Author: Nicky

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted June 21, 2025 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

Yay, it’s the weekend! It’s too warm here to do much and indeed I’ve deliberately planned a very calm weekend without any scheduled tasks…

Books acquired this week

This week I ended up getting a bunch more volumes of the Solo Leveling manhwa, in part since it was indie bookshop week, and in part because I had some vouchers to use. Plus, on a very different note (and looking a bit funny beside it!) I got an epistolary novel on a whim, as it might be a good one to review for Postcrossing’s blog.

Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 3 by Dubu Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 4 by Dubu Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 5 by Dubu

Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 6 by Dubu Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 7 by Dubu

I’m looking forward to reading more of Solo Leveling!

Posts from this week

Right, time for a quick review roundup!

What I’m reading

It’s been a really quiet week, reading-wise, and that’s okay. I’m still decompressing, I think! And there was plenty of work to catch up on now I’m not mid-exams.

Here’s a sneak peek at the books I did finish!

Cover of Cull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of Conservation, by Hugh Warwick Cover of Selling Manhattan by Carol Ann Duffy Cover of The Book Forger by Joseph Hone Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 3 by Dubu Cover of Payment Deferred by C.S. Forester

Not bad for a week where I often didn’t feel like reading, really! As for this weekend, no plans, I’ll just follow my whim.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

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Review – A Short History of British Architecture

Posted June 21, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Short History of British Architecture

A Short History of British Architecture: From Stonehenge to the Shard

by Simon Jenkins

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 400
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The architecture of Britain is an art gallery in itself. From the streets to squares, through the cities, suburbs and villages, magnificent buildings of eclectic styles are found everywhere. A Short History of British Architecture is the gripping and untold story of why Britain looks the way it does, from prehistoric Stonehenge to the lofty towers of today.

Simon Jenkins traces the relentless battles over the European traditions of classicism and gothic. He guides us from the gothic cathedrals of Lincoln, Ely and Wells to the 'prodigy' houses of the Tudor renaissance, and visits the great estates of Georgian London, the docks of Liverpool, the mills of Yorkshire and the chapels of south Wales.

The arrival of modernism in the twentieth century politicized public taste, upheaved communities and sought to reconstruct entire cities. It produced Coventry Cathedral and Lloyd's of London, but also the brutalist monoliths of Sheffield's Park Hill, Glasgow's Cumbernauld and London's South Bank. Only in the 1970s did the public at last give voice to what became the conservation revolution - a movement in which Jenkins played a leading role, both as deputy chairman of English Heritage and chairman of the National Trust, and in the saving of iconic buildings such as St Pancras International and Covent Garden.

Jenkins shows that everyone is a consumer of architecture and makes the case for the importance of everyone learning to speak its language. A Short History of British Architecture is a celebration of Britain's national treasures, a lament of its failures - and a call to arms.

I know basically nothing about literature, and I can’t say I feel I know much more having finished Simon Jenkins’ A Short History of British Architecture — but I really enjoyed reading his enthusiastic survey of British architecture. I feel like it would be better appreciated by someone with a touch more knowledge than me, and it would also definitely reward reading with a device ready to search for images of the buildings discussed (which I didn’t do). There are some colour inserts with images, but not nearly enough to cover all the buildings he discusses.

I did have a couple of critiques — one of course would be that more images would’ve been helpful, and another would be the Anglo-centricism of it. There’s very little about Welsh or Scottish buildings, and particularly not specific buildings. Disposing of William Burges’ work in three paragraphs and Cardiff Castle/Castell Coch in three sentences within that is pretty baffling compared to the wordcount spent on other, English buildings. I think inevitable the book is guided by Jenkins’ taste and preferences, but Castell Coch is an absolute confection of a building, and one of the only buildings I feel genuinely quite passionate about myself (for all that it is a ridiculous daydream of a place; perhaps because it’s a ridiculous daydream).

In general, though, I was pretty lost, and while there is a glossary of terms, it’s at the back. I could’ve done with some definitions as we went along, honestly.

