Category: General

Weekly Roundup

Posted September 20, 2020 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Good evening, folks! It’s been a better week for me, with my anxiety medication kicking in and lots of reading getting done. No new books this week, but I’m expecting some from Portal Bookshop any day now…

Books read this week:

Cover of Orfeia by Joanne M. Harris Cover of Digging Up Armageddon by Eric H. Cline

Cover of Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart Cover of Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman

A good week!

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

How’re you folks doing? Reading anything great?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted September 16, 2020 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

It’s Wednesday again! So here’s the usual check-in. You can go to Taking On A World Of Words to chat with everyone else who has posted what they’re reading right now!

What are you currently reading?​

Cover of Digging Up Armageddon by Eric H. ClineFiction: I’m neck-deep in Kushiel’s Dart, and just finally getting to the bits which I always struggle to read because aaaaaahhhh nooooo. I forget how long it takes Joscelin to really start being amazing! I haven’t really been taking part in the readalong discussions, because my brain is just tired and I’m probably reading too much at once.

Speaking of which, I’m also reading The Fifth Season, and working on my shelf of abandoned books. I’m closing on finished with my reread of Nine Coaches Waiting, which is still fun but… I don’t know, the melodrama of this one doesn’t work for me as well as (say) Madam, Will You Talk? Perhaps it’s also because it’s longer.

Non-fiction: I’m finally back to reading Eric H. Cline’s Digging Up Armageddon, which I stalled on because I wasn’t in the right mood before. I’m enjoying the details of the digs and the team a bit more this time, and closing on the end… despite feeling that the team had so many questions left to answer. Gah.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Beneath the World, A Sea, by Chris Beckett. It was… okay. I actually originally said it’d be something my wife was likely to love, but I think it floundered around a bit and then petered out, despite the original promise. It lacks any kind of resolution — I didn’t necessarily need an explanation, but something better than the sense the characters are running away.

Cover of The Lost Plot by Genevieve CogmanWhat will you be reading next?

I’m planning to work more on the shelf of abandoned books, but there’s still quite a bit of scope there. I could get back to my reread of The Lost Plot, by Genevieve Cogman, or of Feed by Mira Grant. Or I could finish a book that’s new to me, like Susanna Kearsley’s The Firebird.

Probably I’ll pick two and chip away at them by setting myself a goal of reading a minimum of five pages a day. It seems to be the key to unlocking a book I’m struggling with — with all of them I’ve suddenly had a moment of getting back into it and finishing it all in one go.

So what’re you reading? 

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Weekly Roundup

Posted September 13, 2020 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Greetings, folks! I think my mood this week is better passed over without comment, and we’ll get straight to the books!

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Acquired this week:

Cover of Lost Gods by Micah Yongo Cover of The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg Cover of Orfeia by Joanne M. Harris Cover of The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Cover of X+Y by Eugenia Cheng Cover of In Black and White by Alexandra Wilson

With thanks to Portal Bookshop for Lost Gods, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages. <3

Books read this week:

Cover of Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch Cover of The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons Cover of The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu Cover of Drift Wood by Marie Brennan Cover of The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg

Reviews posted:

Other posts:

So how’s everyone doing? Reading anything good? I’d love to hear from you!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted September 9, 2020 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

It’s Wednesday again! So here’s the usual check-in. You can go to Taking On A World Of Words to chat with everyone else who has posted what they’re reading right now!

Cover of Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline CareyWhat are you currently reading?​

I’ve started rereading Kushiel’s Dart, to join in with the Wyrd & Wonder readalong. I’ve just realised my careful planning out actually has me a week behind, so I need to rejig that. Argh. Anyway, I’m enjoying revisiting this world — the writing always takes me just a little bit to sink back into, given how flowery it is… but it always sucks me in eventually. Damn, Phèdre is a brat at first.

Other than that, I’m reading The Fifth Season (finally), also as a readalong with one of my fellow Beeminder workerbees. I’m ahead on this one, though. From everything I’ve heard about it, I wonder if I’m putting two and two together correctly… but I hate being wrong, so I’m not going to admit to what I guess!

Cover of The Grace of Kings by Ken LiuWhat have you recently finished reading?

I just finished reading Marie Brennan’s Driftwood last night, and still need to ponder how to review it. It’s still settling in my brain at the moment.

I also finally finished Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings, and I’m just done settling my thoughts about that down. I don’t think I’m going to read the next book… unless it weighs on my mind, which it might. I just didn’t care enough, despite finding it compelling enough in and of itself.

What will you be reading next?

Probably I’ll return to Beneath the World, A Sea, by Chris Beckett, and try to finish it; I only got about 60 pages in, if I recall correctly, and I’m doing my best to go back to my half-read books and dig in.

I’m also curious about Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Brenman, and In Black and White, by Alexandra Wilson. So I’m not sure what will be next… and besides, I’m spending half my time beating my head against the basics of statistics and probability, because I let myself get complacent and I’ve forgotten half of what I ever drummed into my brain (with great difficulty). If anyone has good suggestions for books on the basics of biostatistics, let me know…

Anyway, being busy with that makes me inclined to read some fluffy fiction instead, but what I don’t know.

What’re you folks reading?

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books for a Younger Me

Posted September 8, 2020 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s Tuesday, and I’m joining in with Top Ten Tuesday for the first time in a few weeks! The theme this week is “books for your younger self”, and I can think of a whooole bunch of different ways to interpret that. I’m going with a list of books I wish I’d read sooner than I did!

Cover of The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin Cover of The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison Cover of Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart Cover of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Cover of An Unsuitable Heir by K.J. Charles

  1. The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin. Okay, maybe this one’s cheating, but I’m reading this at the moment and being so annoyed at my slightly younger self for not jumping right on that.
  2. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. This book has been such a comfort to me; teenage me could’ve really done with it.
  3. Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart. Or really any Mary Stewart book; I was so snobby about romance novels, but reading Stewart and Heyer made me see. How much awesome could I have read if I started sooner?!
  4. Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi. I feel like I’d have appreciated this even more if I’d read it when I was closer to the age it’s aimed at. I liked it now, but… I’d have liked it more then, I think.
  5. An Unsuitable Heir, by K.J. Charles. Also one of the books that properly pulled me into romance, but this one is extra special because the existence of Pen as a character, as a person it was possible to be, would’ve possibly sped up figuring out some stuff for me.
  6. Spillover, by David Quammen. Because it helped me figure out that staying curious about stuff really does help with anxiety — and maybe if I’d read it a couple of years earlier, some of my anxiety would have hit less hard. Or maybe it’d have chosen a different path, who knows.
  7. Feet in Chains, by Kate Roberts. Or pretty much any Welsh classics, the existence of which I only discovered at the age of 21, having been told that Welsh people didn’t write anything worth reading.
  8. River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey. I needed Hero. Much like Pen, they’d have taught me a bit more about what’s possible. Also, hippos.
  9. Strange Practice, by Vivian Shaw. This is just so much fun, I’d have liked it to be in my life way before now.
  10. Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Or the whole series, of course, but I can’t believe I only picked these up in my twenties. Though that’s partly because they were out of print, I think? I can’t imagine my mother wouldn’t have bought me them sooner if they were in print.

Cover of Spillover by David Quamnem Cover of Feet in Chains by Kate Roberts Cover of River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey Cover of Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw Cover of Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

How about you? Anything you wish you’d read when you were younger?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted September 5, 2020 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Greetings, folks! I keep saying I’m going to have a break from buying books, but somehow… Not that I’m complaining! It’s been a quiet week, but not because I haven’t been reading — it’s just been a couple of slower books.

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of Fake Law by the Secret Barrister Cover of How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan Cover of Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman Cover of Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

I’ve been anticipating Fake Law and Entangled Life for a while now, but the other two were impulse buys based on a) an email campaign I somehow got signed up to which talks about UBI, and b) being interested in brains and the weird things they do.

I also got a new review copy of a book which sounds like a potentially fascinating microhistory:

Cover of Life in Miniature by Nicola LisleVery micro, in this case… (Yes, I do think I’m funny.)

Books read this week:

Cover of Unfit For Purpose by Adam Hart Cover of Mudlarking by Lara Maiklam

Reviews posted this week:

And so another week is nearly over! How was yours? Any good books stacked this week? Read anything exciting?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted September 2, 2020 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s Wednesday again! So here’s the usual check-in. You can go to Taking On A World Of Words to chat with everyone else who has posted what they’re reading right now!

Cover of Mudlarking by Lara MaiklamWhat are you currently reading?​

Fiction: The Belting Inheritance, by Julian Symons. It’s heavy going compared to a lot of the other British Library Crime Classics; it’s very consciously literally, and it has a rather stodgy narrator (an older man narrating events of his youth, groan).

Non-fiction: I’m back to reading Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish), having got my ereader all set up again after the replacement, and also got back to the front of the queue from the library. I’m finding it hard going, not because of the subject matter, but just something about the writing. I’ve never done that well with memoir, and that’s largely what this is, though it does also discuss society-wide issues.

