Category: General

ShelfLove July Update

Posted July 1, 2016 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

ShelfLove Update!

Hello, everyone! June’s been an eventful month, with my wedding date now set (5th August) and a honeymoon booked (we didn’t choose Dublin because there’s a bookshop I want to visit there, nope)… and the UK deciding in a referendum, incomprehensibly from my point of view, to leave the European Union. Honestly, I kind of hope the last part is a bad dream.

Still, I’ve got a fair amount of reading done, woohoo!

The goals where I’m ahead are in blue; bang on are in green; behind by up to five books are in orange; anything else is in red. I now have a running total to show where I should be for the month too (e.g. by June I should’ve read 182 books overall).

Targets:
- 250 or less books bought;
- 366 books read overall;
- 200 books read which I owned prior to 2016;
- no more than 10% of income on books per month.
Books bought this year so far: 101/120.
May books bought: 8/20.
May budget: £0/£30 (purchases were with vouchers).
Owned books read this month: 23/16.
Books read this month: 34/30.
Owned books read overall: 95/100 (5 books behind).
Books read overall: 175/182 (7 books behind).

The discussion question for this month’s post is:

Why do you read the books you read? Explore why you gravitate towards certain genres and/or authors. How do you pick the next book you will read?

And the answer is, mostly whim. SF/F has always been the main genre I read; probably because my mother does. And I pick the next book I’ll read by whim, or by asking everyone what I should read next and then doing something opposite, because I’m contrary. Or sometimes I’ll just pick something off a shelf and accidentally consume it.

And a to-read list for July, since I do find having the guidance useful, even if — cough — I don’t stick to it all that well. I’m carrying over the books left from last month, as they’re part of series I’d like to get finished. The others are ARCs or books from the backlist I’ve been meaning to get to.

Peter S. Beagle, Summerlong.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Tempering of Men.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, An Apprentice to Elves.
Diane Duane, The Door into Sunset.
Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.
Tanya Huff, Blood Pact.
Tanya Huff, Blood Debt.
Sarah Kuhn, Heroine Complex.
Laura Lam, False Hearts.
Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit.
Juliet Marillier, Tower of Thorns.
Naomi Novik, Uprooted.
V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows.
Jen Williams, The Iron Ghost.
Jen Williams, The Silver Tide.

Here’s hoping it’s a productive month for all of us.

Tags: #ShelfLove, TBR

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 28, 2016 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie week, so I mined the past topics for something interesting, and grabbed “Top Ten Books I Was ‘Forced’ To Read”. Which I shall interpret as meaning books read for class, rather than books people pressed upon me in a friendly manner…

The Decameron, Boccaccio. Technically I don’t think I had to read this, but doing so definitely helps to understand the context of stuff like Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. And it is, in fact, a darn good read; some of the stories get repetitive, but there’s a lot of fascinating stuff going on.
The Annotated Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas A. Anderson. Normally I probably wouldn’t be interested in an annotated edition, but this has some really fascinating stuff.
Cwmardy, Lewis Jones. Or basically all the Welsh literature I read for class, because it was all pretty eye-opening for me.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. My love affair with this poem didn’t really begin until I read it in the original, at a painstakingly slow speed, with a really intelligent tutor at the helm.
Njal’s Saga. I just love that you can sum it up as “John Grisham for ancient Iceland”.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie. No, really! It was a class on crime fiction and it was awesome, and while Christie’s writing could get formulaic, reading this one alone was pretty awesome.
Country Dance, Margiad Evans. Or was it Turf or Stone? Either way, this deserves a special mention alongside Cwmardy because the introduction just hit me in the gut with oh, I recognise this… I forget who it was, but someone wrote about not knowing anything about Welsh literature as they grew up, and thinking there was none, and yeah, I’ve been there.
The Mabinogion. Else what kind of Welsh person would I be? But I didn’t really ‘get’ it or dig into it until I had to read it and relate it to other texts and dig into research and scholarship.
Postcolonialism Revisited, Kirsti Bohata. The birth of my understanding of Wales as a colony, and our literature as postcolonial. Not that non-Welsh classmates tended to appreciate this point of view.
Richard III, William Shakespeare. I honestly did not ‘get’ Shakespeare at first, so never bothered to read the history plays. Which turned out to be my favourites.

