Category: General

Weekly Roundup

Posted October 19, 2019 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

This has been a slow reading week, and a week for getting those backlogged reviews out there! Only three books read this week, booo. I’m not even sure why, but there you go — sometimes it happens that way.

Acquired this week: 

Cover of The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K.J. Charles

Read this week:

Cover of Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw Cover of Making Eden by David Beerling Cover of Weekend at Thrackley by Alan Melville

Reviews posted this week:

–The History of Life in 100 Fossils, by Paul D. Taylor and Aaron O’Dea. Not solely a coffee table book, but the details can be annoyingly focused on other unpictured specimens, or just not quite the thing I wanted to know. Still, lovely presentation. 4/5 stars
–Making Eden: How Plants Transformed a Barren Planet, by David Beerling. I loved Beerling’s other book, The Emerald Planet, and bought this on the strength of his enthusiasm and clear communication in that book. I don’t know what was different here, but it just didn’t really work. It wasn’t uninteresting, but didn’t have the joy. 3/5 stars
–Dreadful Company, by Vivian Shaw. A reread to get ready for the final book! Deeply enjoyable, as ever; Greta is an awesome character. 4/5 stars
–The Gendered Brain, by Gina Rippon. I think there’s a lot of genuine value here, but I also had questions about the way Rippon seems to view sex as a genuine binary, when a scientist should know darn well it isn’t. 3/5 stars
–The Border, by Diarmaid Ferriter. Darn near unreadable if you don’t already know the topic, in my opinion. 1/5 stars
–Weekend at Thrackley, by Alan Melville. Somewhat less than cosy, but pretty enjoyable. A country house mystery, of a sort… 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘Feeding bread to ducks FAQ.‘ There’s a thing going round on Twitter about how you should feed ducks bread because they’re starving without it. So I decided to explain 1) why bread is bad, 2) why bread can be fine in moderation and 3) several other options to try feeding ducks that would be more healthy. Please feel free to share it…

So that’s that. Today the bunnies’ new custom hutch is arriving and I will be spending the day tetrising it into our flat. Wish us luck!

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted October 12, 2019 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Good morning, folks! Luckily, I am connected to the world again: we left Virgin Media and signed up with a new ISP whose service has, so far, been seamless. Zen Internet have a thumbs up from us so far!

It’s been a quiet week in terms of book purchases, in that I have made none! But I have got some reading done.

Books read this week:

Cover of The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne Cover of Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews Cover of The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

Cover of Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers Cover of Fire in the Thatch by E.C.R. Lorac

Reviews posted this week:

–The Red House Mystery, by A.A. Milne. An okay but not astounding foray into detective fiction by A.A. Milne, decidedly shaped by his preferences (for instance, for a solution based on pure deduction, not forensic evidence, and for the main character to be an amateur detective). 3/5 stars
–Magic Slays, by Ilona Andrews. The latest in my reread of the series! I continue to marvel at how often people write it off when it has so much to offer. 4/5 stars
–Murder by Matchlight, by E.C.R. Lorac. Very atmospheric and of its moment in a positive way: it evokes London during the Blitz beautifully, and the mystery uses every ounce of that atmosphere. 3/5 stars
–The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, by Olivia Waite. A lovely historical romance featuring female scientists, and mostly steering away from the guilt and shame sometimes attendant upon LGBT fiction set in that era. Wish the rival love interest wasn’t so immature and manipulative, though. 3/5 stars
–Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers. A beloved reread with much to recommend it, though with period-typical hints of racism and a hefty dollop of class snobbery. 4/5 stars
–Fascism: A Warning, by Madeleine Albright. Part history, part memoir, part political treatise, this book gives a good overview of what fascism looks like, sounds a warning about various current regimes, and points several accusing fingers straight at Trump. It’s very readable, if not surprising in its slant and what it covers. 4/5 stars
–Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac. This one is really very sad, because we meet the victim in the first chapters and really get to like him. Mystery-wise, it’s well-written without being groundbreaking, as I’m coming to expect from Lorac. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual mid-week update!

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

Tags: ,

Divider

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 9, 2019 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. SayersWhat are you currently reading?

It’s been a long week and I haven’t been sleeping enough, so I’ve turned to a solid and beloved reread: Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers. It’s not my favourite of the series, but on reflection I’m not sure why I’ve always downplayed this one: Miss Climpson is a delight, and there’s so much good Peter-Parker bantering. And a good Bunter scene, though not enough of him on the whole.

Cover of The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia WaiteWhat have you recently finished reading?

I just finished The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, which was overall enjoyable but frustrated me in the home stretch with a stupid miscommunication thing, my least favourite trope in the whole wide world.

