Category: General

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 16, 2024 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

I keep thinking I’m done being all stressy, and then something comes along to kick me in the shins again, ha. A close relative is in hospital, under upsetting circumstances, and it’s getting under my skin. That and I’m just feeling super overwhelmed with my assignments…

Anyway, I’m almost certainly behind on comments again, maybe even from last week, and I’m sorry. Catching up is on my list for the weekend, I promise.

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… though I might not get out and about as much this weekend. I’ll visit back anyone who visits me, though!

Books acquired this week:

After last week’s spree, I didn’t expect to get anything this week, but actually my British Library Crime Classic subscription book arrived. It’s by John Bude, which means it’s probably solid and enjoyable without blowing your mind — and that’s probably exactly what I want right now.

Cover of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude

So that’s something to look forward to!

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s the roundup of reviews posted!

And other posts:

What I’m reading:

Things went a bit quiet as this week went on, but I’ve tried to spend a little time each day reading! Here’s a glimpse of the books I finished in the last week which I intend to review on here soon.

Cover of A Bookshop of One's Own by Jane Cholmeley Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 2 by Shio Usui Cover of Seanan McGuire's Mislaid in Parts Half-Known Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 3 by Shio Usui

Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 4 by Shio Usui Cover of A Side Character's Love Story vol 17 by Akane Tamura Cover of Mushroom by Sara Rich

I’ve made ambitious reading plans for the weekend, but we’ll see how they go. Mostly I just want to find some time to read, and read stuff I enjoy. My first plan is to finish the British Library Crime Classic I’m reading, Big Ben Strikes Eleven, by David Magarshack. After that, we’ll see!

How’s everyone else been doing?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted March 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

Wednesday again already? Time is flying by, but as usual, we’re asking:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you reading next?

And linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

Cover of Big Ben Strikes Eleven by David MagarshackWhat are you currently reading?

I have a few books on the go at once, as is usual for me: I guess the primary one right now is Big Ben Strikes Eleven, by David Magarshack. I’m not very far into it and I’m finding it kind of slow. I mean, classic mysteries often are, but it feels like it’s being described in a needlessly complicated way. The facts so far are simple enough, but there’s a whole scene with the detective (not the same one as from the opening chapters, of course, sigh) trying to familiarise himself with the case and just tying himself in knots.

So I’m not sure how warm I’m going to feel about this one, but I’m giving it time.

Cover of Mushroom by Sara RichWhat have you recently finished reading?

I’ve been digging into the Object Lessons books I got last week, so the last thing I finished was Sara Rich’s Mushroom. I liked it a bit more than Spacecraft and Sticker, neither of which really focused on the topic in the way I’m interested in. Mushroom didn’t really either, though, being much more about mushrooms as a metaphor and mushrooms as being involved in various kinds of mysticism and religion. There’s also what seems like some honking great hypocrisy (going on about even the land being alive and how much she respects Native American beliefs about it, and then referring to “my family’s land” in Kansas, which of course was home to Native Americans not long before). Maybe there’s an explanation for that, but, hmmm.

Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson BennettWhat are you reading next?

I probably shouldn’t start anything else new! According to the Bookly app, I’m partway through seventeen different books. So I’m hoping to focus on finishing some of those! I started The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, over the weekend, so probably I’ll turn my focus to that next. The Sherlock Holmes parallels are so far very obvious in terms of characterisation (though eccentricities are taken to extreme).

How about you? Anything fascinating open on your ereader or lurking on your desk?

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Top Ten Tuesday: To Reread or Not to Reread?

Posted March 12, 2024 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about books that you’re scared might not stand up to a second reading — books you originally loved, but are scared to reread. I heard about the concept of the Suck Fairy from Jo Walton, and that’s exactly the problem here: maybe the book just isn’t as good as you remember. Times have changed, or you’ve changed, or the book isn’t really what you remember… that’s the Suck Fairy!

Anyway, let’s give this a shot. Note that I’m not saying these books necessarily do or will suck now (in fact for some I’m sure they’re really good but maybe not for me). I’m just afraid that if I reread them, I won’t love them the way I did before.

