Posted November 6, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 10 Comments
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
Originally reviewed 16th September, 2012
This book is an enchantment. From the very start it slowly catches you up in the circus itself. You can never imagine every inch of it, never know it, but you feel like a rêveur yourself, as if you’ve walked through the tents and tried the food and smelt the popcorn and chocolate mice and fire and all the strange perfumes of the circus. I think it’s that, more than anything, that made me love this book so much: I was interested in the fate of Celia and Marco, but mostly because it impacted the circus, and I couldn’t stand the idea of anything bad happening to the circus.
I did get caught up in the other parts of the plot too, don’t get me wrong: I loved the references to Merlin, which sort of clued me in on where certain things were going; I liked a lot of the characters, especially the ones with secrets; I loved all the details, and how they all came together.
Possibly this is not quite a five star book, compared to some of the other books I’ve rated five stars, but it swept me off my feet, so I’m giving it five stars anyway. I found it magical — and I’m keeping a copy around, because I think I’ll reread it someday.
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Erin Morgenstern, Flashback Friday
Posted November 5, 2015 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments
What do you mean it’s already November? Gaaah!
So I’m not going to be too proscriptive about what I read in November, because it’s still a pretty high stress time for me. So here’s a bunch of books I want to get read, in moderately disorganised categories!
ARCS
Of Sorrow and Such, Angela Slatter.- Armada, Ernest Cline.
- The Palace Job, Patrick Weekes.
The Seventh Bride, T. Kingfisher.Of Bone and Thunder, Chris Evans.
Phryne Fisher
Blood and Circuses, Kerry Greenwood.Ruddy Gore, Kerry Greenwood.Urn Burial, Kerry Greenwood.Raisins and Almonds, Kerry Greenwood.Death Before Wicket, Kerry Greenwood.Away With the Fairies, Kerry Greenwood.
Other in-progress series
- Siege and Storm, Leigh Bardugo.
- Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo.
Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie.- The Dark Arts of Blood, Freda Warrington.
- The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, Catherynne M. Valente.
- Dragon Coast, Greg van Eekhout.
Rereads
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin.The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula Le Guin.- The Furthest Shore, Ursula Le Guin.
- Tehanu, Ursula Le Guin.
- The Other Wind, Ursula Le Guin.
- Tales from Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin.
Random
The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker.- Newt’s Emerald, Garth Nix.
- London Falling, Paul Cornell.
Badgerlands, Patrick Barkham.Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities, Tony Hallam.The Mirror World of Melody Black, Gavin Extence.At the Edge of Uncertainty, Michael Brooks.The Accident Season, Moira Fowley-Doyle.
There may well be other stuff, which I will probably add under ‘random’ once I’ve consumed it!
Tags: books, TBR
Posted November 5, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Flying Too High, Kerry Greenwood
Pretty much binging on this series at the moment, I have to admit. As I write up this review, I’m already two books ahead. I find the books so readable, and since each one has clocked in under 200 pages so far, they’re not a huge time investment. Phryne is a lovely character: independent, smart, fearless, honest and true to her own principles — and non-judgemental of others.
I don’t really have much to say about the plots: these books remind me of Sayers’ mysteries, where what I care about is more the characters and how they deal with the situation. Phryne is a little too good to be true, but I want to see what she does anyway. She has a spark and a love of life that animates the novels for me. I hear Essie Davis does a great job with the character in the series, so I’m quite excited to get round to it on Netflix. Just… you know… me being me, excitement still might mean it takes me another year to get to. (Sorry, Charlie Cox-as-Daredevil.)
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Kerry Greenwood, mystery
Posted November 4, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Dark Entries, Robert Aickman
This collection of stories mostly did not creep me out, despite the accolades of being a great horror writer. But they were certainly strange stories, as Aickman himself preferred to call them. There’s a great atmosphere in some of them, and his writing is careful and precise. Somebody else described the atmosphere in some of the stories as “reality out of joint”, and that’s definitely true — for these characters, ostensibly belonging to our normal world, something jolts out of place and everything is made strange by it. Even some quite mundane details can become more threatening in that atmosphere.
I’m not in a wild hurry to read more of Aickman’s work, but I wouldn’t say no, either — maybe I’ll pick up more of it from the library, and give his novels a try.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books
Posted November 3, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments
The Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
I don’t think I have much to add with this book that I didn’t already say when it came to the first book. The juxtaposition of the vintage photography and the story works pretty well, even if the story rather demystifies the photographs by giving them explanations. The pacing is rather less glacial here, because the waiting’s over — a plot is in motion and the children have to keep moving, no matter what.
A little annoyingly, the books lead straight on, one from the other. You ideally need the next one on hand right away. My library doesn’t have the next book yet, so I can’t do that. There’s very little closure to make it feel like a natural ending — just, bam, another crisis, another problem, and… what now?