Cover of Grave Importance by Vivian ShawWhat will you be reading next?

I really want to finish rereading Dreadful Company and get to Grave Importance (Vivian Shaw). My wife’s been reading it and giggling away, and I’m feeling left out! Also, you know, I’ve been looking forward to this so much.

Luckily, we have an internet connection at home again (hi Zen Internet! bye Virgin Media!) and I don’t have to get up at an hour my body and brain don’t work at anymore, so that should be good for my reading after a rather slow week.

What are you currently reading?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted October 5, 2019 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

G’morning folks. It’s been a tiring week, as my sleeping schedule has been topsy-turvy. I had to go to my parents’ house to get internet every day this week so I could work, which meant getting a lift with my wife in the morning. My circadian rhythm is… not calibrated for this. Gah. And now I’ll be up early on a Saturday for the engineer. Bah!

Anyway, here are the other titles from last week!

Acquired:

Cover of Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron Cover of Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Cover of Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw

Cover of Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer Cover of The Rat-Catcher's Daughter by K.J. Charles Cover of Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

Some stuff I’m really excited for, some a bit less so, some I’d barely heard of… a nice mix!

Read this week:

Cover of The Rat-Catcher's Daughter by K.J. Charles Cover of Lost Languages by Andrew Robinson Cover of The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch Cover of Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup

Reviewed this week:

–The Rat-Catcher’s Daughter, by K.J. Charles. Lovely, though the Lilywhite Boys kinda stole the show. 4/5 stars
–Lost Languages, by Andrew Robinson. An interesting primer on undeciphered scripts and the progress we (might) have made in deciphering them. 4/5 stars
–The October Man, by Ben Aaronovitch. Very similar to the Peter Grant books in voice, as well as (obviously) content. Fun, but not great. 3/5 stars
–Making the Monster, by Kathryn Harkup. Takes a while to get onto the actual science behind Frankenstein, but not bad once it does. 3/5 stars
–Too Like The Lightning, by Ada Palmer. The narrator is very gender essentialist, and this book barely stands alone enough to even begin to judge what it’s doing there, but overall not my thing and I doubt I’ll continue the series. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

That’s it for this week! How’s everyone doing?

Tags: , ,

Divider

WWW Wednesday

Posted October 2, 2019 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Making the Monster by Kathryn HarkupWhat are you currently reading?

I’m most actively reading Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup. So far it’s more a biography of Mary Shelley and the writing of the book than really being about the science behind it, but it’s starting to get into the background a little more. I loved Harkup’s book about Agatha Christie’s use of poisons in her fiction — it gave me a whole new appreciation, actually — so I’m hoping this will be the same!

Cover of The October Man by Ben AaronovitchWhat have you recently finished reading?

Oof, I’m not sure — it’s been a couple of days. The October Man, I think? Which was okay, but the voice was so similar to that of the main series, it kind of dampened my enthusiasm. My review is up for that, anyway, so you can read all my thoughts here.

Cover of The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia WaiteWhat will you be reading next?

Who knows? But I’m sort of tempted to dig into Olivia Waite’s  The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics. Romance and classic crime fiction seem to suit my mood at the moment, because you know that typically they will set the world to rights by the end, and there’ll be a happily ever after in the case of romance (and often in crime fiction as well, really).

I think we can really use the world being set to rights. Oof.

What are you reading?

Tags: ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted September 28, 2019 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Busy week! And lots of reading too, which is nice. Politics in the UK are… interesting at the moment, but for the comfort of all, let’s not discuss them here. Rugby World Cup also, but, samesies, unless you’re supporting Wales.

Here are some new books!

Acquired this week:

This week has been rather massive on the books front, so I’m splitting it into two! Next week will have this week’s fantasy/SF or other books, while this week is solely for crime/mystery books, most of them from the British Library Crime Classics series!

Cover of Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert Cover of Fell Murder by E.C.R. Lorac Cover of Surfeit of Suspects by George Bellairs Cover of Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac

Cover of Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert Cover of The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons Cover of Calamity in Kent by John Rowland Cover of Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

Cover of It Walks By Night by John Dickson Carr Cover of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers

Read this week:

Cover of The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark Cover of Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert Cover of It Walks By Night by John Dickson Carr Cover of In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Cover of The Interstellar Age by Jim Bell Cover of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers Cover of First Contact / The Cult of Progress by David Olusoga

Reviews posted this week:

