Category: General

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted December 6, 2025 by Nicky in General / 19 Comments

Sadly, this week one of my rabbits died (RIP Hulk, aged 12), so I’m not feeling super chipper. I’ll get to replies when I can, but it might not be over the weekend. Sorry folks.

Books acquired this week

My wife swung by the library for my hold for me — I’ve had this on hold since mid-October, for a reading challenge that’s now ended, but ah well. People have been very keen about it, so I’m curious.

Cover of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Posts from this week

Let’s do a round-up, as usual! I’ve continued working on posting some of my backlogged reviews, so there are a few extra.

As usual, for some of these it’s been weeks/months since I read them, due to the way I try to post a mixture of review genres, and the many, many reviews I have ready to post. For this week’s reading, check below!

What I’m reading

It’s not been the best week for reading — though I’ve finished a bunch of books, they’re mostly manga/graphic novels — but oh well, such are my whims and needs, and I go with them. Here’s a sneak peek of the books I finished this week and plan to review on the blog, as usual.

Cover of A Boy Named Rose by Gaëlle Geniller Cover of The Stranger in the Hoarding House by Joe Aruku Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 4 by MXTX Cover of My Heart in Braille by Joris Chamblain

Cover of Posted in the Past by Helen Baggott Cover of The Great British Bump-Off by John Allison, Max Sarin et al Cover of Walking Practice by Dolki Min Cover of Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 1 by Itaru Kinoshita Cover of Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 2 by Itaru Kinoshita

For the weekend… I’m not sure what I’ll read. I haven’t been much in the mood for it (for obvious reasons), but I started on a new book and was suddenly quite into that, so maybe I’ll finish it: it was a bit of a random choice from my Kobo Plus borrows, Clues to Christabel by Mary Fitt. I’m also partway through another murder mystery, Death in Ambush, so I’d like to finish that. Aaaand some more Dinosaur Sanctuary, probably!

If I can get into a book, that would obviously be great and comforting, but if it doesn’t happen… well. That’s fine too.

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

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WWW Wednesday

Posted December 3, 2025 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Cover of The Great British Bump-Off by John Allison, Max Sarin et alWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was John Allison and Max Sarin’s The Great British Bump-Off, which is a comic based on shows like the Great British Bake-Off that also features, gasp, murder! Nobody actually dies in the course of the comic, actually, and it’s mostly a light-hearted giggle at the show/competition format with some classic mystery references and tropes. Pretty fun, and the art was nice, but not very substantial.

Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 5 by MXTXWhat are you currently reading?

I’ve started on volume five of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but life keeps getting in the way enough that I end up not quite in the mood. I reaaaaally want to finish it soon though. It’s grown on me as I went through the story, especially as I got used to the abrupt time transitions; I think I still like SVSSS and TGCF more, but it is fun.

I’m also reading Susan Gilruth’s Death in Ambush, this year’s Christmas-themed offering from the British Library Crime Classics series. It doesn’t actually feel very Christmassy, honestly; there’s some mention of buying Christmas presents, and putting up some decorations, but it’s more like a mystery that happens to be set around Christmas than one which uses Christmas for… any reason, really. The murder isn’t related to Christmas, there’s no requirement for footsteps in the snow, Christmas doesn’t seem to inform the timing… it’s not even really part of the atmosphere. Ah well, I’m not much for seasonally themed books usually anyway.

Cover of Walking Practice by Dolki MinWhat will you be reading next?

I’m planning to read Dolki Min’s novella Walking Practice today, for something short and sweet (well, sort of). It’s a bit of a random choice, not something I’ve seen other people talking about, but it came up in my recommendations on Kobo, and it’s in Kobo Plus, so I figured I might as well give it a shot.

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted November 29, 2025 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

Weekend time! And nearly the end of the month too; I cannot believe it’s about to be December.

Books acquired this week

This week we have two books acquired to review! Both from Netgalley; I’ve not been lucky enough (so far at least) to get physical copies.

Cover of Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett Cover of Platform Decay by Martha Wells

I’m excited for both! Technically I got the version of Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter with the UK cover, but I like this one better and I already had it saved, sooo. There you are.

