Author: Nicky

Top Ten Tuesday: Books from the Backlog

Posted June 9, 2020 by Nicky in General / 11 Comments

This week’s theme is “books you added to your TBR and forgot why”. I’m not quite sure how to answer that, because the reason I added books to my TBR is always that they were interesting. Often someone or other has recommended them, but equally often it’s just that I stumbled across them somewhere. The precise reason is lost in time for almost everything on my TBR.

But I think a look at some books that have been on my backlog and almost been forgotten there might be instructive!

  1. Retribution Falls, by Chris Wooding. This was bought for me in a LibraryThing Secret Santa! I think that must’ve been in about 2012? It’s a good pick for me and people have compared it to Firefly and it just… hasn’t made it up the pile yet. I’m a mood reader! This… will be a theme.
  2. Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier. Oh gosh, this has been on my list for even longer. I didn’t entirely get along with it when I first tried it, and stalled out somewhere in the middle; I decided to try again, sometime after I read and loved Heart’s Blood. I still intend to!
  3. Memory and Dream, by Charles de Lint. A friend of mine loves Charles de Lint’s work; I’ve only read a couple, and I remember coming across this one in a charity shop and deciding, hey, why not? It’s something I kept in the big clear-out, but I think it might be from 2011 — one of the oldest books on my TBR, in other words.
  4. Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith. This is a classic, and I know I should’ve read it already. Mea culpa?
  5. Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch. I inhaled the first two books, and then this one just… didn’t come out, for ages. Once it finally did, I was sort of reluctant to read it and then have to wait again. It really does have to happen someday soon, before my wife and mother both explode.
  6. The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey. I’ve had this since it first came out in paperback, I think. It’s not quite my thing, which is part of why it’s lingered — but I do enjoy the right kind of zombie novel, as Mira Grant’s Feed demonstrates, so it’s sort of waiting for the right mood.
  7. The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin. I am a big fan of N.K. Jemisin, and when I got this on the release day way back when, I started reading it, read 200 pages in one go, and then… somehow never touched it again. I remember that some life thing threw me off, but I don’t remember what.
  8. The Iron Ghost, by Jen Williams. I really liked The Copper Promise, but by the time I picked up The Iron Ghost, I didn’t remember it well enough. I love supporting ongoing series, but it does drive me nuts that if I read a series as it comes out, I’m at risk of forgetting what was in the first book before the next comes out. I’ve always been a big reader, so this didn’t always bother me… but with so many books and so many series to love, it’s a bit overwhelming.
  9. City of Miracles, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Yep, that’s another case of the above! I loved City of Stairs and enjoyed City of Blades. I really have to get to this soon.
  10. Two Serpents Rise, by Max Gladstone. This is sooort of the same deal, but also because I wasn’t totally sure I “got” Three Parts Dead, and meant to reread that first. And then… time passed, and moodreading is a thing, and here I am ‘fessing up, years later.

So what about you guys? Do you actually forget why you’ve added books to your TBR? Or are you more like me and it’s just a fierce fight for any particular book to get to the top?

Just FYI, I’ve been struggling a bit with mental health and tiredness, and it might be a couple of days before I can visit back if you comment… but I always do my best and totally commit to doing so this time (even if I call amnesty on past weeks).

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Review – The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

Posted June 9, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen ChoThe Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 23rd June 2020

I love the idea of Wuxia, but I’ve actually encountered very little of it, and I think that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to evaluating how successful this is, and knowing how to enjoy it. And it’s marketed as being about a “found family” — well, that should be totally up my street!

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get along with it as well as I’d hoped, and the “found family” feels fairly thin. The characterisation of anyone apart from the main characters is fairly light, and I didn’t really feel I got a handle on who anyone was as a person and what they held dear, apart from those main two (and even then, sometimes I struggled). It feels like it’s going to be an adventure story, but in the end it’s more personal — only I didn’t feel like I came along for the journey.

This sounds more critical than I want to be; I enjoyed reading it, and appreciated Tet Sang a lot. I don’t know how to stack up my experience here against other Wuxia books, and I think that’s part of the problem.

Rating: 3/5

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Weekly Roundup

Posted June 7, 2020 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Hey folks! I don’t know if anyone noticed my site going down for a day, but that was a whole mess. It’s been a fairly quiet week here: not much reading, at least, though there’s been plenty of other stuff to do. I have spent around three hours today reading, which is nice!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Received to review:

Cover of How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi Cover of Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette De Bodard Cover of Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston Cover of The Key to All Things by Cindy Lynn Speer

Purchased:

Cover of This is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender Cover of Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Books finished this week:

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill Cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviews posted this week:

–How to Invent Everything, by Ryan North. Fun gimmick, didn’t always work for me as a reading experience. Think I might know a bit too much to get the best out of it. 3/5 stars
–The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I tore through this… and also thought it could have been a more profound story with less about Evelyn’s love affair, and more about one of her relationships with one of her husbands. 3/5 stars
–Language Myths, ed. Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill. Fairly slight but a decent primer. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Books by Black Authors. Some of my four- and five-star reads from Black authors, for no reason and apropos of nothing…
–WWW Wednesday. This week’s update, discussing Evelyn Hugo and Language Myths.

How are you all doing? Times are rough for many people for many reasons, so if chatting about books is the distraction you’re seeking, drop me a comment! <3

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Review – Language Myths

Posted June 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter TrudgillLanguage Myths, ed. Laurie Bauer, Peter Trudgill

Language Myths is a short and sweet collection of essays from various linguists, ruminating on various language myths from the incredibly specific (“Maori is an inferior language because you cannot use it to discuss astrophysics”) to the words on everyone’s lips (“kids are ruining the English language with their sloppy usage”). Most of it will be unsurprising to anyone with a spec of linguistic knowledge, and the level of interest and depth varies depending on the linguist writing the given essay and how good they are at putting their point across.

I don’t agree with some other reviewers that all the myths are strawmen, because I’ve heard exactly these arguments coming from people who hate language change, think that young people are undermining the pure clarity of the English language as it was spoken When I Was A Lad, etc, etc. Some of the myths feel a little more awkward, though, and I suspect that it because it is the particular linguist’s bugbear, and they just really wanted to write about that specific thing.

It’s not mindblowing, and the quality varies a little, but it’s still a decent primer on some of the things that linguists have to say about common perceptions of how language works.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Posted June 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid

Whoa. I did not expect to be so wildly sucked into this book. I mean, a part of me might have expected it: it’s the kind of gossipy, dramatic book with Big Secrets that is designed to get its hooks in, and I’m as susceptible as anyone else.

Evelyn Hugo is a fictional Hollywood star. Think Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth. Her career is over now, but she’s a legend. She’s been enticing and entrancing people for years… and she wants rookie journalist Monique to write her biography. She’s going to tell her everything, under just a few conditions. Evelyn Hugo wants to tell the truth, even when it doesn’t paint her in the best light. And she’ll answer Monique’s questions in her own time.

I didn’t know much about this book until someone bought it for me in a Secret Santa book exchange, so I didn’t know what I was getting into… and it’s almost better if you don’t, if you’re into that tantalising question of what exactly Evelyn Hugo’s deal is. It doesn’t take long to get part of the answer, but if you want to be totally surprised, ignore my review and everyone else’s and go in completely fresh.

If those who don’t want spoilers have bailed out…

Let’s talk about the queer content. The big secret of Evelyn Hugo’s life turns out to be that she was bisexual and in love with another film star. Husbands came and went, with several of her domestic arrangements just providing cover for an on-again, off-again relationship. I don’t know if Reid is bisexual or how she identifies, but Evelyn’s voice and experience of bisexuality rang generally true to me as a queer person. The Hollywood setting provides a backdrop to Evelyn’s yearning and messing up and trying again when it comes to her secretive affairs with women. Or mostly just one woman, which is the bit that maybe rings less true for most people: Evelyn has sex with men frequently, and falls in love with some of them too, but when it comes to women we only actually see one attraction, one love.

Now that kind of rings true for me with some of the things she says early on about what sex and attraction mean to her. She has sex in a lot of cases because it’ll get her what she wants, not out of genuine connection; she seems to find real passion only once she’s made connections, once there’s some kind of relationship, and she only finds that with another woman once. She only lets herself find it once, maybe. But it still seemed a little odd.

When it comes to the relationship itself, the beats are familiar and not at all surprising: we can’t let anyone find out! We have to hide! We have to fake it with men! Oops, one of us actually slept with the man and now she’s pregnant! Break up! Make up! Secretttsss! It was a fun read, but I’m really side-eyeing anyone who calls it “groundbreaking”, especially when it comes to the queer content. It rings true, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. I’d have been more impressed if the two of them made a go of it without breaking up constantly, maybe?

There is also a whole racial side to the book when it comes to Monique Grant, who defines herself as “biracial”, and to Evelyn, who is Cuban and completely hides it to become a blonde bombshell. I don’t know what Reid’s experience is there, but to me these portrayals felt clunky. Monique literally says she “felt like two halves”; it feels like a cliché to me. There’s one moment that rings maybe a little more true, and that’s when Evelyn’s maid speaks Spanish in front of her totally without realising she can understand, and she realises she’s buried her Cuban identity so deep it’s disappeared… but this is not really a story I feel very familiar with and mostly I feel unqualified to comment on whether it’s representative of real experiences.

