Oof, it’s way too hot here once again! And humid, at least here in my office, despite having had the portable air conditioner on dehumidifier mode for most of the last 24 hours. Still, I’m surviving and very lucky to have the air conditioner option!

Books acquired this week

Last week I forgot to feature a library book, so sneaking that into this week’s post: Murder at the Black Cat Cafe is one I’ve been meaning to try for a while, though I thiiiink I have read a different mystery by the same author and didn’t love it? That said, I wasn’t reading a lot of mysteries in translation at that time, and I think I have my eye in a bit better now, so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy it more. Reading in translation can sometimes be easier like that, when you have a degree of context.

Meanwhile, over at the National Poetry Library they set up a collection of Welsh collections; you can only take out two at a time, and I still had one other collection I haven’t got round to, but I’m looking forward to more of those. For now, I’ve just grabbed Sian Northey and Ness Owen’s Afonydd anthology, which is bilingual and sounds like a fascinating project.

I also got exciting new books to review:

A new Becky Chambers book is always something I eagerly anticipate, so looking forward to digging into this one, and I’ve been meaning since forever to pick up the books by the M.A. Carrick duo, since one of them is Marie Brennan!

Finally, this month’s British Library Crime Classic dropped onto my doormat yesterday:

I’ve grown to appreciate John Dickson Carr’s books quite a bit, though I didn’t love the previous book that’s linked to this one (The Unicorn Murders), so I’m curious what I’ll think of this one.

Posts from this week

Let’s get things rounded up, reviews first, as usual:

• Poetry: Night Sky with Exit Wounds, by Ocean Vuong (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Romance manga: Welcome Back, Aureole, by Takatsu (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Sci-fi manga: Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 7, by Itaru Kinoshita (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Sci-fi novella: We Burned So Bright, by TJ Klune (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Romance: Game Changer, by Rachel Reid (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Classic mystery: Sweet Poison, by Mary Fitt (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

And the other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Magic Systems
• Top Ten Tuesday: Titles with the Word ‘City’
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Discussion Posts

What I’m reading

After a pretty frenzied weekend of reading the week before last, I’ve been positively sedate this week. It’s partly because I’ve been reading a longer book (Jon Cannon’s The Stones of Britain) which just isn’t something you can sit and chug down in one go, and partly because I’ve had other things on my mind.

That said, I did finish a few books, some of which had been lingering on my ‘currently reading’ pile for ages!

My weekend plans involve some crochet, a fair amount of gaming, including trying to get to grips with the puzzle game Gorogoa… and also cogitating on the ‘couch to 5k for reading’ idea that Naomi Alderman posted on Substack (not linking it; please don’t use Substack) and how I’d adapt it to become a bit less, well, elitist-sounding. Buuut I expect to post a 20 Books of Summer update tomorrow, and spend some time reading more of The Stones of Britain, finishing up Helen Pilcher’s pop-science book Life Changing, and probably reading The Magic-Lantern Murders.

I might also start on rereading Jordan L. Hawk’s Widdershins books (so I can finally get back to the new-to-me books and finish the series) or volume two of The Wife Comes First, just to make sure I read and thoroughly enjoy books that… certain commentators… undoubtedly think are, what was her word? “Pap”. (Yeah, you can tell this one’s annoying me. There’s probably a whole blog post on this brewing, if not my very own ‘couch to 5k for reading’ plan.)

Either way, there’s a high likelihood I’ll start something new, because even with so many books already in my on-deck pile, I like to slip in something fresh here and there. We’ll see, though!

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.