Posts from this week

I’ve continued posting extras to get to grips with the pre-written review backlog, so there’s a bunch again for the roundup this week! As ever, don’t forget that most of them are books I read weeks/months ago by this point, so it doesn’t reflect this week’s reading. That’s below in the “What I’m reading” section!

Aaand if you were curious (as people often are) about why I bother to finish/rate/review low-star reads, I wrote about that not so long ago.

What I’m reading

After a quiet reading week last week, I finished eight books last weekend, so this was a bit more action-packed (inasfar as reading is action). Here’s a sneak peek at the ones I intend to review on the blog sometime:

Cover As If By Magic ed. Martin Edwards Cover of Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable for Grownups by Kathleen Founds Cover of Delicious in Dungeon vol 1, by Ryoko Kui Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 2 by MXTX

Cover of Answering Back ed. Carol Ann Duffy Cover of The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh Cover of Do You Really Only Want a Meal? vol 2 by Yasu Tadano Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 3 by MXTX

Cover of One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny Cover of Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher Cover of Swordcrossed by Freya Marske

As you see, I’ve been busy, though my reading did slow down after the weekend.

As for the weekend’s plans, I’m not sure. I’ve finished my Book Spin Bingo card early for once, so I think I might chill with some manga/graphic novels, and maybe read volume four of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. As ever, though, it’s down to my whim!

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

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WWW Wednesday

Posted November 26, 2025 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Cover of One Night in Hartswood by Emma DennyWhat have you recently finished reading?

One Night in Hartswood, by Emma Denny. It was… okay. There was nothing in it that I outright bounced off, other than the fairly genre-typical lack of communication/lying about identity, but I didn’t super click with it either. Sometimes that kind of predictability is comforting, but usually something else (like characters I adore) compensates for it to pull me in, and that didn’t seem to happen here for me.

Cover of Swordcrossed by Freya MarskeWhat are you currently reading?

I’m in the midst of two books: Freya Marske’s Swordcrossed, and T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Faith. I haven’t totally gotten into the former yet, though there’s nothing so far to dislike beyond a worry that Luca’s lies are going to fuck things over in a way that I find both predictable and annoying.

As far as Paladin’s Faith goes, Kingfisher’s usual wit makes this fun, but I’m not sure about the match-up of Shane and Marguerite, or indeed about spending much time with this particular flavour of self-hating guilty paladin. All Kingfisher’s paladins seem to run basically the same software, and that can get frustrating.

Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 4 by MXTXWhat will you read next?

Volume four of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, pretty certainly. I was very tempted to start it already, but I’m trying to focus on finishing up my Book Spin Bingo reads first — especially since I have only two left to finish (the books I’m currently reading), so I’m really close to a blackout that isn’t super last minute, for once!

Anyway, I don’t adore MDZS as much as many seem to, but I’m having fun, and I kinda want to strike while the iron is hot after finishing volume three on Monday. But we’ll see!

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted November 22, 2025 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Wooo, weekend! This one feels much-needed.

Books acquired this week

Just one this week! I’ve been waiting for this book for a bit, so hurrah for its arrival:

Cover of The Beauty's Blade by Feng Ren Zuo Shi

I need to read it soon because I’m considering it as a Christmas gift for someone, so I might get started very soon.

Reviews from this week

I’ve continued posting extra reviews from the backlog of (ready-written) reviews I have to post, catching myself up a bit on the backlog. So a roundup definitely seems like a good idea! As ever, click the links to read the full review.

Reminder: I read most of these months ago, my ratings here don’t indicate whether I had a good or bad reading week!

What I’m reading

I’ve had a pretty slow reading week! I had quite a few books in progress at once, but I didn’t finish a lot, since I wasn’t really in the mood (in part because my attention got swallowed by playing the game Dispatch). Ah well! Here are the books I did finish and intend to review on the blog:

Cover of Church Going: A Stonemason's Guide to the Churches of the British Isles, by Andrew Ziminski Cover of Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand Cover of Finding My Elegy by Ursula Le Guin

I’m not sure what I’ll be reading this weekend, to be honest. I have several books on the go, so I’d like to finish some of them! First target: probably As If By Magic, a collection of classic crime stories. But we’ll see how it goes.

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

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WWW Wednesday

Posted November 19, 2025 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Cover of Death in High Heels by Christianna BrandWhat have you recently finished reading?

It’s actually been a few days since I finished anything, so it took me a minute to figure it out! The last thing I finished was Ursula Le Guin’s Finding My Elegy, which is a mix of then-new poems and some older selections. I found it a bit of a weird mix at times.

Before that, I finished Christianna Brand’s Death in High Heels, of which I wasn’t a big fan. I always find her kinda mean, as a writer, and the homophobia on top in this one didn’t help.

Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol 2 by MXTXWhat are you currently reading?

A few books at once, it will surprise no one to hear. I’m still partway through volume two of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, which I should just sit down and try to binge a bit, because it’ll probably work better for me that way. I’m also rereading Vivian Shaw’s Grave Importance at last, getting back to that in order to go on and read the new book, and I’ve started the recent British Library Crime Classic collection, As If By Magic (edited by Martin Edwards as usual), which is pretty fun since it’s impossible mysteries.

Other than that, I also picked up Sam Leith’s The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading, which I’m enjoying so far. It’s quite a big book, but even so there’s never going to be any way that it could be comprehensive, but I knew that going in.

Aaaand I almost forgot, because I left the book in my reading nook, but I’m also finally reading Kaite Welsh’s The Wages of Sin, which is so far interesting but a bit grim (female medical student in Edinburgh when women have first been admitted to the medical course, also she’s clearly been assaulted and blamed for it, also she’s working with prostitutes and the poor).

Cover of Paladin's Faith by T. KingfisherWhat will you be reading next?

Honestly, no clue. I’ll probably start on T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Faith soon, since I’m currently working on reading books I’ve bought this year, but that’s a ways out since I have a bunch of books on the go already. Who knows what my whim will be by the time I’m through the current pile?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted November 15, 2025 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

It’s the weekend, and I at least am very ready for it!

Books acquired this week

My monthly British Library Crime Classic arrived! Not one of the authors I like best, but it should be fun anyway.

Cover of Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand

I’ve started on it already.

Posts from this week

Time for a bit of a roundup, especially since I’ve been posting extra reviews this week. I still have many more waiting to be posted, but hopefully with a couple extra per week, I won’t get a post backlog that’s too silly… As usual, here are all the links to the full reviews!

Other posts:

What I’m reading

It’s been a bit of a quieter week, reading-wise, with some pretty disappointing reads. Ah well, it happens! Here’s a peek as usual at the books I intend to review on the blog:

Cover of The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John Strausbaugh Cover of Home Sick Pilots vol 3 by Dan Watters Cover of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 4 by Xue Shan Fei Hu Cover of Eat Me by Bill Schutt

Cover of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes, by Shahidha Bari Cover of Strangers and Intimates by Tiffany Jenkins Cover of The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner

Over the weekend… I’ll probably work on finishing up with Christianna Brand’s Death in High Heels, which I have in progress, and I hope to get chance to read more of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation too. Other than that, I’m not sure; I randomly started on Andrew Ziminski’s Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles last night, and might focus on that.

In the end, though, it’s all down to whatever whim strikes me!

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

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WWW Wednesday

Posted November 12, 2025 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Cover of Eat Me by Bill SchuttWhat have you recently finished reading?

I skimmed and ditched Shahidha Bari’s Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes because it was pretentious as fuck, gender essentialist to the max, and misgendered a (fictional) trans girl constantly in a discussion about her clothing. So that was kind of a bust.

Before that I read Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt, that occasionally veered into a bit of sensationalism (e.g. says the author tries out cannibalism in the blurb: he eats a piece of someone else’s placenta, to be clear) but had some interesting stuff and sent me on a deep dive into how prion diseases work that contradicted what I learned during my degrees (or rather, suggested that it’s more theoretical and less proven than I thought).

Cover of Strangers and Intimates by Tiffany JenkinsWhat are you currently reading?

I’ve been keeping my “currently reading” list surprisingly clear for a few weeks, but I started a few at once in the last few days searching for something that would properly grab my interest. I’m in the mood to steamroller through a book, but apparently it has to be the right book.

One of the books I started is Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Public Life, by Tiffany Jenkins. This is the one I’m probably closest to just sitting down and steamrollering through, to be honest, but it’s a little harder to just do that because it’s a several-hour read sort of book. I’m finding it very interesting so far.

I also started C.M. Waggoner’s The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, which is starting out very self-consciously small-town-mystery, and there’s obviously (very obviously) some kind of supernatural influence forcing events to mimic a cosy mystery with a Miss Marple-ish detective. I’m a little curious how it’s going to turn out, but I’d like it to start getting somewhere soon.

Aaand finally I started volume two of MXTX’s Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. I’m having a little bit of a rough time keeping track of names and clans, which isn’t helping my enthusiasm, even if I have tried-and-true methods of getting to grips with all that as I read. I’m reminding myself firmly that I couldn’t keep track of Mu Qing, Feng Xin, Nan Feng and Fu Yao at first, and it all fell into place easily enough. Still, might not be in quite the right mood for this, especially with that 184-page opening chapter (even if it is broken into parts).

Cover of The Beauty's Blade by Feng Ren Zuo ShiWhat will you be reading next?

Feng Ren Zuo Shu’s The Beauty’s Blade is out, and I need to read that post-haste to see if I want to get it for my sister for Christmas. (Uhhh, look away, if you’re reading this, Squirtle!)

Other than that, I’m still eyeing Kaite Welsh’s The Wages of Sin, especially since it’s on my Book Spin Bingo board, and also the idea of getting back to my reread of the Greta Helsing books so I can read the new one (meaning it’d be time for Grave Importance).

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Top Ten Tuesday: Outside the Comfort Zone

Posted November 11, 2025 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is about books you’ve read (or want to read) that are outside your comfort zone. I read so widely/apparently randomly that it’s kinda hard to define what my comfort zone looks like, especially since each book holds the potential to expand it, but let’s see what I can come up with!

Cover of Feed by Mira Grant Cover of Eat Me by Bill Schutt Cover of Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù Cover of What Moves The Dead, by T. Kingfisher

  1. Feed, by Mira Grant. Granted, I adore this one now, but I didn’t always. When I first read it, it made me feel reaaaally on edge and uncomfortable, because horror isn’t my thing and the idea of everyone being infected with a cocktail of viruses that could turn them into zombies at any time was… yeah, definitely dancing around on my anxieties.
  2. Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt. I just finished this one, but I think it counts; it’s not really a topic I’m interested in per se, definitely not for prurient interest, but I decided to give it a go because it wasn’t a subject I’m very familiar with, and new knowledge is always of interest to me. I need to write up my review of this one, because I just finished it last night!
  3. Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal. By heavy contrast to the previous two, ahaha, this is a Regency-ish Austenesque fantasy. It is actually pretty squarely in my comfort zone now, but when I read it I tended to be allergic to anything that smacked of Jane Austen, wasn’t a romance fan, and in general wasn’t best positioned to enjoy it. I didn’t rate it very highly the first time, but I revisited and enjoyed it more, and particularly started enjoying Glamour in Glass, the second book.
  4. The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. This was my first danmei, and I really wasn’t sure whether I was going to like it. I remember reading it in a hotel room in Bath during a long weekend getaway with my wife, and just constantly making WTF noises at it — all I’d really understood going into the story was that the two main characters were canonically terrible at sex, and that some people really really loved the books. I don’t know why I picked them over Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or Heaven Official’s Blessing, which might’ve been less weird introductions to danmei… but hey, it ultimately worked. I finished the first book and decided that I did really need to know where it went. That said, the series still kinda sits on the edge of my comfort zone for a couple of reasons: the student/teacher relationship (which I feel is carefully managed and balanced in context, but is still on edge of what I’m okay with) and the fact that it’s a satire of a genre I don’t really know (the cultivation novel).
  5. What Moves The Dead, by T. Kingfisher. I am a wimp about horror. I’ve read a surprising amount of it for someone who isn’t a horror fan, one way or another, but it’s still not my comfy genre. What Moves The Dead was pretty brilliant, but it also freaked me out, dancing around the edge of my anxieties about contamination and disease.
  6. Spillover, by David Quammen. I hardly need to write an explanation of this anymore for regulars here, who won’t be surprised to see it in the list! Back when I read Spillover, I was deliberately forcing myself to be curious about something that terrified me: infectious disease. A popular science book seemed like a reasonably controlled way to do it. It wasn’t comfy reading for me, though it helped that spillover events don’t generally happen in UK back gardens, and that Quammen is very measured and careful in assessing risks. Now, of course, I have an MSc in infectious diseases (or I will once my graduation ceremony is held); Quammen really started something for me. It was also part of my initial attempts to read more non-fiction (which now constitutes about 30% of what I read), so, yeah, a great success all round.
  7. Crypt of the Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud. This was an impulse read from the library, one I knew wouldn’t be a comfortable one for me given the premise. It ultimately turned out more uncomfortable for me than I’d expected with some vivid imagery (let’s just say it’s not one for the arachnophobic, and leave it there), and I didn’t love it.
  8. Yellowface, by Rebecca F. Kuang. This ended up being a five-star read for me, but I tend toward genre reads rather than this more literary sort of choice, so I really wasn’t sure how I’d find it. It felt like watching a trainwreck, with a main character both despicable and pitiable, and it was fascinating.
  9. The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart. I remember reading this as one of the first Mary Stewart books I read — I can’t remember if it was the first, that might’ve been Touch Not The Cat, but I definitely wasn’t sure whether it was going to be my thing. It was definitely before I started reading romance in general, at any rate. And I had a lot of fun!
  10. Solo Leveling (manhwa adaptation), by Dubu. I wasn’t sure whether Solo Leveling would be my thing: it sounded a bit dark, and very battle focused. Honestly, I’m not sure why I did give it a shot — but I ended up really sucked in, and quickly acquired the whole series. Now I definitely wouldn’t say no to trying the light novel, too.

Cover of Spillover by David Quamnem Cover of Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud Cover of Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang Cover of The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart Cover of Solo Levelling (manhwa) vol 1, by Chugong, Debu

So there we go, I did manage to come up with ten! Very curious to see what others’ picks are.

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted November 8, 2025 by Nicky in General / 25 Comments

Happy weekend!

Books acquired this week

N/a! I’m working on reading some of the books I’ve got this year and haven’t started yet, and some backlog books, so I can meet my reading targets. If there’s something really tempting I’ll get it, there’s no book ban or anything, but I’m pretty happy with my current lineup.

Posts from this week

And now for the usual roundup! I haven’t started posting extra reviews yet, but I should pick a couple of days a week to do so, or figure out how to bundle some together, because the backlog of reviews to post is getting a liiiiittle bit out of hand. They’re all written, I just don’t want to spam y’all.

Anyway, here are the reviews I did post!

And the non-review posts:

What I’m reading

My reading’s been a bit calmer this week, ahaha, but there’s still plenty! Here’s the usual sneak peek of books I plan to review on the blog soon:

Cover of Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw Cover of Tied to You vol. 2 by WHAT and Chelliace Cover of Tied to You vol. 3 by WHAT and Chelliace Cover of Tied to You vol. 4 by WHAT and Chelliace Cover of The Secret Life of Lego Bricks by Daniel Konstanski

Cover of The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley Cover of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters For Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden Cover of Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley Cover of Home Sick Pilots vol 2 by Dan Watters Cover of Pyramids by Joyce Tyldesley

As for this weekend’s plans… the final volume of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, probably. I keep saying that, but I do really want to get to it! Other than that, who knows?

[ETA: I just want to be clear, posting that I’ve read The Genetic Lottery does not constitute a recommendation. I would rate it 1/5, “didn’t like it”. I posted my review earlier than intended if you want to check that out!]

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

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