English Lit degree: useful for something, at least.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 25, 2016 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Hey everyone! This week I have kind of had a bit of a spree, which I needed post Brexit-vote — I don’t really talk politics here much; suffice it to say my planned future with my Belgian partner is looking a wee bit more unsettled. Hurrah democracy, but boo, I wish this hadn’t come to pass!

Books acquired:

A nice haul, right? A good mix of fantasy and a couple of the romance-suspense type novels I like for comfort reading. Hopefully it won’t take me long to repair the damage to my to read pile I’ve just done…

Received to review:

I heard good things about the first two, and requested the third on a whim.

I did get some good reading done earlier in the week, but the warm weather here took it out of me later in the week. I do recommend Being Mortal; it’s a really important examination of what dying is like in the modern world. It made me cry, but it’s very worth reading.

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted:
–Blood Price, by Tanya Huff. Fun urban fantasy with some unique features (like a protagonist with retinitis pigmentosa). Not Huff’s all time best or something, but a lot of fun. 3/5 stars
–Darwin’s Ghosts, by Rebecca Stott. We can be prone to thinking Darwin’s idea was totally original, but as he acknowledged himself, there were antecedents. This book discusses some of them — while acknowledging that Darwin’s theory is what finally made sense of all the data. 3/5 stars
–Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan. I didn’t love this as much as the Isabella Trent books, but that’d be a pretty high bar anyway. Midnight Never Come has a lot of interesting set-up, though one of the characters felt a little disconnected from the action. 4/5 stars
–King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. This book views Gen from the eyes of someone naive to his intelligence, and that makes it a lot of fun. Even though we made the same mistake when reading The Thief… 5/5 stars
–Unnatural Habits, by Kerry Greenwood. Lots of social commentary and a look at the deeper parts of Phryne’s personality, combined with a rather bitterly funny subplot. 4/5 stars
–Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. Lots of beautiful prose and not so much substance, for me. Probably deservedly a classic though. 2/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: The Children of Llyr, by Evangeline Walton. More than the first book, this is where I really fell in love with Walton’s evocation of the Welsh mythology. Beautiful and harrowing. 5/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Books from 2016 So Far. I didn’t really struggle with this, which surprised me! Looks like I’m pretty caught up.

How’s everyone been doing?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 21, 2016 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

This week’s theme is “Top Ten 2016 Releases So Far”. And I’m not sure I’ve read ten yet… But let’s have a shot.

This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab. I had this as an ARC and it’s finally out; it’s awesome, and possibly my favourite of her books so far.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. Fascinating core idea and well-executed. I think I like it more than Touch or The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and I did like those too.
The Raven and the Reindeer, by T. Kingfisher. Fun lesbian retelling of ‘The Snow Queen’. No, I’m not kidding.
In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan. Enormously satisfying for fans of the series, and it keeps on bringing the awesome.
Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire. For a novella, this was very satisfying, and it’s definitely encouraged me to get on and read more of McGuire’s work.
The Winner’s Kiss, by Marie Rutkoski. Picked right back up again after I disliked some things about the second book, and gave us an excellent end.
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home, by Catherynne M. Valente. A lovely end to the series, and avoided the trope I was really scared of.
City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Give me mooooooore…
Kingfisher, by Patricia A. McKillip. I suspect I’ll appreciate this more if I ever come back and reread it. It has her usual magic all the same.
The Girl From Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig. Fascinating setting (Hawaii, 1884) and some awesome characters. By which I mostly mean Kash.

Well, that was surprisingly easy! I guess I’m keeping up better than I thought.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 18, 2016 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Hey everyone! It’s been a busy week, but finally my wedding plans are looking more sorted and both me and my partner are done with assignments and such (for now). Now I can read more, right? Right?!

Books received to review:

I wasn’t 100% sold on Signal to Noise, but I’m interested in this one all the same.

