Category: General

Stacking the Shelves

Posted February 25, 2017 by Nicky in General / 27 Comments

Hey everyone! It’s been a busy week for me again, and I haven’t done that much reading, but thankfully I should have a bit more time for myself now. Here’s hoping, right?

And oh, hey! Look what I just achieved on Netgalley…

Received to review

Looking forward to the sequel to The Girl from Everywhere, and Frogkisser should be fun. Behind the Mask was an impulsive pick, but hey, we all know I love superheroes.

Bought

I felt like I deserved a treat after the report I just had to turn in! As far as possible from protein assays and statistics, I hope.

Books finished this week:

Not much read, I know. Still, finishing On the Origin of Species was an achievement! Rating preview:

Five stars to… On the Origin of Species.
Three stars to… Brother’s Ruin.

Reviews posted this week:

–The Family Plot, by Cherie Priest. Priest takes on a haunted house! Solidly entertaining and I enjoyed that those haunted were a salvage crew going over an old house. 3/5 stars
–Dreadnought, by April Daniels. Danny’s dreams come true when she receives superhero powers and the transformation she’s always wanted. Not all the existing superheroes are so great about it. Enjoyable stuff, though Danny does struggle in realistic but upsetting ways. 4/5 stars
–Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages. Wistful, hopeful story set in an incidentally magical sort of world, which is mostly 1940s San Fransisco. Really enjoyed this. 4/5 stars
–Adulthood is a Myth, by Sarah Andersen. It me! 4/5 stars
–Murder on the Ballarat Train, by Kerry Greenwood. Though I’m noticing some inconsistencies as I reread, this series is still so much fun, and this outing brings a few more people into Phryne’s found family. 4/5 stars
–Virus Hunt, by Dorothy H. Crawford. A pretty in-depth look at HIV and how it moved from animals to humans. I enjoyed it a lot, but it is definitely focused on the epidemiological side rather than the social. 4/5 stars
–Scarlet, by A.C. Gaughen. I really wanted to enjoy this take, but the love triangle was weird and the narration didn’t work for me. Alas. 2/5 stars

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted February 23, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

It’s only a little late! And hey, now I’m out of assignment hell… for now.

What have you recently finished reading?

Nothing, this week! The last thing I finished was a reread of Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic, on… Thursday? Yes, I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms. I could probably do with another Mary Stewart reread, for something familiar — This Rough Magic is a total comfort read, like all Stewart’s books for me.

What are you currently reading?

On the Origin of Species is the book I’m reading most actively. So close to finishing it! It amazes me how right Darwin managed to be, given his limited understanding of genetics. I’ve also still got my reread of The Dragonbone Chair and the ARC of The Stars Are Legion on the go.

Oh, and I also newly started After Atlas, by Emma Newman, which I was devouring before my assignment took over everything. And I was also reading Brother’s Ruin, her new novella, which I got as an ARC. I’m enjoying that, too.

What are you planning to read next?

Once I’ve finished with Darwin, I’m going to focus on finishing The Stars Are Legion, After Atlas and Brother’s Ruin. Probably in the reverse of that order. I might also fit in a comfort read like a Mary Stewart book; I’m thinking maybe My Brother Michael, or Nine Coaches Waiting. After that, I’m not sure: the possibilities are endless.

Tags: books, reading meme

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted February 21, 2017 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

This week’s theme is books you loved less or more than you thought you would. I’ll do five of each!

Books I Liked Less Than I Hoped:

The Children’s Hospital, by Chris Adrian. A notorious failure in one of my online book clubs. Like, I don’t think any of us liked it, and I’m not sure how many of us actually finished it. For a while it was a byword for terribleness.
Hard to Be A God, by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky. I enjoyed Roadside Picnic a whole lot, and then found Hard to Be a God… completely impenetrable. I’m told it’s a hard one to translate.
Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps, by Kelly Sue DeConnick. It just felt so monumentally pointless. I normally enjoyed DeConnick’s run on Captain Marvel, but nope. Not this one.
Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. I know, what’s wrong with me, right?
The Book of Atrix Wolfe, by Patricia McKillip. It wasn’t bad, but I just didn’t enjoy it the way I expected to, since I’ve come to appreciate McKillip’s work a lot.