I’m also reading Lara Maiklem’s Mudlarking, which is a very easy read. I love microhistories, so perhaps it’s not surprising that this exploration of mudlarking and the things you can find while doing it is working for me.

Cover of Unfit For Purpose by Adam HartWhat have you recently finished reading?​

The last thing I finished was Adam Hart’s Unfit for Purpose, which I found a fairly obvious exploration of how human beings are ill-adapted to our modern environment because we evolved for a wholly different one. It never really dug into the issues enough to satisfy me.

Cover of Drift Wood by Marie BrennanWhat will you be reading next?

Most likely I will get back to work on The Grace of Kings, which I’ve been neglecting a bit too long. I have a whole shelf-full of books I’m partway through (or have been partway through at some point in the last… year-ish) that I want to pick back up, but there’s also a chance I’ll pick Marie Brennan’s Driftwood first.

What are you currently reading?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 29, 2020 by Nicky in General / 15 Comments

Good morning, folks! I felt like this had been a dreadfully indulgent week with far too many books bought, but actually doing this post it seems… fair enough for someone who just had a birthday?! Though once I include the finished copies of books I had to review, it gets a little bigger…

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth Cover of Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis Cover of Bad News by Rob Brotherton Cover of Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Cover of Bigger Than History by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani Cover of The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky Cover of The Vinyl Frontier by Jonathan Scott Cover of Black and British by David Olusoga

Cover of Or What You Will by Jo Walton Cover of Drift Wood by Marie Brennan Cover of Descendant of the Crane by Joan He

Not so nuts, right? Though it’s my usual odd mix!

Books finished this week:

Cover of The Contact Paradox by Keith Cooper Cover of The Secret Life of Bones by Brian Switek Cover of Bigger Than History by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani Cover of A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn

Reviews posted:

Other posts:

  • WWW Wednesday, a weekly check-in on what I’m currently reading and thinking about

So that was my week! How’re you all doing?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted August 26, 2020 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Keeping it quiet for another week and just posting here and not going round other blogs in the link roundup… but looking forward to hearing what blog regulars are reading!

Cover of A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna RaybournWhat are you currently reading?

I decided I wanted something light and fun, so I’m reading Deanna Raybourn’s A Dangerous Collaboration. I normally tear through these because I can read great big chunks at a time, and so it is proving this time.

Mind you, Skyrim is really distracting, or I’d probably have finished it already…

Cover of The Secret Life of Bones by Brian SwitekWhat have you recently finished reading?

Last thing I read was Brian Switek’s The Secret Life of Bones. He’s primarily known for his enthusiasm about dinosaurs, but this is actually largely about human bones. Other species come into it for illustrative purposes, and a good broad sweep of evolutionary history is discussed to explain how bones in general developed… but mostly it is about human bone. I enjoyed it.

What will you be reading next?

I’m gonna go with “goodness knows”, again. I just spent a birthday cheque from my grandma on a couple more birthday books… and there’s some library books… and books I fancy rereading. So I’ll just go “as my Whimsy takes me”, as ever.

What are you reading?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 22, 2020 by Nicky in General / 3 Comments

Good evening, folks! Last week I took off owing to the confluence of a sick rabbit and damaging myself by falling onto the corner of a coffee table, but my ribs are fair to middling now and the rabbit seems back to normal, and it’s been my birthday, so I should catch up!

This post was supposed to go up this morning, but the infamous WordPress “missed schedule” issue bit me. Booo.

Linking up with The Sunday Post @ The Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves @ Reading Reality & Tynga’s Reviews.

Books acquired:

Cover of Unfit For Purpose by Adam Hart Cover of The Contact Paradox by Keith Cooper Cover of Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron Cover of The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

Cover of The Shipwreck Hunter by David L. Mearns Cover of Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes Cover of Nodding Off by Alice Gregory

With most but not all of those being birthday presents from my wife! Aaand here are the eARCs:

Cover of Evie and the Pack-Horse Librarians by Laurel Beckley Cover of Out on the Ice by Kelly Farmer Cover of Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold

Cover of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix Cover of An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner Cover of Architect of Memory by Karen Osborne

A nice bunch! Thanks to the publishers!

Books read since my last roundup:

Cover of Green Mill Murder by Kerry Greenwood Cover of Burnout by Emily & Amelia Nagoski Cover of When the Tiger Came Down The Mountain by Nghi Vo Cover of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble Cover of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Cover of Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau Cover of The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky Cover of The Woman in the Wardrobe by Peter Shaffer Cover of The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold Cover of The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Reviews posted:

Other posts:

And that’s it for this week! How’s everyone doing?

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