The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

A Sting in the Tale, by Dave Goulson. It’s a non-fiction/pop-science book about bees, and is part of a new project of mine to get less scared of insects by becoming curious about them. It worked for me when it comes to pathogens (starting with David Quammen’s Spillover), so I’m hopeful. So far I’m learning a lot of interesting facts — for instance, bumblebees have smelly feet — and I’m not grossed out or anxious. On the other hand, bees are relatively harmless anyway and aren’t a major fear of mine. I’ve got a book on ants lined up, and that might be more problematic. Ideally, I should find something on spiders…

I’m also reading a few other books, but most actively it’s Kushiel’s Dart, which I finally found the time to pick up again. I forgot how long it takes before Joscelin actually appears!

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was a reread of Kerry Greenwood’s Away with the Fairies. It’s a blatant homage to Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, in some ways, and it also features Phryne being terribly daring and heroic in rescuing her lover, Lin Chung, from pirates. These books make for great comfort reading, because you can pretty much be sure everything will be okay, and also I’ve read them before so I know how they turn out. And Phryne is awesome.

(I needed comfort reading because my cough got so bad I pulled muscles in my ribcage. I’m doing better now, before I had to bring out the big guns and reread The Goblin Emperor.)

What will you read next?

I’m going to focus on finishing Abaddon’s Gate, for a start. I also have a stack of library books to read while I’m visiting my parents, including some books in the 300s of the Dewey Decimal System for a Habitica challenge. I can’t remember the titles, but they’re about multiculturalism and immigration, so not my usual thing, but rather topical given the world at present and the political preoccupations of our time.

Other than that, I’m not sure. I might pick up Nine Coaches Waiting, since I’m about due for another scheduled dose of rereading Mary Stewart’s work.

What are you reading at the moment?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

A couple of things, as usual. For non-fiction, I’m reading The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim. I know that his views on autism, etc, are very much criticised now, but this is about fairytales and how they help to develop a child’s brain. He’s very much a psychoanalyst, which I tend to take with a grain of salt, but he still has some interesting theories about the appeal of fairytales.

In terms of fiction, I’ve just started Peter S. Beagle’s Summerlong. I have to say, I’m raising my eyebrows a little at the fact that like In Calabria, he has an older man in a romance with a younger woman. It’s less creepy-feeling than in that book, but it still has a bit of that hmmmm to it. Especially in his attraction to Lioness, the even younger character who is really the centre of the story. Not that I expect older people to turn off their attraction to younger people as such, it’s just… since that comment from Jo on In Calabria, I can’t stop noticing.

What have you recently finished reading?

Not very much! The last thing I finished was Helen Pilcher’s Bring Back the King, which is about de-extinction efforts. It’s light-hearted (though not hilarious, as the cover-copy might have you believe) but informative, though I knew most of the info from reading Beth Shapiro’s How to Clone A Mammoth. Very similar info about the same range of species as that book, so unless you’re absolutely mad about T-rex and Elvis (yes, she discusses “de-extincting” Elvis), I think I’d skip it if you’ve already read that.

What will you be reading next?

I’ll probably read the two books just out from Tor.com by Jy Yang, The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven. The covers look beautiful, I’m intrigued by the summaries, and I received them to review last week. I also need to get back to reading Andy Weir’s Artemis, of course! And given that I’m still not quite well, and I’m at my parents’ house with my copies of the Phryne Fisher books, I’m tempted to dive into a reread of Away with the Fairies…

What are you reading?