WWW Wednesday

Posted November 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Hello again, Wednesday.

Cover of Bitter Waters by Vivian ShawWhat have you recently finished reading?​

Not much, alas. I haven’t been in the mood to read at all. The last thing I finished was Vivian Shaw’s Bitter Waters, a novella in the world of her Greta Helsing series. It feels like a bit of a coda to the trilogy, with more exploration of the vampires and their culture, background, etc. I liked it, though I don’t think it’d stand alone.

Cover of Agatha Christie, by Lucy WorsleyWhat are you currently reading?

Nominally, Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie. It’s fascinating to get a bit more insight on the person behind the stories, and on her troubles, and the things that inspired some of her fiction.

I’ve also made a start on The Other Olympians, by Michael Waters, which digs into the early Olympic games and why sex verification became a thing. I’m not very far into it, but so far I appreciate Waters’ care to do his best in referring to people how they wanted to be referred to, even before their transitions.

Cover of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth DurstWhat will you be reading next?

I really don’t know. I’m feeling less than great still, honestly, so I might turn to something familiar and comforting — or I might start a bunch of different books and just see what sticks. I’d like to read Alexis Hall’s Mortal Follies and Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop, but I’m not sure if I want to start those now.

What are you reading?

Tags: ,

Divider

Review – Arch-Conspirator

Posted November 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Arch-Conspirator

Arch-Conspirator

by Veronica Roth

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 137
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the genes of the fallen, humanity will end.

Antigone's parents have been murdered, leaving her father's throne vacant. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father's vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage. When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

Veronica Roth’s Arch-Conspirator is a sci-fi dystopian take on Sophocles’ Antigone, which follows the steps of the plot fairly closely (inasfar as it can given the different setting). The basics are there: the two sisters, the two brothers, the tainted birth (though for a different reason here), the betrothal to Haemon, and the struggle of wills with Kreon.

However, a lot of the background is missing: Oedipus didn’t commit any great sin here (he seems to have been a democratic leader), and it isn’t really about the themes of Greek tragedy. Tiresias is entirely missing, and the concept of offending the gods likewise, so all in all it’s not quite a retelling of Antigone, but something which uses the basic shape of the story to say something else.

I enjoyed reading it and puzzling over how it was adapting the original story, and I don’t necessarily think it needs to engage with the same themes as the original in order to be interesting. Still, in some ways I think it’d have benefitted by departing further from the source material, to explore what it was really going for.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – Overleaf

Posted November 12, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Overleaf

Overleaf: An Album of British Trees

by Susan Ogilvy, Richard Ogilvy

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 176
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Leaves live a thankless life. They go unnoticed while providing shade and cleaning the air, and are often the subject of our groans and grumbles in the fall while being raked away. Outside of brief odes to colorful autumn foliage, their quiet, everyday beauty is usually unsung.

Overleaf is an extraordinary celebration of that most obvious and overlooked part of a tree. It features over seventy brilliantly rendered studies of the leaves of thirty-seven tree species found across North America and Europe. Susan Ogilvy's paintings are lovely and uncluttered, resembling real-life pressings captured between the pages. The artwork is accompanied by Richard Ogilvy's thought-provoking text, which provides a vignette for each tree that explores its particular relationship with the environment, its style of growth, the history and mythology surrounding it, and the uses that birds, insects, and humans make of it. He reflects on the detailed complexity of our woodlands and forests and thoughtfully explores our place among them. Just as individual leaves create a cohesive shade, the range of these portraits provides a compelling vision of our relationship with trees. Overleaf is a thoughtful collection that will have readers taking a second look at the world above.

Overleaf is a fascinating collaboration between Susan Ogilvy, a botanical painter, and her brother-in-law, a forester. Each tree is illustrated by its leaf, showing the top side of the leaf on one page and then on the reverse side, the back of the leaf. They seem to be roughly to scale, and beautifully detailed; they aren’t the platonic ideal of each leaf, either, but a realistic one, probably based on a specific leaf, showing details of blight, galls and insect companions.

Richard’s contribution is the text, which for each tree is a handful of paragraphs talking about where the trees are found, their functions in the landscape, and some of the uses we’ve made of them and stories we’ve built around them. He explains some of the features in the images, pointing out the galls and associated other creatures, which ties the images and text together.