In both the sexuality and the racial content, though, it feels like accounts I’ve read before, like it’s been cut out with the same cookie-cutters as a whole bunch of other stories. There’s a reason the cookie-cutters are that shape, but the shapes produced are 2D.

I don’t know if that all makes sense, but it’s how I felt about the book.

The best thing about the book for me was Harry Cameron. He was Evelyn’s best friend, and there is something real and true in the way they protected each other, made things work for one another, made a family together. I would have loved this theme to be stronger — that there was no passion between them, but he was her true partner who stuck with her through everything, who made things work even when it was hard. Evelyn’s female partner and what they did for each other paled for me compared to the truth of two queer people sticking together to make things work, and being a family even when it doesn’t conform.

Evelyn herself… she’s a strong character, and there’s a lot to like and hate about her. Again, I wouldn’t say she’s a particularly groundbreaking character, and I called most of the twists and turns of her motivations and manipulations.

In the end, it was a fun read. I tore right through it. I don’t think it was the best book in the world and I wouldn’t call it profound, despite the evident effort to make us believe in a love that transcended Evelyn’s seven husbands, the real love of her life. The answer should’ve been Harry Cameron, and for me, it missed its mark in downplaying his importance.

It’s enormously fun, though.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – How To Invent Everything

Posted June 7, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of How to Invent Everything by Ryan NorthHow To Invent Everything, Ryan North

I love the idea of books like this: here in one book, we’re going to impart to you the principles behind everything you need to know to rebuild all the comforts of home from nothing. This one has a fun gimmick: it’s been found embedded deep within rocks, and it claims to be the repair manual for a time machine. Since you can’t repair the time machine, instead here’s how to create the comforts of civilisation that you’re used to by accelerating technological progress. To that end, it has some flowcharts for figuring out what time period you’ve ended up in, and technology trees to help you trace out what you need to do to get particular results.

It’s also packed with information, which it delivers in a pretty light style, keeping to the basics. It’s all easy to understand, and the unfortunate thing is that for me the jovial tone got old. Yes, I know, we need XYZ invention to eventually have pizza. I get it. The pizza joke is old now!

The lists for me were kind of… I didn’t like dipping in and out, but it’s also not a great experience to just sit and read it all the way through, either. (For one thing, I think that’s why I got sick of the jokes.)

It’s a really fun gimmick, and there’s a lot of information in here and plenty to pique your curiosity, if a) you know a bit less about science than I do and b) you’re a dip-in-and-out sort of reader. I am just a curmudgeon.

Rating: 3/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 3, 2020 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

It’s that time again! Check out Taking On A World Of Words to chat with everyone else who has posted what they’re reading right now!

Cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidWhat are you currently reading?

In theory a whoooole bunch of things, but not many of them are giving me joy in this particular moment and there’s only one book on my mind, which is Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Someone sent me this via the LibraryThing/Litsy Secret Santa, and I wasn’t sure because I normally think of myself as a genre person… but on the other hand, I like so many different genres and… well, I gave it a try.

I blasted through 200 pages in an hour without really wanting to put it down; I’m a little annoyed that I have put it down. I’m not sure what I think of it, yet, but it’s fun and gossipy and I want to know Evelyn’s secrets, so it’s a success on that front.

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter TrudgillWhat have you recently finished reading?​

Language Myths, ed. Laurie Bauer. I read it for the Dewey Decimal challenge. It was interesting, but I could tell it was very surface level and so some arguments just felt rather glib and like a straw man was installed just to be dismantled as quickly as possible. I didn’t disagree with any of it or think any of it sounded untrue to my experience or other reading, but… each linguist’s response was very brief.

Cover of The Lost Plot by Genevieve CogmanWhat will you be reading next? ​

That all depends on whether either of my libraries purchases the books I’ve been recommending, I guess. In terms of what I’m going to focus on next, I have the Secret Barrister’s book due back in a couple of days, so I should finish reading that… and I also want to finish rereading Genevieve Cogman’s The Lost Plot finally. However, I’m hoping that the library orders copies of Felix Ever After and Black Girl Unlimited. (Or I might just pick them up myself come Saturday, which is my book ordering day.)

What about you?

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books by Black Authors

Posted June 2, 2020 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This week, I’ve gone off-piste to talk about some books by non-white authors. For no apparent reason.

I’ve picked out books I love: four and five-star reads. I’ve picked ten different authors and some different genres, in hopes that everyone can find something that sounds interesting if they go exploring and try to pick up one of these.

