Category: General

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 23, 2015 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

This week’s TTT topic is a bit meta — it’s a top ten list of favourite Top Ten Tuesday topics! I haven’t done all of these, I just browsed through the list of past challenges to look for fun ones. If I haven’t done them, I may well do them next time we get a freebie week!

  1. Books I’d want on a desert island. It’s a classic, after all.
  2. Books I just had to buy… but are still sitting on my bookshelf. Er. I’m not a major perpetrator of this one. Nope.
  3. Books I’m so happy were recommended to me. Because you’ve got to appreciate the people in your life who just get it right.
  4. Books I wish I could read again for the first time. I did this one recently, with Guy Gavriel Kay’s “if I’m found with amnesia…” twist.
  5. Books I’d quickly save if my house were about to be abducted by aliens. Because let’s face it, the theme made me laugh, and it’s a valid question.
  6. Most frustrating characters ever. Come on, who doesn’t have a fictional character or two they just want to smack?
  7. Characters I’d never want to switch places with. FitzChivalry Farseer is probably topping that list.
  8. Popular authors I’ve never read. It’s always nice to know I’m not the only one.
  9. Characters you want to check in on after ‘the end’. I thought this one was an interesting one, and we all have characters/worlds we wonder about, right?
  10. Heroines. Because yay girl power!

What about you? Is there any you’d like to do next time there’s a freebie, or anything you’d like me to do?

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No Book Buying Challenge: Best So Far

Posted June 22, 2015 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

Well, the theme for this month’s #ShelfLove update is to do a mid-year review, which I’ve already done. So I will do July’s theme already: to share the best book so far this year that counted toward this challenge. Let me dash to my Goodreads shelves and take a look… Seems like the winner is Marie Brennan’s Tropic of Serpents. You can read my review here!

  • 30/51+ already owned books read (last one recorded: Ancillary Justice, 21/06)
  • Spent: £21 out of ~£30 budget (budget is 10% of my income) for January
  • Spent: £20 out of ~£25 budget for February
  • Spent: £22 out of ~£25 budget for March
  • Spent: £15 out of ~£16 budget for April
  • Spent: £45 out of ~£30 budget for May
  • Spent: £18 out of ~£40 budget for June

Can you tell I’ve been earning some more money this month? Such a relief. It’s going to be a bit difficult to keep track of the rest of this month, given that I’m in Belgium, Canada and the US, so dealing with various different currencies. It will basically go green if I manage to keep to my main budgets, and I won’t worry too much about the exact total.

Here’s my more general progress on resolutions:

  • No books impulse-bought (despite a recent spree, that was still books I considered for at least a day first!)
  • Read every day (I had problems with this because of an assignment, so I’m giving myself half a pass on this one!)
  • Bed before midnight (nearly every night now)
  • Up before ten every day
  • Only bought one book from a series at a time
  • Posted to the blog every day
  • Commented on at least one other blog every day (I should have made time for this despite my assignment, it’s not like it takes long)
  • Tithed 10% in January, February, March, April, May & June
  • Done 55 hours volunteering total
  • Reading/reviewing books from NG/etc (60% ratio; massive progress in the last month!)

Obviously this month I added some colour-coding. That red line for May will give me extra determination not to have more! Green is for good progress or sticking to a target; orange is for marginal or in progress things.

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 20, 2015 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This week, I got some major goals done — the book I was ghostwriting was finished (well, one of them), I got a lot of transcription work done, and I got an assignment done. So I was allowed some books, and much deserved they were. Also, one of them was bought with a voucher my mother gave me a few weeks(!) ago. Aaand then was Support Tor Day (warning: link to Vox Day’s blog; no, he isn’t supporting Tor, he’s calling for a boycott, which to me is tantamount to asking all reasonable people to support them).

Plus, Susanna Kearsley sent me an Amazon voucher to make up for me getting smacked with a customs charge for a book she sent me. I don’t have that book in my hands yet, but I do have a couple of her others. I had some of these from the library, but…

Cover of Uprooted by Naomi Novik Cover of Across the Wall by Garth Nix 23213811

Cover of Mariana by Susanna Kearsley Cover of The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas Cover of Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Cover of Hammered by Elizabeth Bear Cover of The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher Cover of The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Cover of The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley Cover of Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang Cover of A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette

Excite!

Comics

Ms Marvel

I’m not sure how I feel about this event, but still. Ms Marvel. Yay.

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48 Hour Book Challenge

Posted June 19, 2015 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Well, thanks to Ryan (SpecFic Junkie), looks like I’m joining in with MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge. My 48 hours will run from 6pm Belgian time 11pm on Friday to 6pm 11pm Belgian time on Sunday, and I’m not aiming too high in terms of participation — I know I’ve got a chemistry assignment to finish, prep for a trip to Canada, and also, you know, time to spend with my partner. And sleep. And the bunny. Obviously 12 hours is the minimum bracket, so I’m aiming for at least that.

Watch this space for updates! I have no particular stack, but the books will come from my June TBR, or fill one of my three remaining wildcard spots.

Blogging stuff: 4 hours.
Talking about books: 2 hours.
Reading: 6 hours. Finished Ancillary Justice; started The Philosopher Kings; read a couple of short stories.
Reading for assignment: pretty much 12 hours, no kidding. So much science.

I am hesitant to count the blogging stuff because yeesh, self, that is a lot of time noodling around on blogs. And the assignment stuff also includes doing math and rearranging equations, so it doesn’t count really.

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 16, 2015 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is all about the summer TBR! Because I type this up in advance, I might have had chance to read some of these already, but even so, here goes a list of books I’m highly anticipating reading sometime this summer, particularly with my long flight to Canada to encourage reading time.

  1. Simon and the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I picked it up recently so… why not?
  2. Dorothy Must Die, Danielle Paige. My sister made me buy this because of Ollie the educated monkey, so I’m going to have to read this soon before she kills me and pries it from my cold dead hands.
  3. The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay. This is a reread, and I really must get round to it, because I do love GGK’s work, and I’m determined to finish rereading all of it in publication order before I finally get to read River of Stars.
  4. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield. His videos and stuff on the ISS were really cool, and generally he seems like a pretty fun guy. And I’ve had this for ages.
  5. Landline, Rainbow Rowell. Whyyy haven’t I got round to this yet?
  6. Signal to Noise, Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Recommended by someone in the Cardiff SF/F book club, and I just bought it, so hopefully I’ll get to it soon.
  7. Dreams of Gods and Monsters, Laini Taylor. High time I finished reading this trilogy, I know!
  8. The Enchantment Emporium, Tanya Huff. Not only have I got this, it’s on a list of books recommended by friends. So high time I got round to it. Which is a theme on this list, it seems…
  9. Fair Game, Josh Lanyon. Both books in this series, really. They’re fun and I don’t know why I haven’t read them already, especially since I had the second one as an ARC.
  10. The Bards of Bone Plain, Patricia McKillip. I had to pick at least one of her books. <3

What about everybody else? Are you keeping your list full of current books, or are you trying to catch up?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 13, 2015 by Nicky in General / 8 Comments

I continued my very good behaviour this week by not buying anything. I did grab the trade of Thor: Goddess of Thunder, but I already has the single issues, so I’m counting it as a gift for my partner, who I will be with by this evening! Whoop. So I just have comics this week, including the new Carol Corps one from Kelly Sue, which I nearly missed but for a random tweet about it.

Captain Marvel & The Carol Corps Silk Spider-gwen

Nope, there are no female heroes in comics, nope, don’t know what you’re talking about…

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted June 2, 2015 by Nicky in General / 15 Comments

This week’s theme is books you’d like to see as movies/tv shows. The proviso here is that I would want appropriate casting, e.g. not a white man for Ged or Patriot.

  1. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin. Shush. There hasn’t been one. Doesn’t exist.
  2. Captain Marvel. Sooner than planned, please. And keep in the recent bit about her dating Rhodey!
  3. Young Avengers. You’ve got all the ingredients ready, Marvel. Dooo iiiiiittttt.
  4. Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas. It could be really epic, and it’d require a female lead who could do stunts and would need a good range of acting skills.
  5. A Natural History of Dragons, Mary Brennan. I’m not sure how well it’d translate to the big screen, but again, it’d require a female lead and it’d be a little bit like Walking With Dinosaurs, only dragons and fiction.
  6. The Winter King, Bernard Cornwell. Do Arthur right!
  7. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay. In the right hands, it would be beautiful.
  8. Sunshine, Robin McKinley. Female lead who is both a reluctant hero type and a baker. Interesting vampire lore, gorgeous imagery. It’d be amazing, right?
  9. Farthing, Jo Walton. Could serve as a timely warning to a country embracing conservatism right now, too.
  10. Bloodshot, Cherie Priest. Weird found-family dynamics, kickass female lead, ex-Navy SEAL drag queen? Okay, there’d be so many ways for them to mess it up, but we’re talking an ideal world here, and it would be so very right.

Gaah, gimme them. Nowww.

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June TBR

Posted June 1, 2015 by Nicky in General / 10 Comments

As I selected the books for this list, I’d finished reading 17 of the 20 books I picked for my May TBR, plus 5 wildcards. And here I was thinking that I suck at to read lists. Clearly I just need to give myself a bit of leeway and public accountability.

That being said, here we go! I’ve already kind of started on this, as of May 31st, because I was feeling just a bit too constrained by my May list.

ARCs

  1. The City, Stella Gemmell. (I know. I’m late.)
  2. The Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton. (I’m gonna get to this one on time! I am!)
  3. Knight’s Shadow, Sebastien de Castell. (Only a little late!)
  4. The Girl at Midnight, Melissa Grey.
  5. Joan of Arc, Helen Castor.

Library

  1. Named of the Dragon, Susanna Kearsley.
  2. Heartless, Gail Carriger.
  3. Timeless, Gail Carriger.
  4. Ring of Bright Water, Gavin Maxwell.
  5. The Compatibility Gene, Daniel M. Davis.

Owned

  1. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli.
  2. Fire, Kristin Cashore.
  3. The Wrath and the Dawn, Renee Ahdieh. (Eee!)
  4. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie. (I know, I know.)
  5. Dreams of Gods and Monsters, Laini Taylor. (It’s about time.)

Rereads (including books counting as owned-unread because of ebook duplicates)

  1. Abhorsen, Garth Nix.
  2. After the Golden Age, Carrie Vaughn.
  3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke.
  4. Roadside Picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. (Book club read! My suggestion, so I figured I’d better refamiliarise.)
  5. Voices, Ursula Le Guin.

Catching up (from last month’s TBR)

  1. A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab.
  2. The Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley.
  3. Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal.

Wildcards

  1. The Hawley Book of the Dead, Chrysler Szarlan. (ARC.)
  2. The Killing Kind, Chris F. Holm. (ARC.)
  3. Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie. (Owned.)
  4. ?
  5. ?

As before, graphic novels don’t count, because I tend to read them in one sitting anyway. If I finish fifteen of the non-wildcard books and I’ve run out of wildcards, I’ll probably let myself have some more. I didn’t last month, but that’s because I reached 15/20 quite near the end of the month. With a long trip to Belgium and then to Canada in my future for June, maybe I’ll read more.

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Female Authors Only Month

Posted May 31, 2015 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Well, both the reading and the posting for my month of reading only female authored books are done. I also didn’t buy books by men or borrow books by men from the library during the month, and made sure all my ‘Flashback Friday’ posts were of books by female authors. Did I notice a change? Well, no, not really. Once or twice I had to remind myself, and put off reading something or other until the month was over. I don’t think I’d want to extend the month any longer; I read a lot of female authors anyway, and there’s so much worthwhile stuff out there that isn’t written by women.

Still, it was interesting. Browsing the shelves at Caerphilly Library, realising that I had to go for three shelves in the SF&F section until I found a female author; looking for books about science written by women and finding them thin on the ground; noticing my own dismissal of certain genres (paranormal romance, for example) because I just assume they’re all the same. Even though I’ve read some and really enjoyed them.

It wasn’t a struggle to read female authors only for a month, but the change in focus was interesting. I might do it with other groups in future.

What about you? Did you notice that I was only posting reviews of books by female authors in May?

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