Author: Nicky

Weekly Roundup

Posted February 16, 2019 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Today I’m going to keep this quick, because one of my rabbits has been sick* and I’m really tired and worn down. And starting to get a cold myself! Gah. So, keeping it quick…

(*It’s Biscuit. She was spayed on Wednesday and hasn’t been eating too great since then. Cross your fingers for her!)

Books acquired: 

Cover of Threads of Life by Clare Hunter Cover of The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Books read: 

Cover of Threads of Life by Clare Hunter Cover of Stars Uncharted by S.K. Dunstall Cover of The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Reviews posted:

–Stitches in Time, by Lucy Adlington. A restful read that goes into some details about the history of the clothes we wear. 4/5 stars
–Busman’s Honeymoon, by Dorothy L. Sayers. This might not be the height of the series, but it’s lovely for those who know and love Peter and Harriet. They are my idea of romance. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Book Blanket. A progress pic (with a scene-stealing hedgehog) and some pondering on how to fit it together.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual update.

How’s everyone else doing? Read anything good this week?

Right. Writing this the night before, so hello from the wrong side of sleep, and goodbye!

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Review – Busman’s Honeymoon

Posted February 13, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. SayersBusman’s Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers

Busman’s Honeymoon isn’t the most substantial story, though it does have insights into married life and the kind of compromise necessary to couples. Harriet and Peter talk out the problems they encounter, and it’s a delight. In this book they finally get married — mostly covered in excerpts from letters and diaries, including some delightful glimpses into Peter’s mother’s life and way of thinking — and go off to spend their honeymoon in their new house, a place Harriet knew as a child. When they arrive, the owner is unexpectedly absent, and things are all at sixes and sevens… and of course, it turns out that the owner is actually dead.

Naturally, Harriet and Peter are drawn into the investigation, finding that it quickly disturbs their married bliss… and that they can find a way through it by communicating, being patient with one another, compromising (although never in a way that compromises their values). Anyone who knows my usual rants about the issues with romance novels and indeed with people in general will see how that delights me!

And as always, it’s cleverly and often wittily written, full of allusions and references. Sayers isn’t afraid of making you work at it, sometimes, and that’s also fun.

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted February 13, 2019 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Threads of Life by Clare HunterWhat are you currently reading?

Way too much at once, as ever! Most actively, Threads of Life, by Clare Hunter. It’s about the history of embroidery and its meaning/use in different cultures/contexts, so it’s covered all sorts from banner-making for political events to traditional sewing. The BBC radio thing is very very abridged and the book contains a lot more interesting things, in case anyone was wondering!

Cover of The Copernicus Complex Caleb ScharfWhat have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing was The Copernicus Complex, by Caleb Scharf. Not bad, but I felt like I came to more or less the same conclusions long ago, and thus I was the choir, being preached to. Basically, he’s pointing out that we can’t rely on our world being mediocre (i.e. not the centre of the universe in any sense), but we also have no good evidence that it’s especially rare in the sense of being fine-tuned for life. Which to me is so obvious I find it frustrating.

Cover of The Raven Tower by Ann LeckieWhat will you be reading next?

The Raven Tower! I got a copy from Orbit and I’m pretty excited to get right to it. I’ve been excited for this for waaaay too long now, I need to tuck in as soon as I can. There’s a couple of things I already have on the go that I should probably finish first, though.

What are you currently reading?

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Review – Stitches in Time

Posted February 12, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Stitches in Time by Lucy AdlingtonStitches in Time, Lucy Adlington

Stitches in Time is a delightful look at the clothes we wear and how they’ve developed over time, from the general fit of women’s clothes down to the specifics of fashion. A lot of it I knew already, partly from the BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee (I cannot wait for a new season of that! and oh hey, it starts tonight!) and partly from other books, but it was still a charming read and a nice break from the awful things that happen in fiction. Adlington writes clearly and sometimes wittily, and it’s a good tour through history in general as well at times, contextualising what exactly drove fashion.

Rating: 4/5

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Discussion: Book Blanket

Posted February 11, 2019 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s been a few weeks since the last update, so how’re things going?

Here it is! It’s 10 hexagons in width, about a metre long, and currently has 19 hexagons joined. (Thank you to Hogglestock, my large inflatable hedgehog/seat, for his patience in modelling this.) I quite like the way the joining is working out — that ridge works nicely in defining each square and in just adding a little bit of oomph. I think I’m probably going to add a white border around the outer edge, though I’ll have to ponder how to give that the right texture. (Probably either front post crochets, or just crocheting into the front loops only.)

Things that’ve changed since my last post: I added a colour, in a sense, in that for a book which I read a significant amount of (over 25% minimum), if I feel it was still significant enough to record, I’m adding a motif with a white centre. You can actually see one there in the second row: that’s Jaine Fenn’s Hidden Sun, which I DNF’ed after discovering it came over all rape-apologism at the end.

I’ve also moved the categories slightly: books from my backlog from 2016 are now also using the dark green “bottle” colour, to try and balance out the sheer amount of the 2017-2018 books in “petrol”.

Finally, I’ve been deciding on how exactly to shape the blanket, just today! Right now there are 10 motifs in the first row and 9 in the second, and I actually tied off in order to take a fairly neat picture. However, there are two possible ways to do this — or really, way more, but I already decided I wanted it to be more or less straight rather than off-setting each row. Here’s the image I whipped up in Paint to show my wife:

I’ve decided to go with #2, I think — for one thing, it’ll help control the length of it, even if I read an absolute ton!

