Author: Nicky

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 19 Comments

Hurrah, the weekend!

Last weekend I got my assignments all handed in, so the last week has been all about catching up with life stuff. Unfortunately that hasn’t yet included comments on my blog or visiting people back yet — sorry! I got stressed out and I’m digging my way out of that now, but I plan to do some commenting and visiting tomorrow.

Right, time to talk about books. As usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

As is my wont when I’ve been a bit stressed, I went totally overboard, so I’m going to split up my haul over the next couple of weeks. It’s hard to choose what to show off, so I’ll just pick a bit randomly. First off, here’s some of the non-fiction I picked up:

A bit of a mix, as ever! I wouldn’t have been that interested in The Ship Asunder, except that on a pure whim I read Seashaken Houses (a history of lighthouses in the UK) a while ago and really loved it. I wasn’t that interested in lighthouses, either, so I thought I’d give this a try.

And here’s some of the fiction I picked up:

Always love KJ Charles’ work, and I’ve heard really good things about If Found, Return To Hell. The other book is more of a whim, based on someone on Mastodon describing it as “garden fantasy”. Sounds perfect for a certain friend of mine, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Posts from this week:

Here’s the usual roundup of reviews:

Classic mystery: The Eye of Osiris, by R. Austin Freeman (4/5 stars)
Ecological non-fiction: Ghosts in the Hedgerow: A Hedgehog Whodunnit, by Tom Moorhouse (3/5 stars)
Fantasy novella: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, by Seanan McGuire (3/5 stars)
Philosophy: Spacecraft, by Tim Morton (1/5 stars)
YA romance novella: Nick and Charlie, by Alice Oseman (2/5 stars)

I skipped Top Ten Tuesday this week, so there was just one other post:

What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

First of all, let’s start with the books I’ve already read this week.

It’s been a lovely reading week. Howl’s Moving Castle was a reread, but my first time listening to the audiobook narrated by Kristin Atherton. It was lovely; highly recommended. I also had great fun last night with Honey & Pepper, and was sad when I finished it.

As for what I’m reading this weekend, I’m not sure. I’ve started on Lapidarium, one of my new books, and also If Found, Return to Hell. But where my whims will take me, no one can tell…

How’s everyone else doing?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Nick and Charlie

Posted April 5, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Nick and Charlie

by Alice Oseman

Genres: Romance
Pages: 176
Series: Heartstopper
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
"CHARLIE: “I have been going out with Nick Nelson for two years. He likes rugby, Formula 1, dogs, the Marvel universe, the sound felt-tips make on paper, rain and drawing on shoes. He also likes me.”

NICK: “Things me and Charlie Spring do together include: Watch films. Sit in the same room on different laptops. Text each other from different rooms. Make out. Make food. Make drinks. Get drunk. Talk. Argue. Laugh. Maybe we're kind of boring. But that’s fine with us.”

Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple – that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question – they’re ‘Nick and Charlie’, for God’s sake!

But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever…"

I wish I’d really loved this novella, Nick and Charlie, set in Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper universe and following the period just at the end of year 13 and the beginning of university for Nick. We’ve seen the foreshadowing of this in volume five of Heartstopper proper, so it felt a bit superfluous (though of course this was actually written first, I’m just speaking of the reader’s experience here) — and unfortunately switching to this format rather than the graphic novel makes it feel… well, a bit too YA for me.

I don’t know why it’s okay in the graphic novel and less so here: perhaps because we have more direct access to Nick and Charlie’s thoughts, and probably also because the conflict feels compleeeetely manufactured. It grows out of Charlie’s insecurities in a totally normal sort of way, sure, but his drunk outburst and their refusal to then communicate properly with one another doesn’t match up with the way they normally interact.

Pile on top of that the stupid coincidence of Nick’s phone supposedly being unable to receive picture messages due to being dropped even though everything else works okay (??? not the way it works), and it just feels like needless drama, manufactured so there’s even a story at all.

I really hope the final volume of Heartstopper is better than this. Charlie and Nick do need to reckon with their relationship, and what it means to be the unit that is Nick-and-Charlie… but this novella doesn’t work for me beyond some of the cute moments between them.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Alice Oseman, book reviews, books, romance

Review – Spacecraft

Posted April 4, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Spacecraft

by Timothy Morton

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 144
Series: Object Lessons
Rating:

Synopsis:
Science fiction is filled with spacecraft. On Earth, actual rockets explode over Texas while others make their way to Mars. But what are spacecraft, and just what can they teach us about imagination, ecology, democracy, and the nature of objects? Why do certain spacecraft stand out in popular culture?

If ever there were a spacecraft that could be detached from its context, sold as toys, turned into Disney rides, parodied, and flit around in everyone's head-the Millennium Falcon would be it. Springing from this infamous Star Wars vehicle, Spacecraft takes readers on an intergalactic journey through science fiction and speculative philosophy, revealing real-world political and ecological lessons along the way. In this book Timothy Morton shows how spacecraft are never mere flights of fancy.