Books I Liked More Than I Expected:

Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates, by Kerry Greenwood. Once upon a time, I read this and hated it. Then I read it again and fell in love, and since devoured the whole series. Right time, I guess.
The Wolf Hunt, by Gillian Bradshaw. I expected to be mad at how heteronormative this was set up to be, given I knew the original lai as something rather “homosocial” (as my tutor would’ve said, and did, often). But somehow it charmed me all the same.
Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. This is the first of Rowell’s books I read, and didn’t expect to be so drawn in by her warm style and her characters.
The Talisman Ring, by Georgette Heyer. I hadn’t yet admitted that I enjoyed some romance stories when I first read this. But Heyer won me over — not a bad person to convert one, I think.
DNA: The Secret of Life, by James Watson. Having read his book on the discovery of DNA, I couldn’t picture getting on with another book of his. But he apparently aged well, and this book was interesting and decidedly less rage inducing.

What about you?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted February 18, 2017 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

Happy Saturday! It’s been a busy week around here, and I should probably be in the digital lab right now, looking at sections of rat tissue. But hey, books!

How’ve you all been?

Received to review:

Yay, thank you, Tor!

Finished this week:

Sneak peek at ratings:

4 stars to… Britain BC and Wicked Wonders.
3 stars to… This Rough Magic.
2 stars to… Britain AD.

Reviews posted this week:

–Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates, by Kerry Greenwood. A reread, again already? Yep. And it remains a lot of fun — I don’t know why I didn’t enjoy it the first time. 4/5 stars
–The Prince of the Moon, by Megan Derr. A sweet queer fairytale, though a little rushed for my taste. 3/5 stars
–The Celtic Revolution, by Simon Young. Interesting history, but where it touched on Arthuriana it rather annoyed me, alas. 3/5 stars
–Monstress, by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda. Beautiful artwork, but I kept losing track of the story. 3/5 stars
–Flying Too High, by Kerry Greenwood. Gotta love all the references to other detectives which, for some reason, I’m only just picking up now. Hurrah Phryne! 4/5 stars
–Miranda and Caliban, by Jacqueline Carey. As beautiful as you would expect coming from Carey, and as heartbreaking. 4/5 stars

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted February 15, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

Francis Pryor’s Britain AD, with which I had a lot of arguments. I don’t dispute his understanding of archaeology, but I’m not sure about his grasp of linguistics, genetics or literature, which unfortunately come into this somewhat and appear to counter some of his theories. But I have a whooole post on that coming in… uh, April. So I’ll stop now.

What are you currently reading?

I’m still reading Ellen Klages’ Wicked Wonders, rereading Tad Williams’ The Dragonbone Chair, and I’ve started on On the Origin of Species — Darwin, of course. It’s a little slow going, but as a biologist in the making, I feel like I really should read it — and he argued his case very, very well. I’ve also still got The Stars are Legion…

What are you planning to read next?

I’m trying not to plan what to read next! I need to get some of the books I’m already reading squared away. I’m going to focus on Wicked Wonders next, I think.

Tags: books, reading memes

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted February 14, 2017 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Repost! Since for some reason, WordPress ate the first version.

It’s February 14th, which means it’s Valentine’s Day. Which means that the TTT topic for today is, unsurprisingly, about romance. I’m going to talk about couples-that-might-have-been, and couples-which-aren’t-yet, in books that I love.

Csethiro and Maia, from The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison). Okay, they’re getting married, so the chances are good. But we only just glimpsed the two of them beginning to really come together as a couple. I long to see more of Csethiro protecting him, and Maia respecting her and giving her power and influence in his kingdom, and how that unfolds.
Kim and Aileron, from The Fionavar Tapestry (Guy Gavriel Kay). Come onnnn, I can’t be the only one who saw that. Kim should’ve stayed in Fionavar; marrying Dave makes no sense at all. But then, Kay is kind of prone to that.
Arthur and Guinevere, from Paths to Camelot (Sarah Zettel). I just love seeing them have a functional, central, mutual relationship without betrayal. We get glimpses of them throughout the four books, but… I want more.
Eowyn and Faramir, from The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien). They make sense as a couple, but they have so little time and development. Gimme more!
Alcuin and Anafiel, from Kushiel’s Dart (Jacqueline Carey). It’s not faaaaair.
Phèdre and Nicola, from Kushiel’s Chosen (Jaqueline Carey). I really liked their relationship and wished we saw a bit more of it.
Alan and Matthias, from Blood and Circuses (Kerry Greenwood). Their scenes together with Phryne made me laugh, and I kind of hope that they at least kept up the relationship.
Lin Chung and his wife, from Murder in Montparnasse (Kerry Greenwood). I feel like Lin Chung’s wife deserved a bit more ‘screen time’, so to speak — she and Phryne could have a fascinating relationship, and she seemed pretty interesting as a character.
Rupert and Bryan, from Season of Storms (Susanna Kearsley). Okay, I kind of want them to be my dads, but. The book ends tragically and it’s not fair.
Celia and Marco, from The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern). Or maybe I just never wanted that book to end…

And now I kind of want to go and reread all these books.