  1. Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. I don’t remember this book well enough and reading my old review leaves me itching to reread it. I loved it and the fable-like structure and narration.
  2. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. The whole trilogy is great, and I’m sure her later books that I haven’t read are great, but this is where I started and I was totally riveted.
  3. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. This got a lot of hype, but I really felt it was worth it… and it’s topical as hell right now.
  4. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge. If you want to read a more British examination of racism, this is a great starting point.
  5. The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark. This is a novella, and when I finished I was dyiiiing for more.
  6. Fledgling, by Octavia Butler. This was a disturbing and difficult read, and it left a huge impression on me. Kindred is being recommended a lot, and I rated it higher at the time, but Fledgling is the one that stayed with me.
  7. The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker. Okay, this one is totally and absolutely obvious, but I took so long to read it. Still, it got my rare accolade of five stars, and I couldn’t leave it off the list. It’s moving and beautifully written, making such great use of dialect and the epistolary form.
  8. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Same here. This is such an obvious one — but I have to say that nobody ever really sold this book to me, and the same thing happened with The Color Purple. I was told I should read it and not why, beyond “it’s important”… and that isn’t always the most enticing. I found it genuinely riveting, though, so definitely don’t dismiss it because it’s viewed as a classic.
  9. Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly. This book is obviously pretty well known by now, but when I read it, I was completely boggled by this history of women that I’d never heard of, never dreamed of. And from what I hear, the movie bears only a glancing resemblance to the truth, so if you’ve only seen the movie… do yourself a favour!
  10. The Salt Roads, by Nalo Hopkinson. My memories of this book are full of sense-memories, tastes and smells and colour. And while it isn’t as topical as The Hate U Give, for instance… you’ll find it has a lot of resonance.

Aaand in the process of this I realised that I still have a few other books by some of these authors that I haven’t even read, which is a lovely thought.

I think all of these are in the US, but Twitter has a list of Black-owned bookshops you can order from going around, if you’d like to order any of these.

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Weekly Roundup

Posted May 31, 2020 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Greetings, everybody. It’s been a heck of a week out there, so I hope you’re all okay.

Here in self-imposed self-isolation (for the foreseeable future, though my dad may come over and converse with me from two metres away while pulling up weeds) it’s been quiet, including on the reading front…

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Acquired this week:

Cover of Language Myths by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill

Books read this week:

Cover of Around the World in 80 Words by Paul Anthony Jones Cover of How to Invent Everything by Ryan North Cover of The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons

Reviews posted this week:

–The Ghosts of Sherwood, by Carrie Vaughn. This review’s been waiting for a while to go up because of Tor’s restrictions on when you can publish — which means the book is due out soon! It’s an enjoyable aftermath of the Robin Hood myth, with some nice characterisation when it comes to Marian and Robin. Not wholly sold, but I do have the sequel to review! 3/5 stars
–Around the World in 80 Words, by Paul Anthony Jones. Not bad, but a bit random at times and more for dipping into than reading in a couple of sittings. 3/5 stars
–The Colour of Murder, by Julian Symons. An interesting psychological take on a potential murderer, with questions left trailing at the end. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Opening Lines. A real mix here, with mystery, fantasy, SF and historical fiction.
–WWW Wednesday. Discussing… lots of books at once, as usual!

How’re you all doing?

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Review – The Colour of Murder

Posted May 30, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Colour of Murder by Julian SymonsThe Colour of Murder, Julian Symons

This British Library Crime Classic is from later in the development of the genre than some others, with half the book consisting of the rambling story a man tells to a psychologist after being accused of a murder he can’t remember committing. It’s powerfully cringy, as you can see the narrator deluding himself, and pitiful too, because he’s half-aware of himself, and there’s (as someone later remarks) a sort of innocence about him. He seems to have ended up where he is by accident, and without quite understanding, and his mind seems to be gently unravelling… even though now and then he shows insight.

As a piece of writing, it’s excellent; it makes for discomforting reading.

The latter half of the book pulls back, finally admitting just who has been killed (it was one of the two characters I would’ve predicted), and showing the preparations for the trial (and finally the trial itself). This bit is more of a sketch, lingering on details here and there… but mostly just wrapping up the story implied by the opening narrative, which I found a lot stronger.

The ending is sort of predictable once you’ve seen all those details. It makes sense that the story needs wrapping up — you can’t leave that narrative on its own — and yet it all rather weakens and cheapens the effect. A bit of a mixed one for me, now I think about it in that light. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the Crime Classics series, though; this is definitely a stand-out for that narrative voice.

Rating: 3/5

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