I really like the concept of the Object Lessons books — and it’s true that they don’t promise each book will be factual, just saying that each book is about the hidden life of an everyday thing. Nonetheless, the ones that aren’t really histories are often disappointing to me, and that’s so with Timothy Morton’s Spacecraft.

See, I’m not a big Star Wars fan. I saw the originals, and I saw the prequels, and I enjoyed them well enough, but I’ve not seen any of the more recent stuff, because I don’t watch many movies or TV shows at all and Star Wars just doesn’t draw enough enthusiasm from me. If it took me months to watch Good Omens (both the original series and then, after it came out, the second series), Star Wars has a “no hope” (see what I did there?).

This book is not about spacecraft. It’s about the Millenium Falcon, mostly, and a little bit about hyperspace, and a lot about object-orientated ontology (in which I have vanishingly little interest). I hoped I could get into it all the same, but… nope. To me, this is a waste of an option to write about what we understand about real spaceships, how they’ve impacted on our real lives.

Besides which, Morton’s narration just… went places. So many places. At seeming random. One topic would flow into another and I just couldn’t keep hold of the point.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, Timothy Morton

WWW Wednesday

Posted April 3, 2024 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

It’s WWW Wednesday time! That’s:

What have you recently finished reading?
What are you currently reading?
What will you read next?

What have you recently finished reading?

I just finished up listening to the audiobook of Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, narrated by Kristin Atherton. I loved her narration, because she did all the voices, and did a good job of making Howl sound Welsh (which, minor spoiler, he is). I know the book well and have read it several times before, but I wanted something familiar to listen to while my hands and eyes were busy with something else. I’m not always great with audiobooks, tending to get fidgety, but this one was great.

What are you currently reading?

A few books at once, as usual. Most actively, I’m halfway through one of the Edible series, this one Heather Arndt Anderson’s Chillies. Is it making me crave more tex-mex food than I normally already crave? Youuu betcha.

The other thing I’m partway through is Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body, by Caroline Vout, which is non-fiction and a bit heavier than I have braincells for just now.

What will you read next?

If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu is top of my list right now. It’s a short one, and very tantalising. But as usual I plan to follow whatever passing whim shows up.

How about you?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Posted April 2, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

by Seanan McGuire

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 146
Series: Wayward Children #9
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Antsy is the latest student to pass through the doors at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children.

When the school’s (literally irresistible) mean girl realizes that Antsy's talent for finding absolutely anything may extend to doors, Antsy is forced to flee in the company of a small group of friends, looking for a way back to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go to be sure that Vineta and Hudson are keeping their promise.

Along the way, they will travel from a world which hides painful memories that cut as sharply as its beauty, to a land that time wasn’t yet old enough to forget—and more than one student's life will change forever.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

For a book that promised me dinosaurs, Seanan McGuire’s Mislaid in Parts Half-Known felt like a bit of a swizz. The dinosaur world was only a tiny part of the story, which was really the end of Antsy’s story, as begun in Lost in the Moment and Found. There are bits of other characters’ stories (a little here for Sumi, a little there for Kade, a drop for Cora), but it’s really about Antsy’s story, and a little bit about expanding the world as we know it, showing us what a nexus is and what it can do.

Honestly, it feels like we’ve got a little further from the idea of a school for children who fell into other worlds than I like? The rotating cast of characters feels like “monster of the week”, but we’re spending so little time actually at the school, and Eleanor doesn’t always appear. And I’m deeply ambivalent about Kade’s position here, always the best man and never the groom.

So I’m wondering where our questers will go next, but I also wonder if I’m tiring a bit of the formula?

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Seanan McGuire, SF/F

Review – Ghosts in the Hedgerow

Posted April 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Ghosts in the Hedgerow

by Tom Moorhouse

Genres: Mystery, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 271
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
A body lies motionless on the ground. Small, with a snouty head and covered with spines, it is unquestionably dead before its time. And all of those gathered around the corpse are suspect. So which one of them is responsible for this crime - and for the disappearance of many many thousands of hedgehogs in recent decades?

Is it the car driver, the badger, the farmer, the gardener ..? Who could possibly have it in for a hedgehog? In poll after poll they come out top as our favourite mammal. And yet their numbers are estimated to have halved in less than twenty years. Magnifying glass in hand, Tom Moorhouse investigates the evidence. On a vital mission to bring those responsible to justice, prevent further murder and save a species, he uncovers a story full of twists, turns and uncomfortable truths about the trade-offs that exist between humans and wildlife. But he can also see a solution.

Tom Moorehouse’s Ghosts in the Hedgerow tries to use the whodunnit format to interrogate what might be causing the decline in hedgehog numbers seen in the UK in recent years. It does undermine the whole premise right from the get-go by explaining that the decline is only really known anecdotally: hedgehog numbers aren’t really properly counted, and we rely on a bunch of estimates which aren’t really comparable between decades (e.g. between hunters trying to kill hedgehogs before they became a protected species, who would specifically seek them out, and now birdwatchers who may incidentally spot hedgehogs).

Nonetheless, he makes a convincing case that their numbers are declining (which I didn’t really doubt in the first place), and then trots through the suspects: road traffic, badgers, farmland bereft of hedgerows (in contrast to traditional farming), and home/garden design. None of the suspects are surprising if you’ve been at all awake to hedgehog ecology (which I have, as my parents have a hedgehog-friendly garden, and my garden is as well), and of course the final answer isn’t surprising either: it’s all of those things.

It’s a fun idea for a format, but if you’re already interested in hedgehogs, there isn’t much new here. The exact details of how hedgehogs and badgers interact were new to me, but that was about it. However, if you don’t know much about hedgehogs, other than finding them cute, then this could very well be a fun and easy way to learn more, and learn about how to make a difference to them.

To sum it up very quickly: cut holes in your fences so hedgehogs can pass through, use strimmers with caution, don’t use autonomous lawnmowers, rewild your garden, put out some supplementary food for them and a bowl of water, and try to convince other people to do the same (while writing to your MP etc etc about making changes in law). And don’t drive a car, especially not as it starts to get dark and through the night, when hedgehogs roam.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, mystery, non-fiction, science, Tom Moorhouse

Review – The Eye of Osiris

Posted March 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Eye of Osiris

by R. Austin Freeman

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 286
Series: Dr Thorndyke #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
John Bellingham is a world-renowned archaeologist who goes missing mysteriously after returning from a voyage to Egypt where fabulous treasures have been uncovered. Bellingham seems to have disappeared leaving clues, which lead all those hunting down blind alleys. But when the piercing perception of the brilliant Dr Thorndyke is brought to bear on the mystery, the search begins for a man tattooed with the Eye of Osiris in this strange, tantalisingly enigmatic tale.

I haven’t read anything by R. Austin Freeman before (unless there’s a short story or two amongst the British Library Crime Classic collections), but The Eye of Osiris turned out to be an unexpected pleasure. Sometimes with classic crime fiction, it’s just kind of cosy and predictable, and that’s very enjoyable but not surprising. In many ways this was a typical mystery of the period, but The Eye of Osiris did make me think: I felt like this was a fair-play mystery, and that I had the clues I needed to figure out the end result. I got there before the main character (who is very much in the John Watson vein, including by being a doctor), but there were some aspects I wasn’t sure of.

And of course, there’s the fact that it’s related to Egyptian archaeology. It’s set in London, but the missing man whose absence is the object of investigation is an archaeologist, and his brother (Godfrey Bellingham) and niece (Ruth) are also fascinated by the subject. Ruth quickly becomes close to our protagonist, as he manufactures an excuse to help her with her work (a commission to write notes on Egyptian history to help someone who doesn’t have the time to research), and becomes fascinated with the case of her missing uncle, drawing in an old teacher of his (Thorndyke) to help.

The romance isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but I did enjoy the interplay of the characters, and that Ruth is a fully realised woman who is fascinated with her own work, and that our otherwise rather nondescript main character is in turn fascinated with her work and eager to help her. In part that’s to get close to her, of course, but he’s clearly attracted not just by her prettiness, but by her eagerness for knowledge.

In the end it’s not groundbreaking, but it was enjoyable, and I’m planning to read more of R. Austin Freeman’s mysteries, especially as some are available on Project Gutenberg.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery, R. Austin Freeman

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 30, 2024 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Well, what a busy week! I spent yesterday at a wedding, and I’ve been working hard on finally finishing my assignments as well. I’d hoped to get an extension for at least one of them, given the family stuff that’s been occurring, but my GP never replied to me… so I’ve been hard at work trying to get them all done. I think (as I write this) that I’m done: I just need to format the cover sheets. Oof!

I know I take pretty much any excuse to buy celebratory books, but last week I had a book voucher to assist me… and there are some books bought for me by my wife on the way as well. I’d say oops, but I don’t mind at all.

That said, I haven’t done a lot of reading this week. I did my best to make time for it, but I’ve been tired and not in the mood. Here’s hoping this weekend I can start to catch up!

As per usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired:

So for now I only have the books that have already arrived, not the big spree of books from my wife. It’s a bit of a mix: only one fiction book, history, and ecology (in the form of a whodunnit). I read more non-fiction when I’m stressed out, so that kind of influenced my choices this time.

Plus a few books I got in ebook format to try and tempt myself this weekend:

And yep, I know, I know! It’s another weird mix. I hope to review The One-Cent Magenta in the near-ish future, over on the Postcrossing blog. My book reviews are a steady feature over there, though I usually write a review for this blog too, slightly differently tailored.

Posts from this week:

It seems like I’ve been a bit of a misery guts in my reviews this week, but it’s happenstance that it was mostly meh reviews this week — I didn’t read these all at the same time, I’m just getting to the reviews in my posting queue now. I do try to vary what genres I post about a bit, to avoid being too samey.

Fantasy mystery graphic novel: Brittania vol 1, by Peter Milligan et al (1/5 stars)
Fantasy: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett (4/5 stars)
SF/F comic: The October Faction, by Steve Niles & Damien Worm (2/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Pill, by Robert Bennett (1/5 stars)

And other posts:

I actually really liked my Top Ten Tuesday post this week, I wrote quite a lot of fun stuff, but I didn’t join the linky because I didn’t think I’d be able to get round to commenting back anytime soon.

What I’m reading:

This week started off well, but then my brain exploded a bit because of stress about my assignments and I didn’t read much for a few days. I haven’t even read much this weekend, since I’ve been recovering from partying hard (attending a wedding, wearing heels, drinking two glasses of wine, and dancing for five minutes to keep the bride company, and then getting home at 10pm — such hard partying! But apparently I’m getting old and my legs hurt). But we’ll see how it goes! I did read the following books that I intend to review soon.

So really not so bad after all. So far today I’ve been listening to Howl’s Moving Castle in audiobook, and I’ve peeked into Good Neighbours by Stephanie Burgis… but we’ll see where my whims take me.

How’s everyone else doing?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Pill

Posted March 29, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Pill

by Robert Bennett

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 176
Series: Object Lessons
Rating:

Synopsis:
"You are what you eat." Never is this truer than when we use medications, from beta blockers and aspirin to Viagra and epidurals-and especially psychotropic pills that transform our minds as well as our bodies.

Meditating on how modern medicine increasingly measures out human identity not in T. S. Eliot's proverbial coffee spoons but in 1mg-, 5mg-, or 300mg-doses, Pill traces the uncanny presence of psychiatric pills through science, medicine, autobiography, television, cinema, literature, and popular music. Robert Bennett reveals modern psychopharmacology to be a brave new world in which human identities- thoughts, emotions, personalities, and selves themselves-are increasingly determined by the extraordinary powers of seemingly ordinary pills.

I usually enjoy the Object Lessons series, but they’re pretty varied in what they contain — the best (in my views) as the ones that act as microhistories, looking at the development of a thing, what it means to people, etc. Pill doesn’t really do so, though: it does try to explore what a particular type of pill (psychiatric medication) has meant to people, without much of the scientific/medical side of things. Largely, Bennett spends the time recounting the events of TV shows, books, etc, with a minimum of actual commentary. The character did this, then that; another character said this about it; this is how things ended.

It’s really boring to read, and it doesn’t help — for me — that Bennett’s obviously deeply ambivalent about the use of psychiatric drugs, but uses these fictional examples as if they’re truths. They aren’t. Fiction is fiction. And yes, sometimes it reflects reality and comments on reality (and medication in real life can have side effects, or not work, etc), but Bennett seems in danger of forgetting that the characters aren’t real, and their struggles aren’t real.

He reveals in the last chapter that he has bipolar disorder himself, describing some of his manic episodes, but clearly yearning for them as well. Psychiatric medication, he believes, changes his personality, mutes his creativity, etc. You can tell by reading that he’s within an ace of unprescribing himself from his own medication — and by his own admission, chaos will undoubtedly ensue if he does.

All in all, the book is more of a summary of various movies involving psychiatric conditions, followed by a confession of instability and uncertainty on the part of the author. The final chapter alone feels a lot more worthwhile than the regurgitated plots, though it’s inconclusive and perhaps not quite coherent.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, Robert Bennett

Review – The October Faction, vol 3

Posted March 28, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The October Faction

by Steve Niles, Damien Worm

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 139
Series: The October Faction #3
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Merle Cope and his frightful family have been destroyed and Fred Allan has been rescued. Now that the kids have proven themselves, the whole Allan family is back in business, ready to take on the monstrous, paranormal, and downright strange.

I’m still not really sure what to say about Steve Niles’ The October Faction — it just doesn’t get beyond “okay” for me, yet it is a little bit addictive to keep on steamrolling through the volumes. The fast pace helps: I raced through the second, third and fourth volume, reading them pretty much back to back.

There is a little bit of a development with a certain relationship here, which is kinda cute and makes a lot of sense — though there’s been a lot of rushing with the character development, this didn’t come as a surprise.

And again, the art is kinda growing on me. It makes perfect sense for the story, at any rate.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Damien Worm, SF/F, Steve Niles