Category: General

WWW Wednesday

Posted May 13, 2026 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I polished off volume nine of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa in one fell swoop, which is fun. I found the whole thing with the Catastrophe of Questions so frustrating (stop! answering! his questions! how many times do you have to be told!) but I am veeeery intrigued by the ways Junghyeok is surprising Dokja.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve got back to my reread of the light novel version of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, hoping to finish volume one today. Boooy, it’s so awkward at first, but I do love Aresh’s obviously growing crush.

Other than that, I actually finished the books I had most “on deck” at the moment, but I still have loads of books I’ve technically started, so I’ll get back to those next. I got the latest British Library Crime Classic this week (Carter Dickson’s The Unicorn Murders), but only read a chapter, so probably I’ll focus on that next. I also got an early copy of Ann Leckie’s Radiant Star, and definitely want to spend more time with that!

What will you be reading next?

I think it’d normally be quite sufficient to focus on the books I’ve already started, but I did just get volume three of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint light novel, and volume ten of the manhwa… so you know, probably those.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: May Flowers

Posted May 12, 2026 by Nicky in General / 27 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme celebrates flowers, which is another opportunity for me to look at book covers a bit more closely! I’m not a very visual person and often don’t notice/remember covers, so I’ve been enjoying this kind of topic lately. Let’s see what I can do!

Flowers are such a common element of cover design that I had trouble picking favourites — especially when it came to danmei and baihe, where cherry blossoms abound!

I haven’t read all of these books yet (Thistlemarsh is still on my TBR, and I only just started Princeweaver), and some of the books I didn’t love… but the cover designs stood out for one reason or another for all of them. I was surprised by the relatively dark theme in the second row until I added in The Beauty’s Blade there to break it up a bit: you don’t always associate flowers with that kind of dark cover, but here we are.

Curious to see what others have picked today!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Fantasy with Friends: Early Memories

Posted May 11, 2026 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Time for another Fantasy with Friends discussion post! As ever, the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, and this week’s is about what got you interested in the genre:

Is there a particular fantasy that got you interested in the genre? Do you remember any of the earliest fantasy books you read?

Given that my mother’s a fantasy reader as well, I think fantasy stories were just stories to me, rather than thinking in terms of genre. Lots of the books I had as a kid were fantastical in some way, some more so than others; I read a lot of Enid Blyton’s work, for instance, where the Famous Five books are not fantasy, but she also wrote The Magic Faraway Tree. I know I had a box set of the Narnia books, too, with cover art that I personally prefer to all the others I’ve seen, but which hasn’t been reused (alas).

That said, I know that after I read The Hobbit, I pestered Mum for more like it, by which I think I meant fantasy (and she certainly took it to be so). She didn’t let me read The Lord of the Rings until I was a bit older, to make sure I would understand and properly appreciate it, but I have vivid memories of many of the fantasy books she lent me from her shelves. Raymond E. Feist’s Magician was definitely a major early player, along with David Eddings’ work. There’s a lot of nostalgia there, though I doubt I’d revisit David Eddings’ work now, being aware of his extensive child abuse directed at his adopted children. I can’t remember quite when I got A Wizard of Earthsea for Christmas, but probably somewhere around 10-11 years old.

I can’t quite picture where I started seeking out and choosing fantasy books of my own, either — probably in a small way I was doing that all along, but often following Mum’s suggestions and recommendations to help me choose. I know that by the time I was in my mid-teens, Mum and I were both reading Robin Hobb’s Farseer books, and visiting the Waterstones in town for their SF/F section (and to attend a reading and Q&A session by Robin Hobb). At the same time I was reading Neil Gaiman for myself for sure (sadly he’s also tainted his own legacy), Tad Williams, Sarah Zettel…

I can definitely remember when it started becoming more the other way round, too, which was probably most marked from when I was 18 or so: I’d discover the authors and get Mum interested, in my turn. I borrowed Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora from the library when I was at university, and persuaded her to read it. (No, I still haven’t read Republic of Thieves, though. Someday. If people don’t nag me.)

Overall, definitely heavily influenced by Mum’s taste in books, especially until I went off to university and spent more time browsing in bookshops on my own, exploring via library books and second-hand sales, etc.

Tags: books, discussions, Fantasy With Friends

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 9, 2026 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

Oof, another long week, but here we are on the other side!

