Tag: books

Review – Poirot Investigates

Posted September 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Poirot Investigates

by Agatha Christie

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 265
Series: Hercule Poirot #3
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings…

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the curse of a pharaoh’s tomb… a jewel robbery by the sea… the abduction of a Prime Minister… the disappearance of a banker… a phone call from a dying man… and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

The unfortunate thing about this collection of short stories (from my perspective at least) is that unfortunately, Poirot’s fairly dense sidekick Hastings is a major player in each. Poirot himself is not so bad in the short stories of Agatha Christie’s Poirot Investigates, and even Hastings doesn’t have much room to make an ass of himself, but I still don’t like the character.

There are some interesting mysteries here, but I can’t say any of them really jumped out at me and stuck in my memory. The one where Poirot recounts a case where he fails and Hastings gently tries to pierce his ego afterwards made me laugh, though.

Another thing to be wary of with Agatha Christie is the casual racism that gets sprinkled around. I noticed it quite a bit in these short stories.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Agatha Christie, book reviews, books, crime, mystery, short stories

Review – Pharos

Posted September 29, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Pharos

by Alice Thompson

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror
Pages: 160
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Set in the early nineteenth century, Pharos is a dazzling ghost story from an award-winning author.

A young woman is washed up on the shores of Jacob's Rock, a remote lighthouse island off the coast of Scotland. She does not know who she is or how she got there. She has no memory. The keeper of the lighthouse and his assistant take her in and feed and clothe her. But this mysterious woman is not all that she seems, and neither is the remote and wind-swept island.

Eerily reminiscent of Turn of the Screw and The Others, Pharos is a breathless tale of the supernatural.

Alice Thompson’s Pharos is more or less a novella in length, and it’s a ghost story. It’s a bit of a weird one to classify. It creates a sense of unease and wrongness without being exactly creepy, and I’m not sure it entirely works as a whole. The sexual current between two of the characters comes out of nowhere (though it’s unclear if one of them wants it at all), and the narration and lack of proper dialogue just… don’t quite manage to pull things together. There’s not much to care about.

I’m also not sure about the use of voodoo and the history of slavery as a backdrop to the story, which is written by a Scottish author. The use of voodoo and the tragic lives of enslaved people to create a story of a vengeful ghost just feels rather overdone and tired. Many strange things can haunt a lighthouse — why this?

Some of the atmosphere created is admittedly really good, though, the claustrophobic chokingness of a group of four people who are ultimately trapped together, no matter how crazy things get.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: Alice Thompson, book reviews, books, horror, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 28, 2024 by Nicky in General / 34 Comments

Greetings folks! It’s definitely getting autumnal here, and though the sun is bright outside the window, it’s chilly. Probably my favourite sort of weather, really — though if it stays this cold, I’m going to need to acquire some gloves before I next cycle down to the library, ahaha.

Books acquired

Once more, it’s been a busy week for library books, since a couple of holds came in and I found where they keep the recent releases. Here’s the library haul!

I also got some poetry collections, but I’m not sure whether I’ll end up reviewing those here; so far there’s some I’ve wanted to review, and some where I feel I have nothing useful to say. At least, not enough to fill up a review. So I’ll leave those out of the haul for now.

I did also get an e-ARC for review from Tor, which looks fascinating and promises me a twisty plot like Dorothy L. Sayers. We’ll see!

Posts from this week

As usual, let’s start with the reviews!

Romance: Book Lovers, by Emily Henry (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Around the Ocean in 80 Fish & Other Sea Life, by Helen Scales, illustrated by Marcel George (4/5 stars)
Graphic novel: The Baker and the Bard, by Fern Haught (3/5 stars)
Non-fiction: Universal Basic Income, by Karl Widerquist (3/5 stars)

And the other posts:

What I’m reading

This week I spent a lot of time with library books, since I keep overdoing it and getting loads at once (it’s like my brain refuses to accept that they’ll be there next time). I suspect my weekend will be much the same, as I have a hold waiting for me at the library. Here’s the usual peek at the books I’ve finished this week (at least the ones I plan to review on the blog):

For right now, I’m reading Yellowface, The Book at War, and of course, volume 7 of Heaven Official’s Blessing. I’ll probably also pick up The Mountain in the Sea in the course of the weekend… or maybe another non-fiction, since The Book at War is rather slow.

Either way, I hope to spend plenty of time reading.

Hope you all have a good weekend too!

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 – Universal Basic Income

Posted September 27, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Universal Basic Income

by Karl Widerquist

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 272
Series: The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
An accessible introduction to the simple (yet radical) premise that a small cash income, sufficient for basic needs, ought to be provided regularly and unconditionally to every citizen.

The growing movement for universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining attention from politics and the media with the audacious idea of a regular, unconditional cash grant for everyone as a right of citizenship. This volume in the Essential Knowledge series presents the first short, solid UBI introduction that is neither academic nor polemic. It takes a position in favor of UBI, but its primary goal remains the provision of essential knowledge by answering the fundamental questions about it: What is UBI? How does it work? What are the arguments for and against it? What is the evidence?

Karl Widerquist discusses how UBI functions, showing how it differs from other redistributional approaches. He summarizes the common arguments for and against UBI and presents the reasons for believing it is a tremendously important reform. The book briefly discusses the likely cost of UBI; options for paying for it; the existing evidence on the probable effects of UBI; and the history of UBI from its inception more than two hundred years ago through the two waves of support it received in the twentieth century to the third and largest wave of support it is experiencing now. Now more than ever, conditions in much of the world are ripe for such enthusiasm to keep growing, and there are good reasons to believe that this current wave of support will eventually lead to the adoption of UBI in several countries around the world—making this volume an especially timely and necessary read.

Universal Basic Income is part of a series from the MIT press, the “Essential Knowledge Series”, and this installment is by Karl Widerquist. The point of it is to act as a primer on the subject of Universal Basic Income (UBI), and be a bit of an advocate for it, based on what we know about similar programmes and test cases.

The evidence is (or was at the time of posting) not totally straightforward, because the true test of a UBI would be universality and unconditionality, and most trials have not been universal even within a small area, and may have contained conditions. Widerquist makes a good argument that the results we see are indicative of success, though, and that some aspects of the effects of a UBI might be underreported in such a small study (while acknowledging that some are probably overreported).

There are quite a few acronyms flying around which I didn’t always find easy to remember, but mostly it’s a fairly straightforward explanation and manifesto. However, there were a few editing booboos, including an entire paragraph being repeated verbatim in a list, which was a bit annoying.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Karl Widerquist, non-fiction

Review – The Baker and the Bard

Posted September 26, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

The Baker and the Bard

by Fern Haught

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Romance
Pages: 160
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Author-artist Fern Haught weaves an enchanting, gentle fantasy tale of friendship, determination, and respecting nature in their debut graphic novel, The Baker and the Bard. Perfect for fans of The Tea Dragon Society, Legends & Lattes, and Animal Crossing.

Juniper and Hadley have a good thing going in Larkspur, spending their respective days apprenticing at a little bakery and performing at the local inn. But when a stranger makes an unusual order at the bakery, the two friends (and Hadley’s pet snake, Fern) set out on a journey to forage the magical mushrooms needed to make the requested galette pastries.

Along the way, Juniper and Hadley stumble across a mystery too compelling to ignore: Something has been coming out of the woods at night and eating the local farmers' crops, leaving only a trail of glowy goo behind. Intent on finally going on an adventure that could fuel their bardic craft, Hadley tows Juniper into the woods to investigate.

What started as a simple errand to pick mushrooms soon turns into a thrilling quest to save some furry new friends—and their caretaker, a softspoken little fey named Thistle—who are in danger of losing their home.

The Baker and the Bard, by Fern Haught, is a short and sweet graphic novel which has justifiably been compared to the Tea Dragon Society books. The two main characters, Juniper and Hadley, are apprentices who leap at the chance to go on a bit of an adventure to find a particular glowing mushroom to fulfil a big order for a client. In the process, they make a few friends and maybe make things a bit better for some people.

It’s very slight, not going into a lot of depth about anything, but the dynamic between Juniper and Hadley is cute, and the little snake is very cute.

There is a bit of a jarring bit where Hadley asks Thistle about gender stuff; rather than an organic part of the journey, it feels like a bit of a Teaching Moment, because it’s not been clear up to that moment that Hadley had any such questions or was anything other than comfortable with themself. And to be clear, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be included or that the presence of a non-binary character needs to have a reason, but it felt like that specific scene came out of left-field.

Overall, a fun enough short read, probably aiming at middle-grade reading age, I’d guess? The art is pretty cute, with a pastel sort of aesthetic.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, graphic novels, romance, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 25, 2024 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

It’s that time again already?! Well.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I read was Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words, illustrated by Jackie Morris, which I had to read in the library rather than take home with me ’cause oof, their edition is big! Like The Lost Spells, it’s a collection of poetry that tries to bring a little magic back to how we relate to wild creatures. Both seem like the poet was having fun, so though I didn’t universally love the poems (sometimes a rhyme is too obvious, or a particular word just stuck out as wrong), it was a fun read. And the illustrations are gorgeous.

Before that, I finished The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Arik Kershenbaum. There weren’t many surprises for me, given I have a biology degree and a pre-existing interest in astrobiology from fiction and non-fiction, and I didn’t always agree with Kershenbaum’s reasoning, but it was interesting. I should think it through more for my review, but suffice it to say that I felt like he was very focused on a belief that everything must have been advantageous in order to be maintained through generations, instead of remembering that neutral traits and behaviours can come along for the ride because they’re not selected against (and negative traits can come along because they’re advantageous in narrow but important circumstances, but he’s a bit better about remembering that).

What are you currently reading?

I’ve made a start on The Book at War, by Andrew Pettegree, which is preeeetty chunky. Looks like the app I use to track reading sessions suggests it’s going to take me five hours to finish; it feels like I’m having to focus to keep the meaning from slipping away from me mid-page, so I guess I’m not finding Pettegree the most engaging writer (though I couldn’t put my finger on why). I’ve barely started, so not much else to say yet. It’s interesting that Pettegree points out that despite the view of writers/writing/books as being enlightened, in many ways writers deliberately egged on the wars at the start of the 20th century. Pacifism came later.

As usual, I’m reading several other books at once. I’m close to finishing up with Heaven Official’s Blessing, since I’m partway through the penultimate volume. I’ve loved it so much. There’s an AO3 tag for this series, “Hua Cheng and Xie Lian invented love”, and I get it. Hua Cheng’s devotion to Xie Lian is lovely, as is Xie Lian’s slow realisation of their feelings for one another. It’s been a really satisfying journey.

What will you read next?

I got a lot of books out of the library, so I want to focus on reading some of those for a bit. Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang, just came through for me on Libby, and I know there’s someone who has it on hold after me, so I should focus on that. It’s quite likely it’s not really my thing, but I’m curious enough I want to give it a shot.

I also want to start The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler, since I’ve been curious about it for ages. Of late, I’ve been trying to reduce the number of books I have on the go at the same time, but I’m a little worried that’s part of why I’ve been having difficulty reading at the moment. I do value having the ability to hop from book to book. So I might ease up on that goal, and just go with my whims for a bit.

What about you?

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall TBR

Posted September 24, 2024 by Nicky in General / 35 Comments

This week’s theme from Top Ten Tuesday is the fall TBR. I don’t particularly theme my reading plans, and I usually go by whim, but I usually have some idea of what’s tempting me… so let’s start there.

The Book at War, by Andrew Pettegree. Not the most uplifting book, perhaps, but it looks fascinating, discussing readers and libraries and how they’ve interacted (and been manipulated) during conflicts from the American Civil War onwards. I got it out of the library last week, so I should get to this soon.
Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang. I have a library hold on this book, so I’m fairly sure it’ll feature somewhere in my autumn reading. I haven’t actually read anything by R.F. Kuang yet, despite owning The Poppy War and Babel, but I keep getting tempted to give Yellowface a shot (even though it’s a bit outside my usual genres). And oops, now I check the Libby app, looks like it’s my turn!
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù. Having loved The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and being perhaps even more enamoured with Heaven Official’s Blessing (with which I’m nearly finished), it’s inevitable that I’m going to move on to something else by MXTX soon. I’m ready to love Wei Wuxian, but I’ll miss Xie Lian. Technically, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation was her second webnovel, so I’ve perhaps read things in an odd order. That’s okay, though, they’re not connected.
The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler. My wife really enjoyed this one, and I enjoyed The Tusks of Extinction, so I’m very curious to give it a shot. I have it out of the library, which will also help move it up my list. Octopuses are fascinating, and after the recent disappointment of Remarkably Bright Creatures (which was fine, but not what I hoped for) I’d love something that grapples with the weirdness of an alien intelligence.
Deadly Earnest, by Joan Cockin. I got this one for my birthday, after I really enjoyed Curiosity Killed the Cat. Time to dig in, I think — I always love a classic mystery, after all.
A River Enchanted, by Rebecca Ross. Technically, I got partway through this earlier in the year, and then got distracted, but I think I’ll have to skim over the opening 100 pages again to get myself back into it. And there’s a sequel too, if I get round to this one.
A Sinister Revenge, by Deanna Raybourn. I didn’t love the last book in the series (because of the total lack of communication between them, mostly), but I’m hopeful that this book will get me back into it. I really hope so, because I enjoy Veronica and Stoker, and I want to enjoy their stories.
Bitter Waters, by Vivian Shaw. I was really excited to see that this novella had come out, and then I forgot about it and only remembered when I started looking through my TBR for this post! I love Greta Helsing and the world Shaw has built, the whole concept of a GP who treats monsters like vampires and ghouls, so I’m excited to dive back in via this novella. I might reread the rest of the series, too, because I adore it.
The Tomb of Dragons, by Katherine Addison. Most likely I’m going to reread all the books in this world, let’s be honest, but I’m so excited to dive into The Tomb of Dragons and see where Thara Celehar is now, after the events of the last book. And let’s face it, I really want to know if Iäna Pel-Thenhior is ever going to give him a hug.
The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo. This is actually due out soon, and I haven’t read my e-ARC yet, arrghh! I’ve got to get round to it as soon as I can — I’ve loved most of Nghi Vo’s work, and this sounds like a fascinating world and story. I’m never very sure about comparisons to Ursula Le Guin (and saying Calvino, Miéville and Le Guin as comparisons just seems like an odd mix), but I do trust that Nghi Vo’s work is good and generally to my taste.

And now I’d better hop on my bike and go to the library — books are calling out to me for pickup!

What’s everyone else’s TBR looking like for the autumn?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Around the Ocean in 80 Fish and Other Sea Life

Posted September 23, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Around the Ocean in 80 Fish & Other Sea Life

by Helen Scales, Marcel George

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 216
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
This is an inspiring tour of the world's oceans and 80 of its most notable inhabitants. Beautifully illustrated, the book includes fascinating stories of the fish, shellfish and other sea life that have somehow impacted human life - whether in our medicine, culture or folklore - in often surprising and unexpected ways.

Around the Ocean in 80 Fish and Other Sea Life is in the same format as Jonathan Drori’s books about plants and trees, but has a different author (Helen Scales) and a different artist (Marcel George). Ocean life isn’t entirely my thing, but nor are plants and trees: what matters is the enthusiasm of the author — and in this case, the beautiful illustrations, which aren’t always just of the animal in question, but an interpretation of how humans have interacted with it or legends around it.

The amount of life in the ocean is so immensely rich that you could miss out everybody’s favourites and still have 80 creatures, so it’s hard to say whether the choices are right or wrong, though my prediction is that almost everyone will have a question about some preferred animal that has been neglected. Scales includes some striking stories and some very curious creatures, and the illustrations are (as I expected from this series) really beautiful. There’s no overarching narrative here — one could dip in and out easily, turn to random pages, etc, etc. I read it cover to cover in that order, as is my wont.

As ever, it highlights the effects humans are having on marine life. Many of the creatures discussed are endangered, or have at the very least had their environment affected by humans in some way or another. Scales doesn’t linger on it to a depressing extent, especially as each segment is so short, but it’s unavoidable to notice it in the aggregate.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Helen Scales, history, Marcel George, non-fiction, science

Review – Book Lovers

Posted September 22, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Book Lovers

by Emily Henry

Genres: Romance
Pages: 377
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

Emily Henry’s Book Lovers starts with a fun idea: let’s follow the woman in the big city who gets left behind in romance novels by the guy who goes to a rural area and falls in love with a local farmer/bookseller/cafe owner/etc. The woman who’s kind of uptight, not in tune with nature, etc, etc. That’s Nora, and this is her turn for a romance, as her sister drags her off on a trip to a rural town that’s featured in one of the books she agented.

The story has sympathy for Nora, for the people who love the big city and prioritise their careers, and tries to peel back the layers and show us why they might act that way in the stories, what’s important to them, and, yep, how they might get their own happy ending. Nora’s not the typical romance heroine (in terms of tropes, anyway), and Charlie (the love interest) is equally not the typical romance hero.

That said, it is a romance and it follows the usual patterns and, in its way, is quite predictable even as it bucks one particular trend. That’s not a bad thing: it keeps up the contract with the reader that you expect when you’re getting a romance novel — but the constraint of the genre meant things didn’t come as a huge surprise to me.

I enjoyed Nora’s character, and the inevitable quirky side characters, though I’d have liked to understand Charlie’s attraction to her better. Overall, a fun one.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Emily Henry, romance

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 21, 2024 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

Oof, feels like it’s been a long week. I’ve been productive and got some important stuff done, at least!

Books acquired this week

I wasn’t really planning a library trip this week as well, but I was in town anyway to sort something out, and I ended up with some free time. So I went to the library again…

I picked up some poetry on a whim; I haven’t read much poetry in ages, but I did start reading some again quite recently, and it seemed like a fun idea to dip into whatever the library has to try some poets I haven’t read before. Though I already love the song project based on The Lost Spells; give “The Snow Hare” and “Selkie Boy” a try, if you’re curious.

And checked out a local indie bookshop, The Book Vault. I have a couple more books I want to pick up later, but I settled for just two for now.

Posts from this week

As usual, time for a bit of a roundup. Here are the reviews first:

Horror/fantasy/romance graphic novel: Love Everlasting, vol 2, by Tom King and Elsa Charretier (3/5 stars)
History: Moneta: A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins, by Gareth Harney (4/5 stars)
Fantasy short story: Burning Books for Pleasure and Profit, by K.J. Parker (4/5 stars)
Danmei (romance)/fantasy: Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 4, by MXTX (4/5 stars)

And the non-review posts:

What I’m reading

This week I did get back into the groove and start reading a bit more again, though it was mostly short stuff until today, when I tucked into a non-fiction book grabbed from the library and finally got back to reading Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol 6, which I’ve been struggling with due to the flashback interrupting the plot). Here’s a sneak peek of the books I’ve finished since last week (the ones I plan to review, at least):