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!

Wednesday again! And a lovely day to talk about books (you know me; every day is a lovely day to talk about books).

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I finished up Not to be Taken, by Anthony Berkeley! It’s an interesting one, because it was intentionally written as a very fair-play mystery, because it was also a competition. The British Library Crime Classic edition includes not only the ending (which wasn’t originally published with it) but a report by Berkeley on the competition, which all made for fascinating reading. It was such a playful and innovative era for mysteries.

What are you currently reading?

I have three books that I’m currently most actively reading: Poet Mystic Widow Wife, by Hetta Howes; Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist, by Liz Pelly; and volume one of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, the original light novel by Yatsuki Wakutsu. It’s amazing to me how faithfully the manga version of the latter translates even the details of the narration. I always think I’ll get more out of the light novel version of these stories, and usually it’s only a little bit more insight. A picture’s worth a thousand words, I guess, even to someone as non-visual as me.

As for Mood Machine and Poet Mystic Widow Wife, both are quite slow going; the former is conscientious and detail-oriented in a way that makes it an excellent foil for Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, which I read a couple of weeks ago. The latter is a bit less organised than I’d like, though I’m not far into it and maybe the organisation governing it will make more sense to me soon.

What will you read next?

Excellent question! Well, aside from the obvious (the other volumes of the light novel I’m reading), and finishing Necrobane (Daniel M. Ford), which I’ve been neglecting… I’m not sure. I got a whole treasury of new books by spending up store credit and vouchers, so I might dig into one of those. I am supposed to be reading books I can sell/donate, to help reduce clutter while moving, though. So maybe I’ll read a book from my backlog, Wendy A. Woloson’s Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America — though I’m British, it has a certain resonance right now as I sort through my things…

What about you?