Category: General

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 18, 2024 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

Oof, it’s been a busy week. The marks from my assignments have been coming in, though not for the one I care most about, d’oh. I’ve done well so far, though!

Anyway, let’s get to the books.

Books acquired this week

Despite saying I wasn’t going to acquire anything for a while after last week’s spree, this week I was a bit meh and stressed out, so my wife treated me. I love Cat Sebastian’s work, and I’d just read Daniel M. Ford’s The Warden and been rather annoyed that I didn’t have the sequel. Sooo… my wife’s the best.

Cover of Necrobane by Daniel M. Ford Cover of You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

And I also got a new review copy from Tor — I quite liked the first book, so I’m eager to get to this one.

Cover of The Bloodless Princess by Charlotte Bond

But other than that, I’ve been restrained! Except, oh… a new installment of A Side Character’s Love Story popped up, and I had to have it.

Cover of A Side Character's Love Story, vol 18, by Akane Tamura

I’d promise next week really will be quiet, but I had amazing results from my assignments so far, so most likely there’ll be a celebration. And celebrations ’round here almost always mean books.

Reviews posted this week

As usual, here’s the roundup of reviews posted this week:

And no other posts this week!

What I’m reading

It’s been a slightly quieter reading week, but a good one (as you can see from the sneak peek of the books I’ve finished this week and will be reviewing here soon). I particularly loved The Hands of Time and A Letter to the Luminous Deep, but really I enjoyed all of these very much.

Cover of A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow Cover of The Warden by Daniel M. Ford Cover of Hands of Time by Rebecca Struthers

Cover of A Side Character's Love Story, vol 18, by Akane Tamura Cover of A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall Cover of A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

This weekend I’ve been digging into Brian Deer’s account of the Andrew Wakefield scam, which is raising my blood pressure much as I expected it to. At the same time, though, it’s nice to see the evidence all laid out against Wakefield. (As a reminder, I think he’s next thing to a murderer; you’ll waste your breath trying to argue with me here.)

After that… maybe it’s finally time for me to tuck in and read System Collapse, the newest Murderbot book. Or maybe I should first focus on finishing Cat Sebastian’s The Ruin of a Rake.

Either way, there’s no shortage of good books to read around here. How’s everyone else doing?!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 11, 2024 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

It’s been another week already?! Last week I ended up so busy that I didn’t share my post in the linkups, or visit anyone else. It’s quietish around here in terms of visitors/comments, as a result, which is probably good while I’m all wrapped up in preparing for my exams (Parasitology, Nutrition & Infection and Bacterial Infections), but still, I kinda miss being more active.

Anyway, last week me and my wife went off to York to meet up with a friend, so we ended up in the lovely Portal Bookshop, and also paid a visit to Waterstones so I could raid their non-fiction. So I have plenty to showcase this week!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Books acquired this week:

As usual, since I had the opportunity, I took the time to really root around and look for new reading material. Gotta stock up, after all! First up, the fiction:

Cover of Foxes in Love vol 2 by Toivo Kaartinen Cover of Foxes in Love vol 3 by Toivo Kaartinen Cover of Heaven Official's Blessing by MXTX

Cover of Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi Cover of A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow Cover of A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

I did also get physical copies of a couple of books I had as e-ARCs (and didn’t read in time, oops):

Cover of System Collapse by Martha Wells Cover of A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

So hopefully I’ll get round to those now!

Aaand the non-fiction which is (as ever) a heck of a mix:

Cover of Petra: The Rose-Red City Cover of Dragons, Heroes, Myths & Magic by Chantry Westwell Cover of Nefertiti's Face by Joyce Tyldesley Cover of Written in Bone by Sue Black

Cover of The Doctor Who Fooled the World by Brian Deer Cover of Writing on the Wall by Madeleine Pelling Cover of Sleeping Beauties by Andreas Wagner Cover of Hands of Time by Rebecca Struthers

I’ve already read the first three, so I guess I continue to be in a non-fiction mood! With The Doctor Who Fooled the World, I joked that I decided my blood pressure was too low and I need to raise it. It really is going to infuriate me though — Andrew Wakefield is a murderer, in my eyes.

Anyway, this was quite a spree, so for a few weeks I’m going to try and focus on more reading than acquiring, ahaha. Though I don’t do “book bans” these days; I just try to make sure I’m reading more books than I acquire, and it’ll be fine.

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s a bit of a roundup of the reviews I’ve been posting. I’m building up a bit of a backlog again, especially of graphic novels/comics and history reviews. Anyway, here’s what was posted this week!

And I did also have one non-review post:

What I’m reading:

Ever since Bookly’s readathon I’ve somehow found a lot more time in my days for reading, though perhaps not as much when I was trying to read 45 hours in ten days. So this week has been pretty full. Here’s a peek at the books I’ve read which I plan to review soon!

Cover of A Short History of Tomb Raiding by Maria Golia Cover of Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi Cover of Foxes in Love vol 2 by Toivo Kaartinen Cover of Petra: The Rose-Red City

Cover of Final Acts ed. Martin Edwards Cover of Dragons, Heroes, Myths & Magic by Chantry Westwell Cover of Nefertiti's Face by Joyce Tyldesley Cover of Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

This weekend I have a couple of books I want to finish, but I also want to start on a couple of my new books: I’d like to read A Spindle Splintered (Alix E. Harrow) and start on Hands of Time (Rebecca Struthers). We’ll see!

How’s everyone doing?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 8, 2024 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

It’s WWW Wednesday time! So, as always, that’s:

  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you currently reading?
  • What will you read next?

Cover of Final Acts ed. Martin EdwardsWhat have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was an anthology of short stories from the British Library Crime Classics series; this one, Final Acts, was themed around theatre. Killings on stage, actors getting themselves into trouble, in one case a clown, etc.

It was okay, though it had a repeat story in it from a different anthology by the British Library, which I find a bit disappointing. (It’s possible that this came first and the other is the repeat, or the repeat is one of the extras included at the end of some of the novels, but regardless, argh.)

Cover of Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma TörzsWhat are you currently reading?

Many, many things at once, as usual — though I’ve finished some that I wrote about last week. I’m close to finishing Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe (Emma Törzs) at last, just by making sure I picked it up for a few pages a day even when I wasn’t feeling it. I don’t think it’ll quite come together for me, bit too slow to give a payoff, but I’m glad I’m finishing it all the same.

I have also more recently picked up Dragons, Heroes, Myths & Magic (Chantry Westwell), a book about the illustrations in medieval manuscripts. It includes examples (in full colour) from various manuscripts, along with explanations of their contents.

What will you read next?

I’m not totally sure! I should probably pick something else from the list of books I’m currently reading to focus on, in which case I suspect I’ll try to finish A History of the World in 100 Animals (Simon Barnes). I’ve had that on the go for ages, mostly just because I haven’t been picking it up — it’s a hardcover and a bit unwieldy.

What about you? Anything fascinating tempting you when you should be working?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 4, 2024 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

It’s the weekend again already?! Oof, how time flies. It’s been a good week for reading, and I have added two ARCs I’m excited about to my TBR.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Books acquired this week:

I haven’t been out buying books for the last few weeks, but I’m planning a spree tomorrow. For now, there’s just these two ARCs:

Cover of The City in Glass by Nghi Vo Cover of Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker

I’ve really loved a lot of Nghi Vo’s work (aside from The Chosen and the Beautiful), so I snagged this one right away. As for Haunt Sweet Home, I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t read any of Sarah Pinkser’s work, despite the fact that we were once both part of the same small-ish Goodreads group, The Alternative World. I’ve been meaning to read her books forever, but I’m a terrible, flighty mood reader.

(I still haven’t read some of the books we had discussions about in the group, like Eifelheim…)

Posts from this week:

Time for the usual roundup! First the reviews…

And now the other posts!

What I’m reading:

By the time Bookly’s Odyssey Readathon ended, I’d read for 48 hours, which was nice and seems to have kickstarted my reading in general. Here’s a little glimpse at the books I’ve been reading which should come up for review soon on the blog:

Cover of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon Cover of Murder in Vienna by E.C.R. Lorac Cover of Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley

Cover of The New Noise by Charlotte Higgins Cover of The Lost Gallows by John Dickson Carr Cover of Monarchs of the Sea by Danna Staaf

It feels like I surely read more than that, but of course I made progress with a number of other books, including some that had been on the backburner for a while. Given I’m going out tomorrow, I’m not sure what else I’ll finish this weekend, but I’d like to finish up with A Short History of Tomb-Raiding (Maria Golia), at the very least.

And how about you, dear readers? Anything good jump into your hands off the shelves this week?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 1, 2024 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

It’s WWW Wednesday time! So, as always, that’s:

  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you currently reading?
  • What will you read next?

Cover of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat BohannonWhat have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which I found fascinating, and rather less essentialist about sex/gender than I’d feared it might be. It’s a bit overladen with footnotes at times, but I ended up settling in on Saturday and reading from around page 100 to the end, once I got back into the swing of it.

I actually finished that on Saturday and apparently haven’t really finished anything since, which is weird for me! It’s not that I haven’t been reading, but I guess I’ve not been very focused. Which is fine!

Cover of Murder in Vienna by E.C.R. LoracWhat are you currently reading?

I’ve started a few books at once, on a whim, so… oops. Especially since I have a list of books I’m partway through that’s 22 books long. I won’t talk about them all (some of them are just kinda backburnered), but this might still be easiest as a list! Here they are, in no particular order…

  • Murder in Vienna, by E.C.R. Lorac:
    I have a few of Lorac’s books that haven’t (yet?) been republished by the British Library Crime Classics series, because they’re cheap on Kindle. I’m finally getting round to this one, and I love it as much as usual. She’s very good at evoking Vienna, including the unsettled post-WWII vibes.
  • This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC, by Charlotte Higgins:
    This is a history of the BBC, which I picked up on a whim. I’ve always felt fondly about the BBC, home of Doctor Who, and of all almost all the TV channels I could pick up with my old TV when I was a kid. I’m not very far into the book yet, but I’ve been fascinated to learn about Hilda Matheson.
  • In Deeper Waters, by F.T. Lukens:
    I wanted something a bit lighter, so this seemed like it might do — it gets rated as fast-paced on StoryGraph, anyway. I’m not very far into it, so far, but I’m interested enough.
  • Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe, by Emma Törzs:
    I’ve been “reading” this for a while, but I’ve finally got back to actually making progress on it, even if it’s just a chapter or two a day. I don’t know why it isn’t quite clicking for me — parts of it are fascinating.
  • Cover of A Short History of Tomb Raiding by Maria GoliaA Short History of Tomb-Raiding, by Maria Golia:
    Pretty much what it says on the tin, though it’s more specific than it sounds from the main title. It’s focused on Egyptian tomb-raiding, starting back when the tombs were built, and moving forward to the beginnings of archaeology (so far). There’s a chunk of book left, so I wonder how much it’s going to talk about modern archaeology.
  • Threading the Labyrinth, by Tiffani Angus:
    I saw this described a while back as a “garden fantasy”, and I have a friend who absolutely loves gardening (and trees and flowers and most anything green), so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m not very far in yet, so it’s hard to say what I think of it.
  • The History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor (audiobook):
    Technically I think this was a radio series first, and then the book was written. This is the radio series, so I don’t think it has word-for-word the same content as the book. I’ve read the book (twice in fact), but at the moment I just wanted some soothing background noise while doing other stuff, and realised I had this in my Audible library. I’m enjoying it all over again, especially since it involves bringing in other experts to talk about the objects discussed. I was tickled to hear Phil Harding (best known from Time Team) opining on the hand axe, for example!

And that’s… okay, not all of them, but the ones I’m reading most actively. I know, I know, it’s a funny mix!

Cover of Death in the Spires by KJ CharlesWhat will you read next?

I probably shouldn’t be thinking about that, with that list of books I’m already reading… but regardless, I have thought about that, so we might as well not pretend I haven’t. I’m thinking about picking up Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley, or maybe jumping from the classics to a very recent book and try Death in the Spires by KJ Charles.

We’ll see, though!

And what about you? Anything good tucked into your backpack to travel around with you?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 27, 2024 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

A quiet week around here, with only one new book to share (which I’ve already finished!). It’s been more of a week for reading what I’ve got, which is always nice.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Books acquired this week:

The other Murderbot books were free (or rather covered by one subscription or another), but I had to spend this month’s Audible credit to get Network Effect.

Cover of Network Effect by Martha Wells, the audiobook version

I’ll probably pick up System Collapse soon, but I want to read it in ebook/hard copy first; I don’t retain enough detail from audiobooks, sadly. I’m also very curious about the adapted, full-cast versions, but I don’t want to listen to them back-to-back with the unabridged versions, so I’ll hold off on that for now.

Posts from this week:

As usual, I’ve posted something every day this week. It can be hard to keep up when a blog is so active, or hard to decide what you want to focus on. So here’s a roundup! First, the reviews.

And here are the non-review posts:

What I’m reading:

This week I’ve been reading a lot, thanks to the Bookly app’s readathon plus my backlog of Audible titles. It’s been really nice, and once I finish this post I have plans to settle down to an uninterrupted hour with a book I’d backburnered for a while and have now got back into. My current plan is to finally finish Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which is perhaps a little overly blessed with footnotes for my tastes, but fascinating.

Other than that, I’m not sure what I’ll read, but I have been digging back into Simon Barnes’ The History of the World of 100 Animals, so perhaps I’ll finish that. It’s a bit of a chonker, though!