Cover of Among Others by Jo Walton Cover of Camelot's Shadow by Sarah Zettel Cover of A Sorcerer's Treason by Sarah Zettel

  1. Among Others, by Jo Walton. I don’t really think the Suck Fairy can have visited this book, surely. It meant so much to me. On the other hand, I read it in my early twenties, fresh out of being a teenager, and it meant an enormous amount to me then. Can it stand up to that weight? I think it probably can, but it’ll be a very different experience now.
  2. The Magic Faraway Tree, by Enid Blyton. I have very fond memories of so many Enid Blyton books: so much so that I get tempted to revisit for the nostalgia hit. That said, everything’s coloured by what I know about Blyton now, and by having seen some of the sexism and racism lurking in her stories the last time I read them (which was in university, for a children’s literature course). I’m not sure that can be unseen.
  3. Idylls of the Queen, by Phylis Ann Karr. I did this to myself: I wrote my MA dissertation about this book, in part. Mostly I was looking at character, and the use the author made of the sources. That said, I did semi-recently reread Exiled from Camelot (Cherith Baldry), which I also wrote about in that dissertation — and Idylls of the Queen was the better book. I think this’ll probably be OK to revisit.
  4. Camelot’s Shadow, by Sarah Zettel. This is quite possibly where my interest in romance fiction in general really began, a little foot in the door. And again, I wrote about it in my dissertation. I keep thinking about revisiting, but are Gawain and his brothers as enchanting as I remember?
  5. A Sorcerer’s Treason, by Sarah Zettel. I remember really liking the Isavalta books, and I keep wondering about a reread. I don’t remember much about them, though? Only the fact that I liked it at the time. Seems a bit worrying.
  6. Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay. There was a time when I’d have dived on a new Guy Gavriel Kay book instantly, but I’ve been really lax in keeping up of late. Around about when Under Heaven came out, I think I started… going off his work? Which is a shame, because there’s much I loved about The Summer Tree, Tigana, etc. I did read Under Heaven, and I liked it, but it didn’t stick in my head in quite the same way. Maybe I’ll have to just give it another shot, though, and see.
  7. Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. Mum and I were pretty obsessed with these books, and a lot of it is probably packed into my reading self on a DNA level. But… could I stand rereading Fitz’s teenage whinging? Presumably one doesn’t need to be an adolescent to put up with it, since Mum could, but maybe also she was just in practice due to me and my sister!
  8. Sabriel, by Garth Nix. I loved Sabriel and Lirael, and found so much of the world-building fascinating, and then… didn’t really like Abhorsen for a few reasons, and have barely kept up since. Something went pear-shaped for me at some point in all this. I kinda want to give it a second chance — but what if it was pear-shaped all along, and I just didn’t see it yet back then?
  9. Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel. The first book of the trilogy blew me away several times, and I remember liking this as well — and yet somehow I never went on to the third book. Maybe the answer to why is found in Waking Gods, and will spoil everything?
  10. Spillover, by David Quammen. I give this book a lot of credit for my current path (my MSc in infectious diseases), but it’s probably getting a bit long in the tooth now. Science doesn’t stand still. Still, I have an enormous affection for it, because it’s also the book that made me a bit less scared of infectious diseases by helping me be curious about them.

Cover of Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay Cover of Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb Cover of Sabriel by Garth Nix Cover of Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel Cover of Spillover by David Quamnem

Funnily enough, there are a few books that grew for me on rereads, and stuck in my head in astounding ways. Maybe someday there’ll be a topic about that, but for now, shoutout to Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey, Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons, Robin McKinley’s Chalice, Mira Grant’s Feed, and probably many others…

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 9, 2024 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

Well! Made it through another week. I had a long weekend and then also tried to take it easy, so I’m feeling a bit less stressed and snowed under, and got back to reading (whew!).

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.

Acquired this week:

So… there was a bit of a book spree. I’d like to say it was because of the British World Book Day (which we have earlier than everyone else so it doesn’t fall into our school holidays), but nope, I’d already indulged plenty before that. Classic retail therapy.

One thing I got was a bunch of new-to-me Object Lessons books. I love these as a concept, and try to get myself a little batch of new ones every so often!

Cover of Spacecraft by Timothy Morton Cover of Wine by Meg Bernhard Cover of Hyphen by Pardis Mahdavi

Cover of Mushroom by Sara Rich Cover of Sticker by Henry Hoke

I love how they all look together on shelves, too, so neat and tidy.

Anyway, other than that I also bought some other books I’ve had my eye on for a while:

Cover of A Bookshop of One's Own by Jane Cholmeley Cover of The Walnut Tree by Kate Morgan Cover of The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Walnut Tree sounds kinda grim, but I’ve read it already and I loved it! A Bookshop of One’s Own is kinda grim, too: I’m partway through it, and of course Silver Moon was established during the Thatcher era…

I also received a book from my mum. Sort of. For Christmas, my wife and I gave my mum a reading subscription from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. Each month, she receives a book chosen for her based on her preferences in the (quite extensive!) interview. However, since she has macular degeneration, the print is often too small, so after she’s had the fun of getting a package and seeing what’s been chosen for her, then I get her an ebook copy and the physical copy goes to someone who’s interested in it. Since we share quite a lot of our taste in books, it’s quite likely that will often be me… and thus did I get given her book choice for February! (My sister has claimed the book from March, Alice Roberts’ Ancestors. That’s okay, I already read it.)

