Hurrah, it’s the weekend again! And I have no plans (that’s a good thing).

Books acquired this week

I finally finally ended up going out for a ride on my bike this week, which means I made it to the library for the first time in a while! So here’s what I picked up on that adventure.

I picked up The Beheading Game because someone tantalised me by saying they felt there are links to the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in it, so I’m curious about that, despite it not being totally my thing… and I picked up a bunch of poetry collections almost at random because they were on a display, I didn’t know any of the poets, and I do like to explore poetry lately.

I did also get a book in the mail for review from Orbit/Hachette, too!

I actually got another one as well, but I’ve put it aside until I can get the first book in the series, as I hadn’t realised it was a sequel when I requested it (the email was not super clear, or I was daft, I don’t know which).

And finally, my rabbits (helped by my wife, of course, who definitely wasn’t the actual source) bought me two books on Kobo, and I accumulated enough Kobo Super Points to get myself a third:

So that’s quite a lot of new books on my plate this week. Oh nooo, etc.

Posts from this week

As ever, let’s do a bit of a roundup. Since it’s a busy time, I haven’t managed to post a review every day — the review posts are all ready to go, since I write reviews as soon as I finish a book generally, but I kept forgetting to come back and send a review post out as well on days I had other features. Still, there’s been a post every day, so there’s plenty to catch up with!

First up, the reviews:

• Fantasy: Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, by Greer Stothers (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
• Historical romance: After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine, vol 1, by Liu Gou Hua (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Classic crime: The Duke of York’s Steps, by Henry Wade (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

As ever, please do take my rating definitions literally! If it says I liked it, I liked it, even if you don’t use 3/5 stars that way. And these aren’t books I’ve read this week — those are discussed in the next section below!

Here are the non-review posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Over the Years
• Top Ten Tuesday: Happy Memories
• WWW Wednesday
• Book Blogger Hop: Running Blogs

What I’m reading

As a quick note, it’s come up a few times that people assume me posting books I intend to review here constitutes a recommendation, so just to clarify: nope! I didn’t enjoy all of the books below, and at least one was a one-star read. I review everything I read, regardless of whether I liked it. If you see me post a book in the ‘What I’m reading’ section then try it yourself and don’t like it, that is not my problem. Even if the book is racist/misogynist/transphobic/etc, I don’t put a warning/disclaimer on this bit because I’m purely showing people what I’ve been reading; you’ll have to wait for my review (or ask me!) if you’re really keen to know my actual thoughts. Yelling at me about it or calling me out on your blog isn’t going to help anything!

Anyway! It’s been a good week for reading, thanks mostly to the month-long readathon I’ve been taking part in on Litsy! It’s been encouraging me to read some novellas and shorter books, and honestly that’s been nice, since sometimes it means taking a chance on something new to me. Here’s a sneak peek at the books I’ll be posting reviews for sometime in the foreseeable future…

As for this weekend’s reading, I want to focus on finishing Rachel Harrison’s Kiss Slay Replay and dig deeper into my actual October TBR, but I’m also planning to read some poetry and manga for palate-cleansing purposes (inasfar as trying different horror manga is very palate-cleansing, I suppose), and more of The Summer Hikaru Died because it’s really good so far.

In the end, as ever, it’ll be whatever my whim drives me to, 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.