Happy Saturday from surprisingly sunny Yorkshire! At least, it was a surprise to me, after all the grey and rainy days. I’m not looking forward to the high temperature forecast for Monday, but this morning I’m sat by the window with a fresh breeze, so things feel pretty good.
Books acquired this week
A quiet week on this front, but I did just borrow a couple more books from the National Poetry Library for the weekend! So here they are: first the translated poetry I read earlier in the week, and the two I just picked up for weekend reading.
I wasn’t initially drawn to The Home Child, and then I spotted it was a verse novel. Given that I did enjoy The Black Flamingo, I thought I’d give a totally different verse novel a chance too and see what I think. Not sure if the National Poetry Library has any others I might be interested in, but I’ll take a look next time I have a loan slot free.
Posts from this week
Let’s start with the reviews as usual:
- Graphic novel: My Heart in Braille, by Joris Chamblain, Pascal Ruter & Anne-Lise Nalin (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
- Manga: Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 1, by Itaru Kinoshita (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
- Fantasy romance: The Keeper of Magical Things, by Julie Leong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
- Fantasy:Â Solo Leveling light novel, vol 5, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
- History: Folk Song in England, by Steve Roud (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
- YA: The Black Flamingo, by Dean Atta (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
As ever, those aren’t the books I’ve been reading this week, for the most part. Those are below in the next section!
Aaand the other posts:
- Fantasy with Friends: Fairytale Retellings
- Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Secondary/Minor Characters
- What Are You Reading Wednesday
What I’m reading
It wasn’t a great week for reading, via a combination of getting a bit blocked by a book I wasn’t settling down with but was stubborn to finish plus my new crochet project. The former I’m finally just 50 pages or so from finishing (and things are coming together better than I’d feared), and the latter… well, it’s still going to steal a lot of my time, but I understand the technique and how to read/interpret the pattern now, so each row goes a little faster and smoother than at the start.
Anyway, here’s what I did manage to read since my last post!
Which looks like quite a bit, but they were all fairly short reads, especially The Brothers, which is a kid’s book — I’d got curious about it because it’s a retelling of a Hmong myth, and references to the Hmong have come up in various bits of reading lately.
For this weekend, I hope to finish Cecilia Edward’s An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating and Tom Service’s A History of the World in 50 Pieces. I’d love to fit in reading some comics and poetry around that as well, but (as ever) it’s down to my whim. There’s also a possibility I’ll just snag something random from the books I’m currently reading, curl up and go to town on finishing it. I’d love for that to happen, because I am starting to feel a biiiit overwhelmed by the number of books I have on the go, heh.
But of course there’ll be plenty of casual video games and crochet, too. Or so I hope!
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.
Good luck with your crochet project! I wish I could successfully read multiple books at a time, but it really slows me down going back and forth.
It probably slows me down too, but it helps with my tendency to get fidgety… Still, the number I have on the go at the moment is a bit excessive. XD
The cover of The Home Child is stunning! I love dandelion clocks.
I also started reading the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint series this week! (I’m reading the novel versions.)
Keira @Keira’s Bookmark recently posted…A Bookish, Off-the-Beaten-Track Korea Trip & Book Haul
That’s part of why it caught my eye!
Oooh, did you decide whether to read it in translation or not?
An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating is such a fun title. I hope you enjoy it!
Sadly, it’s the book I wasn’t really gelling with, but I did think better of it by the time I finished it, at least! Still not quite my thing, though.
I’m unfamiliar with many of the books you wrote about, but am going to look into one of them. I’m glad you shared so many of your reads. It was eye opening.
I’ve been crocheting over 40 years and find it very soothing. It would be fun to see what you’re working on.
Thank you for such a informative post!
Hope you enjoy if you try it! Which one, out of curiosity?
The crochet project is this mosaic overlay pattern. Not a technique I’d used before but it’s pretty easy, actually.
Hope you enjoy the Home Child. I’d love to continue my project of writing a story in verse.
Harvee recently posted…Reading List for end of May
I’m looking forward to giving it a shot, at least!
Best of luck with your crocheting project – I can completely understand why getting to grips with it would eat into your reading time, as I suspect they are the same chunks of time? As for battling with a book that you’re not fully chiming with, you have my admiration. I simply DNF books I’m not getting along with! I hope the coming week is a good one for you:).
Yes, indeed! I’ve managed more time for both over the weekend, but in the week it’ll continue to be a balancing act.
I do sometimes DNF, but I was juuuust curious enough with this one.
I’m jealous of your poetry library. There are very few poetry books in our library systems, though I’m not sure why this is. I got in very little reading time last week in Georgia…I was distracted by all the opportunities to hike and bird!
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz recently posted…The Sunday Salon: Home from Georgia
I’d had no idea about it until quite recently, and now I sing its praises all the time, haha.
Hope you have a great week!
Bree @ Bibliophilebree recently posted…Sunday #43
Thanks for dropping by.
Good luck with the crochet project! Hope you have a great week!
Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews recently posted…The Weekend Review – May 23rd-25th
So far it’s lots of fun, but it’s too warm to work on it right now, hahaha.
A quiet week sounds like a good week to me. I also really loved The Keeper of Magical Things.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
It’s very fun low-stakes fantasy!
It seems like you have plenty of projects to keep you busy.
Thanks for sharing your week
Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out recently posted…It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #SundaySalon #SundayPost
More than enough, ahaha.
I hope you’ll share a photo of your crochet. And the last 50 pages of your book turn out better than you expect.
Olivia recently posted…Weekly Reading Update 5-23-2026
I plan to, once I’ve finished enough for people to see what it looks like! Sadly it doesn’t look like much yet because you work across the whole width each time, and I need to do 31 rows to finish each one section…
Hi, Nicky,
An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Dating looks cute. I hear ya, about the crochet project. I started knitting years ago, and I still don’t feel proficient at it. I tend to pick up projects, put them down for ages, then go back to them by guilt. *lol* I look forward to seeing it when you finish it, though. Have a great week! Here’s my week’s post if you’d like to see it: https://julidrevezzo.com/post/sunday-post-for-a-working-holiday
I didn’t enjoy that one very much, but partly because it’s heavy on rather slapstick humour and embarrassment squick, and leans more into the romcom than I’m interested in. Ah well, was worth a try!
I’d been unable to fit in crochet for a while due to being busy, so it’s nice to get back to it.