Tags: books, Guy Gavriel Kay, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kerry Greenwood, Sarah Zettel, Susanna Kearsley, Top Ten Tuesday

Why haven’t you read ____ yet?

Posted February 13, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

I know I read really fast. You must figure I read really fast, since there’s a new review up here every single day (and they’re actually scheduled up through March). So it makes no sense that I haven’t read a book I got as a review copy or a book I insisted on getting the moment it released… two years ago.

(Sorry, Scott Lynch. Robin Hobb. Joe Abercrombie. Guy Gavriel Kay. Various others.)

The thing is, I have a backlog currently standing at 1,049 books purchased and not yet read. Yes, I said 1,049. That figure doesn’t include ARCs or library books or books that’re just on my wishlist. This is books on my shelves or on my Kindle, ready for me to get round to them.

The other thing is, when I make strict rules and reading lists, I stop reading. When I’m impulsive and I just read what catches my eye, I read a lot more. Whichever way I do it, I end up behind on books I requested or bought with the greatest impatience — and it’s not that I don’t want to read them, don’t think they’re shiny, have gone off the idea, whatever. It’s just that I have a lot of books, an impulsive way of choosing books, and an inability to just stick to one reading list. (And, well, sometimes I have gone off the idea of the book, for now. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested at all, just that right now I’m trying to devour everything in reach featuring a certain trope or certain information. At the moment, it’s archaeology.)

I’m doing my best. At the moment, I’m loading books to review onto my Kindle right away and starting them ASAP, to prevent my backlog getting bigger. I’m working through the backlog slowly, rediscovering things I thought were exciting before and finding new excitement about them. I feel bad that these books have been sitting so long, but there is some consolation in the fact that these are books that’re probably no longer actively being marketed, and with as many active readers as follow me, I’m bound to help someone match up with a backlist book they’d love.

The other thing is, well, I’m kind of contrary. If you hype a book up to me, I might well avoid it. Or I’ll get a book the minute it comes out… to taunt myself with for months, delaying the pleasure.

And, well, I bite off more than I can chew. A lot. All the time.

I’m also busy. Really busy. I’m doing a full-time biology degree through the Open University, which means that I have to direct my own pacing through the course while still meeting rigid deadlines for assignments and prepping for exams. I’m also self-employed, and sometimes after a long day of transcription and copywriting, I just want to flop into a chair and reread Strong Poison for the umpteenth time. Sorry.

The thing is, I’m a fairly rubbish human at times. I’m doing my best. Have a bunny.

Mea culpa.

Tags: books, discussion

Stacking the Shelves

Posted February 11, 2017 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Happy Saturday! It’s been a bit of a bad week for me, just cause I haven’t felt very well… but hey, there’s books!

Received to review:

Thank you to Netgalley and Tachyon for these! I read Passing Strange by Ellen Klages last week, and definitely want to read more of her work.

Bought:

My wife bought me Norse Mythology to cheer me up because I’m still not well, and Four Roads Cross was only a couple of quid on the Kindle store. I want the whole set of Gladstone’s books someday in paperback, for those beautiful covers. But for now, I have the ebooks!

Finished this week:

Not as much reading as I’d hoped, really. I’ve been so tired! A sneak peek at my ratings…

Four stars to… Late Eclipses.
Three stars to… Deadly Companions and The Death of Caesar.
Two stars to… Reading Like A Writer.

Reviews posted this week:

–A History of the World in 12 Maps, by Jerry Brotton. Unfortunately not for me; rather dry, and not quite the focus I’d been hoping for. Might be good for someone who is more interested in maps and cartography, though. 2/5 stars
–One Plus One Equals One, by John Archibald. No, he’s not bad at maths — he’s talking about the history of symbiosis which gave animal cells mitochondria (for one example). Not very revolutionary to me as I think my mother excitedly told me about this when I was a teen and it was a newish theory, but interesting stuff. 3/5 stars
–The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis. Not a fan of this one at all, sadly. The kids are quarrelsome and Rillian makes a bad first impression. Still, there’s Puddleglum. 2/5 stars
–Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day, by Seanan McGuire. Works very well as a novella — McGuire has the trick of it, I think. Just enough background and such to make the world interesting, while focusing on the plot. 4/5 stars
–Memory of Water, by Emmi Itäranta. Slow, lyrical, a personal and quiet post-apocalypse. I enjoyed it a lot. 4/5 stars
–The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman. A reread, which of course I enjoyed a lot. 4/5 stars
–Hatchepsut, by Joyce Tyldesley. There isn’t enough information about this pharaoh, but what she has, Tyldesley presents and organises well. 4/5 stars
–The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis. There are things about this that I like, but mostly… nope, nope, nope. 1/5 stars

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted February 8, 2017 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

I just finished reading Barry Strauss’ The Death of Caesar. It was interesting, but not as good as his previous books — it felt a bit drier, somehow. But it did teach me some stuff I didn’t already know about Caesar and the people around him. For example, I knew nothing about Decimus Brutus — who is not the Brutus everyone remembers via “et tu, Brute?”

What are you currently reading?

Uh, let’s see. I’m partway through The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams, which I’m rereading. It’s a bit of a chunky book, so I’m making fairly slow process. I’m still only halfway through The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley, too. I had that as an ARC and it’s out now, so maybe I should get to that. And I accidentally started reading Ellen Klages’ Wicked Wonders, which I just got an e-ARC of via Tachyon.

What are you planning to read next?

I haven’t really decided yet. I’m tempted to read some more non-fiction, but on the other hand I’ve been hitting that fairly hard lately. Maybe if I get my hands on a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, I’ll go with that. On the other hand, I have a book that’s due back at the library pretty soon, so maybe I should read that — The Dark Mirror, by Juliet Marillier.

Tags: books, reading meme

Stacking the Shelves

Posted February 4, 2017 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

Happy Saturday! Not that it’s the end of the work week for me. Big project to be doing, which means a surprising amount of money and hopefully a correspondingly large number of books. Also, class.

But still, I managed quite a bit of reading this week!

Received to review

Hee! I need to reread The Dragonbone Chair, stat — I’ve been meaning to for a while anyway, but now this is extra motivation. I’m not sure if The Heart of What Was Lost stands alone, but it sounds like it comes after the series?

Bought

It’s fine, Mum, it cost £1.49, and besides, it’s always a good thing for me to read about things that scare me. Knowledge is power, etc.

Finished reading this week:

Not a bad week, as you see! And five of them were ARCs. Hurrah me. And the ratings sneak peek:

4 stars… p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code, Final Girls and Passing Strange.
3 stars… Proust and the Squid and Birthright.
2 stars… Martians Abroad, Binti: Home and Maisie Dobbs.

Reviews posted this week:

–Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas. A reread, which I once again found solidly enjoyable. I don’t expect great literary merit from Maas, just a fun time, which maybe helps. 3/5 stars
–The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. A lovely space opera adventure, full of characters you get to know and love. Just one criticism: the vaguely episodic feel to each of the events. Everything feels like it gets wrapped up very quickly, with only the bare bones of a larger plot. 4/5 stars
–Weird Dinosaurs: The Strange New Fossils Challenging Everything We Thought We Knew, by John Pickrell. Very enjoyable, and not always just for the dinosaurs but also for the people — almost characters — caught up in their story. 4/5 stars
–The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I still love this, but my review this time poked at some of the flaws. 5/5 stars
–The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker. If you’ve encountered academic technobabble, and particularly if you’re allergic to it, this makes a good antidote. 4/5 stars
–Gutenberg’s Fingerprint, by Merilyn Simonds. More of a memoir than I’d thought going in. Some interesting stuff, but… meh. 2/5 stars
–Strangers in Company, by Jane Aiken Hodge. Mystery, politics and romance, in the vein of a Mary Stewart novel. Fun, though not mindblowing. 3/5 stars

Category: General

Received to review

Bought

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

What have you recently finished reading?

What are you currently reading?

What are you planning to read next?

Books I Liked Less Than I Hoped:

Books I Liked More Than I Expected:

Received to review:

Finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

What have you recently finished reading?

What are you currently reading?

What are you planning to read next?

Received to review:

Bought:

Finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts:

What have you recently finished reading?

What are you currently reading?

What are you planning to read next?

Received to review

Bought

Finished reading this week:

Reviews posted this week:

Other posts: