Tag: books

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted May 3, 2025 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Yay, weekend! My week hasn’t been that busy, but it’s been a lot of time spent not reading, when I’m decidedly in the mood to read.

Hope everyone else has had a good week!

Books acquired this week

This week it’s “just” ARCs — two eARCs, and one book that arrived in the mail a little unexpectedly. Thank you Tor and Hachette.

I was especially excited to see the new Nghi Vo (thank goodness for my autoapproval!), but the highlight was A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, which I hadn’t been expecting though I had tentatively reached out asking for it.

Posts from this week

As usual, here’s a roundup of reviews to start with…

Fantasy: The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrienne Young (2/5 stars)
Classic mystery: Scarhaven Keep, by J.S. Fletcher (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, by David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu (4/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, by Liz Pelly (4/5 stars)

And a couple of non-review posts this week:

What I’m reading

Let’s close as usual with what I’ve recently finished and what I’m planning to read this weekend. First a sneak peek at books I intend to review soon that I finished this week:

I’ve been deep in some chonky books like The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts (Anne Lawrence-Mathers) and A Short History of British Architecture (Simon Jenkins), so I’ll read a bit more of those this weekend, but I’m also planning to delve into more classic mystery with Fiona Sinclair’s Scandalize My Name and a short story collection edited by Martin Edwards, Metropolitan Mysteries. Other than that, I’ve also started on T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace… so I have plenty to keep me busy.

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend!

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: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Mood Machine

Posted May 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices.

For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems. A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.

Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist is quite the antidote to the optimism of Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song. Of the two, McDonald’s is based on personal experience but necessarily also very close association with Spotify (and most likely some NDAs). Liz Pelly’s book is based on a lot of varied sources, both official and unofficial, and from artists affected by Spotify as well (something which McDonald doesn’t touch on at all).

In the end, because it’s thorough, Mood Machine is also repetitive. The problems with Spotify at each turn are essentially the same: it was never about music, only about something that could be used to deliver ads packaged acceptably; privacy concerns; issues about artist remuneration; the seeding of playlists with throwaway tracks commissioned by Spotify (something which Glenn McDonald specifically denies, by the way) in order to pay fewer royalties… etc, etc. You can get the gist by reading any good reporting on Spotify.

All in all, it mostly solidifies my intent to continue doing what I already do: supporting artists directly wherever possible, even if I discover their music via sources like Spotify or YouTube where I can listen free/supported by ads/for a small subscription. Which is to say, despite the dramatic blurb, it didn’t change the way I think about and listen to music; it isn’t that revelatory, if you’ve had your eyes and ears open.

…Now if anyone can tell where to buy Rabbitology’s “Bog Bodies (dorm demo)” track without paying for it on Amazon, that’d be great.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Liz Pelly, non-fiction

WWW Wednesday

Posted April 30, 2025 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Yay, time to talk about books! As if I ever stop, ahaha.

What have you recently finished reading?

Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Drop of Corruption, which I adored. I originally had an ARC, but then life happened (my wife broke an ankle and my grandmother died), so I didn’t get round to it until I bought the finished copy last week — but believe me, I was eager for it, because I really liked the first book. It’s such a rich and inventive world, and does much more than “Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy setting” might make you think.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve actually been finishing books quite quickly, so there’s nothing lingering around that hasn’t been lingering around for a while already. This morning I started on Anne Lawrence-Mathers’ The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts, which I expect will take a while (the Bookly app says four more hours, which is a lot for me). So far it’s mostly about works relating to astrology, which isn’t quite what I think of when I think of magic/enchantment, but I’m curious to read more anyway.

What will you read next?

I just got an ARC of A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, by Sylvie Cathrall. I adored the first book and could barely put it down, so this is high on my list. I’m also very tempted by T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace, though, and The Baby Dragon Café (A.T. Qureshi). I feel like I could do with something lighter before I plunge into A Letter from the Lonesome Shore — I have quite the “book hangover” from A Drop of Corruption. Daniel M. Ford’s Advocate is another ARC I’m late to read, and I just finished the previous book Necrobane, so that’s somewhere on my “next up” list too.

In sum… who knows? I’ll read something, that’s for sure: I’m very much in a reading mood!

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Who Owns This Sentence?

Posted April 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 384
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Who Owns This Sentence? looks at how throughout history, principled arguments, greed, and opportunism have ensured copyright's ascendency, and unveils those who are behind a phenomenon that has faced little public debate.

David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs is surprisingly readable, for a book on a subject that could be incredibly dry. It helps that they split things down into plenty of chapters, and take one or two examples at a time — they’re quite through in discussing the development of each successive law and expansion to law, but the chunks are pretty bitesize for the most part, and the tone is fairly casual.

If you are pro copyright without limit including for corporations, then you probably won’t enjoy the general tone they take, pointing out multiple times (and in multiple ways) that the argument that copyright gives people a livelihood and fosters creativity isn’t a universal truth (people will often create without financial incentives) and that the laws anyway aren’t focused on providing that (you wouldn’t need lifetime + 70 years just for that).

