Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 12, 2026 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Happy weekend! Another busy week, but my weekend should be nice and chill.

Books acquired this week

The “this week” part is very theoretical by now, since this is the remainder of my holiday spree! Here follow the birthday presents I got myself, ahaha. For my indie bookshop buys, check out part one and part two: this one covers my finds in Waterstones in Cardiff and Bristol. I love to support indies, but Waterstones also has an important part to play, with different stores curating their stock differently, and their ability to stock such a broad range of books that indies might not be able to take on.

Also, shoutout to the kind staff member in Bristol’s location in the Galleries who spotted me near-crying at the desk and realised my phone and cards had been lost, connected it with something handed in by another customer, and unearthed them to return to me. Heart attack averted… and without further ado, here are the books I bought once I had my card again, starting with the non-fiction:

I’d known about With My Own Hand and If This Be Magic before, so I’d half-intended to snag those two: I know nothing about Marie Maitland, but her story sounds fascinating, while someone else recommended If This Be Magic. I couldn’t resist Illumino, I’m a sucker for anything about manuscripts, and Unsuitable speaks to my fascination with fashion history.

But I got some more fiction books too!

I’ve been reading the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhua a while, and this is the new volume, while Enchanting the Fae Queen is the next in a series I found a fun distraction. The Second Death of Locke comes highly recommended, too. The Library After Dark is more of a random choice, though, because the scenario sounds fun.

The birthday book haul is almost over, but I did have one last hurrah in the gift shop at the St Fagans National Museum of History, which is an open-air museum recreating buildings from Wales’ history. Many are the originals, dismantled and transferred to St Fagans for preservation and display. The first book is a biography of the man behind the original version of the museum, and the second a book about the history of the Welsh language.

Both are available on Kobo Plus, as it happens, so if you’re curious… well, that might be an option!

Finally, I spent the week looking for these, but sadly they weren’t stocked in any brick-and-mortar bookshops, so I ordered them once I got home — the remaining volumes of The Villain’s White Halo, the first volume of which I read while on holiday and really liked.

Whew! There we go — that’s the full birthday haul.

Posts from this week

Since I post quite a bit, I figure these roundups are useful even for regulars — and maybe more so for people who only pop in once a week. Let’s take a look at my posts since last week, reviews first:

Non-fiction: Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Poetry: Flowers of a Moment, by Ko Un (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy manhwa: Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, vol 1, by Umi, Sleepy-C and singNsong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy romance: The Wife Comes First, vol 2, by Lv Ye Qian He (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
SF: Ode to the Half-Broken, by Suzanne Palmer (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
History: City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, by Peter Parsons (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Poetry: Impossible Paradise, by Chen Yuhong (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

As ever, 3/5 stars isn’t a bad rating, and these books are for the most part not very recent reads, due to my backlog of written but unposted reviews. For the books I’ve been reading this week, check out the last section of this post!

Now for the other posts!

What I’m reading

As I mentioned at the start, it’s been a kind of busy week, so I haven’t read as much as I’d have liked, and it’s mostly been classic mysteries! Which is always fun, and if it’s what’s grabbing me at the moment, I’m definitely not going to argue. So here’s a peek at the books I finished:

When it comes to weekend reading, I’m really not sure. I’m partway through Illumino, the history of Britain through illuminated manuscripts, and volume two of The Villain’s White Halo… but I might just continue to lean into the classic mysteries thing, and maybe read more by Haynes or van Gulik… or some of the others I’ve been trying recently.

Whatever it is, I’m going to try to follow my whims, as usual, and not kick myself about not reading something specific or not reading enough. I’ve been doing a bit too much of that lately.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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.