So that’s where we are right now!

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Weekly Roundup

Posted February 9, 2019 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

This post is prepared well in advance, as I’m away this weekend! I’ll pop by and see everyone as soon as I’m back, though: pinky-promise! We’re just off to Wales to see some of my friends from university (*waves*) and my aunt. Road trip time!

Books read this week:

Cover of 4th Rock from the Sun by Nicky Jenner Cover of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

Reviews posted:

–Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers. It’s a lovely book that is the culmination of so much in the other books, while being unlike them in some ways. (For instance, it’s largely Harriet’s point of view, and it’s mostly not a crime story but a story about a long process of trying to prevent a crime… but mostly coming to terms with personal and philosophical pros and cons of married life vs vs a job vs academia.) It’s well worth it for people who are fans already, but I wonder how interesting it is to new folks. 4/5 stars
–Breaking the Maya Code, by Michael D. Coe. Really fascinating history of how the Mayan glyphs were finally, finally decoded. 4/5 stars
–Mystery in White, by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Rather incoherent and reliant on coincidence, actually; I turned out not to be much of a fan, despite enjoying Farjeon’s other work. 2/5 stars
–The Cobbler’s Boy, by Katherine Addison and Elizabeth Bear. A historical fiction/mystery about how Kit Marlowe first became a spy… I really enjoyed it, though the decision to render the dialogue somewhat realistically for the time period might throw people off. 4/5 stars
–Ninja, by John Man. Eminently skippable. Bleh. 2/5 stars
–Molecules at an Exhibition, by John Emsley. Kind of interesting but got boring fast as the novelty wore off. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

Out and about:

–Once Upon a Blue Moon: ‘A Woman Skilled in Physic.’ A short story which will turn out to be a retelling if you give it a few moments…
–Once Upon a Blue Moon: ‘A Room Without A Soul.’ An attempt at making books creepy.

So how’s everyone doing?

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Review – Molecules at an Exhibition

Posted February 8, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Molecules at an Exhibition by John EmsleyMolecules at an Exhibition, John Emsley

This started out fascinating, but started to wear on me. Basically, it’s a ‘gallery’ of various molecules that are important in one way or another to human life. There are nutrients we require, poisons that kill us, fuels we use, things that make useful objects, etc, etc. It’s possibly better just being dipped into than read cover to cover; I certainly got tired of all the fuels and the relatively similar titbits about some of the elements. It’s not bad, but it didn’t keep me very interested either.

I’m hoping his book specifically on poisons is more up my street…

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Ninja

Posted February 7, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ninja by John ManNinja, John Man

Ninja is another travelogue-ish, easy to read history of a broad and fascinating topic, in this case the history and afterlife of ninjas in Japanese culture. It felt more scatterbrained than Man’s other books, and was more of a chore to read; I wasn’t really impressed, and although there were some very informative chapters about actual ninjas and what they did, there’s a lot of fluff about traditions and stories about ninjas that didn’t really add up to much.

Of Man’s books, I definitely wouldn’t recommend this; if there’s a better book out there about ninjas and their history, I think I’d actually like to read it, please.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Cobbler’s Boy

Posted February 6, 2019 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Cobbler's Boy by Elizabeth Bear and Katherine Addison.The Cobbler’s Boy, Katherine Addison, Elizabeth Bear

This novella is basically the story of how Kit Marlowe (think “Come live with me and be my love” if you know poetry!) and how he became a spy, as the rumour about his life and death goes. In this story, he’s a teenage boy, just awakening to his sexuality (with a local lad named Ginger) and forced to be quick-witted to help his mother and keep his lout of a father from being accused of the murder of one of his own friends.

It’s a quick read, and it almost doesn’t matter if you know about Marlowe or not: you quickly orientate yourself with the time period and the circumstances of young Marlowe’s life. The authors chose to go with fairly period-authentic language for the dialogue: thees and thous abound, which I know would turn some people off (but it is, I promise you, all grammatically correct and appropriate, to the best of my knowledge).

It’s not quite a rip-roaring thriller, but it does go along at a fair clip, and it’s a fun adventure whether you know Marlowe or not. If you do, and are aware of some of the facts about him, it has a little extra depth and savour.

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted February 6, 2019 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam RutherfordMost actively, I’m back to try and finish off Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. Most of the anecdotes are familiar to me, though, and I’m really past the point where I could possibly ever need another primer on DNA, so I haven’t been that engaged so far. I enjoyed the demolition of the concept of race that I just read in the last chapter, though!

I’m also reading S.K. Dunstall’s Stars Uncharted; I’m enjoying it, but it feels like much the same ground as The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, in many ways. It’s not bad, but I’m not going to be shouting from the rooftops about it either.

Cover of 4th Rock from the Sun by Nicky JennerWhat have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was… hm, 4th Rock from the Sun, which is about Mars — history, literature, exploration, a little bit of everything. It still amazes me how little we know about planets we think of as being so close to us. There’s so much about Mars and indeed almost the whole Solar System that is still conjectural and even controversial.

Cover of The Ruin of Kings by Jenn LyonsWhat will you be reading next?

No clue. I know Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings is due out on Thursday, and I’ve been so tempted that despite being annoyed by getting an ARC that turned out to be just a preview. So maybe I’ll get that and dig straight in. On the other hand, there’s myriads of books that I genuinely received as ARCs, and I should probably get to them.

What are you currently reading?

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