In the end, for me, reading this was like listening to someone talk enthusiastically about a subject they love, which I don’t share. It’s enjoyable, and I can join in the enthusiasm in the moment, but I won’t be taking it up.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Mark of Zorro

Posted June 19, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Mark of Zorro

The Mark of Zorro

by Johnston McCulley

Genres: Classics
Pages: 265
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Here begins the legend of Zorro. Spanish Southern California struggles under the governor’s tyrannical grip. Missions are raided and innocent peasants are abused and persecuted. But from the desert a savior arises. A masked man named Zorro, or desert fox, rides at night taking revenge on those who would harm the common man. His deadly marksmanship and flashing sword quickly become legendary.

I’d never read Johnston McCulley’s The Mark of Zorro, so when I was looking for a bit of a break from classic detective fiction on Serial Reader, I picked it more or less at random. It mostly struck me how very much of a Robin Hood story it is, really — transformed to a totally different setting, I’ll grant you, but a lot of the characteristics are there.

The “twist” was very obvious and I assume it was supposed to be, but I always find that sort of thing frustrating.

As a whole, it’s not unenjoyable, with all the usual caveats about when it was written and by whom, lending it a certain perspective and a certain way of regarding people and things. I can’t say I was reading particularly critically, though, more with an eye to understanding something iconic (particularly given there’s a character in the game Persona 5 who uses ‘Zorro’ as his persona) and getting context I didn’t have.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

Posted June 18, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz

by Garth Nix

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.

Mister Fitz: puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods. Together, they are relentless travelers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder, and adventure.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz is a collection of short stories in the same world, by Garth Nix, and I think it suffers for being a bunch of stories written in the same world but not necessarily for the same exact audience. The stories have similar themes and structures, and each is meant to stand somewhat alone, meaning it feels a bit… repetitive.

There are certainly concepts which I found interesting, and I might have enjoyed the stories quite a bit if I’d read them separately, one at a time, in separate magazines or anthologies. There’s some really fun worldbuilding!

But… as a sit-down-and-read-straight-through experience, it didn’t really work well for me. It’s perfectly readable, and there’s a “Nix”ness about it that I enjoy — it’s why I picked up this based on seeing his name on it, after all — but overall, no, not in this format.

Rating: 2/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted June 18, 2025 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Cover of The Book Forger by Joseph HoneWhat have you recently finished reading?

After weeks of reading really really voraciously, I’ve calmed down a bit, so it’s been a couple of days since I last finished anything! I thiiiink the last thing I finished was Joseph Hone’s The Book Forger, which digs into the story of the literary forgeries perpetrated by Thomas J. Wise. It frames it as a bit of a detective story, which isn’t wrong. I mostly enjoyed it, except for where it really bizarrely misquoted Dorothy L. Sayers (or rather, correctly quoted but contextualised it completely wrong).

Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 2What are you currently reading?

I have a lot of books started, but I’m not super actively reading anything at the moment. The closest to the top of my mind are The Future of Dinosaurs, by David Hone, and my reread of volume two of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. The former is really interesting, though quite dense (and the print is tiny!).

The latter… I’m basically struggling with the part where Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu are completely at cross-purposes and totally failing to understand one another, and I hate that part. There are excellent and funny aspects to that part, but it’s just so painful to see the misunderstanding and not be able to hit Shen Qingqiu around the head shouting, “You’ve changed the story! He doesn’t have the same motivations anymore!”

What will you be reading next?

Not sure! I did get the urge to start Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America (Wendy A. Woloson), not at aaaaall inspired by sorting through stuff ready to move. (Not that we’re from the US, and not that the problem is really cheap stuff, but when you’re moving you become very aware of how much stuff you have and how you should’ve sorted through and donated a bunch of it ages ago. Ahem.)