–The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark. I didn’t love this as much as the other novella I’ve read by Clark, but the setting makes a nice change, and I’d love to know more about  the world. 3/5 stars
–It Walks by Night, by John Dickson Carr. Definitely not impressed by this — I’ve tried two novels by John Dickson Carr, and I don’t get the hype. 2/5 stars
–Smallbone Deceased, by Michael Gilbert. This was a much better classic crime novel! Reminded me a little of Sayers in the way that Gilbert was obviously intimately familiar with the kind of office he was writing about. 4/5 stars
–In the Night Wood, by Dale Bailey. I was not impressed by the angst and woe of the protagonist who let his daughter drown in the bath while arguing on the phone with his lover, and is all upset that his wife doesn’t want to speak to him. Even in a fantasy setting, that’s old now. 2/5 stars
–The Interstellar Age, by Jim Bell. Some interesting stuff here! A bit too much about Bell himself at times, and not heavy on scientific detail, but a good history of the Voyager program on a high level. 3/5 stars
–The Documents in the Case, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Interesting format, and Sayers’ usual deft touch with character and dialogue. 4/5 stars
–Civilisations: First Contact / The Cult of Progress, by David Olusoga. Felt unfocused and kinda perfunctory at times. Meh? 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘Brain juice.‘ I explained what norepinephrine is, and how SNRI antidepressants work!

So that’s all for now! How’s your week been, folks?

Tags: , ,

Divider

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 25, 2019 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. SayersWhat are you currently reading?

Many things at once, as ever, so I’ll pick out the two standouts! I’m most of the way through a book on the Voyager probe missions, which is pretty fascinating: it’s a little old now, and there have been other missions that added to our knowledge both since the probes did their fly-by and since the book was published, if I’m not mistaken. Still, Voyager was a heck of an undertaking, and completely admirable. I loved the part on the Golden Record and how things were chosen for it, and how Sagan guided it to represent humanity’s hopes and not our fears.

I’m also reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Documents in the Case, which I’d never actually picked up before, despite it being Sayers. It’s not Peter, of course, but it is very Sayers: she brings to life some rather different voices, exposes them mercilessly for all their faults, but with a kind of wry fondness for humans and all our foibles.

Cover of Smallbone Deceased by Michael GilbertWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last book I finished was It Walks By Night, with which I was heartily unimpressed. Before that it was Smallbone Deceased, which was a bit more to my taste. I’m afraid I really don’t get on with the author of the former, John Dickson Carr; I’ve read a couple of his now, and he does exactly the same flourish in each like it’s meant to be impressive. Smallbone Deceased actually reminded me of Sayers a little, though — not so much in style, but in the way he brought to life the setting.

Cover of Magic Slays by Ilona AndrewsWhat are you going to read next?

Search me! I have a book on deciphering lost languages by Andrew Robinson which I’m partway through, so I might focus on that. Or I might pick up Magic Slays, the next book in my Kate Daniels reread. Or finish up rereading Dreadful Company in time for Vivian Shaw’s new book, which hopefully will arrive on my doorstep tomorrow!

You get the gist, I’m bad at this.

What are you currently reading?

Tags: ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted September 21, 2019 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Good morning, guys! Happy Saturday! Here’s the roundup from the blog this week…

Acquired:

Cover of The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis Cover of The Family Gene by Joselin Linder Cover of The Uninhabitable Earth of David Wallace-Wells

Read this week:

Cover of Secrets of the Human Body by Xand and Chris Van Tulleken Cover of Conan Doyle for the Defence by Margalit Fox The Reluctant Widow Cover of The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien

Cover of Spectred Isle by K.J. Charles Cover of Thornbound by Stephanie Burgis Cover of Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney

The Fellowship of the Ring was actually the radioplay, but I haven’t uploaded the cover for that yet!

Reviewed this week:

–The Body in the Dumb River, by George Bellairs. A competent mystery; hardly transcendent, but entertaining if you’re looking for a Golden Age crime fiction. 3/5 stars
–The King in the North, by Max Adams. Very readable, and from all my knowledge, as solid as a biography of a medieval saint can be. 4/5 stars
–Spectred Isle, by K.J. Charles. A lovely queer romance, as ever; I loved Saul quite a bit. I want more in this world! 4/5 stars
–Thornbound, by Stephanie Burgis. Very enjoyable, though I have some reservations about the worldbuilding. 3/5 stars
–Desdemona and the Deep, by C.S.E. Cooney. Misgenders a key character for the first half, kind of meh standard fairytale. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Putting the Joy Back Into It. My thoughts on where my love for reading has gone, and how I’m going to try and fix it.

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘Scared right down to your bones.‘ Links about your skeleton being involved in the fear response have been flying round the interwebs, so I had a pick through the evidence and what it might mean.

