What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Gryffin Murphy’s Twig’s Traveling Tomes, which I got as an ARC via Netgalley. The romance didn’t really work for me, since it felt a bit too much like insta-love and I didn’t feel the chemistry, but the book magic was pretty fun. I’d love to have magic that can tell me the perfect book for someone I don’t even know; that sounds pretty darn cool.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, I have a couple of books on the go. My current non-fiction read is a chonker by Steve Roud, Folk Song in England. I’ve been a fan of folk music since I was a teen, though Roud is using a stricter definition that excludes singers like Seth Lakeman or bands like Bellowhead (who have done modern interpretations of traditional folk songs, often with a decidedly non-traditional sound). He draws a line at the 1950s and declines to discuss modern stuff for the purposes of his work. Still interesting to me, since many of these traditional songs are sources for the modern folk singers I’ve enjoyed.

I also settled into a classic mystery yesterday while feeling sorry for myself about my dentist visit: Michael Gilbert’s Sky High, which enjoyably features a comfortably middle-aged lady who rides a motorbike, manages the choir, and has some clever ideas about amateur detection. After the last book of Gilbert’s I read (Death in Captivity) I was kind of putting this off in case it was similarly grim, but though it’s haunted by war, it doesn’t have the same feel. I’m enjoying it well enough so far!

What will you be reading next?

If I told you, I’d have to kill you…

Nope, as so often, I have no real idea. I’m trying to clear the decks a bit since I’m going to have a few days in London at the end of the month, and undoubtedly that will mean getting some new books. I have a challenge for 2026 (that worked well in 2025) not to have more than 20 books bought in 2026 that I haven’t started yet, plus a goal of generally reading more books than I buy to slowly chip away at the backlog, so I want to create some space there. That means I’ll probably read the rest of the MDZS manhua volumes I have, and maybe start on a couple more ARCs.