It’s a fascinating endeavour; it can’t really be used to identify the trees, since it contains only their leaves, but it’s an interesting compendium of detail and folklore.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , , , ,

Divider

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Posted November 11, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8

Heaven Official's Blessing

by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 384
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu #8
Rating: five-stars
Synopsis:

A BATTLE FOR FREEDOM, A LOVE FOR THE AGES

White No-Face’s mask is off, and the final conflict has begun. Deep in the ancient caverns and lava flows of Mount Tonglu, Xie Lian must face the one whose hatred has plagued him for centuries—but this time, he won’t have to do it alone. His beloved, Hua Cheng, has spent his long existence amassing the power to protect him, and now with their feelings for each other out in the open, they have all the more reason to fight for survival.

In this thrilling conclusion to Heaven Official’s Blessing, can Xie Lian and Hua Cheng triumph against an all-powerful foe?

Also included in this final volume are five bonus tales of romance, celebration, and adventure.

And here we are: I’ve run out of volumes of Heaven Official’s Blessing to read and review, unless the revised editions are made available in English. I’d be fascinated to see how much that adds to or changes the story, but I’m very satisfied with how it turns out as it is. Hua Cheng’s love for Xie Lian, and Xie Lian’s slow journey toward accepting it and returning the feeling is amazing — and it’s wrapped around and through a satisfying story about conflict between powerful beings, and the repeated testing of Xie Lian’s resolve to never change, to never be less than he is.

This volume has a few chapters left of the main story, and the rest is made up of extras. The conclusion is a heck of a thing, with some very heart-wrenching moments, and I find it very satisfyingly done.

The extras are a lot of fun, and include some very sweet moments. I must say that I do not understand how anyone can read these English language editions and think that Xie Lian remains a virgin once Hua Cheng returns. It’s blatantly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense that the two of them are going at it on the regular, including on the altar in the Thousand Lights Temple. If you can’t even read into a thin veil of subtext, then it’s explicitly stated in the amnesia story: Xie Lian’s old method of cultivation is gone because he’s no longer a virgin.

I have no idea why people want to imagine that Xie Lian continues to be “chaste”. This is a man who has been through so much pain, sometimes unrelenting physical pain for years at a time due to his inability to die, and the most violating of situations (which it takes no effort at all to read as metaphorical rapes) — and folks are offended and weirded out if you suggest that ultimately he falls in love and allows Hua Cheng to show him that his body isn’t just a tool or a vessel for pain?

People can read the scene where an amnesiac Xie Lian dreams/remembers having sex with Hua Cheng, and Hua Cheng’s words to him during that memory (“don’t be afraid, Your Highness”), and refuse to understand what’s happening there?

Check yourselves and your homophobia and bizarre purity culture, folks.

I don’t want to end this review on that sour note, so I’ll just reiterate again: Heaven Official’s Blessing is a heck of a journey, a story about a very good (though not flawless) man who reaches great heights and falls, and struggles his way to redemption and then to freedom — with the help of someone who believes in him no matter what, and would do anything for him.

The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you. 

Rating: 5/5

Tags: , , , , ,

Divider

Review – The Man in the Brown Suit

Posted November 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Man in the Brown Suit

The Man in the Brown Suit

by Agatha Christie

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 381
Series: Colonel Race #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A young woman investigates an accidental death at a London tube station, and finds herself of a ship bound for South Africa…

Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her – and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electocuted on the rails.

The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied.

After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: ‘17-122 Kilmorden Castle’?

Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit is rather different to her Poirot books in style and tone, rather breathlessly narrated by a main female character, Anne Beddingfield. Entangled in a mystery, she falls in love more or less at first sight, and proceeds to have adventures characterised by a fair amount of impulsiveness on her part. If it reminds me of anything, it reminds me most of Mary Stewart’s books, like Madam, Will You Talk?

It didn’t especially stand out to me, I’d say; there are a couple of plot points that are staples of the genre, and it feels like quirks like Sir Eustace Pedler and Suzanne’s enthusiasm are a great part of what carries it. There’s quite a bit of internalised sexism about Anne’s character and the way she, Suzanne, and the love interest all interact.