Here are the books I’ve been reading that I plan to review on the blog. I think for the Murderbot audiobooks I might just do a general post about all of them, just focusing on my overall thoughts of Kevin R. Free’s narration…

Cover of London Particular, by Christianna Brand Cover of Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, the audiobook version Cover of Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, the audiobook version Cover of If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu

Cover of Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, the audiobook version Cover of Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body by Caroline Vout Cover of The Missing Lynx by Ross Barnett Cover of Network Effect by Martha Wells, the audiobook version

As you see, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. It’s very satisfying!

How about you? Got anything exciting lined up?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted April 24, 2024 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

It’s WWW Wednesday time! So, as always, that’s:

  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you currently reading?
  • What will you read next?

Cover of Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body by Caroline VoutWhat have you recently finished reading?

I’ve been embarking on a bit of a crusade to finish the books I’ve started, so I returned to Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body, by Caroline Vout. In the end, there was less to surprise me than I’d thought, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since I did study classics at university, and have read a few other books on Greek/Roman customs.

I also finished listening to Fugitive Telemetry (Martha Wells), since I’ve been tearing through the series on Audible. Not my favourite, admittedly; it feels a little inconsequential after the events of Exit Strategy. But still fun!

Cover of The Missing Lynx by Ross BarnettWhat are you currently reading?

After my TTT post yesterday mentioning books I’ve been neglecting, I actually picked one of them up: I started on Ross Barnett’s The Missing Lynx, which I’m enjoying so far. Barnett writes in a lively way about the extinct megafauna, and his excitement about the animals (especially sabretooths) comes through.

I’m also partway through the audiobook of Network Effect, by Martha Wells. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Kevin R. Free as a narrator: sometimes he’s perfect, and sometimes I just… aah. Not quite. The voice he uses for Gurathin is perfect, but of course Gurathin isn’t in this book.

Cover of The Book of Perilous Dishes by Doina RustiWhat will you read next?

Not sure! Probably I’ll return to another of the books on my backlog, though. There’s a bunch to choose from, but maybe Doina Ruști’s The Book of Perilous Dishes, because I’d only just started that when I got distracted, and it should be easy to get back into.

How about you? Anything interesting on your bedside table at the moment?

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Top Ten Tuesday: The Neglected Books

Posted April 23, 2024 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is all about the unread books on your shelves that you want to get around to soon. Like many readers, I have plenty of those… I’m going to stick to books I haven’t even peeked into yet, and exclude the (too many) books I’ve read a little bit of… and I’ll try to pick some older books instead of the ones that’re top of mind because they’re recent purchases!

Cover of System Collapse by Martha Wells Cover of The Cactus Hunters by Jarden D. Margulies Cover of The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood Cover of The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard Cover of The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang

  1. System Collapse, by Martha Wells. And Witch King, to be honest. I got both of these as ARCs, not realising how very busy my studies would keep me. I’m currently listening to the Murderbot books on audio, which should make a great on-ramp into System Collapse without me getting distracted by rereading the older books…
  2. The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade, by Jared D. Margulies. I mostly requested the ARC of this because I have a friend who loves succulents, and I wanted to see if it would be worth getting for him once it was out. And then it was in an awkward format and I didn’t get round to putting it on the ereader that can cope with that, and… and here we are and it’s been forever. And I’m still curious about why people go so mad for some succulents that they might drive them extinct.
  3. The Love Hypothesis, by Ali Hazelwood. I read Loathe to Love You, and enjoyed Hazelwood’s style… and just on principle I own several of her novels, because geeky ladies in STEM being heroines of romance novels sounds awesome. Buuuut I actually have to get round to reading it. You know, eventually. I mean. Soon!
  4. The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard. I enjoy de Bodard’s work quite a bit, and have wanted to read more of her Xuya stuff, but the hardback intimidated me and then shuffled to the back of a shelf or something. I want to dig it up and give it a shot soon!
  5. The Water Outlaws, by S.L. Huang. This one’s even sat close to my desk, tempting me, but somehow I’ve never cracked it open. Why? Who knows!
  6. A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske. I really liked the first book, and then when this came out I grabbed it and — got distracted. I think you might be sensing a theme. Anyway, I want to reread the first book, dive into this one, and proceed onward to A Power Unbound as well. And like I said, I’d like to do that soon.
  7. Murder in the Basement, by Anthony Berkeley. It’s rare that a British Library Crime Classic gets to sit unread on my shelves, and I think I must just have forgotten I picked this one (and Jumping Jenny) up. I’ll have to hunt it down and crack it open soon!
  8. The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain’s Lost Mammals, by Ross Barnett. I’ve been meaning to read this for quite a long time, though I haven’t had a copy for that long. I know a fair bit about bringing animals back in places like Yellowstone, but not much about it in Britain, other than beavers. But I’m interested to learn!
  9. At the Feet of the Sun, by Victoria Goddard. I adored The Hands of the Emperor, and really shouldn’t dawdle about picking this up. Though maybe it’d be nice to reread the first book and spend some time with Cliopher again first. You know, just for context.
  10. Eight Detectives, by Alex Pavesi. This is a modern mystery, so perhaps a little out of my comfort zone, but it seems rather puzzle-box-y in a way that sounds more like a classic type mystery than modern blood and gore. High time I got round to it and gave it a shot, in any case.

Cover of A Restless Truth by Freya Marske Cover of Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley Cover of The Missing Lynx by Ross Barnett Cover of At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard Cover of Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

So that’s a random mix, as usual for me — bit of non-fic, bit of sci-fi, bit of romance, bit of fantasy. And will I actually go ahead and read these soon?

Well… that’s a solid maybe.

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 20, 2024 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Good afternoon, folks! I’ve been spending a good amount of today so far reading, in part thanks to listening to the audio versions of the Murderbot books. I’m not sure whether I’m going to review them — after all, I’ve reviewed the original books probably more than once, and I don’t think I have that much to say about audio. That said, I find reviews of audiobooks super helpful when I find them, so maybe it’d be good anyway? We’ll see.

Anyway, as usual linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

Two books this week! My wife buys me one book a month of my choice (which has long been our Valentine’s Day agreement: no big fuss on that day, spread out the love through the year), and picked up Ann Leckie’s short story collection for me last weekend. Plus, my British Library Crime Classic book for this month arrived.

Cover of Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie Cover of London Particular, by Christianna Brand

So that’s nice! I’m already most of the way through London Particular, though I haven’t figured out whodunnit yet.

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s a roundup!

Other posts:

What I’m reading:

As I mentioned, I’ve been tearing through the Murderbot audiobooks, but I’ve also been trying to get to grips with the tottering pile of books I have partially read. I’ve been pretty successful in the last couple of days, hurrah. So here are some of the books that I’ll probably be reviewing soon, having finished them this week!

Cover of The One-Cent Magenta: Inside the Quest to Onw the Most Valuable Stamp in the World by James Barron Cover of Mountains of Fire by Clive Oppenheimer Cover of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah Cover of the audiobook of Artificial Condition, written by Martha Wells and narrated by Kevin R. Free

Cover of the audiobook of All Systems Red, written by Martha Wells and narrated by Kevin R. Free Cover of Email by Randy Malamud Cover of The Ha-ha Case by J.J. Connington

For the rest of the weekend, it’ll be more Murderbot, finishing up London Particular, and then… who knows?

How’s everyone else doing? Anything exciting from the library this week, or landing on your ereader?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted April 17, 2024 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

It’s WWW Wednesday time! So, as always, that’s:

  • What have you recently finished reading?
  • What are you currently reading?
  • What will you read next?

Cover of Mountains of Fire by Clive OppenheimerWhat have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Mountains of Fire, by Clive Oppenheimer. It’s about volcanoes, about which the author is undeniably enthusiastic. Sadly, I think volcanoes are just not really my thing? There were interesting facts in the book, particularly when he discusses local culture around volcanoes, but overall it just didn’t speak to me.

Before that, I read The One-Cent Magenta, by James Barron. It’s less about the stamp itself and more about how collectors gave the stamp such value (it’s the most valuable stamp in the world).

Cover of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie JudahWhat are you currently reading?

Apparently, 26 books at once. This isn’t ideal, it’s just that I keep picking up books and reading part of them, and then my whims move on somewhere else, unfortunately. I’m trying to get back to actively reading some of them, so I’ve gone back to Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones, by Hettie Judah. It’s not that it isn’t interesting, it’s just kind of bitty, as there’s only a couple of pages per stone before it moves on. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that, and sometimes less so. It’s a beautiful book, though.

Cover of London Particular, by Christianna BrandWhat will you read next?

I want to get back to focusing on some of the fiction on my list as well! I think I might dig back into London Particular, by Christianna Brand: I only started that a few days ago, so it’s fresh in my mind (even if I did read 50 pages and then just wander off). As is pretty typical for me with Christianna Brand’s work, I don’t really like any of the protagonists (and I know I don’t like the detective, whenever he actually appears), but she does make them come alive.

What about you? Reading anything good?

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