What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Sanah Ahsan’s poetry collection, I Cannot Be Good Unless You Say It, which I was not a big fan of — sadly, just not a style of poetry I gel with, I think.

Before that, I was reading Philip MacDonald’s The Rasp. I found his name on a list of Golden Age crime authors, while I was trying to find something to jog me out of a reading funk. I quite liked The Rasp, though I think his detective (Gethryn) is a bit annoying at times, with a tendency to quotation that rivals Peter Wimsey. I need to properly write up my thoughts, though; I’m a bit delayed in writing my review.

What are you currently reading?

I cleared my “on deck” considerably of late, but with the new books I got for my birthday, I do have a few going at once again. For more classic crime goodness, I’m reading Henry Wade’s The Duke of York’s Steps, which is beginning to hot up now at around 40%. Definitely a slow burner, which I don’t necessarily mind.

Other than that, I started on Michelle P. Brown’s Illumino, which is a history of Great Britain through manuscripts. It’s alright, and beautifully illustrated, though I found the first chapter a little rushed and lacking in focus.

And for something quite different, I’ve got stuck into volume two of Hao Da Yi Juan Wei Sheng Zhi’s The Villain’s White Halo, which I’m enjoying so far.

What will you be reading next?

Probably more classic crime, honestly. A lot of them are available for free on Kobo Plus, or pretty cheap, and if that’s what’s grabbing my attention at the moment, that’s what I’ll read!

That said, I have a lot of fascinating new books as well, and it’s not impossible I’ll pick up one of those, or return to something that I paused for a while. I really am trying to go by whatever’s actually caught my interest at the moment, rather than constraining myself too much.