I’ll admit reading reviews I’m quite surprised it’s so popular. I just thought it was okay.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted November 9, 2024 by Nicky in General / 19 Comments

Thank goodness for the weekend, huh?

It’s been a tired and discouraged week around here, with work frustrations, interpersonal issues, and of course the result of the election in the US. (It might not be my country, but we have one single world, and it’d be good if we could all take care of it, and of each other.) Personally, I’d really like a dozen new books for comfort…

Books acquired this week

This week I didn’t buy anything new, despite the temptation, though I did have a short trip to the library.

Cover of The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel Cover of A Mudlarking Year by Lara Maiklem

I’ve already read The Secret Life of the Owl, since it was very quick!

Posts from this week

As usual, let’s have a bit of a roundup.

As a reminder, all my ratings are subjective and personal, about how much I liked the book. So me giving something one star doesn’t mean I think it’s awful, it means it wasn’t for me. Usually my reviews are the best way to dig into why I rated something the way I did!

What I’m reading

I’m having a fair amount of trouble reading at the moment, with being tired and overwhelmed, but I did carve out a little time to read a few books that I’ll be reviewing here at some point.

Cover of The Book Makers by Adam Smyth Cover of Murder at the British Museum by Jim Eldridge Cover of The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel Cover of The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie Cover of Space Rover by Stewart Lawrence Sinclair

That’s more than I thought I’d been reading, honestly!

As for this weekend, I’ve finally started on Bitter Waters, by Vivian Shaw; other than that, I’m not sure. I’ll probably focus on reading more of the biography of Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley.

Hope everyone’s doing alright.

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

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – What Moves The Dead

Posted November 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – What Moves The Dead

What Moves The Dead

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Horror
Pages: 165
Series: Sworn Soldier #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

T. Kingfisher’s What Moves The Dead is a retelling and fleshing out of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, with some added complexity through the introduction of elements of Ruritanian romance in the form of the character of Easton and the Gallacian customs kan adheres to (a heritage shared with Roderick and Madeline).

The story definitely had me tiptoeing a bit around things that trigger my anxiety (contagion, contamination), because it focuses in heavily on fungal infections: local hares and fish are rife with it, and the whole story oozes spores. I’ve no objection to fungi in general, which helps, but the idea of hyphae tangling around my brainstem — no, thank you. Easton’s fears around kan being potentially infected by it as well were juuust tiptoeing up to the edge of my tolerance, being entirely too recognisable.

(That said, it’s good for me at this moment to push at that boundary; it’s not a complaint. It’s just context, for anyone else with similar issues.)

I very much enjoyed Easton’s character and the invented Gallacian customs, kan interactions with Angus and Miss Potter, and indeed the hint of romance developing between the latter two (though it’s just a hint and not a serious thread of plot). The story breathes unease beautifully, and adds to the story of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ rather than just retreading it.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Plants: From Roots to Riches

Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Plants: From Roots to Riches

Plants: From Roots to Riches

by Kathy Willis, Carolyn Fry

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 368
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Our obsession with plants and gardening goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us to where it all began. Taking a journey through the scientific life of a uniquely British institution across 25 vivid chapters, this book explores how the last 250 years have transformed our relationship with plants for good.

Based on Radio 4’s landmark series, Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Carolyn Fry, the acclaimed science writer, will take us from the birth of modern botany right through to the modern day. Delving into Kew’s archive and its world-class collections – including the Herbarium with over 7.5 million preserved plant specimens – they start with Carl Linnaeus and his invention of a universal language to name plants, through Joseph Banks’ exotic discoveries and how Charles Darwin’s fascination with orchids helped convince doubters about evolution. And as the British Empire painted the atlas red, explorers, adventurers and scientists risked their lives to bring the most interesting plant specimens and information back to London, and to Kew. From the lucrative races to control rubber, quinine and coffee to understanding the causes of the potato famine, the science of plants has taught us fascinating and enormously valuable lessons.

Full of amazing images from the archives, (some never reproduced before) and packed with history, science, memorable tales of adventure and discovery, politics and conflict, changing economic and social preoccupations, each chapter tells a unique and fascinating story, but, gathered together, a great picture unfolds, of the development of a most remarkable science, the magic and beauty of plants and ultimately our dependency on them.

Plants: From Roots to Riches is based on a series that was on Radio 4, written by Kathy Willis and Carolyn Fry. I never caught the radio version, but the book version is well-organised into a bunch of pretty bitesize chapters, following the development of botany as a modern science through the lens of Kew Gardens. It has some illustrations, though the colour plates seem quite muted and faded (not sure if this was always so or whether it was the age of the book — it’s a library book).

I don’t think it goes into enormous depth, so if this is your pet topic then likely there isn’t much new for you here, but it was an enjoyable read for me. The focus on Kew and the part Kew has played in the development of botany helped to focus things, and because of the various characters that have been historically involved with Kew, added a bit of human interest too (though none of them seem totally eccentric, alas).

It was a surprisingly fast read, I think because it is basically skimming the surface in a radio-friendly way. I learned some things, but nothing that terribly surprised me.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , , , , ,

Divider

Review – The Sad Ghost Club, vol 1

Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Sad Ghost Club, vol 1

The Sad Ghost Club

by Lize Meddings

Genres: Graphic Novels
Pages: 248
Series: The Sad Ghost Club #1
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don't belong anywhere? Like you're almost... invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club.

(You are not alone. Shhh. Pass it on.)

This is the story of one of those days - a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it's a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn't. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together. What happens next changes everything.

Because that night they start the The Sad Ghost Club - a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don't belong.

The Sad Ghost Club by Lize Meddings is a pretty short graphic novel (took me 15 minutes to read, despite the page count) which features two lonely, awkward teenagers befriending one another after a day of agonising whether they wanted to attend a party, and an awkward evening of not really speaking to anyone at the party. The concerns and anxieties are really familiar from my own teenage years — I was definitely a sad ghost.

I don’t know what it’d have meant to me as a teenager, but as an adult it felt a little overly simplistic, and Socks’ explanation of their difficulties with depression (and the way they urge SG to seek help) felt… cookie-cutter, and laid on with a trowel. Also, it’s really hard to follow which of them is which other than by dialogue. I’m not very visual, so perhaps there are clues I couldn’t pick up, but Socks and SG look pretty identical to me.

It’s probably great for the right audience, but I wasn’t it. Always glad to try new things, though!

Rating: 2/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

WWW Wednesday

Posted November 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Wednesday, huh? Let’s have a spot of normality ’round here, even if my schedule’s still a mess.

Cover of The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-StempelWhat have you recently finished reading?

John Lewis-Stempel’s The Secret Life of the Owl, which is basically a miscellany with all the facts he could think of or find out about owls in the UK. It’s short, but it was nice, and I did learn a couple of things, like the fact that owls have asymmetrical ears.

I did also read a volume of R.S. Thomas’ poetry, and wasn’t overwhelmed. I once read and enjoyed a biography of him, Byron Rogers’ The Man Who Went into the West, and that left me feeling pretty… fond, I guess? But the poetry wasn’t for me.

Cover of Agatha Christie, by Lucy WorsleyWhat are you currently reading?

I’m not feeling very inspired by anything I have on the go right now, unfortunately. Pretty tired and meh. I’ve made no progress on The Roads to Rome by Catherine Fletcher, after finding it hard going last week. I should pick that up again soon and give it a couple more chapters to see if I want to finish it.

I’m more or less enjoying Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie, but I don’t really seem to be in the mood to read, so I’ve tried not to force myself.

Speaking of Agatha Christie: on Serial Reader, I’m most of the way through The Secret of Chimneys. I think I see how things are going to shake out… but I’m quite prepared to be surprised, or at least wrong about some aspects. We’ll see!

Cover of The Other Olympians by Michael WatersWhat will you read next?

I’m eyeing up The Other Olympians, by Michael Waters, which I’ve had out of the library a couple weeks and not started yet.

Honestly… I’m rather hoping that writing about it will annoy any covert transphobes into going away and never reading my blog again.

How about you?

Tags: ,

Divider