Well, I do want to find out, but if I have to wait, I’ll probably start forgetting details and get confused when I try to read the next one.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F
Posted November 3, 2015 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments
Of the options for this week, the theme is “Top Ten Debut Authors Who Have Me Looking Forward To Their Sophomore Novel” or “Top Ten Sophomore Novels That I Loved Just As Much If Not More As The Author’s Debut”. Because I’m fickle, I’m going to do this one somewhat randomly based on both prompts.
- Pacific Fire, Greg van Eekhout. I wasn’t sure about California Bones, but Pacific Fire won me over and I just had to get Dragon Coast.
- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. I mean, The Hobbit was okay, but I think it’s The Lord of the Rings that really cemented Tolkien’s reputation.
- Moon Over Soho, Ben Aaronovitch. Every subsequent book has made me more of a fan of the series.
- Crown of Midnight, Sarah J. Maas. I wasn’t sure if I was into the series until I read Crown of Midnight.
- Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch. I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora, and I wasn’t sure if Lynch could keep it up. He could.
- The Wrong Goodbye, Chris F. Holm. I was worried the second book would be too much like the first, that the fun wouldn’t hold out. It did!
- Huntress, Malinda Lo. I liked this waaaay more than Ash.
- The Blasted Lands, James A. Moore. This is a second book that I’m looking forward to. I know it’s out and has been a while. Shush. I’m behind.
- Jacqueline Koyanagi. There’s gonna be more after Ascension, right? Right??
- Seth Dickinson. Gimme more Baru!
I’m really bad at keeping track of debut authors and so on, so I’m gonna be interested to see what other people have come up with this week. Maybe I’d better keep some paper at the ready for taking notes…
Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday
Posted November 2, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Bitch Planet: Extraordinary Machine, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine DeLandro
I originally received this to review, but because it’s very much designed to have double spreads and to be read across two pages, it just wasn’t readable that way. Fortunately, I’d preordered the TPB anyway. The problem is, I really don’t know what to think of it. I love the diversity of the characters, but I found myself only really knowing two or three of them for sure, each time they appeared. Part of that was the art and part of that is, hey, this is a women’s prison with a lot of inmates, and this is only five issues of the comic. There’s not really enough space to be properly introduced to everybody.
Despite the fact that I love the idea, and I love the trend of people getting the NC tattoos and how much it has spoken to many women, I don’t know if I actually like the product. But maybe it isn’t about liking — I do value the book. I like that it’s in your face and violent and, well, non-compliant. I like that it features a really overweight woman as a heroine who isn’t prepared to change to be somebody else’s ideal. I like that it offends and concerns ‘men’s rights activists’.
So maybe not my thing, but that doesn’t make it a bad comic.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, SF/F
Posted November 1, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Moonspinners, Mary Stewart
I’m wondering if I ever really say anything different about Mary Stewart’s books. They’re fairly formulaic, really: fairly independent young woman meets young man who may or may not be her cousin, there is some dramatic problem to be resolved, and they resolve it while falling in love, often improbably fast or due to some supernatural intervention (as in Touch Not the Cat and Thornyhold). They’re better than they sound, though: the atmosphere Stewart produces is amazing, and quite a lot of her female characters are actually quite strong and certainly have agency. The main character here, for example, spends most of the story getting pushed to one side by the male characters who don’t want her to get involved — but she’s the one who really sorts everything out.
This isn’t my favourite of Stewart’s books by far, but I think I enjoyed it more this time than I did the first time. Partly because yay, familiar comfort read, no doubt. Nothing wrong with that.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Mary Stewart, mystery, romance
Posted October 31, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups: Japanese Patterns, Various Authors
I think the Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups range are probably my favourite adult colouring books. They have a ton of designs in them, the paper quality is good (though each page is double-sided, so you have to be careful with anything that might bleed through), and there’s a good combination of finicky detail and bits you can just fill up with colour. (The latter is important for me, being an impatient thing.) There’s plenty of variation in the designs, and they all look good with nice bold felt-tip work. Which is good, because meticulous shading and blending is beyond me.
The patterns themselves… well, some of them don’t strike me as particularly Japanese, but there are some motifs like cranes that wing their way through the book.
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crafts
Posted October 31, 2015 by Nicky in General / 15 Comments
Totally unsurprisingly, this week has involved me grabbing as much Phryne Fisher as I can… I even started watching the TV series, via Netflix. Gah, love it so much.
Library books
And I actually got some Amazon vouchers, but I’m probably going to save them for some more Phryne book. Just one book purchased, and that was a Kindle Daily Deal.
So really, I’ve been quite good this week! What’s everyone else been getting?
Tags: books, Kerry Greenwood, Mary Stewart, Stacking the Shelves
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