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor. Maybe the strongest of Okorafor’s books I’ve read so far, at least for me. It’s crammed full of stuff and I didn’t feel like it really used it all, but it was a good narrative of how we make myth. 3/5 stars
–The Raven and the Reindeer, by T. Kingfisher. A sweet version of The Snow Queen, with a twist. Gerta still rescues Kay, but along the way she meets her real love… 4/5 stars
–Spider-Woman: New Duds, by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez. A fun redesign for Jessica Drew, and an interesting story… unfortunately cut off by Secret Wars. 3/5 stars
–The Other Wind, by Ursula Le Guin. The ending this series deserved, beautifully dealing with some of the issues that might have been nagging at the observant. 4/5 stars
–Snobbery With Violence, by M.C. Beaton. Relatively silly and light, with a by-the-numbers mystery, but it entertained me. 3/5 stars
–Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand. Has a real sense of the uncanny and an interesting structure (which some people might find annoying, but which I enjoyed). Never pushes into horror for me, but stays solidly unsettlingly. There’s one bone-chilling moment, though… 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: Prince of Annwn, by Evangeline Walton. Skillful retelling of the First Branch of the Mabinogion. Expands and humanises, but deals very well with the original material and keeps everything in line with it. 3/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of the Year. What it says on the tin. Gimme!

How’s everyone been?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 14, 2016 by Nicky in General / 9 Comments

This week’s theme is “Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of the Year”, which is always a difficult topic for me as I have no real clue what’s upcoming. I know, I’m rubbish. So here’s a bunch of books that I don’t think are out yet, which I want to get.

Ghost Talkers, by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’ve been in love with the cover since it was announced, and I’ve enjoyed Kowal’s previous books.
This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab. I’ve actually read this already, but I love it and I want more people to read it. You can check out my review here!
Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. I might not have got round to reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters yet, but that’s definitely not Taylor’s fault. I’m excited for her next book!
The Reader, by Traci Chee. I can’t remember where I first saw this, but I know it’s been in my mind as something to check out for a while now.
Den of Wolves, by Juliet Marillier. I haven’t actually read the second book yet, but I enjoyed Dreamer’s Pool a lot, so I’m looking forward to this.
The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. I found the second book really entertaining and better than I expected, so I’m actually quite impatient for this one!
Necessity, by Jo Walton. It’s Jo, ’nuff said.
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin. Hopefully it’ll give me the kick in the butt to read The Fifth Season, ahaha…
City of Miracles, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Okay, technically I think it’s January of 2017, but shush, I want it noooow.
Ruined, by Amy Tintera. Because Cait @ Paper Fury made it sound awesome.

I’m surprised — quite a few of these actually leaped to mind! What’s everyone else looking forward to? Have I forgotten something obvious?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Unstacking the Shelves

Posted June 11, 2016 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

No books bought this week! Wow. And this week started off quite slow, reading-wise, but I got quite a bit packed into the last couple of days and have plenty to show off in my fourth Unstacking post ever! We did briefly have the excitement of having a wedding date, but now we’re having to change it… ah well, at least now we have the paperwork all sorted?!

