I wasn’t feeling inspired by this week’s topic, since the only answers that leaped to mind for deceased authors I wish were still writing were Tolkien and Le Guin, and non-deceased authors… well, you never know, they might be writing something as we speak! I live in hope. I poked around a bit online trying to jog my memory, but nothing felt really authentic, in the end.

So I went and looked at old topics, and picked #294: “Ten books I picked up on a whim.” I do a lot of whim-driven buying when I go to a physical bookshop: honestly, that’s the main reason I go to bookshops: not to buy the books I know I want, but to explore what else is out there.

Here are some that I picked up on a whim and loved! I’ll count library books as well as books I bought, and I’ll link the reviews when they’re already up on my blog. In some cases they

1. Ramesses the Great, by Toby Wilkinson.
   I wasn’t actually sure if I’d like it, since I remembered finding something else by Wilkinson a bit tedious… but I’m glad I gave it the chance, because I found it totally riveting. Despite a lifelong interest in ancient Eygpt, I hadn’t dug very deep into most specific pharoahs, not even Ramesses the Great, and I ended up telling several people aaaaall sorts of things based on this book.
2. Tied to You, by WHAT/Chelliace.
   This was a random borrow from the library via ComicsPlus, because it kept popping up when I was idly browsing for ideas for what to read, and I was curious about the concept (which is basically that every person has a “ring partner”, and if they touch them after they’re both of age, then a bond forms between them so they have to be physically together in order to sleep, and sleep wonderfully when they are together). It should not be mistaken for portraying a healthy romance because oh boy it does not, but I really enjoyed the twists and turns in getting Wooseo to eventually accept the fact that Jigeon is his ring partner for good.
3. Mr Collins in Love, by Lee Welch.
   I am not a huge Austen fan, and I’d seen someone whose taste I trust praise it highly, so I approached this with a pretty open mind, despite the fact that it’s Mr Collins. I found it was very well done, with sympathy for a could-have-been Collins.
4. The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.
   I almost wasn’t expecting to like this one, because it was a random pick solely because I thought it’d be a good one to review for Postcrossing. I ended up really enjoying it, because it does a good job at giving us characterisation through letters, and drawing out some small mysteries to keep things intriguing while the main character slowly works things through. It’s not a book in which stuff happens, more of a character study.
5. A Boy Named Rose, by Gaëlle Geniller.
   This was another random find via ComicsPlus, and I loved the gentle exploration of Rose’s love of dancing and his slow branching out into the world outside where he grew up. The blurb of the book makes it sound more dramatic than it really is.
6. A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke.
   I keep banging on about this one since it’s a recent read, heh. But it really was an interesting history, selecting unexpected poems and digging into contexts I hadn’t thought of.
7. Moon Cop, by Tom Gauld.
   I love Gauld’s comic strips, but wasn’t sure what I’d make of something longer. I hadn’t expected the melancholy tone of this one, but it worked really well, actually.
8. Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt.
   I know, it doesn’t sound a very appetising subject, but nonetheless I found it really interesting, especially being introduced to alternative ideas about prion diseases and how they might spread.
9. Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles, by Andrew Ziminski.
   Very much a whim for me here, because I’m not interested in churches or architecture per se — but I am always interested in someone enthusing about something, and that’s definitely what I got here. I did have a few critiques of the book, and honestly I don’t remember much of the actual detail, but it was soothingly fascinated in a subject that I didn’t have to agonise about at all, so I could let it wash over me, and that was at the time exactly what I wanted.
10. Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold On Us, by Anna Bogutskaya.
    This was a random choice from the library — especially random because I’m not that interested in horror! Especially not horror movies, which this was predominantly about. But it was pretty fascinating, all the same. I didn’t like the author’s other book nearly so much, sadly, but I’m still glad I read this one!

Hope everyone’s having a good week so far!