Stacking the Shelves

Posted December 31, 2016 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

Hey everyone! It’s nearly a brand new year, but here’s my last haul for this one first. It’s a pretty epic haul — everyone spoilt me, book-wise. I’m oddly pleased by the fact that I got equal numbers of fiction and non-fiction books!

New Fiction

Cover of Tower of Thorns by Juliet Marillier Cover of The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman Cover of The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch Cover of Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Cover of The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis Cover of The Edge of Dark by Brenda Cooper Cover of The Bloodbound by Erin Lindsey Cover of Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews

Cover of the Complete She-Hulk by Dan Slott Cover of The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness Cover of Slade House by David Mitchell

I had ARCs of a couple of these, but it’s good to have a finished copy. I blame Mogsy @ Bibliosanctum for a whole bunch of these — it was her reviews that made me put them on my wishlist.

New Non-fiction

Cover of A New History of Life by Peter Ward Cover of The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss Cover of The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone Cover of I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

Cover of Natural Histories by Brett Westwood Cover of A Monstrous Commotion by Gareth Williams Cover of The Wood for the Trees by Richard Fortey Cover of The Secret Library by Oliver Tearle

Cover of The Copernicus Complex Caleb Scharf Cover of What If by Randall Munroe Cover of Human Universe by Brian Cox

Tyrannosaurs! The Loch Ness monster! Microbes! It’s a great haul, and I can’t wait to get stuck in.

Finished this week:

Cover of Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu Cover of Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood Cover of Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds

Cover of Slade House by David Mitchell  Cover of What If by Randall Munroe Cover of Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood

Reviews posted this week:

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. Rather, well, predictable, if you already know your psychology. Still interesting, and very readable. 3/5 stars
Death of a Unicorn, by Peter Dickinson. Does not actually contain any unicorns. I knew that, but still found it disappointing. 2/5 stars
A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness. A little predictable, but nonetheless, really hard-hitting about grief and dealing with it. 4/5 stars
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu, trans. Ken Liu. This intrigued me, but I wasn’t totally sucked in. Part of that might be the translation. 3/5 stars
Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, by Matt Ridley. A little dry and a little out of date, but still fun of interesting stuff for the genetics aficionado. 3/5 stars
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. Some of this goes a little too far into, well, ‘woo’. But the central idea was valuable to me. 4/5 stars
Miniatures, by John Scalzi. More or less what you’d expect if you know Scalzi’s work. Probably great as a collectible, less so for enjoying a solid piece of fiction which goes places. These are fun enough, but they’re all very short (of course) and have the same sort of humour behind them. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourites of 2016. Pretty much what it says on the tin.
A Game of Books. So next year, I’m going to treat reaching my reading goals like a game. I get points based on book length and how long it’s been on my TBR, for example. There’s a spreadsheet and anyone’s welcome to join in and play!

Tags: , ,

Divider

20 responses to “Stacking the Shelves

  1. I like the cover for Tower of Thorns and Slade House! T Rex and Loch Ness Monsters? Can’t get better than that really! I live about 4 hours from Loch Ness but I’ve never had a chance to visit which is a bit of a shame! I really want to go and see the monster and take a boat out on the loch…Whatever you guys are doing for New Year, enjoy!
    chucklesthescot recently posted…Stacking the Shelves #162My Profile

    • They are very pretty covers! And exactly, monsters and dinosaurs are always awesome. I’ve never visited either, though I’m a bit further away!

  2. Ooh, nice! I have read the first seven titles in your fiction list (though technically I’m still working my way through The Hanging Tree – savoring it!) and looks like you have a great first month of 2017 reading ahead! Happy new year 🙂

  3. WOW! You cleaned up, Nikki! I love that series by Marillier – Tower of Thorns was really good, as was Den of Wolves. Plus, the covers are so gorgeous. I have a hardcover set of the trilogy and the books are among my favorites. I want to read that Ilona Andrews book. I hope you enjoy all of your new books, Nikki!

    Happy New Year. =)

    Check out my STS post!
    Alyssa Susanna (The Eater of Books!) recently posted…What I Am Looking Forward to Reading in 2017My Profile

    • Genevieve Cogman’s books are so fun! I can’t wait to get round to this new one. And I love me some non-fiction — I didn’t used to, but I’ve really got into it in the last couple of years. Thanks for dropping by!

    • I’ve been getting quite a lot of non-fiction lately, and I do love it. There’s always something new to learn! Thanks for dropping by.

Leave a Reply

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.