Books acquired this week

This week I’ve been blessed with a couple of review copies from Hachette/Orbit, one of them being extremely exciting to me: the new Ann Leckie!

I’m hoping to dig into both pretty soon; I’ve been meaning to read more of Fonda Lee’s work as well, though I think Radiant Star is likely to jump the queue straight onto my currently-reading pile, ahaha.

I also “had to” grab a book to fill out an order for express delivery (oh no), so I picked up a highly anticipated non-fiction:

I’m excited to dig into this as well: I’ve always been fascinated with Pompeii, and (to the complaints of my traveling companion) thoroughly explored every area tourists had access to when I visited.

Finally, I’ve been trying to keep up my explorations of poetry, despite the sad news about Carol Rumens (editor of the Guardian‘s poetry column, which I’d been using to give me ideas). So here’s a couple of books I borrowed from the National Poetry Library:

Posts from this week:

I’ve kept up with posts pretty well, so there’s plenty to highlight. Starting with the reviews:

Fantasy novella: Fate’s Bane, by C.L. Clark (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy light novel: Solo Leveling, vol 3, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: Ramesses the Great: Egypt’s King of Kings, by Toby Wilkinson (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
Poetry: Felicity, by Mary Oliver (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
Non-fiction: How Flowers Made Our World, by David George Haskell (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

As ever, these aren’t a reflection of my reading week — often the reviews I post are of books I finished a couple of months ago, depending on the genre. See below for this week’s reads!

First, though, there have been some non-review posts, though Let’s Talk Bookish is currently on hiatus. Here’s the roundup:

What I’m reading:

I’m still not up to my normal reading speed, but I added a little daily habit for this month that I’m hoping will at least keep things moving: every day, I read at least 15 minutes of whichever book I’m closest to finishing. That has been pretty effective so far, whittling down my currently-reading pile from 30 to 26 since the start of the month. That said, I think I’m going to undo all that work this weekend by starting new books, ahaha.

In any case, here are the books I’ve finished this week!

It’s been a pretty good week for reading! I’m not sure what I’ll focus on this weekend, honestly. I think the book I’m next-closest to finishing is Ai Jiang’s A Palace Near the Wind, so probably I’ll spend some time with that, and I probably want to start Radiant Star and The Lost Voices of Pompeii.

I’ve had a busy and weird couple weeks, though, so I’ll probably mostly follow whatever urge hits me: I’m keen to read more of Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen, for instance.

Hope everyone’s been having a good week, and I wish you all a nice weekend!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

WWW Wednesday

Posted May 6, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

Just earlier I finished TJ Klune’s We Burned So Bright, which… I don’t think it was a good moment for me to read it in general, given the themes, but also I didn’t think it was that well done. A bit info-dumpy in structure, and the black hole swallowing the world did not feel “real”.

What are you currently reading?

You know the drill by now: a lot of things at once. But most actively, Jarod K. Anderson’s Strange Animals, which I wasn’t sure if I would like, but I’m pretty hooked on it — from the point with the rag moth, which I found a fascinating scene. I’m very curious where the whole thing is going.

Other than that, I’m still reading Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen, which I paused last week to try to finish some other reading. I’m not so interested in the royalty part, just the artisans and craftspeople working on the clothes, and it’s giving me that in spades.

Also on pause awaiting a free evening to just mainline it is Ross Montgomery’s The Murder at World’s End, which definitely has classic mystery vibes. Aunt Decima and the protagonist are kinda reminding me of the dynamic between Ana and Din in Robert Jackson Bennett’s series.

What will you be reading next?

Speaking of Ana and Din… possibly my eARC of the new one! However, I also know there are two physical review copies wending their way to me courtesy of Hachette, one of them being Leckie’s Radiant Star, so — maybe that?!

But as ever, really it’ll be down to my whim.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Picked Up On a Whim

Posted May 5, 2026 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

I wasn’t feeling inspired by this week’s topic, since the only answers that leaped to mind for deceased authors I wish were still writing were Tolkien and Le Guin, and non-deceased authors… well, you never know, they might be writing something as we speak! I live in hope. I poked around a bit online trying to jog my memory, but nothing felt really authentic, in the end.

So I went and looked at old topics, and picked #294: “Ten books I picked up on a whim.” I do a lot of whim-driven buying when I go to a physical bookshop: honestly, that’s the main reason I go to bookshops: not to buy the books I know I want, but to explore what else is out there.