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–Finn Fancy Necromancy, by Randy Henderson. I wasn’t really won over by this. I thought it was trying too hard to be the fantasy version of Ready Player One, in terms of references, and the characters didn’t strike me as being particularly mature or interesting. 2/5 stars
–Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor, by Charles Allen. This really is more about the search, and the searchers, than the lost Emperor himself. There’s a lot of interest, though if you’re sensitive to colonial issues you might not be comfortable with the fairly uncritical praise Allen has for the people who ruled colonial India and, coincidentally, did some work on Sanskrit and excavating Indian temples. 4/5 stars
–Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire. This is perhaps the best answer to Jim Butcher’s urban fantasy I’ve found: female driven, complex mythology, and it’s not all about who sleeps with whom. The main character isn’t always smart, but she is at least sympathetic. 4/5 stars
–Spider-Gwen: Most Wanted? by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez. This is very much a getting-up-to-speed issue, and it’s a bit goofy at times, but I do enjoy that someone has made Gwen Stacey the hero. Not so keen on the treatment of MJ, though. 3/5 stars
–Dreamer’s Pool, by Juliet Marillier. Solidly entertaining, although with some themes people might find themselves very uncomfortable with. The side characters are engaging enough to carry a lot of the book, while the main characters’ story is set up for the future. I’m looking forward to reading more. 4/5 stars
–A Companion to Wolves, by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. Deals seriously with the issues of soul-bonding to animals a la the dragons of Pern, except there’s also a solid fantasy story with wolves and trolls as well. It’s mostly about the interactions of the wolfheall, and the difficulties the main character has in adjusting to his role, but there’s an intriguing world in the background too. 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. Fun and nostalgic, though a bit gimmicky in execution with all those pop-culture references. The main character can be a bit of a creep at times, but then, he is meant to be a teenage boy. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Reasons I Love Fairytales. A somewhat lyrical celebration of these really old, really new, endlessly adaptable stories.

How’s everyone been? Anything exciting? Anything I just have to read?

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 7, 2016 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

This week’s theme is “Ten Reasons I Love X”, and for a minute I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to gush about — or I could, but nothing I thought I could come up with a whole list for, or which might be interesting to anyone else.

Then it struck me. So here are ten reasons I love fairytales (and fairytale retellings)!

Something about them has spoken to people for a long, long time. These are really old stories that have been told by consensus, basically — by people deciding on the bits they like and adding new parts and ditching things which don’t make sense anymore. They’re like a well-worn shirt.
They’re still variable. We can still change them. Every day, if we want to. We can tell the same story with different characters (and even read the same stories with different characters) and explore all the little ways we can tweak the meanings, the messages.
They contain all kinds of magic. It doesn’t matter what magic you need, you can probably find it in fairytales. Alchemy? Ask Rumpelstiltskin. Fairy Godmothers? True love’s kiss?
We can use them to ask questions. Like, why would you love a Beast? What’s going on with this story?
They’re suitable for any age. These stories are timeless, and it’s because they contain stuff that appeals to children and adults alike. The child wonders about what’s there to find in the wood, other than the Big Bad Wolf. The adult knows the anxiety of Red Riding Hood’s mother, or the patience of the grandmother, or the hunger of the Wolf…
They can be universal. We could go around collecting dozens of variations on a fairytale, or collect them together and call it an archetype. There’s versions of these stories in so many cultures — doesn’t that say something?
They can be specific. Robin Hood lives in Sherwood Forest, and you can go there and walk where he walked. Or walk past a lake where a fairy came out of the water to marry a human man. This or that glade or grotto, somewhere you know and can visit and touch, has a secret magic.
You always know what’s coming. Once upon a time. A wicked witch. True love’s kiss. Happily ever after.
But they can surprise you all the same. It doesn’t have to happen the same way every time. Sleeping Beauty can fall in love with the Wicked Witch or a stableboy or serving maid. The important part is the kiss, the happy ever after. Cinderella can be an android.
We can make new fairytales with the old formulae. We know how it goes: sets of three, a stepmother, a tiny house in the forest…

For two writers who do really good takes on fairytales, try T. Kingfisher and Robin McKinley… Sarah Pinborough’s retellings are also interesting. And there’s a lot more out there.

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 4, 2016 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

This has been a less busy week, thankfully, and I’ve got some work done on tackling my backlog — including an epic sweep removing about 70 books from the backlog that I’m no longer interested in, or where I didn’t enjoy the first book of a series, etc. I really should get back to work again, though, because my next deadline is approaching fast…

Oh well, books first!

Received to review:

I’ve been interested in this for a while, particularly since my mother actually writes to Yoon Ha Lee regularly, and I’ve read The Fox’s Tower and enjoyed the stories in it.

Books bought this week:

I wasn’t 100% in love with The Sin-Eater’s Daughter, but I love the covers of these books and I’m curious enough… Kameron Hurley’s The Geek Feminist Revolution is obviously going to be awesome, though I don’t know how much new content it contains (since I’ve read We Have Always Fought). Aaaand the Max Gladstone means I have all the books so far, until the next one is out.

Reading wise, it’s been a relatively light week. The M.C. Beaton books aren’t even that great, but they were just the right brain candy for me at the time.

Books finished this week:

Reviews posted this week:
–Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean. It took me a long time to really get into this, and then suddenly at 85% it made things work. Also, love the setting. 4/5 stars
–Spider-Woman: Spider-Verse, by Dennis Hopeless and Greg Land. Fun enough, and if you didn’t bother with Spider-verse in general, this does give you some info. Involves a lot of the Spider-ladies! 3/5 stars
–The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. A very interesting one-sentence idea (“what if nobody could ever remember you?”) combined with a technology thriller type plot. 4/5 stars
–The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. More complex than the first book, The Thief, this pushes the characters we’ve already been introduced them and develops them beyond the thumbnail sketches we had before. It was a reread, so maybe no surprise I loved it. 5/5 stars
–Hawkeye: Rio Bravo, by Matt Fraction and David Aja. This run of Hawkeye has been fun, and I appreciate a lot about it, but I think the storytelling style wasn’t ideal for me. It relied a lot on the art, and I am not a visual person. 3/5 stars
–Tales from Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin. My main comment on this one is that you really need to read ‘Dragonfly’ to understand The Other Wind. 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: Debatable Space, by Philip Palmer. Fun and compulsive read, even though it didn’t seem like it would be my thing at all. 4/5 stars

Other posts:
–Top Ten Beach Reads. Except I was difficult about the theme, because I don’t do “beach reads”.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

ShelfLove June Update

Posted June 1, 2016 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

ShelfLove Update!

And now it’s June… it’s been a busy month for me, with a big assignment to complete and wedding stuff to organise. Still, towards the end of the month I did start to catch up again, so I haven’t lost progress, and I’m hopeful for the month ahead. I’ve also read some books which have been on my TBR since 2010, and gone through my TBR piles to get rid of some books I’m no longer interested in. I still have 1,071 books on my owned-unread list, but it’s a start!

Last month I brought in more stats and colour coding, so here’s the rundown. The goals where I’m ahead are in blue; bang on are in green; behind by up to five books are in orange; anything else is in red. I now have a running total to show where I should be for the month (so for example, in books read overall, I should’ve read 121 by now, and I’m on 109).

Targets:
- 250 or less books bought;
- 366 books read overall;
- 200 books read which I owned prior to 2016;
- no more than 10% of income on books per month.
Books bought this year so far: 92/100.
May books bought: 25/20.
May budget: N/a; not calculated this month because it’s been in both euros and pounds. Pretty sure it’s in the red though.
Owned books read this month: 18/16.
Books read this month: 29/31.
Owned books read overall: 72/84 (12 books behind).
Books read overall: 139/152 (13 books behind).

As in past months, I’m going to include a TBR pile for the month here — especially since this update post more or less covers this month’s theme of a check-in. If you want to actually check out my progress, check out the Mount TBR menu on my blog; everything red and struck through has been removed from my list, either by reading it or by deciding it’s no longer interesting!

Aaaand the TBR for this month focuses on reading books I’ve owned since before the end of 2015, and finishing some of the series I’m reading.

Diane Duane, The Door into Shadow.
Diane Duane, The Door into Sunset.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Tempering of Men.
Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, An Apprentice to Elves.
M.C. Beaton, Sick of Shadows.
M.C. Beaton, Our Lady of Pain.
Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.
Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue.
John Crowley, Little, Big.
Kerry Greenwood, Murder & Mendelssohn.
Tanya Huff, Blood Lines.
Tanya Huff, Blood Pact.
Tanya Huff, Blood Debt.
Robin LaFevers, Mortal Heart.
Juliet Marillier, Tower of Thorns.

No doubt I’ll read lots more, but I really hope to finish this bunch! Not to mention my personal challenge of rereading The Hobbit, this time in a French translation.

Tags: #ShelfLove, books, TBR