Category: General

Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 28, 2017 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Hey all! It’s been a fairly quiet week, seeing my family, playing video games, reading… Hurrah for exactly that kind of week. And here’s Breakfast relaxing to go with it…

Received to review:

Cover of The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Just last week I read the first one and complained I didn’t have the sequel right away. Hurrah, now I do!

Bought: 

Cover of How to Survive A Plague by David France

I probably love reading about diseases a little too much.

I also got a whole suitcase full of books from Bastian’s Book Reviews, but while they’re all awesome, I’m not adding them to my cataloguing right now.

Read this week:

Cover of The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch Cover of Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott Cover of The Hidden Life of Trees Cover of The Great Influenza by John M. Barry Cover of Spin by Nina Allan

Reviews posted this week:

–The Naming of the Shrew, by John Wright. Amusing at first, but starts to drag because it becomes too much of a list. 2/5 stars
–Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Pretty much just a taster, so it genuinely is for people who aren’t fans of astrophysics already. 3/5 stars
–The Language of Thorns, by Leigh Bardugo. Interesting invented fairytales, some of them retellings, and it doesn’t matter if you already know Bardugo’s Grisha world. 4/5 stars
–The Tiger’s Daughter, by K. Arsenault Rivera. I wanted to love this for the queerness and the elegant writing, but I was turned off by the depiction of the cultures borrowed from here. 2/5 stars
–The Gods of Olympus, by Barbara Graziosi. Not much of a surprise for me, but a good survey of the Olympian gods and what people have believed about them over the centuries. 3/5 stars
–Damn Fine Story, by Chuck Wendig. Good advice on how to tell stories, though there’s quite a lot of filler padding it out. 3/5 stars
–Under the Pendulum Sun, by Jeannette Ng. It’s hard to know what to say about this one — it’s fascinating and twisted, playing with stories about the Fae and bringing Victorian realism to it. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. What’s hot and what’s not on my reading pile.

So how is everyone? Let me know and I’ll try and swing by and comment back ASAP, though I’m quite busy today!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 25, 2017 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.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of The Great Influenza by John M. BarryFar too much, as ever, but most actively I’m back to Abaddon’s Gate and making some progress. I don’t necessarily always feel like reading these books, but once I pick one up it’s sure hard to put it down! I’m also reading a book on the 1918 ‘flu pandemic, The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry. Interesting so far, though I’m going quite slowly with it. Not the most enticing prose, somehow.

I’m also reading The Gracekeepers, which I’m about half of the way through. Still not sure what to make of it, though!

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of The Hidden Life of TreesTrouble and Her Friends! It’s rather old school cyberpunk in terms of the technology levels, but I enjoyed the interplay between the characters, and the fact that it didn’t rush. The worry about regulating the internet seems rather prescient now…

I also finished The Hidden Life of Trees, which was fascinating, although sometimes I felt things were presented too simply. The fact that trees can sense chemicals in the air does not mean that they taste them in the way we do, for example. Still, a lot I didn’t know.

What will you read next?

Cover of Regency Buck by Georgette HeyerI’m feeling kind of like reading some Georgette Heyer — I kind of want to reread The Grand Sophy, but I do have Heyer books I haven’t read before which are on my backlog… I have Regency Buck and Friday’s Child with me in paperback, and a few others on my ereader. We’ll see! I just realised Regency Buck is part of a series, so I’m not sure how readable it is on its own. Darn.

What are you reading?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 21, 2017 by Nicky in General / 31 Comments

Good morning, folks! Here is my haul of books about diseases, for background reading for my course. I’ve already torn through four of them, actually, and it is very helpful to have this perspective.

It hasn’t been a great week in some other respects, so hey, at least I have books. And bunny pictures.

Bought:

Cover of Ebola by David Quammen Cover of Virus X by Frank Ryan Cover of No Time To Lose by Peter Piot Cover of Rabid by Bill Wasik

Cover of Angel of Death by Gareth Williams Cover of Paralysed with Fear by Gareth Williams Cover of Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC

Can you tell what I’m studying this semester? Heh.

Read this week:

Cover of Ebola by David Quammen Cover of I Hate Everyone But You Cover of Paralysed with Fear by Gareth Williams Cover of Rabid by Bill Wasik Cover of Connection Error by Annabeth Albert

Cover of Angel of Death by Gareth Williams Cover of The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim Cover of Sea, Swallow Me   Cover of The Five Daughters of the Moon by Leena Likitalo Cover of The Chocolatier's Wife by Cindy Lynn Speer

Reviews posted this week:

–Jhereg, by Steven Brust. A reread to get back to the series. It remains fun, though there were no surprises (obviously), and I think some of the fun does come from working things out. 4/5 stars
–Just One Damned Thing After Another, by Jodi Taylor. I don’t know why I’m the odd one out, but to me the title summarised how this book felt. It had a natural end and then — kept going. I can’t say I loved the characters, either, or the fact that the plot was advanced by sexual assaults. 2/5 stars
–Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, by Angela Saini. Takes a look at — and skewers — supposed science about in-built differences between genders. 3/5 stars
–A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle. I didn’t get the enduring charm that’s made this a classic, I’m afraid. 2/5 stars
–First Grave on the Right, by Darynda Jones. Holy rape culture, Batman. 1/5 stars
–Taste of Marrow, by Sarah Gailey. This had less of the team feel than the previous book, and basically I’m 10,000% here for the lot of them settling down, making a found family and having capers (together) forever. 4/5 stars
–The Beautiful Ones, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I didn’t love Signal to Noise, but this worked much better for me. It’s very Heyer-esque. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday: The weekly update on my currently reading stack, and what I might read next!

How’re you all doing? I’ll always visit back if you leave a comment here, so feel free to drop in a link directly to your STS post.

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 18, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 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 Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa ScottMost actively (the key words, with the way I stack up a bunch of currently-reading books!), it’s Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott, and Angel of Death, by Gareth Williams. The former is queer cyberpunk, and I’m having a lot of fun with it — it’s a little slow to unfold, but I read 25% when I should’ve been sleeping, so I’m gonna say it’s hooked me. Angel of Death is fascinating in other ways, of course, because it’s about the history and science of smallpox. I am learning a lot of things I didn’t know about it!

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Rabid by Bill WasikThe last thing was a cultural history of rabies, Rabid, by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy. It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, because there was a lot of emphasis on the cultural stuff, like rabies’ relation to vampirism and werewolves. Still, there was some interesting stuff, especially about recent cases who actually recovered from rabies (which is normally considered 100% fatal in humans).

What will you read next?

Cover of The Gracekeepers by Kirsty LoganI started The Gracekeepers, by Kirsty Logan, at the weekend, and I want to pick that back up and finish it. I also want to focus on my Kushiel’s Dart reread. I’m trying not to tempt myself too much beyond that! I’m intrigued by The Gracekeepers; I haven’t read much, so I haven’t got to grips with the setting yet.

What are you reading?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 14, 2017 by Nicky in General / 34 Comments

Good morning, folks! I’m finally better from my cough… at least mostly, though if you look at me wrong I might go off into a little coughing fit, alas. I’ve just ordered a bunch of background reading for my course, but it hasn’t all arrived yet, so I only have a small stack of books to share this week: a couple of ARCs and a novella.

Oh, and here’s the obligatory away-from-buns bunny picture:

Photo of my bunnies sat together.
Double Trouble.

Received to review:

Cover of Close Encounters with Humankind by Sang-Hee Lee Cover of Valiant Dust by Richard Baker

I’ve already read Close Encounters with Humankind, which is pretty fascinating; I can’t remember the summary of Valiant Dust, so that one’s going to be a surprise…

Bought:

Cover of The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford

I’ve been curious about this since N.K. Jemisin mentioned it in her column, so I picked it up with what was left of an Amazon voucher after buying stuff related to my classes.

Read this week:

Cover of Away With the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood Cover of A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup Cover of Close Encounters with Humankind by Sang-Hee Lee Cover of A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson Cover of The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford

A bit better week for reading, this week! Here’s hoping I get back into top form soon…

Reviews posted this week:

–The Hammer and the Cross, by Robert Ferguson. A little dry and very detailed; a very good read for someone who’s really interested, though. 4/5 stars
–A Very British Murder, by Lucy Worsley. A fun book covering the evolution of crime fiction in the UK, and people’s love of it. 4/5 stars
–Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood, by Michael White. Another good biography from White. 4/5 stars
–The Man Who Fell to Earth, by Walter Tevis. I didn’t love this, but the way it ended was perfect — it made so much sense with what we see in reality. Hence, 4/5 stars
–The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. This didn’t quite work for me, and I’m not sure why. I guess it felt rather predictable/typical in some ways. 3/5 stars
–How We Got To Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World, by Steven Johnson. Good points and a pretty entertaining read, but nothing earth-shatteringly surprising. 3/5 stars
–The Lost City of Z, by David Grann. Really, I want the book about the archaeology being done now, rather than about Victorian explorers, but it’s reasonably entertaining all the same. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday: The weekly update on what I’m reading.

How’re you doing? Comment here to let me know, and don’t forget to provide a link so I can visit you in return!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 11, 2017 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.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of A Sting in the Tale by Dave GoulsonA Sting in the Tale, by Dave Goulson. It’s a non-fiction/pop-science book about bees, and is part of a new project of mine to get less scared of insects by becoming curious about them. It worked for me when it comes to pathogens (starting with David Quammen’s Spillover), so I’m hopeful. So far I’m learning a lot of interesting facts — for instance, bumblebees have smelly feet — and I’m not grossed out or anxious. On the other hand, bees are relatively harmless anyway and aren’t a major fear of mine. I’ve got a book on ants lined up, and that might be more problematic. Ideally, I should find something on spiders…

I’m also reading a few other books, but most actively it’s Kushiel’s Dart, which I finally found the time to pick up again. I forgot how long it takes before Joscelin actually appears!

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Away With the Fairies by Kerry GreenwoodI think the last thing I finished was a reread of Kerry Greenwood’s Away with the Fairies. It’s a blatant homage to Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, in some ways, and it also features Phryne being terribly daring and heroic in rescuing her lover, Lin Chung, from pirates. These books make for great comfort reading, because you can pretty much be sure everything will be okay, and also I’ve read them before so I know how they turn out. And Phryne is awesome.

(I needed comfort reading because my cough got so bad I pulled muscles in my ribcage. I’m doing better now, before I had to bring out the big guns and reread The Goblin Emperor.)

What will you read next?

Cover of Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. CoreyI’m going to focus on finishing Abaddon’s Gate, for a start. I also have a stack of library books to read while I’m visiting my parents, including some books in the 300s of the Dewey Decimal System for a Habitica challenge. I can’t remember the titles, but they’re about multiculturalism and immigration, so not my usual thing, but rather topical given the world at present and the political preoccupations of our time.

Other than that, I’m not sure. I might pick up Nine Coaches Waiting, since I’m about due for another scheduled dose of rereading Mary Stewart’s work.

What are you reading at the moment?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 7, 2017 by Nicky in General / 22 Comments

Good morning, folks! I’m not quite over the cold yet, since I have a horrible cough that won’t shift, but I’m doing better. And, I ended up with a whole stack of books from London/friends/etc. Woo!

Update on the me:

As you can see below, it still hasn’t been a good reading week. I’m just so tired. I have a few books on the go, but nothing’s sticking very well. Mostly I feel like reading non-fiction, but I’m mindful of the fact that most people are here for my fiction reviews, and don’t even read non-fiction, so I do need to keep up with the fiction content!

Although, maybe that’s the problem. I do view keeping my blog interesting as being a job, and reading ARCs as a job, sometimes. Maybe that’s taking the fun out of it a little — but on the other hand, I get fun back from running a blog people enjoy and engage with, so… Hm.

Anyway, other than that, you may have noticed that I’ve got my green lock showing my site is now secure! With the help of Lynn O’Connacht, who is very patient and hosts my blog for free, my site is now secured and fit for anything.

In other news, I’m away from the bunnies again, and you know what that means. Here is Hulk, showing everyone she’s a civilised lady and can sit at (well… under) the dinner table.

New books:

Cover of Built on Bodies by Brenna Hasset Cover of Science and the City by Laurie Winkless Cover of Goldilocks and the Water Bears by Louisa Preston Cover of Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher

Cover of Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews Cover of The Five Daughters of the Moon by Leena Likitalo Cover of After the Bloodwood Staff Cover of The Occasional Diamond Thief by J.A. Mclachlan

Cover of Going For Stone by Philip Gross Cover of Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle

Some good non-fic picked up at the New Scientist Live event, and a bunch more fiction to keep me occupied. Hurrah!

Read this week:

Cover of Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher Cover of Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn Cover of The Servants, by Michael Marshall Smith

 

Reviews posted this week:

–The Wimsey Family, by C.S. Scott-Giles & Dorothy L. Sayers. A little piece of, well, whimsy, covering the background of Lord Peter’s family in bits and bobs pieced together from letters and piffle. 4/5 stars
–Mask of Shadows, by Linsey Miller. Mostly, this felt a little bit too much like Throne of Glass and The Hunger Games, though the genderqueer protagonist was an interesting touch. 3/5 stars
–A Rare Book of Cunning Device, by Ben Aaronovitch. A fun audio-exclusive. Not essential to the broader plot of Peter Grant’s story, but a good aside and a perfect narrator. 4/5 stars
–Leonardo: The First Scientist, by Michael White. A readable and apparently well-sourced biography of a great thinker. 4/5 stars
–Drawing Breath: the Making and Unmaking of Tuberculosis, by Kathryn Lougheed. A lot of stuff I didn’t know about TB itself, and a wake-up call if you didn’t know that TB is very far from being unmade. 4/5 stars
–The Secret History of the World, by Jonathan Black. Not about what I thought it was about from other reviews, sadly. 1/5 stars
–The Carpet Makers, by Andreas Eschbach. A reread of a carefully crafted favourite. 5/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday: The weekly update on what I’ve been reading

So how’re you?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 4, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 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 The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno BettelheimA couple of things, as usual. For non-fiction, I’m reading The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim. I know that his views on autism, etc, are very much criticised now, but this is about fairytales and how they help to develop a child’s brain. He’s very much a psychoanalyst, which I tend to take with a grain of salt, but he still has some interesting theories about the appeal of fairytales.

Cover of Summerlong by Peter S. BeagleIn terms of fiction, I’ve just started Peter S. Beagle’s Summerlong. I have to say, I’m raising my eyebrows a little at the fact that like In Calabria, he has an older man in a romance with a younger woman. It’s less creepy-feeling than in that book, but it still has a bit of that hmmmm to it. Especially in his attraction to Lioness, the even younger character who is really the centre of the story. Not that I expect older people to turn off their attraction to younger people as such, it’s just… since that comment from Jo on In Calabria, I can’t stop noticing.

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Bring Back the King by Helen PilcherNot very much! The last thing I finished was Helen Pilcher’s Bring Back the King, which is about de-extinction efforts. It’s light-hearted (though not hilarious, as the cover-copy might have you believe) but informative, though I knew most of the info from reading Beth Shapiro’s How to Clone A Mammoth. Very similar info about the same range of species as that book, so unless you’re absolutely mad about T-rex and Elvis (yes, she discusses “de-extincting” Elvis), I think I’d skip it if you’ve already read that.

What will you be reading next?

Cover of The Red Threads of Fortune by JY YangI’ll probably read the two books just out from Tor.com by Jy Yang, The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven. The covers look beautiful, I’m intrigued by the summaries, and I received them to review last week. I also need to get back to reading Andy Weir’s Artemis, of course! And given that I’m still not quite well, and I’m at my parents’ house with my copies of the Phryne Fisher books, I’m tempted to dive into a reread of Away with the Fairies…

What are you reading?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted September 30, 2017 by Nicky in General / 21 Comments

Good morning, folks. I’m currently in London, about to attend the New Scientist Live event, and completely full of cold. Wife brought it home last week, but now I’m in the thick of it too. Bleh. So anyway, I might not reply to comments/other people’s posts until tomorrow, but I promise I’ll get to them, as always!

Books received to review:

Cover of Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren Cover of The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang Cover of The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang Cover of The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt

Thank you Tor and Angry Robot! Exciting stuff.

Books bought:

Cover of Keeping Their Marbles by Tiffany Jenkins Cover of Provenance by Ann Leckie Cover of A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

Thank you, Mum! I’ve been wanting all these for ages.

Read this week:

Cover of Snowdrift & Other Stories by Georgette Heyer Cover of Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey Cover of Bog Bodies Uncovered

Again, not the greatest reading week. It started okay, but then I got sick…

Reviews posted this week:

–The Warrior Princess, by K.M. Ashman. Disappointing in execution, but still pretty awesome to see someone dealing with Welsh history. I learnt something! 2/5 stars
–Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. It started out entertaining, but I got tired of the brand of humour, which mostly revolves around sex and bodily functions. 2/5 stars
–Proust and the Squid, by Maryanne Wolf. About the science of how we read. I have serious questions about some of the research described. 3/5 stars
–Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. I couldn’t wrap my head around it as science fiction, but once I treated it as fantasy and just accepted the world, I loved it. 4/5 stars
–Neanderthals Rediscovered, by Dimitra Pappagianni and Michael A. Morse. Not as in-depth as I’d hoped, but interesting stuff. 3/5 stars
–Starlings, by Jo Walton. Unsurprisingly, I loved this collection of Jo’s short work. 4/5 stars
–The Planet in a Pebble, by Jan Zalasiewicz. Not as poetic as Richard Fortey’s work, but an enjoyable survey of the rock cycle. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–The cost of reading: Books ARE expensive. Apropos of a throwaway tweet stating that books are not expensive. (Spoiler: it depends.)

No WWW Wednesday post this week, see also: I was sick! Hopefully there’ll be more activity round here in the week to come. How’s everyone else doing?

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The cost of reading: books ARE expensive

Posted September 28, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Apropos of a twitter conversation, here is some data on the assertion that “books aren’t expensive”. Folks, please remember this is relative. Books may appear cheap to you, but they may not to someone else, and this depends on at least three factors.

  • Cost of books where you are (including availability of second-hand books)
  • Your income
  • How much you read

This post is intended to offer you some data on how the amount you read can make books pretty darn expensive for you.

I keep stats on my reading. For every book I read, I add how much it cost me, and get totals per month, per quarter and per year. So I enter £7.99 for a new paperback, £3 for a book that I got second-hand, and £0.00 for an ARC or library book, etc, etc. Two-thirds of my reading material, probably, is stuff I’ve bought, while another third is library books, ARCs or stuff I’ve borrowed or am rereading (which I don’t count again). To make it clearer, here’s an example: my reading material in the first week of August, and how much it cost.

You can see that Babylon cost me £9.99, for instance; I bought that in the UK. Catching Breath cost me £21.15 — I bought that in Amsterdam, so that’s a direct conversion from euros done on the day I bought it. In the UK you can get it for £12.99, by the way. Hengeworld cost me £2.00, because I had a second-hand copy, and Acadie cost me nada because Tor sent me an e-galley (thank you, Tor!).

All clear?

Here’s the very rough guide to how much the books I read in a quarter have cost me: £300+. So you can basically call my reading speed £100+ worth of books per month, not counting anything I get for free (a significant portion of what I consume). That means that just to keep up with my own reading speed, I need to spend £100 or more per month on new books — I’m sure you can agree that that’s too much for many people’s budgets.

I barely need to point out, too, that while books are pretty affordable in Britain, often under £10… if you live in a non-English-speaking country you can pay twice that or more for a single book. Or that many people have tiny incomes which certainly wouldn’t be able to keep up with a reading speed like mine. And that libraries are great, but may not have great stocks of the books you want to read (sorry, Leuven library, but your English-language selection isn’t expanding fast enough to keep up with me).

This isn’t a justification for piracy. It’s just noting that books are actually expensive and a luxury for some people. Just because books are easy and cheap for you to obtain doesn’t mean that holds true for everyone. Stick to the stuff that’s indisputably true — piracy deprives authors of earnings.

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