Here are some that I picked up on a whim and loved! I’ll count library books as well as books I bought, and I’ll link the reviews when they’re already up on my blog. In some cases they

Ramesses the Great, by Toby Wilkinson.
I wasn’t actually sure if I’d like it, since I remembered finding something else by Wilkinson a bit tedious… but I’m glad I gave it the chance, because I found it totally riveting. Despite a lifelong interest in ancient Eygpt, I hadn’t dug very deep into most specific pharoahs, not even Ramesses the Great, and I ended up telling several people aaaaall sorts of things based on this book.
Tied to You, by WHAT/Chelliace.
This was a random borrow from the library via ComicsPlus, because it kept popping up when I was idly browsing for ideas for what to read, and I was curious about the concept (which is basically that every person has a “ring partner”, and if they touch them after they’re both of age, then a bond forms between them so they have to be physically together in order to sleep, and sleep wonderfully when they are together). It should not be mistaken for portraying a healthy romance because oh boy it does not, but I really enjoyed the twists and turns in getting Wooseo to eventually accept the fact that Jigeon is his ring partner for good.
Mr Collins in Love, by Lee Welch.
I am not a huge Austen fan, and I’d seen someone whose taste I trust praise it highly, so I approached this with a pretty open mind, despite the fact that it’s Mr Collins. I found it was very well done, with sympathy for a could-have-been Collins.
The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.
I almost wasn’t expecting to like this one, because it was a random pick solely because I thought it’d be a good one to review for Postcrossing. I ended up really enjoying it, because it does a good job at giving us characterisation through letters, and drawing out some small mysteries to keep things intriguing while the main character slowly works things through. It’s not a book in which stuff happens, more of a character study.
A Boy Named Rose, by Gaëlle Geniller.
This was another random find via ComicsPlus, and I loved the gentle exploration of Rose’s love of dancing and his slow branching out into the world outside where he grew up. The blurb of the book makes it sound more dramatic than it really is.
A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke.
I keep banging on about this one since it’s a recent read, heh. But it really was an interesting history, selecting unexpected poems and digging into contexts I hadn’t thought of.
Moon Cop, by Tom Gauld.
I love Gauld’s comic strips, but wasn’t sure what I’d make of something longer. I hadn’t expected the melancholy tone of this one, but it worked really well, actually.
Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt.
I know, it doesn’t sound a very appetising subject, but nonetheless I found it really interesting, especially being introduced to alternative ideas about prion diseases and how they might spread.
Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles, by Andrew Ziminski.
Very much a whim for me here, because I’m not interested in churches or architecture per se — but I am always interested in someone enthusing about something, and that’s definitely what I got here. I did have a few critiques of the book, and honestly I don’t remember much of the actual detail, but it was soothingly fascinated in a subject that I didn’t have to agonise about at all, so I could let it wash over me, and that was at the time exactly what I wanted.
Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold On Us, by Anna Bogutskaya.
This was a random choice from the library — especially random because I’m not that interested in horror! Especially not horror movies, which this was predominantly about. But it was pretty fascinating, all the same. I didn’t like the author’s other book nearly so much, sadly, but I’m still glad I read this one!

Hope everyone’s having a good week so far!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Fantasy With Friends: Further Reading

Posted May 4, 2026 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

A new week, and a new Fantasy with Friends discussion post! The prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, and this week’s is about fantasies that have inspired you to do further reading:

Has reading a fantasy book ever inspired you to do further research into something else? (ex. Read a classic the book is inspired by/read a history text/read nonfiction writings by the author/research a specific topic)

Almost certainly, but I’m having trouble dragging anything to mind! Tolkien’s an obvious one for me: I actually studied Tolkien for a taught module during my MA, and we read a lot of stories which were… “sources” is the wrong word, but “inspirations” and “patterns” that Tolkien borrowed little bits from and did tribute to in creating his world. I wrote the assignment on “Northern courage” in his work, so I was reading stuff like ‘The Battle of Maldon’, the Prose and Poetic Eddas, and also a lot of the posthumous volumes that got pumped out with his notes, letters, etc. But I don’t think that quite counts here, since it was for a class!

I guess one example that fits is Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice, in which Greta Helsing (yes, a descendent of that van Helsing) is a GP, and tends to the medical needs of London’s supernatural community. The story features several famous public domain characters, like Lord Ruthven and Varney the Vampyre. I’d read a few of the source texts before and was on nodding acquaintance with some others, but I’ve sought out a few more since plunging into this series.

Other than that, I can’t think of any right now, but maybe I’ll have to edit some in if I remember. Definitely curious to hear what fantasy novels might have inspired others to go further afield and do some extra reading!

Tags: books, discussions, Fantasy With Friends

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 2, 2026 by Nicky in General / 32 Comments

Oof, that was a busy week! I’ve been making up for it so far this weekend by lazing around: I don’t usually wait so late in the day to compose my weekend post. So without further ado…

Books acquired this week

I didn’t do much shopping while I was in London, since it was a flying visit, but while I was waiting for my train home in the evening, I did pop into Hatchard’s in St Pancras International. I actually had some credit for free books on my Waterstones card, and of course you can use that at Hatchard’s too.

In other words, it was inevitable! I got a few new non-fiction books:

I’ve been looking at the first two for a bit, the first because of my interest in fashion history, and the second because I love that kind of popular history. As far as The Black Death goes… well, given I was in London to receive my MSc in Infectious Diseases, it seemed only right, since the book was right there and so appropriate.

I did pick up a couple of fiction books I’ve been curious about, as well:

I’ve been curious about The Murder at World’s End since I saw it in the shop and then only a couple of days later saw Mogsy’s (very enthusiastic) review; I dove into that one almost right away, and I’m enjoying it so far. Thistlemarsh is one I’ve mostly seen on people’s wishlists, and haven’t seen many reviews (if any?) for yet.

Posts from this week

I didn’t post quite as much this week as usual, since there was no Let’s Talk Bookish prompt, and I was too busy on a couple of days. Still, there’s plenty to round up even so! Reviews first:

Fantasy mystery: The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, by C.M. Waggoner (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Mystery: Murder at Gulls Nest, by Jess Kidd (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Non-fiction: Boring Postcards USA, by Martin Parr (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Romance manga: Do You Really Want Only a Meal? vol 2, by Yasu Tadano (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy manga: Delicious in Dungeon, vol 1, by Ryoko Kui (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, some of these reviews have been waiting in the wings for a while, since I have a huge backlog of reviews written and not yet posted, and I try to mix things up rather than dump sixteen reviews of a manga series in one go, ahaha.

And of course, there were other posts this week:

Really, I think I kept busy enough around here, ahaha.

What I’m reading

It’s been a mixed week, reading-wise; I read quite a bit last weekend, and then only 20 minutes or so per day for the last couple of days. As ever, I have a sneak peek at the books I’ve finished this week which I plan to review:

Lots of non-fiction, as you see! I’m hoping to settle down to some fiction this weekend and finish S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, and I’ve already found myself quite drawn to The Murder at World’s End, so I’ll probably focus on those two. I do want to read more of Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen… and I’ve vowed to finish Gareth Russell’s Queen James as well.

Quite the stack I have before me — oh nooo, what shall I do, etc.

Hope everyone’s got a fun and/or relaxing weekend planned!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

April Reading Wrap-Up

Posted May 2, 2026 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Here we go! May already, and the weather here’s been beautiful — you could almost mistake it for summer. But before I really get started on May, let’s wrap up April…

April in general:

The beginning of the month was fairly quiet, but towards the end I got into a bit of a rush, with some busy moments with work stuff and of course the second part of my graduation. My graduation from the University of London was the fanciest ceremony I’ve had, and I had to bow to the deputy vice chancellor as I crossed the stage, which was a new one for me!

Either way, I am now definitely officially an MSc, woooo. Given my track record (now BA Hons, MA, BSc Hons, MSc) you might be asking when I’m going to study next and what it might be, and the answer is that I really don’t know. I’m sure there’ll be something, but I don’t know yet what it will be.

Alongside lots of work stuff, I have still been gaming a-plenty. I’ve barely lifted the lid on the new patch content in Final Fantasy XIV, but my group did complete the third fight of this raid tier this month, which is nice! We’re not the fastest group, but we’ve been faster this tier than last time, and have been making good progress.

