Category: General

Weekly Roundup

Posted August 14, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Greetings, folks, from the end of a busy week! I can’t promise I’ll be under less stress going forward, but my work life will be a little simpler, which is something! How’re you all doing?

Books acquired:

Cover of Stormblood by Jeremy Szal Cover of Witchmark by C.L. Polk

Early birthday presents from Portal Bookshop! 💙 I have actually read Witchmark before and liked but didn’t love it, but something’s been itching at me lately and I’d like to try it again — and read the rest of the series. So this was lovely.

Books read this week:

Cover of Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky Cover of Burning the Books by Richard Evenden Cover of The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler Cover of The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead

Reviews posted this week:

Giveaways:

  • Worldwide Book Giveaway: I’ll be choosing one random person who replies to this tweet to receive one book of their choice. I’ll do the draw on the 21st.
  • UK Book Giveaway: I’m choosing three random people who respond to this tweet to receive a book of their choice via Portal Bookshop. Plus, some other folks are signing up to buy a random person a book, so I think so far there are five chances to win. Also drawn on the 21st!
  • Buy Someone A Book: If you’re interested in joining in with buying a book for a random Twitter user, you can sign up to join in by replying to this tweet. When the time comes, I’ll pick a random winner for you, and get you two connected so you can sort out the purchase. I’ll let you know who you’re buying for on the 21st, with the help of my trusty RNG.

And that’s everything!

So, any good books joined your TBR this week? Thrown any books against the wall in anger? How’s reading going in general?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 8, 2021 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Welp, busy week here. I keep hoping that “next week” will be less bumpy, but it never seems to be true. Ah well!

Received to review:

Cover of The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler

I had this on my wishlist, and then spotted that I was auto-approved by the publisher on Netgalley, so… here we go!

Books read this week:

Cover of Sea People by Christina Thompson Cover of Black Water Sister by Zen Cho Cover of Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Reviews posted this week:

Aaaand that’s all for this week! How’s everyone doing?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted July 31, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Gooood evening! I had a busy day of, um, questing on FFXIV… so I’m only just setting up this post now. Not that I have much to report! No new books, and only a couple of books read.

Books read this week:

Cover of Calamity in Kent by John Rowland Cover of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover of Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan

Reviews posted this week:

Aaand that’s it for me, for this week. How’s everyone doing?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted July 24, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Good evening, folks! How’s everyone been? It’s been too warm here, but it’s fortunately a lot cooler today. Not much reading this week, alas… too cranky from the heat.

Received to review:

Cover of Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Read this week:

Cover of The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel

Reviews posted this week:

Aaand that’s it from me. Any good books for you this week?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted July 21, 2021 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

It’s Wednesday again already! How does that keep happening? And do I make the same joke too often? It’s too warm to think of a new one.

Cover of Black Water Sister by Zen ChoWhat are you currently reading?

A couple of things at once, as usual! I’m most of the way through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, which is more autobiographical than I had been led to expect, and which just doesn’t quite work for me in its outlook. I’m also still working on Behave, by Robert Sapolsky; he seems to be taking an awful long time to say nothing new.

In fiction news, I finally started Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister, which I’m enjoying but not getting super into — partly because I haven’t had much brain for reading with how warm it is.

Cover of The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia PostrelWhat have you recently finished reading?

Virginia Postrel’s The Fabric of Civilization, which I enjoyed quite a lot. I think I’d have got more out of it if I had a visual imagination, though: when she described how to weave, for instance, it just meant nothing to me.

What will you be reading next?

Don’t know! I really need to get to Slippery Creatures (K.J. Charles), but who knows?

Alright, your turn!

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Weekly Roundup

Posted July 17, 2021 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Wow, it’s warm out! And in. Actually, it’s just warm. And today there’s a Lions game and a Wales game, and tomorrow I’m attending a Ceremony of Eternal Bonding on FFXIV, so it’s a busy weekend. 🤣

Anyway, I have no new books this week, so it’s straight onto the recap.

Books read this week:

Cover of Never Greater Slaughter by Michael Livingston Cover of Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes Cover of Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews Cover of Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Reviews posted this week:

…And that’s everything! How’s everyone doing?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted July 15, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Real quick, this week:

Cover of The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia PostrelWhat are you currently reading?​

A few books at once, as usual! But I’m in a hurry, so I’ll stick to saying that I’ve just started The Fabric of Civilization, by Virginia Postrel, and I’m finding it fascinating. The first chapters go into specific elements of fabric (thread, dye, etc) describing their origins and development.