Cover of The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson

And finally, I did get a new eARC this week as well — I’ve been meaning to read The Fortunate Fall for a long time, but I have no idea where my copy is, and I’m not sure if this version contains any updates. Thank you, Tor!

Cover of The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed

And — wait, that was not the end! Sneaking in at the last moment, as I was writing this post I spotted that the latest volume of A Side Character’s Love Story is out! I haven’t written a lot about this manga series here, since I read it when I wasn’t blogging or reviewing much, and also I never expected to be breathlessly devouring all (at the time) 14 volumes. It’s a sweet, slow-burn romance (though a quick read). If you’re curious about it, most or all of the series is available on Kindle Unlimited in the UK, and maybe elsewhere. Just sayin’.

Cover of A Side Character's Love Story vol 17 by Akane Tamura

Posts from this week:

It was a slightly slower week again here, since I didn’t post reviews on days I had a different post going up, but it’s still worth going over the list:

And non-review posts:

What I’m reading:

During my long weekend, I got a bit of my reading mojo back and managed to devour the second Emily Wilde book and Kate Morgan’s The Walnut Tree. I haven’t finished a lot of books, but I’ve been enjoying myself greatly. So here are the books I’ve read in the last week that I plan to review on here:

Cover of Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett Cover of The Walnut Tree by Kate Morgan Cover of Spacecraft by Timothy Morton Cover of Sticker by Henry Hoke

Over the weekend, I plan to finish A Bookshop of One’s Own (Jane Cholmeley), and maybe make a start on Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup. As ever, though, I’ll let my whim guide me.

And how’s everyone else doing?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted March 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Happy Wednesday! Time for the usual trio of questions:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you reading next?

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

Cover of Spacecraft by Timothy MortonWhat are you currently reading?

Thankfully, after a few days of feeling too stressed to read, I actually found my way into it over my long weekend. Right now I’m reading a new-to-me Object Lessons book, Spacecraft, by Timothy Morton. Sadly, I’m not really a fan: it’s not about real spacecraft, but about the idea of spacecraft, and it’s illustrating all its points by way of the Millenium Falcon. I liked Star Wars when I was a kid but haven’t watched the more recent movies (no, not because of Rey, just because I don’t watch much of anything), so… It’s talking to an audience that’s not me half the time.

Cover of Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather FawcettWhat have you recently finished reading?

Last night I finished The Walnut Tree (Kate Morgan), which is a history of how the law has treated women in the UK. Which sounds quite dry, but I loved her book on murder which took a similar tack, and this was just as fascinating. She uses examples and case studies to illustrate the point, and it works really well.

I also finished Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Heather Fawcett) yesterday, and now I’d like the next book, please. I love Emily and how bad she is at human interaction, and how much she cares about Wendell and Shadow and Ariadne.

Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson BennettWhat are you reading next?

I don’t know for sure. Chances are my next fiction read will be Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup, because I guiltily bought myself a copy after failing to read my advance copy before publication. I’ll probably start a non-fiction read as well: possibly another Object Lessons book, in which case Sticker (Henry Hoke) is catching my eye, or possibly A Bookshop of One’s Own (Jane Cholmeley), which is a history of the feminist bookshop Silver Moon. (Man, I’m hoping there’s nothing transphobic/enbyphobic in there.)

How about you, dear reader? Anything great on your bedside table or about to drop through your letterbox?

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Top Ten Tuesday: To Google We Go!

Posted March 5, 2024 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

This week’s theme from Top Ten Tuesday is about weird or funny things you’ve googled thanks to a book. I couldn’t think of many weird or funny things I’ve put into a search engine due to a book. I was tempted to google about the scene with the rice wine in volume four of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System — I’m not surprised it’s a thing, but would it have helped?! (If you know, you know. I’m saying no more. I advise against googling it if you’re not in the know, and definitely don’t do so on a work or school computer.)

Anyyyyway, moving on from that, I decided to just discuss ten times I looked up more information because of a book! Note that these don’t necessarily constitute recommendations of the book, just times I enjoyably got my nerd on and dug in!

