Author: Nicky

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 16, 2024 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Wednesday came around again, so here goes…

What have you recently finished reading?

Overleaf, by Susan and Richard Ogilvy. It’s a fascinating record of Britain’s trees through a single leaf (or group of leaves in some cases) each, showing both sides of the leaf on either side of a page turn. Susan Ogilvy is the artist, and her brother-in-law Richard is a forester. The detail is fascinating, and each leaf also has a short description with more information, written by Richard Ogilvy.

I’m also still intermittently reading new volumes of Fairy Tail, which I seem to choose when I just want to turn my brain off. I’m not deeply involved with it all, but I enjoy it while I’m reading it.

What are you currently reading?

I’m partway through a reread of The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers. I read it a while after it came out, and now this is my first reread. I don’t love this or the third book as much as the first and second, but I appreciated Record of a Spaceborn Few a bit more second and third time around, so I’m wondering if I’ll have the same experience with this one. So far, I’m not as emotionally involved with it as with the others, though.

In the Serial Reader app, I’m approaching the end of Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit, which is very different in tone to her Poirot books. The romance is very abrupt (though it’s very clear it’s coming), but it’s fun to watch the mystery unfold.

What will you read next?

I’ve got a couple of library books I’m interested in getting round to. Since it’s more or less spooky season, Lindy Ryan’s Cold Snap is a strong contender — and since it’s a novella, it’s a nice quick read that should fit in between other stuff I need to get done this evening.

Other than that, I think I’ll soon pick up The Bookshop, the Draper, The Candlestick Maker, by Annie Gray, for my next non-fiction read. Fiction-wise, I think I’m going to finally dig into Alexis Hall’s Mortal Follies, since I have the second book in the series out of the library. It’s a good thing I’m a fast reader, or I’d never read the first one before the second one needs to go back.

What about you?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Cyborg

Posted October 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cyborg

by Laura Forlano, Danya Glabau

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 222
Series: The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Forlano and Glabau offer critical cyborg literacy as a way of thinking through questions about the relationship between humanity and technology in areas such as engineering and computing, art and design, and health care and medicine, as well as the social sciences and humanities. Cyborg examines whether modern technologies make us all cyborgs — if we consider, for instance, the fact that we use daily technologies at work, have technologies embedded into our bodies in health care applications, or use technology to critically explore possibilities as artists, designers, activists, and creators. Lastly, Cyborg offers perspectives from critical race, feminist, and disability thinkers to help chart a path forward for cyborg theory in the twenty-first century.

This introduction to cyborg theory provides a critical vantage point for analyzing the claims around emerging technologies like automation, robots, and AI. Cyborg analyzes and reframes popular and scholarly conversations about cyborgs from the perspective of feminist cyborg theory. Drawing on their combined decades of training, teaching, and research in the social sciences, design, and engineering education, Laura Forlano and Danya Glabau introduce an approach called critical cyborg literacy. Critical cyborg literacy foregrounds power dynamics and pays attention to the ways that social and cultural factors such as gender, race, and disability shape how technology is imagined, developed, used, and resisted.

A concise introduction to cyborg theory that examines the way in which technology is situated, political, and embodied.

Danya Glabau and Laura Forlano’s Cyborg is not really about the sci-fi concept of being a cyborg. It’s a bit more down-to-earth and in the present, looking at the roles of low-paid workers and the risk of being replaced by (or at least forced to work with machines), and also the situation that people with disabilities are in with using prosthetics, reliant on technology that could suddenly stop working, etc. It’s an accessible introduction to “cyborg theory”, though it feels like reading very academic literary theory in some of the language choices, which makes it a tad less accessible. (Although I have my MA, I am not a great fan of reading literary theory.)

It does briefly touch on cyborgs in fiction, mentioning Seven of Nine but nothing more up to date, and basically dismissing Seven of Nine as not being really useful to discuss cyborg theory. I think it might behoove them to go a bit further than Star Trek: Voyager, which finished over a decade ago at this point. Characters like Ann Leckie’s Breq and Martha Wells’ Murderbot are relevant, I think, and have a lot to engage with even if you agree that Seven of Nine isn’t a worthwhile locus for discussion about the concept of cyborgs. There’s a lot of very recent fiction with very thoughtful things to say about the line between humans and machines, and when you know that, it feels a bit disingenuous to go no further than Seven of Nine.

That said, also entirely possible that they don’t really know anything about modern SF writing, and seriously think that Seven of Nine is where it’s at. A lot of people don’t consider SF “serious enough”. So I’m not saying it’s necessarily deliberate as an omission (nor that they should definitely have looked at Murderbot and Breq in particular). It’s just telling when someone uses such an out of date reference point and acts like that says something important.

That all sounds pretty critical, but I did find this interesting, slim though it is.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Danya Glabau, Laura Forlano, non-fiction, science

Review – Murder By Memory

Posted October 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Murder By Memory

by Olivia Waite

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction
Pages: 112
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this cozy, spaceborne mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, Murder by Memory is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’ next installment.

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.

Olivia Waite’s Murder By Memory compared itself to Dorothy L. Sayers and Ann Leckie, which was a huge ask — and I don’t think it worked. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t get Sayers from it (more Agatha Christie) and there wasn’t enough focus on the culture or enough gender fuckery to feel like a Leckie title. The comparison to A Memory Called Empire didn’t ring particularly true for me, either, but Miss Marple is an apt comparison.

It was a fun mystery, nonetheless, shaped by its setting rather than just pasted on, and I enjoyed Dorothy’s voice and the concept of the generation ship, the “books” that hold people’s memories, and the ingenious crime that makes use of that. Plus, it’s nice to have a detective fascinated by knitting, and shaped by a long life.

I’d be curious about more stories in the same world, and a few more peeks at things like the Antikythera Club, Crimes Committed, and of course, Dorothy and her interest in Violet. And knitting.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery, Olivia Waite, SF/F

Review – The Miniature Library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House

Posted October 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Miniature Library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House

by Elizabeth Clark Ashby

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 160
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
A unique look inside the carefully crafted miniature library of the Queen Mary's Dolls' House.

Created between 1921 and 1924, the Queen Mary's Dolls' House is one of the most beautiful and famous dollhouses in the world. The structure was designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and features the craftsmanship of over one thousand artists. The house was meticulously furnished, meant to serve as a representation of a real royal residence. It features electricity, running water, and working elevators, but perhaps most impressive of all is the house's spellbinding Edwardian library, which includes more than three hundred miniature books, curated by the granddaughter of Queen Victoria Princess Marie Louise and the writer E.V. Lucas, who contacted hundreds of renowned authors to solicit original works. From poetry by Thomas Hardy to stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and gardening books to atlases, these works represent British aristocratic life and the best examples of art and literature of the time.

The Miniature Library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House is accompanied by a Foreword by Her Majesty Queen Camilla, making it the premiere guidebook to the Crown's miniature royal residence.

The title of Elizabeth Clark Ashby’s book is a pretty good guide to the contents: The Miniature Library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House — though the book does also include some discussion of other aspects of the dolls’ house, such as the (working) miniature pianos and the decision not to include dolls, those aspects are brief. Mostly it focuses on the books: who wrote in them, how were they chosen, what did they write, and how were the books bound.

There’s some interesting discussion (though brief) of why particular people accepted or declined, and the whole thing is illustrated with colour photographs of many of the small books, including with them carefully opened to show some of the pages.

It’s a pretty enchanting idea, though a part of me wonders what the point is when it’s all “look and don’t touch”. If nobody ever opens the books to read these stories, was there really any point in making such lovely objects, except to demonstrate devotion to the monarchy requesting it? I don’t know.

As an endeavour, though, it’s really cool, and this book is a good tour of the little library and how it came to be.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Elizabeth Clark Ashby, history, non-fiction

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted October 12, 2024 by Nicky in General / 34 Comments

Hurrah for the weekend! I’m hoping to spend it mostly chilling out, but I do need to catch up on comments once more. One day I’ll be less terminally behind!

For now, here’s the weekly roundup.

Books acquired this week

This week it’s just library books, nothing new in the mail or on my ereader. I’d hoped a couple of holds would come in, but they hadn’t by the time I got down to the library, but I found myself some interesting alternatives anyway!

I’ve already read three of those, so apparently it was a very inspiring library trip!

Posts from this week

Here’s the reviews I’ve posted this week:

Non-fiction science/memoir: All That Remains, by Sue Black (5/5 stars)
Epistolary fantasy: Sorcery & Cecilia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (4/5 stars)
Classic mystery: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie (4/5 stars)
Poetry: The Lost Spells, by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (4/5 stars)

And other posts:

What I’m reading

It’s been quite a busy week for reading, with quite a few books finished that I plan to review on the blog. Here’s a sneak peek!

There are a couple of others I don’t plan to review, so it really has been a good week for it. I’m not sure what my weekend reading will be, to be honest. I want to whittle down the number of books I’m reading at once, so most likely one priority will be finishing my reread of Record of a Spaceborn Few (Becky Chambers). Other than that… I’ll let my whim guide me.

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

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – The Lost Spells

Posted October 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

The Lost Spells

by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 240
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Since its publication in 2017, The Lost Words has enchanted readers with its poetry and illustrations of the natural world. Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults.

The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers' minds. Robert Macfarlane's spell-poems and Jackie Morris's watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.

The Lost Spells is a lovely little volume containing poetry by Robert Macfarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris. The illustrations are really the focal point for me, but Macfarlane’s poetry is lovely too: not all of the poems are to my taste, but I can see him playing with words and sounds, and that each poem really is meant to be read out loud and to have a certain rhythm, a spell-binding power. There’s a lot of enjoyment in that, even when I don’t totally agree about a particular rhyme or sound.

You can also see this in the project that grew up around Macfarlane’s words, the Spell Songs project. I became aware of it because I like Karine Polwart’s solo work and enjoyed her collaboration on the Darwin Song Project, and I think listening to the songs really adds something. Two of my favourites are “The Snow Hare” and “Selkie Boy“.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Jackie Morris, poetry, Robert Macfarlane

Review – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Posted October 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

by Agatha Christie

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 308
Series: Poirot #4
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with an apparent drug overdose.

However the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information, but before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death. Luckily one of Roger’s friends and the newest resident to retire to this normally quiet village takes over—none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

If you can read Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd fresh, without knowing anything about it, I recommend you do! It’s a very clever story, and the reveal often surprises people.

That said, don’t let knowing the solution spoil it. For me, this time was a reread, but with enough time in between that I’d forgotten the significance of the clues, so that was a lot of fun too, trying to piece together the puzzle and remember the meaning/significance of the clues, while knowing the end result.

It’s a merciful break from my pet hate, Poirot’s friend Hastings. The book is narrated rather by a local man, James Sheppard, and though he also indulges himself sometimes in thinking that Poirot’s ridiculous, it’s less prominent. (I know some people feel fondly that Hastings is a himbo, and I can see that, but… he’s not my cup of tea.)

I don’t want to say too much about it, but it’s definitely my favourite of Christie’s work so far, even now I’ve read more of them (it was also the first of her books I read, back when I studied the development of crime fiction for a course at university).

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Agatha Christie, book reviews, books, crime, mystery

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 9, 2024 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Wednesday again; that keeps happening, somehow, as does this joke.

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I read Veronica Roth’s Arch-Conspirator more or less in one go. It’s a sci-fi retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone, and I’m still kind of digesting the ways it adapted that story. I think as an adaptation of Antigone, it doesn’t really use the same themes — more just the plot. Which is fine, but I’ve studied Antigone to death and had kind of expected a slightly different slant. I think I liked it, all the same.

What are you currently reading?

I’m most of the way through The Book at War by Andrew Pettegree, now. I returned the library copy for convenience’s sake, so I need to grab the Kindle copy to finish up. It did get a bit more interesting once it stopped being focused on early military education.

I’m also still reading Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, but I’ve barely touched that in a week because I was focusing on trying to finish other library books that needed to be returned. I should get back to it.

What are you going to read next?

In theory, there’s a bunch of library books which have been waiting a while, and it should be one of those. Most likely, I’m going to give Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us, by Anna Bogutskaya, a shot. I’m not much of a horror fan myself, even novels, but I find the fascination with it an interesting phenomenon.

I’m probably also going to give Richard Stark’s The Hunter a go; noir is not usually my thing, but a wide knowledge of trends in crime fiction (thanks to a course back in university) means I can find most anything in the genre interesting for how it slots into the bigger picture. Plus, I do think Raymond Chandler was a genius, so some noir has worked for me in the past.

How about you?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Brags & Confessions

Posted October 8, 2024 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

I skipped last week’s Top Ten Tuesday because I wasn’t feeling it, but this week’s theme is bookish brags and/or confessions, which sounds like fun. Let’s have a think…

Five brags:

I read really fast! If you’ve been around here much, you probably know that, but it still catches me by surprise sometimes. In the past, I’ve read around 500 books in a year, though I can’t manage so much now while I have a full-time workload with self-employment, plus a part-time degree: last year I managed 400 books, if I remember rightly. Which is still a lot!
I read a whole range of genres. I’m not sure if this is entirely a brag or just a fact, but it’s something that makes me happy and that I like to show off, so I guess I do think it’s a brag. I’ll never run out of reading material at this rate. (Looks nervously at TBR…)
I have autoapproval from Tor on Netgalley. It’s great, obviously.
My wife is a-okay with “has room for lots of bookcases” being a criteria for any home we rent or buy. I can, theoretically, understand that some people don’t want bookcases to be their primary piece of furniture. Theoretically. But I’m lucky enough that Lisa’s absolutely fine with my ever-expanding collection.
An author I love had actually heard of my blog (and liked it). I just about dissolved on the spot.

Five confessions:

I get jealous about how fast other people can read (or how much time they have to spare for reading). Like there are people who can read for more than 45 hours in 11 days every time Bookly do a readathon, and I don’t get how they fit it in around other obligations and hobbies. And sometimes I think those people are possibly lying about it. Which… kind of sucks of me, to be honest, because there are definitely people who think I’m lying about how much I read — and it really grinds my gears. I try not to give into this suspicion… but in that specific context, they do potentially have a big prize to win by lying, so I don’t think it’s quite the same as when people accuse me of bragging on social media.
Sometimes, I’d rather play FFXIV. I say this as a confession, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think there’s a risk of wrapping one’s whole identity around being bookish, at least for me, so it’s good for me to recognise that sometimes I’d actually rather play a video game… and I definitely know there are readers who think that’s awful of me. I don’t believe in being a purist about how books are always the best. Nope.
I think some book bloggers (and especially people on Bookstagram etc) are more interested in conspicuous consumption than books per se. The book hauls people post sometimes seem to be book hauls just for the sake of showing off. I worry about falling under that heading too, when I have my several-times-yearly trips to buy loads of books, or get spoiled for my birthday/Christmas. I try to keep my motive being sharing excitement, and to always ask myself if I want this book or just any book that I can show off. Sometimes the answer has been that I’m veering toward the latter, and then I put the book back. If I discover I really did want that specific book, it’ll be there another time.
I suck at listening to audiobooks. I get so impatient with the pace. I almost always put them on about 1.5x speed when I can.
I’m super bad at reading books to any kind of time frame. I’m a mood reader, and I stop reading altogether when I feel too much pressure to read something in particular. I always need to be able to just move with my whim.

Okay, it was harder to think of brags than I thought… but that was still fun. Very curious what other people have come up with!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Sorcery & Cecilia

Posted October 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Sorcery & Cecilia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

by Patricia C. Wrede, Caroline Stevermer

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 326
Series: Cecilia & Kate #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
A great deal is happening in London and the country this season.

For starters, there's the witch who tried to poison Kate at the Royal College of Wizards. There's also the man who seems to be spying on Cecelia. (Though he's not doing a very good job of it--so just what are his intentions?) And then there's Oliver. Ever since he was turned into a tree, he hasn't bothered to tell anyone where he is.

Clearly, magic is a deadly and dangerous business. And the girls might be in fear for their lives . . . if only they weren't having so much fun!

Sorcery & Cecilia is a fun epistolary novel that’s a little bit Austen-esque (or maybe Heyer-esque? hmm), but with magic added in. Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede co-wrote it through each creating a character and writing to each other about their adventures, without discussing the plot, each riffing off the details given by the other and adding to the ongoing plot.

Obviously it got tightened up and edited a bit before being published, and for the most part flows very smoothly. Despite being written by two different authors, the letters themselves are fairly uniform in tone and style, so it can be a little difficult to keep in mind the differences between the two girls at times. Because of the letter format, though, they’re always alternating, which helps.

It turns out to be a bit of a romance as well as a fantasy, as each of the girls makes new friends and allies; in both cases, they initially don’t exactly get along with the men, but it’s fairly obvious to the reader fairly quickly that they find them fascinating, and where it’s going to go, in a very classic sort of way.

It was a lot of fun to read and wraps up satisfyingly; I’m curious about the other two books, but not in a hurry to read them, since they were written with such a large gap between. Sorcery & Cecilia can definitely stand alone.

Rating: 4/5

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