I did also just get volumes 3 and 4 of the Solo Leveling manhwa, so maybe I’ll read those. That will of course lead to wanting volume 5, I’m sure, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…

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Review – Chef’s Kiss

Posted June 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Chef’s Kiss

Chef's Kiss

by Jarrett Melendez, Danica Brine, Hank Jones, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Genres: Graphic Novels, Romance
Pages: 153
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Now that college is over, English graduate Ben Cook is on the job hunt looking for something...anything...related to his passion for reading and writing. According to the hiring committees, he doesn't have enough experience. But when he stumbles upon a "Now Hiring—No Experience Necessary" sign outside a restaurant, Ben jumps at the chance to land his first job. He's actually not so bad in the kitchen, plus, he can keep looking for a writing job in the meantime. But when he begins developing a crush on Liam, one of the super dreamy chefs at the restaurant, he'll start to feel torn between wanting to stay and cook and following his original post-college plan to be a writer. Watch things start to really heat up in the kitchen in this queer YA debut graphic novel!

Somehow, this review never got posted when I read the book in 2022, so here’s one from the backlog I guess!

Chef’s Kiss is really, really cute. I like the art style, and found it very easy to follow what was going on, both due to the clarity of the art and a good layout. That’s not always something you can take for granted (and depends strongly on your taste and visual comprehension skills), though it might sound like faint praise! I enjoy graphic novels, but being strongly non-visual, I’m not always the best at following them.

The cast of characters is fun: the main character is Ben, of course, who starts out looking for a writing job and then finally finds himself at the end of his tether, right in front of a restaurant that’s hiring. He meets one of the chefs, Liam, who happens to be really cute, and then… then the weirdness starts. The owner of the restaurant seems reluctant to handle hiring, and to almost want to deter Ben, insisting he pass a series of challenges in order to work for them, judged by the restaurant’s official taste tester.

The taste tester is a pig, Watson.

There are lots of silly bits surrounding Watson, but there’s a serious core to the story. Ben has to struggle with what he really wants to do, with what he wants to be, and with what his parents want for him. Fresh out of college, he and the friends he lives with have their whole lives to figure out, including interpersonal issues. And, of course, he has a massive crush on Liam.

The whole thing is pretty light, all the same, with lots of cute moments between Liam and Ben, and between Ben and his friends. There’s even a great scene with the owner of the restaurant that hits a strong emotional note — though that’s all I’ll say about that. I found the story a bit ridiculous, at times, but fun.

If you’ve worked in or adjacent to the industry, I can almost guarantee it will annoy you, though. Even I can tell it’s a whimsical and inaccurate imagining of it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Animals Among Us

Posted June 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Animals Among Us

The Animals Among Us: The New Science of Anthrozoology

by John Bradshaw

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 371
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

The bestselling author of Dog Sense and Cat Sense explains why living with animals has always been a fundamental aspect of being human

Pets have never been more popular. Over half of American households share their home with either a cat or a dog, and many contain both. This is a huge change from only a century ago, when the majority of domestic cats and dogs were working animals, keeping rodents at bay, guarding property, herding sheep. Nowadays, most are valued solely for the companionship they provide. As mankind becomes progressively more urban and detached from nature, we seem to be clinging to the animals that served us well in the past.

In The Animals Among Us, anthrozoologist John Bradshaw argues that pet-keeping is nothing less than an intrinsic part of human nature. An affinity for animals drove our evolution and now, without animals around us, we risk losing an essential part of ourselves.

I found John Bradshaw’s The Animals Among Us initially quite interesting, but ultimately there were a couple of problems: it’s very repetitive, it’s very gender essentialist, and he keeps saying things “cannot be a coincidence” when they can, anything can be a coincidence. Just saying something cannot be a coincidence does not constitute any kind of proof whatsoever that it is not, in fact, coincidence.

He’s also got a pretty cavalier attitude to a number of things, typified by the one I picked up on: he claims that it’s — and I quote — a “fable” that there’s a link between schizophrenia and toxoplasmosis. Not only is it not a fable, but there are also links between Toxoplasma gondii infection and suicide risk, bipolar disease, anxiety, ADHD and OCD. And more! Now I’m not saying all of those are well evidenced, mostly I see stuff like odds ratios and hazard ratios that are suggestive without being conclusive, and we could use more clear-cut explanations of how that’s supposed to be caused and elucidations of stuff like whether it’s infection at any time in your life or infection at a critical period or only if you have both a toxoplasmosis infection and another risk factor… But the point is, it should not be lightly dismissed as a fable.

And sure, it’s a relatively minor point, except he refers to it multiple times and he’s wrong every time. What’s going on here? Has he just decided it’s not a risk and declared that to be the case in spite of the evidence we have? Is he referring to a paper to rule all papers that has disproven all the ones before and after it? Why is he saying this?

This kind of thing always makes me a bit suspicious, and of course, I know my parasitology pretty well (I have an MSc in Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, one of the top universities for the study of infectious disease in the world — or I will after it’s been officially conferred upon me — and I studied parasitology in the course of that degree) and this jumped out at me. What was there that wasn’t jumping out at me, but is nonetheless equally wrong, dismissive, misguided, etc?

So… read with care, I suppose.

Rating: 2/5 

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Review – Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

Posted June 15, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women

by Hetta Howes

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 298
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear their stories?

Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four extraordinary women who did. Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a "no-good wife". In their own ways these four very different writers pushed back against the misogyny of the period. Each broke new ground in women's writing and left us incredible insights into the world of medieval life and politics.

Hetta Howes has spent her working life uncovering these women's stories to give us a valuable and unique historical biography of their lives that challenges what we think we know about medieval women in Europe. Women did earn money, they could live independent lives, and they thought, loved, fought and suffered just as we do today.

This mesmerizing book is an unforgettably lively and immersive journey into the everyday lives of medieval women through the stories of these four iconic women writers, some of which are retold here for general readers for the first time.

Hetta Howes’ Poet Mystic Widow Wife does a pretty good job at discussing the lives of medieval women in general, while reflecting specifically on Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. If considered as intending to shed light on those lives specifically, it feels pretty disorganised and lacks detail on Marie de France and Julian of Norwich — which is in part due to lack of sources and in part due to choosing poorly (though there may not be many good choices).

Overall, it didn’t quite work for me. I think it was the general feeling of it not being super organised, for a start; each section would jump around slightly in time and place, trying to touch on the four women regularly, but not always managing to link them in to the chapter’s themes very well.

Perhaps it’s partly a matter of style; while Howes’ style is readable, I didn’t love it. Her sources are pretty sparse, and overall this might all be explained by the fact that she’s qualified in medieval literature (which probably informed her choice of sources) rather than history. Literature was my first field of study as well and one in which she’s more qualified than I am, and medieval literature in particular has an overlap with understanding medieval history… but it’s not the same. I know a lot about the role of medieval women through that same literary lense, and maybe I was hoping for something a bit more rooted in named sources. I was also hoping for more about Marie de France, whose works I studied (in translation).

In any case, if you’re looking for an accessible, chatty sort of popular history, with reimaginings about what Margery Kemp and Christine de Pizan thought and felt, this might be more up your street. If you’re here for Marie de France or Julian of Norwich, perhaps not.

Rating: 2/5

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted June 14, 2025 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

My exams are over! And in fact, the whole of my fourth degree — I won’t get grades until August, but I am pretty certain that I will graduate. I’m not taking any bets on how soon I will be enrolled in a new course, nor what the topic might be…

So let’s talk about books and celebrate!

Books acquired this week

Even though I had a book-buying spree not that long ago, the wishlist is never-ending, so between my wife choosing to indulge me a little to celebrate my last exam being over, and my British Library Crime Classic subscription book for this month, I have some new books lined up!

Cover of Guardian (light novel) vol 1 by Priest Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 2 by Dubu Cover of Cyanide in the Sun and Other Stories of Summertime Crime ed. Martin Edwards

I also got approved for a book on Netgalley which I’m excited about: I read the first book, A Case of Mice and Murder, just last weekend, and ended up loving it!

Cover of A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith

I’m looking forward to digging into all of these!

Posts from this week

As usual, here’s the roundup of reviews posted this week…

And a What Are You Reading Wednesday post, as usual, chatting about recent reads.

What I’m reading

As ever, first up let’s do a little peek at the books I’ve been reading this week…

Cover of The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages, by Sara J. Charles Cover of A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith Cover of A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman Cover of Beneath Our Feet by Michael Lewis, Ian Richardson and Mackenzie Crook

Cover of Standing Female Nude by Carol Ann Duffy Cover of No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre Cover of The Animals Among Us by John Bradshaw Cover of Solo Leveling manhwa vol 2 by Dubu

As you might have noticed, I’ve been reading a fair bit of poetry — mostly rereads, exploring the collection I built up when I was an English lit student during my first and second degrees. It’s nice to just read it for pleasure.

Anyway, as for my reading plans this weekend, I can’t really say I’m suddenly reading more now, because I’ve been all about reading in every spare moment for at least the last month — but it’s a little easier to relax with a book when I don’t have exams to think about!

My major targets this weekend are continuing my reread of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, finishing The Book Forger (Joseph Hone), and reading Cull of the Wild (Hugh Warwick). I’ve begun digging into the latter already, and I can sense it’s going to be conflicting…

Oh, and I’m looking forward to hopefully visiting people’s blogs a bit more actively once more! I always try to visit back, of course, but it’ll be good to spend a bit more time proactively visiting, and not just looking up at linkups. Still, forgive me if it takes a few weeks to get up to speed. I’m still quite tired, mentally!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

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Review – Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

Posted June 13, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

Poetry Prescription: Words for Love

by Deborah Alma (editor)

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 70
Series: Poetry Prescriptions
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

This beautiful pocket-sized hardback gift book contains carefully curated prescriptions in verse compiled by Deborah Alma, the founder of the Poetry Pharmacy. Life is lived with feeling - these poems look at all the many manifestations of love.

For All Matters of the Heart -Stimulants for Romantic Love, Panaceas for the Broken-Hearted; for the Appreciation of Fellowship, Family and for the Promotion of Tenderness.

Includes poems by W. B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare, Edna St Vincent Millay, D. H. Lawrence and many more.

• No bitter pills
• No adverse reactions

The Poetry Prescription series compiled by Deborah Alma is the perfect antidote for life’s ailments. Inspired by the achingly cool Poetry Pharmacy shops in London and Shropshire - social media favourites with a clear focus on promoting wellbeing through the written and spoken word. Each of the eight themed titles offers an array of poems to inspire, heal and comfort. Whether you are looking to find solace for times of ill-health, loss and grief, cope with matters of the heart, need poetic inspiration for courage and confidence, or want to find peace and tranquillity in wild spaces, there is a collection for everyone.

Perfect for reading aloud or for quiet contemplation, these books are a much needed balm for our busy lives.

I love the idea of the “Poetry Prescription” books, selections of poems for given moods and needs which promise no bitter pills, nothing hard to swallow, just poetry suitable for the moment. I don’t know if all of them have the same editor, but Words for Love was edited by Deborah Alma, and it’s an interesting selection.

Many of them are, to me at least, expected inclusions: your Keats, Rosetti and Shakespeare. There are also poets I didn’t know, or poems I didn’t know by poets I did know, and I’d kind of hoped for more of those — but it makes for an accessible volume if you’re not a big poetry reader. I wouldn’t have picked that Duffy poem, of all her options, but at least it was from Rapture, which is my favourite of her collections.

The collection offers a small section for new love, one for grief, one for familial love, that kind of division. It’s all quite nice as a concept, and I might pick up others in the series for the introductions to different poets I might not have known.

Rating: 3/5

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