As for my casual gaming, April was the month I got into hidden object games, and oh boy, I did not expect to get so hooked. Special shoutouts to the Find All series, Devcats’ games like Devcats‘ A Castle Full of Cats and An Arcade Full of Cats (the latter has a bunch of levels free!), Lost and Found Co. (which is the game that started me on this track), and the adorable Hidden Capybaras with Orange games, with the Spooky Edition being free. I did also get sucked into the world of PowerWash Simulator…

In other words, I’ve been busy with plenty of things other than books. Still, there has been a fair bit of reading too!

Reading stats:

Total books read: 23
Total pages read: 5,078
Rereads: 1
ARCs: 2
Series finished/up to date: 0
Books owned pre-2026: 2
Books owned from 2026: 11
Borrowed books: 10

Fiction: 10
Non-fiction: 7
Poetry: 6
Comics, manga, manhwa, etc: 2

Somewhat fewer books again than March, unfortunately. I’d love to see the numbers go back up again, as getting plenty of reading time tends to be linked with better moods for me. Still, I’m not going to kick myself for not “achieving”: I read for fun, darn it.

Progress on reading goals:

Overall total books read: 116/400 (17 books behind)
Overall total pages read: 27,914/100,000 (5,237 pages behind)
Books read from backlog: 25/100
Books owned since 2026 and not yet started: 20/20

As expected with my “low” (relative to my usual) book/page counts this month, I’m slipping on the annual goals. This often happens, and I usually read more intensively in the latter months of the year, for some reason.

Blogging stats:

Views: 21.8k
Visitors: 20.7k
Likes: 289
Comments: 351
Reviews: 26
Other posts: 22

It looks like a huge step up from last month, but I’d bet a significant amount of it is bots, so I’m not sure how reasonable it is to quote these numbers!

Most viewed posts:

Review – The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, vol 1 (78 views)
Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 3 (70 views)
Stacking the Shelves 13th September 2014 (61 views)
Review – Strange Buildings (53 views)
Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Describe Me (44 views)

Not sure what’s going on with that StS post, but probably bots, let’s be real.

My own favourite posts:

Stuff I loved from elsewhere:

From Books, Bones & Buffy: The Geomagician, by Jennifer Mandula – Review, by Tammy
From Reactor: The Book News Isn’t All Bad, by Molly Templeton
From Books, Bones & Buffy: JAPANESE GOTHIC by Kylie Lee Baker – Review, by Tammy
From Books, Bones & Buffy: THE LANGUAGE OF LIARS by S.L. Huang – Review, by Tammy
From There’s Always Room For One More…: The Mercy of Gods, by imyril
From The Bibliosanctum: The Geomagician, by Jennifer Mandula, by Mogsy
From Keira’s Bookmark: [Review] This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews, by Keira

And that, finally, is a wrap — let’s put April to bed.

And given the time (midnight), let’s put me to bed too. Happy weekend!

Tags: books, monthly wrapup

WWW Wednesday

Posted April 29, 2026 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Joseph Howgego’s The Meteorite Hunters, which was pretty good. I liked it more than Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites, even though at times they were covering the same thing, I think because Howgego stuck to a more popular-science framework while Gordon was a bit more focused on cultural stuff at times.

Before that, I finished Anthony Delaney’s Queer Georgians, which had fewer new-to-me stories that I’d anticipated, actually (though I’m not saying there was nothing new to me, and though I knew of the ladies of Llangollen, I didn’t know about their lives in any detail before they arrived in Llangollen). I thought it was pretty good, though it’s not a pet period/topic of mine, so hard to really judge.

What are you currently reading?

I started Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen on the train back from London yesterday, having picked it up in St Pancras, and got a chunk of the way in. It’s not about any given queen per se, but about the clothes and textile items provided for royalty over the last 200 years or so, and who made them, a bit about how they were made, etc. It’s highlighting fairly ordinary people at times, and I’m finding it fascinating.

Other than that, I’m slowly inching my way through Gareth Russell’s Queen James, which is less focused on the romantic partners of James than I had guessed from the subtitle, blurb, etc. I believe there are some more solidly understood lovers coming up from the chronological point I’ve got to, though.

And finally, I’m deep into S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, and curious where it’s going exactly.

What will you read next?

I’m honestly going to try to focus on books I’ve started already. More of Cecilia Edwards’ An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating, for one, and I think I’m not that far from finishing (or DNFing) David Crystal’s William Tyndale and the English Language, which is just… talking to a reader who isn’t me, and I think has made most of the points that are interesting to me already — the rest seems to be detail. But we’ll see, I’ll give it time next, is the main thing.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday