What 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.

What 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).

What 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?

What 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).

What 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).

What 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).

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished up with The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, by Brigitte Knightley, just last night. I wasn’t aware when I first added it to my wishlist that it was serial-numbers-filed-off fanfic, and I’m not sure whether or not I’d have picked it up if I knew. Maybe! I don’t have strong feelings about that kind of thing, though it does ick me out if the marketing relies on that nudge-nudge-wink-wink connection. I don’t know if it did for this book, since I just heard about it through other bloggers.

Anyway, there were aspects of this that were fun, but it got very purple prose-y around the romance, and I didn’t find the romance that convincing. The banter didn’t paper over the fact that I just didn’t like either character.

What are you currently reading?

Kathryn Paige Harden’s The Genetic Lottery, which means very well, but a) is making me absolutely glaze over and b) has been critiqued in various ways because the solutions it tries to offer aren’t very convincing. I’ve not read far enough to grapple with b), and I’m not sure if I’m actually going to — I’m not sure if the good intent justifies all these words, especially when a ridiculous number of them were used to come up with a poor analogy to explain genome-wide association studies without actually illuminating much that couldn’t have been better explained by just explaining GWAS.

What will you be reading next?

As ever, no hard and fast rules. There are basically three likely targets: the fourth volume of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, the second volume of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, or Kaite Welsh’s The Wages of Sin. I’m probably most likely to start on The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, since that wraps up that series… but the others are tempting too.

What have you recently finished reading?

Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After, which… I think would’ve meant a lot to me 10-15 years ago. Though it would probably have also been more viscerally upsetting 10-15 years ago, since the main character gets private details exposed in school which is reminiscent to me of someone finding private stuff of mine and outing me to the entire school as a lesbian (not a term I use for myself, but close enough to true to kick off several years of intense bullying). It was very teenage, in a way that doesn’t speak to me much now, but I think I’m glad I gave it a shot. I need to mull over how to properly review it.

What are you currently reading?

A lot of books at once, as I try to finish off my Book Spin Bingo card! Let’s see… the last thing I was reading was Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent, which is pretty fun. I have some theories about where things are going, and I kind of hope I’m wrong, just so it can surprise me.

I’m also still partway through volume three of The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, which is still cute and silly. I’ve also started on: Anna Bright’s The Hedge Witch of Foxhall, which I’m still kind of dubious about; Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man, which I’m enjoying but in which the mystery so far is not that mysterious apart from one element; aaand Fonda Lee and Shannon Lee’s Breath of the Dragon, which is enjoyable enough but not totally wowing me right now.

What will you be reading next?

Volume one of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, also for my Book Spin Bingo card! I’d wanted to finish Disabled Tyrant first, but I had a couple of days of not reading much, so it won’t work out if I want to finish off the bingo card.

I also want to read a couple of manga and comics I’ve identified for a comics bingo card, but that might have to wait for November. Sadly, there are only so many reading hours in the day, for some weird reason.