Cover of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen Cover of Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time, by James Suzman Cover of Christmas: A History by Judith Flanders Cover of Rebel Cell by Kat Arney Cover of Overkill by Paul Offit

  1. The Notebook, by Roland Allen. This one’s fresh in my mind since I just finally put up the review: I found myself searching for more info about ICU patient diaries, because I hadn’t come across it at all and I think it sounds like a really helpful concept. And indeed, it is a thing, and the research suggests it helps a lot!
  2. Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time, by James Suzman. The feathers of a peacock have been widely cited as an example of sexual selection in birds, but Suzman suggested this isn’t true. So far, I haven’t been able to find sources backing him up, though I admit I forgot to check whether he included a source for this.
  3. Christmas: A History, by Judith Flanders. I googled a lot to find her sources, which eventually a question to her revealed on her website. I went on a whole journey with this one, discussed in my review: she seems to have quoted previous scholarship which I consider to be pretty fundamentally flawed.
  4. Rebel Cell, by Kat Arney. This one had me googling a few things, one of them being contagious cancers. It’s amazing how when you google this, you get repeatedly assured that cancer is not transmissible, but in fact it is. That’s frightening and unpalatable, but heyho, it’s the truth. It’s mostly attested in Tasmanian devils (transmitted during fights) and in dogs (transmitted sexually), rather than in humans, but unfortunately it has been reported occuring in recipients of organ donation.
    (While HPV can ultimately cause cancer and is transmissible, it isn’t transmission of the cancer itself. That said, quite a number of viruses can be implicated in the development of various human diseases including cancer, and we should in general get our vaccines and take all the preventative measures we can.)
  5. Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far, by Paul Offit. The author discusses a lot of common medical interventions and the evidence that suggests they have, at best, no benefit — and at worst cause unnecessary suffering. Those are big claims, and the author knows it, so he provides details of how to go to the primary sources for yourself. I still have stuff I want to dig in on further from this one! I can’t pick an example here, it was all fascinating.
  6. Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea, by Tracey Williams. I read quite a bit about Lego’s sustainability efforts after reading this one, which is about Lego shipments lost at sea and how they end up on beaches. It seems that Lego had to abandon its efforts to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles, because it was ultimately going to cause a bigger carbon footprint.
  7. An Immense World, by Ed Yong. I grabbed a search engine for a lot of things here, just to read more, e.g. about the eyes of scallops. They have little mirrors made of guanine (a nucleic acid used in DNA) in their eyes — whaaaat?
  8. The Good Virus, by Tom Ireland. Did you know that bacteriophage therapy is actively being used in Georgia? It involves using viruses that infect bacteria to control bacterial infections, if you’re not familiar: as Tom Ireland discusses, it may well be a way we can handle antibiotic resistance. I knew about bacteriophages and the theory of using them to treat actual infections. I had no idea it was actually in use.
  9. Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, by Philip Dettmer. If you are curious about the immune system, I really recommend this one. And I learned new things from it myself, even though I’m doing my MSc in infectious diseases, so know a fair bit about immunology! The bit I loved was learning that neutrophils sometimes create sticky nets using their own DNA and extrude them to capture and do damage to pathogens: neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Here’s the Wikipedia page for something a bit less technical… or you could read the book, which explains things beautifully for laypeople.
  10. Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg-Sykes. I loved this one, and there was so much worth searching up and learning more about. Consider the fact that Neanderthals (widely assumed to be rather stupid compared to us) had complex methods for making glue.

Cover of Adrift by Tracey Williams Cover of An Immense World by Ed Yong Cover of The Good Virus by Tom Ireland Cover of Immune by Philipp Dettmer Cover of Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

I would recommend most of those books, minus #2 and #3, on balance. So if any of that sounds fascinating, you probably know where to start!

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 2, 2024 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

Wow, it’s been a rough week for me. I’ve just been so tired from working hard on my essays, I haven’t even really been reading much. It feels very weird.

That said, I’ve planned myself a long weekend now, so here’s hoping I’m on the upswing!

Books acquired this week:

Last week I sent my wife out for a bit of retail therapy for me, so here are the results…

Cover of Crypt by Alice Roberts Cover of Lost Realms by Thomas Williams Cover of The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Cover of Bride by Ali Hazelwood Cover of Nick & Charlie by Alice Oseman Cover of The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

As usual for me, a bit of an odd mix!

Posts from this week:

I’ve got through a lot of the backlog of reviews, and I’m trying to balance things out so there’s always a mixture rather than a huge run of graphic novel reviews, so I slowed down a bit this week. Still, here’s the recap of the reviews:

Aaand the other posts:

What I’m reading:

Well… right now, nothing actively. Like I mentioned above, I’ve been really tired. I am starting to feel the itch to pick up a book, and when I do, I’ll likely pick up Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett.

