I’m a bit late to write this post today because I’m a creature of infinite distraction, after a long week. But here I am!
Books acquired this week
This week I haven’t got anything new (thank goodness, since I’ve been doing plenty of that, ahaha), but I did get a couple of poetry collections from the National Poetry Library:
I’ve read both already, but I do want to page back through and re-read some of the poems in each before I write my review.
Posts from this week
As ever, here are the posts from this week, reviews first!
- Crime: The Rasp, by Philip MacDonald (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
- Non-fiction: Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go, by Emily Cockayne (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
- Poetry: A Thousand Mornings, by Mary Oliver (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
- Graphic novel: Paper Planes, by Jennie Wood et al (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
I meant to post a review a day as usual, but life kept getting on top of me. The same drill as always: these aren’t necessarily recent reads, because I have all my reviews pre-written and then arrange my posting schedule for variety, and please do take my ratings literally: when I say 3/5 stars means I liked it, I’m saying I liked it, not that it was disappointing or whatever it is you mean when you give something three stars! 🙂
As for the other posts this week:
- Fantasy with Friends: Seeing Reality Better
- Top Ten Tuesday: Fall Covers
- What Are You Reading Wednesday
- September Reading Wrap-Up
- Book Blogger Hop: Biggest Fear
I’ve developed some tricks to make posting my monthly wrap-ups a bit faster, this month — thanks to my wife helping me set up a tracking spreadsheet, instead of just winging it and counting at the end of the month!
What I’m reading
It’s been a busy week for reading, particularly since the Haunted Shelf readathon has now started! I’ve been participating in a lot of the games on the Litsy and in the Discord, but also getting a fair bit of reading done. Here’s a peek at the books I’ve finished since my last post (click to embiggen to see the details properly if the thumbnail cuts it off too much!):
For this weekend, I’m digging into Rachel Harrison’s book of short stories, Bad Dolls, and then… I’m not sure. I’ve set up a solid TBR for the month, so I’ll pick something off there, or go totally by whim. Whatever works!
Through the rest of the week, it’ll be much the same theme: probably more of Rachel Harrison’s work, and maybe getting started on The Library After Dark, by Ande Pliego, which has been tempting me since I picked up a copy. Murders in a library, irresistible.
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.












Rummage! Now there’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time. Remember “Rummage sales”???? That book sounds interesting.
Jinjer recently posted…Deadlines
There were definitely interesting bits, I wish it’d come up more to the present though.
I haven’t heard of any of these, but I hope you enjoy them!
Ash @ Essentially Ash
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Ash recently posted…September Recap + October TBR, TBW, and Plans
Thanks!
It makes me giggle that our two rating systems are so different. 5 posts per week is really ambitious. And now I’m off to look at some of your other posts….
Olivia recently posted…Weekly Reading Update 10-3-2026
Most of my posts are already written well ahead of time, so that helps! They just get drafted out when I have time.
The first thing I loved about blogging was participating in reading events online with people all over the world. One of those events was the twice-yearly readathon and another was Sunday Salon. Reading had always been a solitary event for me, and through blogging events I was able to see what others were reading and what they were thinking about their reading.
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz recently posted…The Sunday Salon: The Shorty September Challenge is Complete
Yes, Dewey’s readathon was a really big thing for me when I was juuust getting into the blogging world. It hasn’t really fit into my life lately, but this one fits in any time, so it’s been exciting to join in with it.
It sounds like the Haunted Shelf readathon is off to a great start, and The Library After Dark would tempt me too—murders in a library is hard to resist! I also love the idea of using a spreadsheet to make those monthly wrap-ups easier. Happy Reading!
Kat @ Forever Book Lover recently posted…Sunday Recap #13: Catching Up, Cozy Fall Nights & Life Lately
I’ve made a start on it today and it’s interesting so far — unclear whether it’s mundane murders or something spookier! Makes it good seasonal reading.
The Haunted Shelf Readathon sounds fun. I’ve been trying to get back to Top Ten Tuesday, but I have two unfinished posts that I couldn’t get done by Tuesday. I’ll wait until a freebie day and use them then. Meanwhile, I’ll try again next week. Here is my SP: https://bonniereadsandwrites.com/2026/10/04/sunday-post-and-sunday-salon-all-the-fun-of-fall/
I did it last year and ended up reading sooo much, though there are a lot of fun games and activities as well to change it up.
I’ve gone through phases with Top Ten Tuesday; I’ve been trying to do it every week at the moment, but sometimes the creativity runs dry, haha.
I can’t wait to hear what you think of Bad Dolls. I’m not a big short story reader so it’s the one book of hers I haven’t read.
I enjoyed it; it felt sort of predictable, but that wasn’t a bad thing really. It was like the details all snapped together satisfyingly.
I see you have The Green Man’s Heir in your haul – I hope you enjoy it! I’m a big fan of the series. Have a great week:).
I do not, I have it in the section of books I finished this week. 😉 It was okay, though I think it has some flaws.
I miss doing readathons. They just never seem to fit into my schedule anymore. I hope you enjoy your readathon!
Aj @ Read All The Things! recently posted…The Sunday Post #405
Luckily Haunted Shelf lasts all month and is really flexible — I can’t commit to stuff like the 24 hour readathon anymore.
This is the oddest month – October – because I have open slots and it’s been difficult to know if I will be able to get some ARCs. Other months further out are already jam packed so it’s weird. So I am going by whim and picking up a few mood reads , things I own to fill out my schedule.
Mood reading is always fun!
Have a good week!
Bree @ BibliophileBree recently posted…Review: Next to You by Hannah Bonam-Young
Thanks!
Ghosts of the British Museum is a book I should have read before we visited it this past week on our trip to UK. The British Museum was our most surreal visit of the whole trip…it was so overrun with people it made the experience stressful. But I imagine some of those mummies it houses have some good stories to tell.
My post: https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2026/10/sunday-salon-highlights-of-our-united.html
Anne@HeadFullofBooks recently posted…Sunday Salon : Highlights of our United Kingdom trip
Sadly, I wouldn’t really recommend it myself — it didn’t really go into the stories of objects much in that way, but mostly banged the drum about repatriation. Which is a worthy cause, but not what I’d hoped for.