Category: General

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted December 16, 2023 by Nicky in General / 27 Comments

And oof, another week gone! Christmas is creeping closer, for those of us who celebrate — I’m most looking forward to giving people all their gifts, I must admit, though I know a tidy book haul is coming my way as well thanks to my wife. I got the most perfect thing for my sister… ah, but I can’t tell you, she might read this.

It’s been another busy week, with an assignment due yesterday for one of my classes, but now that’s out of the way I’m gearing up for a quiet week or two, I think!

As before, I’ll be linking up with a few different posts: Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

I split my haul from my trip to Bath into three lots, since I was a little, ah, excessive about it. This is the final bunch, from the lovely bookshop Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. I wasn’t 100% won over by their fiction section, since books of all genres were jumbled together: even though I read very widely and some would even say randomly, I’m not always in the mood for the same thing. So I pretty much bypassed their fiction selection, sorry to say, picking up only this one which I found in their bibliotherapy room from their list of recommendations:

It’s an Arthurian retelling and prominently features Sir Kay, which means it called out my name right off the bat. I wrote my postgrad dissertation (back when I was doing English Literature) on the character of the Welsh Cei and how it echoed throughout later literature, so I’m interested to see what this one does.

What shone for me at Mr B’s was the selection of non-fiction, and the conversations I had with staff members about the books I was choosing. I’d trust their recommendations for sure. Without further ado, here’s the rest of my haul:

As you can see, I had a heck of a time!

Technically I’ve also just received my British Library Crime Classics subscription book, complete with matching bookmark (which they’ve made smaller now, yay!), free postcard and blackmail note (reproduced from this month’s story), but I’ll keep that for next week to ensure I have something to post…

Posts from this week:

I’m pretty much caught up from all the reviews I wrote while my blog was down, but I’ve kept on reading at pace in the meantime, so here’s a roundup of this week’s reviews:

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, by Brandon Sanderson (2/5 stars)
Phantom Pond, by Juneau Black (3/5 stars)
Dragon’s Blood & Willow Bark: The Mysteries of Medieval Medicine, by Toni Mount (3/5 stars)
Peter Cabot Gets Lost, by Cat Sebastian (4/5 stars)
Who Killed Father Christmas? And Other Seasonal Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards (3/5 stars)
The Golden Mole And Other Vanishing Treasure, by Katherine Rundell (3/5 stars)
Clean Room volume 1: Immaculate Conception, by Gail Simone et al (3/5 stars)

And I’ve also posted about some of my (potential) upcoming reads:

Top Ten Tuesday: Winter TBR

What I’m reading:

I’m still trying to make myself finish The Impossible Impostor, by Deanna Raybourn. Having stalled, it’s difficult to nudge myself to get back into it. Still, other than that I’ve been reading a lot, and I have quite a few reviews upcoming for my reads this week. As ever, here’s a sneak preview of the titles/covers:

I did read a couple of volumes of manga as well, but I’m not planning to review them here as I don’t have much to say.

And that’s it for now! How’s everyone else doing? Got any exciting books this week?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Top Ten Tuesday: Winter TBR

Posted December 12, 2023 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

This week’s theme from That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday linkup is the books that are on your winter TBR. I don’t usually read stuff with a deliberate eye to seasonal appropriateness, but this year I did end up acquiring a bunch of seasonal mysteries all at once… so they play a big part in my upcoming choices.

Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards. This is in the British Library Crime Classics series, and is one of the older anthologies — I’ve already read this year’s, Who Killed Father Christmas?, and another from a previous year, The Christmas Card Crime. Some of them don’t feel very seasonal and obviously murder isn’t entirely cheery, but it’s fun all the same.
Christmas: A History, by Judith Flanders. I’ve enjoyed Flanders’ work before, so this seemed both something likely to interest me and something a bit seasonal, since I appear to be getting into the mood this year. I’ve read a bit of it already, but I’m not far in.
The White Priory Murders, by Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr). I only recently found my way to enjoying John Dickson Carr’s work, so I’ve been working my way through a backlog of the British Library’s reprints. Not all of it is a hit even now, but I’m looking forward to giving this a shot. Very classic crime setup with only one set of footprints in the snow, etc (John Dickson Carr was famous for impossible mysteries, so there’s probably something especially ingenious here).
Who Killed the Curate? by Joan Coggin. This one’s also a Christmas-themed one, so I’d better get round to this before the end of December. Otherwise it feels like singing carols in September — only appropriate if you’re in a choir and practising for performances!
A Portrait in Shadow, by Nicole Jarvis. This is a historical fantasy novel featuring Artemisia Gentileschi, which is a choice that absolutely has my attention. I can’t remember who originally mentioned it such that I grabbed a copy — I thought it was imyril, but her review only went up recently… In any case, I’m intrigued.
Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close, by Hannah Carlson. This is a bit of change of pace from the others! In the last few years, perhaps due to the influence of the Great British Sewing Bee, I’ve developed a bit of an interest in the history of clothes. I’ve read a book about pockets before, so I’m not sure how much this one will add, but someone at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights said he’s listening to the audiobook and finding it fascinating, so… that seems like a solid recommendation.
Unnatural Magic, by C.M. Waggoner. Over the course of the last six months or so, I’ve been meeting up with a friend to go to bookshops every so often. On our very first trip he got this book, and on our most recent one he recommended it to me very highly. He’s said some interesting things about it, so I’m definitely ready to give it a shot!
The Bone Chests, by Cat Jarman. This is another non-fiction book from a recent haul, but I’ve had my eye on it for a while. I think I enjoyed Jarman’s previous book, and I was just intrigued by the idea of understanding the context around the chests of royal bones in Winchester Cathedral. Here’s hoping it’s as interesting as it looks!
A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, by KJ Charles. I know, I know, I’m late to read this — but I was late about the first book too, so I’m just running to my own clock here. I always read everything KJ Charles writes, so I’ll get there soon. In part, I needed to shake off the characters of the previous book to be ready to embrace a different pair of leads.
A River Enchanted, by Rebecca Ross. I started this a while ago and then sort of got distracted, but not for lack of interest. It was actually a random pick at the bookshop that I hadn’t heard anything about, where reading the first couple of pages intrigued me enough that I decided to give it a go. I think I’m still finding my footing with the book, but I do want to finish it. I’m a little annoyed, though; the cover copy did not make it obvious that it’s a duology and not complete in itself. Oh well!

So that’s a rather random grab bag of potential wintery reads for me. How about everyone else? Do you expect to read all of yours? I expect I’ll get to some of mine… eventually, maybe not this winter.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Non-Fiction I’ve Loved

Posted December 5, 2023 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

It’s Top Ten Tuesday again, and this week’s theme is a freebie. I get comments now and then on how much non-fiction I read and how random some of my choices are, so this list is about the non-fiction books I’ve loved! It’s a topic I know I’ve covered before, so I’ll try to keep it to recent-ish reads. I’ll link the review, where I have one written.

I know that thumbnails of book covers are missing from some of my older posts. It’s probably been an error since I migrated to my new blog host, and we’re working on it. Sorry about that! Where a thumbnail is missing and you just see the fallback text, you can click on that to see the actual image if you want to check out the cover.

As a side-note, I’m behind on replying to comments and visiting people back, but I’m working through it steadily, I promise!

Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far, by Paul Offit. I’ll start with the book I just absolutely inhaled last night. I was worried at first that this was going to be some kind of anti-medicine, unevidenced rant, but Offit is very careful to refer to specific studies and to specific numbers and stats from those studies. His introduction indicates that he wants to be fact-checked, and a quick skim through the topics reassured me a bit as well. Having read it now, I might not 100% agree (I need to read some of the original sources first), but the evidence he presents is definitely food for thought. I think doctors should read this, for sure, but patients should as well in order to be informed. In the end, I worry that it may erode a little too much trust in doctors (if a doctor tells you that you must keep taking a medication even though you feel better, it’s probably true), but it’s an important wake-up call.
The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes, by Kate Strasdin. I haven’t actually finished this yet, but I’m enjoying it very much. Mrs Anne Sykes was a newly married Victorian woman who kept a record of her clothes and the clothes of people special to her through pasting in scraps of cloth. Kate Strasdin is an expert on the history of fashion, and has also dug deeply to find out who Mrs Anne Sykes was, so the book is a mixture of general social history, fashion history, and zooming in to look at the life of one person.
Around the World in 80 Trees, by Jonathan Drori and illustrated by Lucille Clerc. This book (and the companion, Around the World in 80 Plants) is just beautiful, thanks to Clerc’s illustrations, and each mini-biography of a tree has interesting titbits about the trees, where they come from, how they’re used, and/or where they live now and why. If you’re interested in plants and trees particularly, or just curious enough to read anything, I recommend this. The illustrations are beautiful, and it’d make a good gift, too.
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Emma Southon. Ever been curious about murder in Ancient Rome? Before I read this book, me neither, but Southon’s humour and fascination with the topic carries the book. It’s a fascinating angle for a history of ancient Rome which reveals a lot about the lives and attitudes of the Romans, and I recommend it highly.
The Good Virus, by Tom Ireland. We are approaching a crisis of anti-microbial resistance. For some infections, it’s already here. The Good Virus has some suggestions about where we go from here, with the help of viruses — to be more accurate, very small viruses that kill bacteria, called bacteriophages. They’ve been used for decades in some parts of the world, but they’re hard to regulate, hard to test in the kind of gold standard settings designed for non-living pharmaceuticals, and as such, rolling them out to people has been a big ask. Still, as someone who’s studying for my MSc in infectious diseases, we need them, and Ireland sets out to convince people of that.
Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion, by Louise Willder. Willder is one of the people who writes blurbs for the books we read, the short and informative summaries of plot or the kind of information you can find in books. It’s been her job for years to tantalise and entice, and this is her book about that. I didn’t find any of that part surprising, but I really enjoyed her writing style.
Personal Stereo, by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. This is a book from the Object Lessons series, and I could happily choose half-a-dozen of those titles to include here, but I’ll stick to just this one, where I really got hooked. I love the idea of focusing in on a single object and figuring out its history, and sometimes relatively modern items — like a personal stereo or a fancy toaster — can have a surprising history. I found this particular book from the series a particularly easy read, despite having no actual interest in consumer electronics and the history thereof per se.
Murder: the Biography, by Kate Morgan. This is a history of murder (mostly in the United Kingdom), illuminating how our laws about murder ended up the way they are through the historic cases that led us here. Each chapter is illustrated by at least one real-life case, usually more than one, which helps to explain both the law and the cultural reaction at the time which shaped it. It’s not just old brutal murders or something, but also modern issues like Grenfell. I have no particular interest in the law for its own sake, but of course this sheds light on my beloved mystery fiction too, and I’ve also handed my copy on to my sister (who studied law) because I think she’ll find her own interest in it.
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, by Philipp Dettmer. This book is beautifully illustrated, and goes through the way the immune system works from the basics to stuff I hadn’t been taught yet (bearing in mind that I’m doing an MSc in infectious diseases, that came as a surprise!). It’s very easy to read, everything is very well explained, and I have a terrible habit of trying to convince everyone that they want it because I was myself so fascinated with it. Did you know that some of our white blood cells, called neutrophils, can create a sticky net that captures invading pathogens? They do it by extruding their own DNA in big loops. We only discovered this in 2004, and learning about it in this book made me want to dance with fascination at how our bodies work.
Index, a History of the, by Dennis Duncan. I know, I know, a history of indexes doesn’t sound too fascinating: aren’t they just a way of finding the information you need in a non-fiction book, often a textbook? Can there really be much to say about them? The answer is yes, and Duncan makes it a fun read. Also, you’d be surprised — someone has, in fact, managed to use an index to further their feud with someone else, which honestly gave me a giggle.

There! I tried to bring to this list some of the weird randomness of my own reading, jumping from topic to topic in a way that may not make much sense, but works surprisingly well to ensure that I have interesting background to a lot of things. I know some people prefer to read only about their pet topics, but I mostly just let the random searchlight of my interest pick out things that I don’t know, and then learn about them. I hope there’s something of interest here for others!

Tags: books, non-fiction, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted December 2, 2023 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

Good morning, folks! My weekend away was lovely, but this week I have relatively little going on, and I’m excited to settle down and do some reading and talking about books.

Because Stacking the Shelves is way quieter than it used to be (so I ought to have time for comments elsewhere!), I’ll be linking up with a few different memes each week: Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz. Hoping to reconnect with other bloggers and readers a bit more after my quiet time of the last year or two!

Books acquired this week:

As I predicted in last week’s post, I went on a bit of a bookshopping spree while I was away for the week in lovely Bath. I’ll start with my haul from the lovely Topping & Company, and save my other acquistions for another week, since I don’t expect to get more new books until Christmas now!

Topping & Company have a pretty great mix of everything; I think Edinburgh and Bath are my favourite branches in terms of selection, but Edinburgh is the most magical (somehow, it’s bigger on the inside, and there’s always another corner round which there are yet more books), though Bath’s might be the nicest building. I love the ladders (on rails so you can easily move them) and the fact they wrap the books in plastic. I liked the Ely branch too — it was surprisingly big considering the narrow store-front — but Edinburgh probably wins overall.

Not that I didn’t have fun in the Bath branch! I let the friend I was with choose a couple of the non-fiction books for me based on both his random interests and mine, so this should be fun. (His picks were Rebel Cell and Overkill. The others are my own fault.)

Of course, I didn’t stick to non-fiction only. I also grabbed a couple of the older Christmas-themed anthologies of short stories from the British Library Crime Classics series, this year’s Christmas mystery from Ada Moncrieff (I’m always sceptical of gimmicky things, but the previous two didn’t come across as gimmicky), and a couple of books from the SF/F section. Unnatural Magic was my friend’s recommendation, while A Portrait in Shadow has been on my wishlist for a while.

All in all, it was quite the haul, as you can see!

Posts from this week:

I reviewed quite a few books this week, so here’s a quick recap:

Ogres, by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 3/5 stars
In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World, by Simon Garfield: 4/5 stars
Settling Scores: Sporting Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards: 3/5 stars
Cold Clay: A Shady Hollow Mystery, by Juneau Black: 4/5 stars
Around the World in 80 Trees, by Jonathan Drori, illustrated by Lucille Clerc: 5/5 stars
Rogue Planet, by Cullen Bunn, Amy Macdonald and Nick Filardi: 2/5 stars
Exodus 20:3, by Freydís Moon: 3/5 stars

I also posted a guide to some crime fiction:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set In… the Golden Age of Crime

What I’m reading:

Right now I’m between books, but it’s December now, so I expect to start tucking into some of the Christmas-themed crime novels I have. I’ve been waiting for December to start on John Dickson Carr’s The White Priory Murders, and also to read my November book from the British Library Crime Classics subscription, so… iiiit’s time!

I’ve finished a few books this week; I haven’t written the reviews for most of them yet, but here’s a glimpse of the line-up:

Clearly the holiday time was good for me!

And that’s it from me; how’s everyone else been getting on?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves

Top Ten Tuesday: Gratitude

Posted November 21, 2023 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a US-centric one, in honour of Thanksgiving, but it’s never a bad idea to think about the stuff we’re grateful for. So the theme is “reasons why I’m thankful for books”.

They help me learn new things. I always like to be learning stuff. And sure, I’m studying for my MSc at the moment, and that’s a lot of stuff to learn… but even in my downtime, I like to learn, and informal learning from books is a lot of fun. I’ve been reading a lot of the Object Lessons and Edible books for bite-size non-fiction, for example.
They’ve often given me stuff to talk about. Sometimes that’s in an awkward moment, but I also mean the in-depth rambling conversations with like-minded people where books allow us to just… ramble around in each other’s minds for a while. Many, many conversations about books with my mother, for example.
They help my mental health. The more I’m reading, usually, the better I feel. It’s all about making time for myself, and also about taking my mind away from whatever I’m lingering on. Also, it’s just fun.
They’re exciting… in a way that doesn’t involve me having to do adrenaline-inducing things. Okay, sometimes even reading about it is a little much. But really, it’s fun to have adventures without much skin in the game, beyond my own emotional involvement.
Books are literally always there as an option. They’re never too busy, they don’t get tired or get headaches or have crises in their own lives. So if I need a break from reality, or to read something comforting and familiar, books always have the time.
They make any room look nice and lived in. First thing I move into a new place is at least some of my books…
Some of them smell really nice. Some glue smells are bad, and old books can get really musty. But books that are just right smell delicious somehow.
Books are an experience you can revisit. Sometimes it’s a whole new experience the second time (there are several books I didn’t like at first and tried again and loved them!), but still, books are there for you to come back to, to re-experience, or experience anew.
Books make a lovely gift that you can personalise to a high degree. I can choose books for most of my family that make meaningful, exciting gifts! (Spoiler: if it has dragons, my sister is thrilled.)
You can put a book aside and pick it up easily, at any moment. Reading can be as flexible an experience as you need it to be, whether you’re reading a page a day, a chapter, a whole book… you can pause, restart, etc.

And after I finished all ten, here’s a bonus thought: books make a lovely excuse to be an introvert. You’re not just going off on your own, you’re reading. People find that much more acceptable!

Okay, I struggled a bit with this and what to share, but I think that made a good start. Fascinated to see what other people have come up with!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted November 18, 2023 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Well, folks, it’s been a looong time since I did one of these! Lately I don’t get books every week, so I’m not sure what I’ll do on “off” weeks — maybe I’ll go back to showcasing what I’ve read that week, instead.

Books acquired this week:

For this week I do have some books to show off: my British Library Crime Classics subscription book came in for this month, which is always exciting. Sadly, there was no bookmark with it this month (I hope they haven’t stopped doing the matching bookmark thing!

Aaaand I got hooked on the Shady Hollow series, thanks to somebody’s Top Ten Tuesday post making me curious about it, so after devouring the first one, I quickly grabbed the three sequels and the two short stories.

I must confess I’ve already got through Cold Clay, Evergreen Chase and Phantom Pond, and I expect Mirror Lake to follow in short order. And then I suppose I’ll be bereft!

Reviews posted this week:

And while we’re here, a quick recap on the reviews I’ve posted this week. Each thumbnail links to the review of the book!

So that’s what’s new around here. I expect I’ll miss this post next week, since I’m away and I’m not taking a laptop with me (gasp!), but otherwise… I think I’m back! How’s everyone doing?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves

Top Ten Tuesday: Mainstream Authors

Posted November 14, 2023 by Nicky in General / 42 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is one I’m not totally sure how to answer, because I don’t really know what counts as “mainstream” for these purposes, and I have pretty eclectic taste. Let’s have a shot: the theme is “Mainstream Popular Authors that I Still Have Not Read”.

George R.R. Martin. Okay, he’s a fantasy writer, but pretty much a household name by now, right? Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him — and I definitely haven’t read the Game of Thrones series.
James Patterson. I do have one of his books on my to-read list because it involves postcards (and I review books about postcards for Postcrossing’s blog), but I haven’t read any yet.
Zadie Smith. I think I audited a course that had one of her books on the list, back in university, but I wasn’t actually sitting the course so I didn’t do all the reading.
Elena Ferrante. I try most stuff, but her books don’t really appeal to me, so I doubt I’ll give them a shot any time soon.
Hilary Mantel. I’ve got a couple of her books to read, but I’ve not touched them yet. Oops?
Jonathan Franzen. Something about his work just super does not appeal.
Michael Chabon. I own a couple of his books, I’ve even intended to read them very strongly at times… but I’ve never actually got round to it.
Sally Rooney. I don’t actually know much about her books? They’re not squarely in my wheelhouse, or I’d know more about them from others at the very least, but it’s not like I’ve made a firm decision not to try them. Rather, what I’ve seen/heard is fairly limited, and I’ve made no decision, but nothing’s drawn me in either.
Amy Tan. I have a copy of The Joy Luck Club somewhere, or I used to, but I never touched it. Oops.
Steig Larsson. His books never really called to me from all I heard about them, though they were such a thing for a while that I had my eye on them.

Do I have surprising gaps here? Is there something you’re curious about whether I’ve read it or not?

Just… don’t try to argue with me whether these are mainstream or not. I just found a list or two of mainstream authors and cherry-picked from that!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Headlines

Posted November 7, 2023 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

It’s been a while since I participated in Top Ten Tuesday, but I’ve been kind of a hermit for a bit and I’d love to get back in touch with the wider blog-o-sphere, so let’s give this a go! This week’s list theme is “titles that could be headlines”. Hmmm…

Well, first up, a lot of mystery novels are perfect for this task. I’ll stick to only a few of those, and see if I can find some other neat ones as well, but to get us started…

Requiem for a Mezzo, by Carola Dunn. One of the early Daisy Dalrymple novels. I could actually use the titles of this series for quite a few answers — Murder on the Flying Scotsman, Fall of a Philanderer, Death at Wentwater Court, anyone?
Murder in the Dark, by Kerry Greenwood. I do love the Phryne Fisher series, but I think I’ve only ever read this one once. I should carry on with my reread of this series!
Post After Post-Mortem, by E.C.R. Lorac. You can just picture a headline with that kind of snappy alliteration and mystery-causing, right? Also, this is a really good book, though personally I found it a bit harrowing due to the themes.
A Very English Murder, by Verity Bright. I haven’t read this one, but I can still picture it on the front page of some newspaper or other.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I can see a particular sort of “respectable” newspaper choosing something kind of… restrained to refer to a murder.

Now let’s see if we can get a bit more adventurous and grub up some other headlines…

Black Ops and Beaver Bombing, by Fiona Mathews and Tim Kendall. It sounds kinda weird, definitely like one of those headlines they use to pique your interest. As it happens, it’s about British wildlife. I haven’t read it, so I can’t honestly answer you about what the beaver bombing is about.
Unmasked by the Marquess, by Cat Sebastian. Okay, this probably isn’t a modern headline… but nobody specified that, right? And the book is fun, too.
How Long Till Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin. A pertinent question, after all.
Europe at Midnight, by Dave Hutchinson. I haven’t read this one yet, but I can envision this being the big blocky headline of the Daily Mail or whatever.
The Dos and Donuts of Love, by Adiba Jaigirdar. What headline can resist a pun? Cute book, too.

There, whew, I did it.

Have any of the titles piqued your interest? I’ve reviewed a bunch of these, so let me know if you’re interested in my take and I’ll grub up the links!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

…And we’re back!

Posted October 20, 2023 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Did you miss me?!

Yep, unfortunately enough this blog has been down for almost a month, due to hosting problems. Many many (many many) thanks to Adam Wolf for taking over the hosting, making everything work, and having infinite patience with the fact that I’ve never really learned to manage my WordPress installation on my own. (And many thanks to my old host, of course, for taking me on for so long!)

We should be back in business right now, but some things might not quite work perfectly (like for now I won’t get notifications for your comments in my email). I have an enormous backlog of reviews, so I’m going to start putting those up at a sensible rate of one a day, and be pretty selective about which ones I choose to share.

Hope everyone’s doing great!

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Happy New Year!

Posted January 1, 2023 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Greetings, everyone!

I know, it’s been a long time since I showed my face around here, and I’m sorry. Everything got a bit too much, reading including. But I have a bunch of resolutions for the year ahead, and one is doing better by my blog and trying to reconnect with you all.

I don’t think I’ll be posting every review I write (some of them are brief; I’ve given myself permission to do that going forward) but I hope to post a selection of reviews where I have some (hopefully interesting) thoughts to share and books I wanna big up.

Hope to hear from you all, and spend some time visiting you all too!

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