Their argument is that far too much stuff is tied up in copyright in a way that hampers creativity and the sharing of knowledge, and they make a fair case for it, especially when it’s clear that a bare handful of companies own almost all of it anyway, and the net result is that the rich keep on getting richer and richer — based on the hard work of others who are often dead.

That said, it is a fairly opinionated account, so if you want a dispassionate rundown of what copyright is, you don’t want this book.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Alexandre Montagu, book reviews, books, David Bellos, non-fiction

Review – Scarhaven Keep

Posted April 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Scarhaven Keep

by J.S. Fletcher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 243
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
When the great actor, Bassett Oliver, who was a martinet for punctuality, failed to turn up to a rehearsal which he himself had called, his business manager guessed that something had happened. It had. But it took more than one set of brains to discover the truth, and another set of very curious circumstances was mixed up in it. Copplestone, the young dramatist, helping to solve the mystery, found himself suddenly in love; and the solution and his happiness were discovered together.

J.S. Fletcher’s Scarhaven Keep is a fairly standard classic mystery, with the expected sort of elements: a mysterious disappearance, a picturesque site for a mystery, issues of inheritance, mistaken identity/impersonation, amateur detectives, and even a damsel in distress and a touch of romance.

It does all of those things perfectly competently for the period, without really standing out. I did appreciate that the female character who ends up in distress is actually not super distressed about it, probably more level-headed than the guys, and certainly there was no swooning. I appreciated that quite a bit.

Overall, it’s not one that stands out for me, but it was enjoyable in the way I find many classic mysteries: it did mostly what was expected of it, and there’s a happy ending for the “goodies” (except, of course, in that someone has been killed). I wouldn’t turn down reading something else by Fletcher.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, crime, J.S. Fletcher, mystery

Review – The Unmaking of June Farrow

Posted April 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Unmaking of June Farrow

by Adrienne Young

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

Adrienne Young’s The Unmaking of June Farrow took a while to get going for me, and I ended it not entirely sure how I’d felt about it. I enjoyed it well enough, but I think the first third felt too introductory and I wanted it to get somewhere, and it didn’t ever feel like it quite took off. I could’ve done with much more tension between certain characters, for instance, and maybe more crossings of timelines.

It’s worked out quite cleverly, and I think it mostly hung together (which is always a risk with time travel type plots), but I did have a bit of trouble figuring out the logistics of some of it worked, and how June didn’t realise some things sooner.

Overall, an interesting one, and I think I enjoyed the experience, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking with me particularly well — I’m reviewing this a little later than I’d usually like, and finding that… well, I seem to have a fistful of dry leaves instead of fairy gold.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Adrienne Young, book reviews, books, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 26, 2025 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Greetings! Saturday again, huh? I’ve been trying to have a restorative week, and have been getting back to my reading somewhat — which is a relief to all, since it does wonders for my mood.

As mentioned last week, I had a bit of a spree to celebrate finishing my assignments (the last ones of this degree!) so I’m going to spotlight those now, without any further ado.

Books acquired this week

First up, there are some lovely new editions of T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series. I haven’t read these, but I’ve been meaning to forever. Since they were “buy one, get one half-price” at Waterstones, and Waterstones was having a double stamps event… well. It seemed like the perfect time to splash out.

But that wasn’t all, of course. I picked up a couple of fiction books too: I’d borrowed Greenteeth from the library, but had to return it, and I just loved the idea of a dragon café and thought that one sounded cute. I already owned a copy of Clockwork Boys, but I liked the new UK issue, so I grabbed that too.

Aaand finally, a few non-fiction (you knew it was coming).

A pretty good haul, I’d say… Technically I have a review copy to share as well, but it isn’t in my hands yet (since I’m not staying at the flat while we do moving stuff), so I’ll share that next week!

Posts from this week

As usual, let’s have a quick roundup of reviews:

Fantasy manga: A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, by Misaki et al (4/5 stars)
Fantasy: The Tomb of Dragons, by Katherine Addison (2/5 stars)
Mystery/horror: Strange Pictures, by Uketsu (4/5 stars)
History: Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World, by Alan Marshall (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music, by Glenn McDonald (2/5 stars)
Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)

What I’m reading

With my assignments finally done, I’ve been finding a bit more time for reading… though partly that means I’ve got stuck into some longer/heavier reads, so I don’t have many new reviews added to the upcoming pile. But here’s what I have read!

As for this weekend, I’ll be reading Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Price of the Perfect Playlist, and… not sure what else. We’ll see!

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: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11

Posted April 25, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 161
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #11
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The last year of Nobuko and Hiroki's time together as college students is upon them.

It's springtime, and job hunting is in full swing for college seniors. Hiroki does his best to support Nobuko, who is caught between studying for the civil service exam and searching for a private sector job. Facing her first real barrier of entry into society, Nobuko worries for the future. What can Hiroki say to help when she begins losing sight of herself?

Volume eleven of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story keeps up on the theme of the last volume: Nobuko and Hiroki are growing up, having different sorts of trouble, and sometimes being kept apart by circumstance.

It’s really quite a bit of development for Nobuko as a character, with Hiroki somewhat in the background, as Nobuko tries to navigate interviewing for jobs and figuring out what she wants to do, and how to show her interest and passion for it. As ever, Hiroki is willing to support her no matter what, and shows his support even when the outcome isn’t what he might prefer.

Really, they’re #relationshipgoals.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Akane Tamura, book reviews, books, manga, romance

Review – You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song

Posted April 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music

by Glenn McDonald

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 236
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
For the first time in history, almost every song ever recorded is available instantly. Everywhere.

This book charts what music’s dazzling digital revolution really means for fans and artists. As a former data guru at the world’s biggest streaming service, Spotify, Glenn McDonald reveals:

- What the tech giants know about you
- How they serve up your next song
- Whether fans can cheat the algorithm
- Whether jazz is dead and ASMR is the new punk
- Your chances of becoming a rock star

Having analysed the streams of 500 million people, McDonald explores what the data tells us about music and about ourselves, from the secrets of russelåter in Norway to Christmas in the Philippines.

Statistically, you have not yet heard your lifetime’s favourite song. This book will take you on a voyage of discovery through music’s fast-flowing new waters.

10 bonus playlists of wonder included!

In a way, it’s really hard for me to know how to rate/review Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, because he could tell me that Spotify has an arts-and-crafts department just for employees and I’d have to believe him — and when it comes to math (as when he discusses Spotify’s payment model), anyone can blind me with science, I’m afraid.

What I can say is that McDonald clearly has a passion for music, and believes that streaming is fair, equitable, and good for music going forward — or at least not worse for it than any of the other models we’ve had of music getting into people’s hands. He’s fascinated by the diversity of music, and eager for Spotify and other services to bring that music to people and let them try it.

In some ways, I’d rather he stuck to that part, because when he talks about the revenue models etc, it’s always with the caveat that he had nothing to do with that. As such, it’s all very back-of-the-napkin. He also outright contradicts some of the reporting about Spotify (e.g. that they commissioned some music for a flat fee to fill up playlists, so they don’t have to pay out when those songs are listened to) where I don’t know who is right or wrong at all. My instinct is that McDonald is definitely working hard to protect Spotify and cast it in the right light, which seems to be out of love, and may or may not be truly accurate.

I’m now reading Mood Machine, by Liz Pelly, and I get the sense that McDonald’s book is a bit more like a PR machine (even if he doesn’t work for Spotify now) and Liz Pelly’s is more accurate reporting.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Glenn McDonald, non-fiction

Review – Sheeplands

Posted April 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World

by Alan Marshall

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Human civilisation was not just created by humans: we had the help of many creatures, and foremost among these were sheep. From Argentina to Australia and from Mesopotamia to Mongolia, just about every country with hills and meadows has adopted and then developed sheep farming as a way of living. And in Wales in particular, sheep played a central role in shaping landscape and culture.

Sheeplands outlines the journeys taken by some of these sheep as they voyaged across the world, both by themselves and with human shepherds, from the earliest human settlements to the present day. Along the way, Alan Marshall paints vivid portraits of the roles sheep have played in the development of the modern world, in times of peace and war, and describes how our sheeplands might continue to influence Wales and the wider world in future years.

Alan Marshall’s Sheeplands is, as it says, a history of Wales (and the wider world) through the lens of sheep and sheep-farming. This isn’t trivial: farming has been very important over the years, and the development of farming techniques, breeds of sheep and ways of transporting the sheep have been vital in the economy, war, colonisation, and everyday lives. I definitely appreciated a history that kept coming back to Wales, specifically, and from a very pro-Welsh point of view.

However… the problem is, the book doesn’t have numbered references, just a list of sources in the back, making it very difficult to follow up a particular anecdote and reference it. Sometimes something is stated as sheer fact when it sounds like mere theory, and sometimes the flippant easy tone elides the author’s lack of knowledge on a subject (“Homer” didn’t “scribe into text” anything, folks; Homer quite possibly never existed — it’s all more complicated than that). Sometimes that doesn’t affect the underlying point, and it didn’t in the case of this example. But. What about inaccuracies in the stuff I don’t have personal knowledge of? How can I tell apart flippancy, opinion, and fact, without proper sourcing?

I know it’s meant for a popular audience, but that shouldn’t mean you put yourself beyond fact-checking. Adding numbered sources doesn’t interrupt the flow for someone who is reading very casually, and allows anyone to look up the source for more information if they’re curious, sceptical, etc.

I did also find that I wasn’t so keen on the personal interjections about the author and his son Shelley. It’s cute, but it doesn’t really add to the narrative for us to be told what the author’s six-year-old son thinks about a given fact or location.

So… there were definitely things I enjoyed about the reading experience, don’t get me wrong, but it did also leave a lot to be desired in other ways.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Alan Marshall, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction