Category: General

WWW Wednesday

Posted May 16, 2018 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 Science and the City by Laurie WinklessWhat are you currently reading?

Most actively, iiiiit’s Science and the City, by Lauren Winkless. It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it, but I’m finding it a little difficult to stay focused — a lot of it is no surprise to me, which is probably why. Other than that, I still have Kushiel’s Chosen, An Accident of Stars and How to Survive a Plague on the go, along with a reread of After Atlas. Oh, and Too Like the Lightning, which I really need to pick back up.

Cover of Meetings With Remarkable ManuscriptsWhat have you recently finished reading?

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christoper de Hamel. Fascinating stuff — I doubt I’ll remember even a fifth of the details, but it’s still a magical read. Some of the manuscripts I knew a little about from doing medieval literature, but mostly it was all new to me. I was a little disappointed that de Hamel did mostly pick the pretty manuscripts. To me, Beowulf (for one) is far more interesting than a Book of Hours, whichever queen once owned it…

Cover of An Accident of Stars by Foz MeadowsWhat will you be reading next?

I’m going to focus on getting down my currently reading list, so probably I’ll focus on An Accident of Stars. One can hope, anyway. I am really tempted by some other books, including some ARCs, though: Witchmark, Starless, The Poppy War

But I’m trying to stay on task and get back to only having three or fewer books on the go at once!

What are you reading?

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Discussion: Audiobooks

Posted May 14, 2018 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

I really want to love audiobooks. I have a whole bunch lined up on Audible, and I’ll have the odd fit of listening to them while exercising or while crocheting, but I find them really hard to stick to. I want to devour my books at a heck of a pace, which I guess is part of it: sure, I can turn up the speed of the narration, but I’m still very aware I could be reading faster myself. Admittedly not at the same time as crocheting or something, but still, the slowness grates on me. The tedious bits in some books just drag out for ages and ages with an audiobook, whereas in a paperback I’d be past them in a twinkling. (And yet I hate using the skip forward function in an audiobook. What if I miss something?!)

I think I also find it harder to process the story when I’m hearing it read to me. Adaptations are different: if the BBC adapted every book ever into radioplays, I’d be right there and all over it. I love the BBC radioplays — The Lord of the Rings and the Peter Wimsey books are just wonderful, as far as I’m concerned. Okay, sometimes the voice casting isn’t quite right, but most often it really is — sorry, Andy Serkis, but Gollum for me is Peter Woodthorpe, forever and ever amen. (Likewise, Bill Nighy is the real Sam Gamgee.)

So I think it’s probably partly that books are usually written to be read, not performed. An adaptation cuts the stuff that doesn’t work in audio, which is why I get on well with it — in fact, I might even get on better with an adaptation than with the source text if it cuts out the kind of thing I don’t pay attention to, like tons of visual description.

A good narrator can sometimes make an audiobook worth it for me, but still… for the most part, I remain unconvinced.

So what do you get from audiobooks that makes them viable for you? Or maybe you’re like me, and you can’t get on with them?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 12, 2018 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Good morning, folks! As this goes live, I’ll be spending a weekend in a holiday cottage, possibly ignoring my emails, definitely doing things like sleeping in and going swimming. I will catch up with everything when I get back, I pinky-promise. Since I’m technically away from the bunnies, I have to go with tradition — so here is a pic of Breakfast from earlier this week. He jumped up onto my study notes to make it clear that I should have other priorities. Like petting him.

Meanwhile, I got some new books this week, so of course, it’s time to showcase them.

Received to review:

I asked for American Hippo for the short stories included, but y’all should be all over it for the novellas too, if you haven’t read them. Hero!! <3

Bought (with a gift voucher from my rabbits):

Cover of The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard Cover of On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard Cover of The Teamaster and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Cover of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs Cover of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy

What, your pets don’t buy you book vouchers?

