. Which reminds me of my next section…

Five in-progress:

I started a lot of books at once and ended up feeling a bit guilty about not getting back to them, and truthfully, a bit overwhelmed at having so much on the go. So let’s lock in and agree that I’ll try to finish these five.

I haven’t even got far into the latter two, but the whim changed after I’d read a couple of chapters, and I drifted away.

With the other three, I’m solidly in the midst of ’em. I won’t say they’ll be easy wins, because The Book Eaters and The Water Outlaws haven’t quite been gelling for me, and Queen James is dense.

Five ARCs:

I’ve been well in control of my ARCs for the last year or so… until I got a bit overwhelmed again, and pulled back on reading. I’ve got some catching up to do! So let’s get these read, if possible!

Five danmei:

I got a lot of new danmei at once, and ended up a bit overwhelmed/wondering if I should read one series at a time, or wait for more to come out (so I can get the next book right away if I’m really into it), etc. But I wouldn’t normally do that, and at least since they just need translating, we know new volumes are coming soon! So I think I’ll just jump in.

I’ve been looking forward to several of these for a while, after all! So should be some good light reading over the summer.

Five wildcards:

I know, this brings us to 25 in total, but I wanted to give myself the easiest possible out if I’m struggling with any of the above books. Without a specific backup plan, I might just feel like I’m cheating (I know, I know, the rules are very flexible, but my brain isn’t). So here’s a wildcard for each of the above in order, and a spare!

And you never know… maybe I can make it the 25 specific books of summer, and really flout the rules, ahaha.

So here we go, for at least as long as this sparks joy!

Tags: 20 Books of Summer, books