I’ve also started a reread of The Paradise War, by Stephen Lawhead. It seems almost impossible that the suck fairy hasn’t visited this book I loved as a teen, but it was so formative to my tastes that I’m giving it another go.

What have you recently finished reading?​

The last thing I finished was Magic Strikes, which was a reread, and remains a heck of a lot of fun. I overestimated how much the arena scenes featured in the book, though!

What will you be reading next?

Should be Black Water Sister, by Zen Cho, since it’s coming up as a book club read. But, as always, I can’t promise I won’t be tempted by shinies, especially with my wife currently reading K.J. Charles’ Will Darling books, which I have not yet started…

So… what are you reading?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted July 10, 2021 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Happy Saturday! I’m in the middle of watching the Wales v Argentina rugby game, with a British and Irish Lions game to follow later. So much rugby. <3 And books! It’s my day off, so it’s a good day for reading — and I haven’t been doing much of that this week!

New books:

Cover of Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. It’s actually releasing in hardback in the UK… but Bookshop.org have some paperback editions from a different press, and I snapped one up when I saw it was less than £10!

Received to review:

Cover of Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan Cover of The Bone Wars by Erin Evan

I was pretty fascinating by a book about working on dictionaries recently (by Kory Stamper), so a book about indices is more exciting to me than it sounds. And The Bone Wars sounds like a lot of fun.

Read this week:

Cover of Ancestors by Alice Roberts

Not much reading this week, as I said… alas.

Reviewed this week:

So that’s everything from me this week! How’re your shelves looking, folks?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted July 1, 2021 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Anyyyy day now I’ll get round to scheduling more of my backlogged reviews, but for now, here’s the WWW Wednesday post!

What are you currently reading?​

Cover of After the Dragons by Cynthia ZhangAbout eight books at once, last I checked! So I’ll just pick a couple to talk about: first on my mind is After the Dragons, by Cynthia Zhang. It involves dragons, biology, and a prickly love interest with whom things will (presumably) get figured out. I hadn’t realised it was queer, actually, somehow — or hadn’t remembered it, anyway. I am promised there will be cuddles soon, and I wonder quite how they’re going to get there.

I’m also reading Ancestors: The Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials, which would be more accurately but less catchily titled “Ancestors: The Prehistory of Britain, with seven key burials discussed to varying degrees, and mostly lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of description of non-British archaeology”. Which is cool, but I actually wanted a closer focus on particular burials — that’s what I was interested in.

Finally, I’m now reading Anthony Berkeley’s The Wychford Poisoning Case, which is fun: the detective character is very glib and smooth-talking, in a way familiar to those who love Lord Peter. Mind you, Lord Peter never tried to turn his grown-up female cousin over his knee to spank her, so there are definitely bits that ring very oddly to a contemporary reader.

Cover of What it Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka ArimahWhat have you recently finished reading?​

I am really bad at keeping track of that recently, so the thing that mostly jumps to mind is that I finished Seashaken Houses, by Tom Nancollas. He made the cardinal sin (to me) of getting something wrong about Arthurian myth — the very briefest of references, but infuriating. That said, it definitely scratched the curious itch I had when looking at it on the shelf, so it worked out.

Oh, and I finished What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah, which has a lot of clever stories in it, and which I’m still mulling over.

Cover of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererWhat will you be reading next?

No idea at all. Chances are high that I’ll be picking up Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, since it’s a book club read for this month. Black Water Sister by Zen Cho is also coming up soon, so that might be a choice. But really, who knows?

What are you folks reading?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted June 26, 2021 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Good afternoon! I ran out of pre-scheduled posts this week, and promptly ran headfirst into a busy time… but the backlog of reviews will be back soon, promise. In the meantime, I did get some new books!

Received to review

Cover of Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes Cover of A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske Cover of Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Thanks as ever to the publishers for these! I feel like Dead Silence is more my wife’s thing than mine, but we share a Kindle account so there won’t be any jealousy…

New books

Cover of Subtle Blood by K.J. Charles Cover of Honeycomb by Joanne Harris Cover of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Yesss, Subtle Blood is out — now I can start this trilogy! Have faithfully bought each book on release day, and the paperbacks as soon as possible… but until the HEA was assured, I couldn’t tuck in.

I’m also keen to read Honeycomb; I actually had an eARC through the Secret Readers programme, except then they decided to withdraw that month’s books early without explanation when I was 20% of the way through. It was infuriating.

Read this week

Cover of Bloodline by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander Cover of Elephants on Acid by Alex Boese Cover of The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth by Thomas Morris

And that’s all for this week! How’s everyone doing? Got anything good this week?

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