That’s it for this week! Have you picked up anything good this week? Any exciting bookish adventures ahead?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Discussion: Putting the Joy Back Into It

Posted September 17, 2019 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

Well folks, the time has come to talk of many things. Just up front: I’m not quitting blogging! Things just need to change, that’s all.

But let’s begin at the beginning, with the background: for the last year or two, or… no, let’s be honest, at least three or four years now, reading has started to feel like a bit of a chore. Not all the time, but more and more. When I do read, I enjoy it, but it’s become something I almost have to schedule time for. I’ve tried a couple of different things to make that better (Game of Books is one of them), but I think overall it’s become a bit too much of a boxticking activity. Every so often I get the urge to kick over the traces and ditch all my rules, and each time it’s resulted in a new set of rules and no net gain.

(Particularly because the average number of books I read in a year has fallen, despite all the lists, all the desperation to keep up with things!)

Balls to that, right? So, when was I happy with my reading last? I think in retrospect I’d put that at about the time I started leaving Goodreads, before I kept track of things with spreadsheets and before I started trying to keep some kind of regular blog schedule. (Actually, I pinned this solely to the spreadsheets, but the wife-creature kept poking me to think about what else might be in play.)

So, come the end of this year, I’m going to stop tracking my reading so obsessively. I don’t want to know how many books I’ve read this year. At the moment, my admirable wife is going to take over the tracking (and refuse to let me see it) so that at the end of the year, I can get a bunch of pretty graphs and pie charts to talk about my reading year with. That’s the plan for 2020, and if it doesn’t work out, well, maybe I won’t track my reading at all. I suspect I just need to get the numbers out of it, though; I was very happy when I was using Goodreads for it.

(I’d start now, but I need the spreadsheet to help me with my book blanket project, and I’m far too fond of that to let it go!)

I might also stop trying to track my progress vs my backlog. It’s never-ending, and it’s become about striking books off a list rather than enjoying them. We’ll see; it’s as the whim takes me.

More immediately, and more relevantly for you guys, I’m also going to stop scheduling my posts in advance. One of the things that was part of my routine on Goodreads was going to write a review as soon as I’d finished a book, and publishing it right away. That way I could share my feelings about the books I was reading more or less in real-time.

So, posts will no longer go live at 9:00am BST on the dot; reviews will be posted when I’ve finished a book, and that means there might be two posts on some days and then none for a week. When I get into obsessive mode and read five books in a row about influenza, there could be five reviews all in a row on books about influenza. So be it! I trust you’re all here for my reviews, in all their weird and wonderful variety, and not for a rigid posting schedule.

(For a few days or weeks I do have a backlog of reviews that haven’t been posted yet; I’ll publish those when there’s a day or two without other reviews, but once they’re gone, they’re gone. I do actually have a review for a book I finished today, but I’ll hold it just until morning so there aren’t too many posts on my blog, and more to the point in people’s notifications, in one day.)

I think I will still post a Weekly Roundup and What Are You Reading Wednesday, but I shan’t be obsessive about it either. Blogging isn’t my job — in fact, it has signally failed to produce any income at all on the occasions I’ve tried affiliate links and a donation button — and nor do I want it to be.

I’m trying to have no expectations about how this little project will go — maybe I will read less, not more! But hopefully I will be happier, and I’m sure you all want that for me!

Tags: ,

Divider

Weekly Roundup

Posted September 14, 2019 by Nicky in General / 11 Comments

Good morning, folks! It’s been a busy week, and I’m not honestly sure where the time has gone. Ah well.

I did at least get an Amazon voucher from the bunnies this week, so I’ve indulged in some ebooks — and I got a couple of new releases, too.

Acquired:

Cover of A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker Cover of The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow Cover of Return of the Black Death by Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan Cover of Thornbound by Stephanie Burgis

Cover of The Perfect Assassin by K.A. Doore Cover of The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark Cover of Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney

Thank you, bunnies!

Finished reading this week:

Cover of The Body in the Dumb River by George Bellairs Cover of The King in the North by Max Adams Cover of Hekla's Children by James Brogden

Reviews posted this week:

–The Aztecs, by Richard F. Townsend. Actually managed to make the Aztecs boring, though I imagine it’s a good scholarly resource. 2/5 stars
–The Piltdown Forgery, by J.S. Weiner. A fascinating study, though it pulls back at the last minute to avoid incriminating the obvious culprit. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what’s been on my reading plate!

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘What is a gene drive?‘ I respond to a question about a genetic engineering technique that may help us eliminate malaria and other pests and diseases.

So that’s this week! How’s everyone else doing?

Tags: , ,

Divider