I did do some reading this week, so here’s the usual glimpse of books I intend to review in the coming weeks:

Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon by Shio Usui Cover of Crypt by Alice Roberts Cover of Don't Call Me Dirty by Gorou Kanbe

Cover of We Only Kill Each Other by  Peter Krause, Ellie Wright, Stephanie Phillips Cover of Tell Me The Truth About Life edited by Cerys Matthews

And th-th-that’s all folks! Hope everyone is doing well, and I pinky-swear I am going to try to catch up on answering comments and making return blog visits starting this evening. I appreciate them all so much and I know it takes time for people to drop by, and effort to make thoughtful comments, so I won’t be forgetting!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted February 28, 2024 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Oh, hey, it’s Wednesday again already and time for the usual questions:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you reading next?

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

Cover of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat BohannonWhat are you currently reading?

To be honest, nothing very actively. Each day I’ve been picking something short, usually a manga or a graphic novel, to help me keep up with my reading goals while I’m feeling very snowed under. I’d like to get back to reading Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon, which I’m finding thoughtful and well-framed.

I’m also still partway through rereading The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, but I’ve stalled even with that at this point!

Cover of Don't Call Me Dirty by Gorou KanbeWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I read was a manga called Don’t Call Me Dirty, by Gorou Kanbe, which features a young gay man who ends up falling in love with a homeless man, with some comparison between the social consequences of being gay and the consequences of being homeless. I wasn’t expecting a lot from that, and mostly only picked it up because I got access to it free with a subscription I have, but I actually found it surprisingly touching how the two find common ground.

Before that I read A Kiss, For Real, by Fumie Akuta, which was less my thing — the characterisation of the male lead felt really inconsistent.

What will you be reading next?

I don’t know! I’m half-tempted to read one of the other manga that show up in my subscription: they don’t sound that appealing from the summaries, but sometimes it’s interesting to try things that are a bit out of my comfort zone or usual interests. That’s how I fell in love with the series A Side Character’s Love Story (Akane Tamura), after all!

What have you been reading? I’ll admit, this week I’m a bit overwhelmed, so sorry I’m a bit scarce on answering comments! I’ll answer and visit back soon, I promise.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Things From Nature

Posted February 27, 2024 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

This week’s prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday is “Covers/titles with things from nature”. I feel like I don’t often focus on cover design, so I used this as an excuse to go looking through the book covers I have saved for various posts to admire the cover designs…

Cover of Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori Cover of Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori Cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Cover of Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn Cover of Slime: A Natural History, by Susanne Wedlich Cover of Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, by Thor Hanson Cover of The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green

Cover of The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles Cover of Guilty Creatures, edited by Martin Edwards Cover of The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

It’s a bit of a random mix, as regulars have come to expect from my shelves!

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 24, 2024 by Nicky in General / 25 Comments

Hurrah, the weekend! I’ve been looking forward to it eagerly, as I’ve put in a load of work on my essays this week, as well as working my usual hours, etc, etc. Not as much reading time as I’d like — hopefully I’ll get plenty over the weekend to make up for it.

As usual, 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:

Last weekend, my wife duly went to the bookshop and acquired the book I owed myself as a reward for finishing a draft of my parasitology essay (Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands). Once there, it seems there was another book that couldn’t quite be resisted…

Cover of Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett Cover of volume one of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is by the same author as The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, so we just had to get it, right?!

Technically, my wife went out last night to grab me a couple of new books, because I’ve been working so hard and really fancied grabbing a copy of Alice Roberts’ Crypt when I saw that Waterstones have them out already… But I haven’t unpacked the bag and added it to my StoryGraph TBR yet, so I’ll include them next week.

Posts from this week:

It’s been a busy week on the blog, as usual, so here’s a roundup in case anyone missed it!

Other posts:

What I’m reading:

This week’s been a bit quiet again — with the graphic novels it still looks like I read a lot, but I mostly read non-fiction, which tends to be a bit slower for me. Over the weekend I’ll be continuing with reading Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution, which so far is reassuringly inclusive of all kinds of female bodies.

I’ll probably also finish up my reread of the third volume of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, finish reading Seanan McGuire’s Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, and make a start on Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands. So fiction will make a comeback (I think).

Anyway, here are teaser cover images for the books I’ll be reviewing in the coming weeks.

Cover of The Lost Boys by Gina Perry Cover of Book Love by Debbie Tung Cover of Everything is OK by Debbie Tung

Cover of The Hidden World by George McGavin Cover of Oddball by Sarah Andersen Cover of Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss

How’s everyone doing? Reading anything amazing?

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