Wooo, the weekend! It’s been a cold and icy week here, really treacherous (including our car dramatically almost trying to slip off the back of our carpark and down onto the house a few metres below!), but we’re doing okay. Hope everyone else is doing alright.
Books acquired this week
For a certain value of “this week”… time for the final installment of books I got for Christmas!
First up, the remains of the fiction:
Technically there’s a little more fiction to come that I haven’t shown off, since I had a couple of vouchers to spend after Christmas (and my wife got me a couple more for non-Christmas reasons), but we’ll save that for next week.
You might’ve noticed that I already featured a volume one of The Apothecary Diaries a few weeks ago — that was volume one of the manga, though, and I decided to dig into the light novel. This isn’t at all confusing! Other than that, there’s a couple of picks that were just recommended somewhere (e.g. on Shepherd), plus Thus Was Adonis Murdered, which I was suddenly seeing everywhere a month or so ago.
Next, the rest of the non-fiction!
As ever, it’s a bit of a mix.
And that’s the last of the enormous Christmas haul (part one, part two)… except for a couple of books I bought later with vouchers etc. Next week is really, really the last of it!
Posts from this week:
First up, a quick roundup of reviews…
- Fantasy/teen romance graphic novel: Camp Spirit, by Axelle Lenoir (3/5 stars)
- Christmas romance: Look Up, Handsome, by Jack Strange (4/5 stars)
- History/folklore: Saints: A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic, by Amy Jeffs (4/5 stars)
- Fantasy: A Man and his God, by Janet Morris (1/5 stars)
- Non-fiction: Space Rover, by Stewart Lawrence Sinclair (4/5 stars)
- Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 6, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)
And some non-review posts:
What I’m reading:
First up, a quick roundup of the books I’ve read in the last week — which has been a pretty quiet one, by my recent standards! Reviews will be showing up in due course (with one of them already posted).
This weekend I’m hoping to spend some more time reading, but we’ll see how it goes. I’d certainly like to dig back into A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, since volume 10 has just come out on Friday, and I’ve got started on the light novels for The Apothecary Diaries. Buuut we’ll see where my whim takes me: I read 66 books in December, so if my brain wants a rest, a rest it shall have.
How’s everyone else doing?
Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!
What an Owl Knows is on my list to read this year. I’ve found everything Jennifer Ackerman has written to be excellent, but I haven’t gotten around to the owl book yet.
I will be curious to see what you think of Into the Tangled Bank, with themes of nature and England that I like, and A History of Britain in Ten Enemies, with themes of history and England that I like.
I enjoyed it! I had so many random owl facts to share this week, haha.
I’m very curious about those two as well, though I’ve somewhat at random started on Endangered Languages first!
You have a nice variety books in this week’s post! I’m eager to hear what you think of Selfish Genes to Social Beings.
I wasn’t a huge fan, unfortunately. Review upcoming sometime soon!
“ Thus Was Adonis Murdered, which I was suddenly seeing everywhere a month or so ago.” — that’s an oldie but goodie, I wonder why it’s everywhere. Amazon says I bought it in 2020, and I remember enjoying it a lot and reading more of her books. I liked the owl book, too.
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I think a couple of authors I follow read it, possibly inspired by one another! I think. I can’t remember exactly where it came up.
I wish people would give me books for Christmas. Instead, I land up giving away my own books for Christmas, new looking ones!
Have a good week.
Harvee https://harvee44.blogspot.com/2025/01/sunday-salon-first-post-of-2025-books.html
Haha, it’s mostly my wife, to be honest! I get spoiled for Christmas and birthday, mostly from my wishlist. 😀
We dealt with some weather, too, but are coming out the other side, now. I’m glad you’re doing okay.
It’s still very icy around here, but gaps are starting to appear… fingers crossed things will be a bit more normal soon!
I may add What An Owl Knows, I used to collect Owl figurines etc. I hope you have a great week!
I liked it a lot! And learned some very fun things.
One of these days while my daughter is off at school, I am going to raid her shelves of manga and sneak read some of her books. LOL I won’t really do that, but it’s tempting. She loves The Apothecary Diaries, both the manga and light novels, and it’s a series I wouldn’t mind reading myself. I enjoyed The Village Hunting Demon Society when I read it last year. Ooo! Unlikeable Female Characters looks interesting! I also am curious about The Paper Chase. You have so many great sounding books, Nicky! I hope you have a great week!
Manga can be so good for a fun and quick read! The Apothecary Diaries has been fun so far; I want to get on and read the next volumes soon.
A good looking haul.
Glad that everyone is ok. The weather is so scary out there. I haven’t seen any snow but the surrounding villages have had it. We have had ice.
Have a great week!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
My post:
https://budgettalesblog.wordpress.com/2025/01/11/stacking-the-shelves-89/
Our snow all turned to ice, which caused most of the problems! There’s still a surprising amount of it, but here’s hoping the thaw really sets in — it’s supposed to start tomorrow.
I hope you enjoy them all! My TBR would love me if I could read 66 books a month. 🙂
Haha, I certainly can’t keep up that pace… and there was a certain amount of rereading and reading borrowed books, too. But it was fun!
Jeeeeez! What got into your car, trying to take off down the carpark like that????
Well, it wasn’t quite on its own, ahaha. I had an appointment, so we were trying to get out… but it’s on a bit of a slope, and people had been coming and going without digging away any of the snow, so it had compacted into really hard, smooth ice. It was such a pain to get the car back to a sensible spot. We’re just going to suck it up and go dig out the car park next time there’s snow, I think.
We got an inch of snow followed by a bunch of freezing rain. Luckily, we don’t have to go anywhere and I have lots of experience in driving in Minnesota in weather but I don’t trust the other drivers. lol It’s fun seeing your book covers that are different here in the US.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Drivers in the UK aren’t at all used to it, ha. Probably if we could’ve got out onto main roads it’d be OK, but we’re on a side street off a side street off a not-very-main street, so not enough traffic to help keep it clear…
I enjoyed a lot volume 1 of The Apothecary Diaries, but was disappointed by vol 2 so I DNFed this series:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4120243576
Oof, that’s not encouraging! I guess we’ll see how it goes…
Your lucky to get so many books as gifts!
Have a great week.
I am! My wife spoiled me (for the most part — my dad and sister got me a couple of books too, along with one friend).