Books read this week:

Cover of The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes Cover of The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember Cover of The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Cover of Brimstone by Cherie Priest Cover of Artificial Condition by Martha Wells Cover of Planetfall by Emma Newman Cover of Feed by Mira Grant

Reviews posted this week: 

The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang. I really got to love Akeha and the world of this book! All aspects of it: the magic, the gender stuff… <3 4/5 stars
The Red Threads of Fortune, by JY Yang. A great followup, though I kind of like Akeha more than Mokoya, even if she seems like more the protagonist of the series as a whole. 4/5 stars
Void Black Shadow, by Corey J. White. This goes some really dark places, with some really good writing. 4/5 stars
Time Was, by Ian McDonald. Hello, Bury Your Gays trope. Nice to see you aga — wait. 2/5 stars
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells. YAAAAY MURDERBOT. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

Discussion: Did Not Finish. Do you put down a book if it isn’t working for you? Or do you stick at it till the bitter end?
WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

What’re you doing this weekend? Hoping for plenty of time to read? I sure am!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 9, 2018 by Nicky in General / 8 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 Planetfall by Emma NewmanWhat are you currently reading?

I’m rereading Planetfall by Emma Newman, since Before Mars just arrived yesterday! I had to stop and take a break last night, though, because Newman is really far too good at portraying anxiety. Meep. I’m also reading How to Survive a Plague by David France, which is just heartwrenching. It’s quite dense, so I’m making slow progress, and maybe I’d like more on the science of AIDs — but it’s an important history, too.

Cover of Brimstone by Cherie PriestWhat have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Brimstone, by Cherie Priest. I liked it a lot in the end — I liked Tomas, with his sad gentleness, and I liked Alice, with her solid attitude to life and getting on with things (and having the occasional drink of bourbon, Prohibition be damned). And of course, her insistence on helping Tomas.

Cover of Artificial Condition by Martha WellsWhat will you be reading next?

Pretty sure I’ll be picking up Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells! I got the ARC on… Friday, but only just got chance to put it on my ereader, so I’ll be digging in soon. Other than that, I want to finish my reread of Planetfall, and hopefully go straight into a reread of After Atlas and then read Before Mars for the first time! I’m also planning to reread Mira Grant’s Feed and finally finish that trilogy, now I’ve got my wife reading it.

What are you reading right now?

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Discussion: Did Not Finish

Posted May 7, 2018 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

This one is a topic that tends to divide bibliophiles: deciding not to finish a book.

I’ll admit, I’m often torn. On the one hand, why should I put in the time on something I’m not actually enjoying? On the other, I usually paid for it or went to some inconvenience like getting on a bus to get on a train to get to a library in order to get the book. Or I’m meant to be reviewing it because I received it free.

My ultimate decision was that I can DNF a book if I’m not enjoying it, and I can still write reviews in that case too — after all, it can be useful to know what made another reader’s interest flag — as long as I state that I didn’t finish the book. Sometimes to write a proper review, I skim through to the end anyway; I’ll usually mention that too.

In the end, it’s come down to my Golden Rule of Reading: reading is not workI’ve read voraciously my whole life as an escape, as a way to visit new places and meet new people. No matter what, I don’t want to compromise that joy in books with a feeling of obligation. Reading is a pleasure that’s always going to be there for me, as long as I don’t make it into a job (I have one of those; well, several, since I’m a freelancer/contractor).

I get the feeling of obligation, I do. And I get those books that you love to hate, too, or feeling like you should give something a chance. But unless you need to read something for a class, why are you doing something in your free time that solely feels like a chore? If you’re not enjoying it at all — if you’re reading only to be finished… I don’t see why you shouldn’t stop now, and read something you’d like better. At least, that’s the way it works out for me, after years of feeling a sort of moral obligation to finish books.

How about you? Do you let yourself DNF?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 5, 2018 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Good morning! Thank goodness it’s the weekend — not that I work any less over the weekend, typically, but I decided to do a readathon from Litsy and thus put a lot of effort into clearing my backlog of things to do. Including the last major assignment of my degree! Just my exams (erk) and my dissertation to go now.

Anyway! Onto the books.

Received to review

Cover of Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Cover of Artificial Condition by Martha Wells Cover of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Yaaaay, Murderbot!

Oh, and I almost forgot (how rude of me!) — I won this from Imyril‘s giveaway!

Cover of Daggerspell by Katherine Kerr

Read this week:

Cover of The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang Cover of Permeable Borders by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Cover of Spider-Woman: Baby Talk Cover of Semiosis by Sue Burke Cover of Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart

Cover of Universal by Brian Cox Cover of Void Black Shadow by Corey J. White  Cover of Keeping Their Marbles by Tiffany Jenkins

Reviews posted this week:

Exiled from Camelot, by Cherith Baldry. Reread of a book I wrote part of my MA dissertation on. Sometimes feels overly emotional, but I loved what it does with the Arthurian material. 4/5 stars
Spider-woman: Shifting Gears – Baby Talk, by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez. A bit of a left turn out of nowhere for Jessica Drew, but still fun. 4/5 stars
Semiosis, by Sue Burke. I had a couple of quibbles with the narration, but I loved the ideas behind this one. 4/5 stars
Island of Apples, by Glynn Jones. Nope. Didn’t really get it, nor get along with it. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

Discussion: Affiliate links. That experiment on The Bibliophibian is now over! It didn’t work out very well for me, so this is a bit of a post mortem — and a plea for people to support other bloggers whenever they can.
WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly report on what I’m reading right now.

So what’ve you been reading this week? Anything fun going on for you? Let me know!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 2, 2018 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.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of Brimstone by Cherie PriestLet’s see, what have I got in progress… I’m partway through Cherie Priest’s Brimstone, which I meant to read back when I got an ARC, but it always kept shuffling to the bottom of my pile somehow. I’ve got to 30% of the way through in a surprisingly short time; I’m definitely intrigued by the characters and how they’re going to come together.

I’m also still partway through An Accident of Stars, Kushiel’s Chosen and Too Like the Lightning. I know, I suck.

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Semiosis by Sue BurkeWell, I just fled Brian Cox’s Universal, because though everything is really well explained, it still involves being able to clearly conceptualise numbers. If I have to, I can, but it’s not my favourite thing. So, that’s one book off the TBR.

In terms of actually finishing books, I think the last book I finished was my reread of Madam, Will You Talk? and before that, Sue Burke’s Semiosis, which I really need to put together my review of while it’s fresh in my mind. Short version: the narrative voices could have done with being more distinct, but otherwise I enjoyed the concepts explored.

Cover of Daggerspell by Katherine KerrWhat will you be reading next?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Well, no, obviously not, but I don’t really know where I’m going next. Maybe I’ll pick up Daggerspell for the Wyrd and Wonder readalong. (My mother is probably doing whatever adults do instead of a fistpump, having tried to make me read the Deverry books long ago. (I hope I’m misremembering the horrific homophobia, though I have read that there have been revisions now?)

What are you reading?

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Discussion: Affiliate links

Posted April 30, 2018 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

The affiliate link experiment on The Bibliophibian is over.

It just wasn’t working. People would tell me they never click on affiliate links anyway, that they don’t trust them, and that it feels too much like advertising. I can get that, but I’d really hoped for enough to pay for my domain name and such, at least. A book or two now and then. As it stands, after several months of the experiment (I think it might be coming up to six months?) I haven’t yet earned enough for any of the affiliates to pay out, and they’re always looking for a reason to refuse to even credit my account with the amount purchased.

So, affiliates are gone now. I’ll slowly scrub them from the previous posts, and get rid of them from my sidebar, etc, etc.

I’m really disappointed though. Blogging is my hobby, but it’s a hobby that has started to take over a serious amount of my life, just while I’m also doing a full time degree and working several jobs as a contractor. As a UK-based blogger, I don’t even get that many free books from publishers. I’d hoped that I could get enough through affiliate links to make it sustainable — and get a bit back from readers who find my reviews worthwhile or interesting without ever costing them anything.

What I will be doing instead is putting up a Ko-fi link. If sometimes you feel I’ve written an interesting post or made you want to really read a book or just been a nice person, feel free to buy me a coffee or three (well, it’s most likely to be a coke, for me). It’s something I try to do while I’m out and about, to show my appreciation for the work people do on their blogs. Some of us spend a lot of time on it, and it’s worth doing something to say ‘thanks’, right?

(I mean, Amazon and Kobo vouchers are always welcome — thebrightspark [at] gmail [dot] com is ready and waiting to receive donations — but that’s a bit steeper than a can of cola. But that would be another way to support my endeavours, if you want to make sure I buy books with my ill-gotten gains from blogging.)

The point is, blogging can be work, and if we appreciate work, we ought to support it. So that’s my pledge from now on — use affiliate links, donate via Ko-fi, don’t block ads on my favourite blogs if they’re not intrusive…

Personally, I run on cola. Cherry cola, even. I know, I know, I’m a heathen. What’s your poison?

ETA: I’ve also stopped offering a Kofi link, since it wasn’t something anyone used and it resulted in at least one strange situation.

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted April 28, 2018 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Welp, I have deadlines coming out of my ears. I haven’t replied to last week’s STS comments at the point I’m typing this. I’m gonna sit down and blitz through it tomorrow, along with any I get on this post! I am sorry to be a failboat: I blame the fact that I have two (two!) new(ish) jobs and four assignments due within a three week period. And exams coming up.

Ulp.

Still, in cool news, this is my hair now.

(It was teal until yesterday morning, and red for a long time before that. But this was the actual target colour when it ended up teal, more or less.)

Received to review:

Thank you, Tor! But especially thank you Crown Publishing for sending me Foundryside — via express mail, no less!

Books read this week:

Cover of Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon  

Cover of The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang Cover of Immune by Catherine Carver Cover of Murder in the Channel by Freeman Wills Croft

Reviews posted this week:

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, by Dan Ariely. Nothing much new to me, but solid stuff if you don’t know the psychology. 3/5 stars
Bats in the Belfry, by E.C.R. Lorac. Fun mystery, with a good twist and some very sinister scenes. 4/5 stars
War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull. It’s the grandma of Kate Daniels, October Daye and their like, and it’s a lot of fun. 4/5 stars
Evolution in Four Dimensions, by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb. If you want to learn about non-genetic methods of inheritance, this is a great place to start. Not all of the layout worked for me, but there’s some very good stuff. 4/5 stars
The Cornish Coast Mystery, by John Bude. If I was just reading this as a random story picked up without context, I might not have enjoyed it so much, on reflection. But being able to place it in the Golden Age of crime fiction, and knowing a little about the influences and so on, I found it an entertaining cosy mystery and worth the time. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

WWW WednesdayThe weekly update!

How’s everyone else doing? Been reading, in a slump, too many other things to think about? Anything amazing hit your doormat as an ARC?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted April 21, 2018 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Sooo, Amsterdam happened! And so did many books. Also some awesome socks.

Books acquired

Cover of Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston Cover of Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay Cover of Fire in the Thatch by E.C.R. Lorac Cover of Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Cover of Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs Cover of Roar by Cora Carmack Cover of Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn Cover of Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Cover of Head On by John Scalzi Cover of Semiosis by Sue Burke Cover of Skullsworn by Brian Staveley Cover of The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Cover of The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis Cover of I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher

Though the last one is, of course, an ARC — Tor are as good to me as ever.

Books read this week:

Cover of The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu by Charlie English Cover of The Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton Cover of War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

Cover of A Long Day In Lychford by Paul Cornell Cover of Exiled from Camelot by Cherith Baldry Cover of The Brain Supremacy by Kathleen Taylor

Reviews posted this week:

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin. This was mostly just a comfort read so I didn’t actually have much to say. I still love it with all its flaws. 5/5 stars
The Poisoned Chocolates Case, by Anthony Berkeley. I add to a classic murder mystery in my review… 4/5 stars
The Atrocities, by Jeremy C. Shipp. Some good atmosphere but ultimately I didn’t love it. 3/5 stars
The Golden Age of Murder, by Martin Edwards. This book tries to do a lot, but it’s mostly successful and it made me really curious about Golden Age crime fiction I’d never even heard of. 4/5 stars
A Long Day in Lychford, by Paul Cornell. I don’t love this series like some other people do, but this book did really manage to put its finger on some of the feelings in Britain around Brexit. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

WWW WednesdayThe weekly update on what I’ve been reading lately.

How’s everyone doing? Delicious book hauls? Dying of the sudden warm weather, Europeans?

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