Tag: books

Review – The Wonder Engine

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

The Wonder Engine

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 366
Series: Clocktaur War #2
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In the sequel to Clockwork Boys, Slate, Brenner, Caliban and Learned Edmund have arrived in Anuket City, the source of the mysterious Clockwork Boys. They even managed to build some trust in each other's skills. That trust is built on quicksand as the risks continue to escalate. But the secrets they're keeping could well destroy them, before the city even gets the chance...
Old foes and consequences of past decisions lurk in the shadows. Every team member's skills are required to succeed--even more so if they hope to survive.

I found T. Kingfisher’s The Wonder Engine a touch less well-paced then Clockwork Boys: it’s a bit chunkier, and it’s not entirely clear to me that all of it is needed. I don’t mean any major events should be cut, I think, but some of the will-they-won’t-they could’ve been condensed, at least, and maybe some of the events around the reason why Slate didn’t want to return to Anuket City. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here.)

All of which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, it’s just that Clockwork Boys felt a bit more streamlined, and I began to lose patience with Caliban and Slate’s inability to communicate properly. Grimehug is right, of course, they can’t smell each other, but a gnole could wish humans would manage to speak with words, allegedly their strong point!

I enjoy this world and seeing a bit more of it, and I enjoyed the characters for the most part — even Learned Edmund, to my surprise, now that he’s understood a bit more of the real world. There was a “twist” that shouldn’t have surprised me but sort of did (I’d been expecting something to happen, but not that specifically), and the way everything wrapped up definitely had punch, with room for healing and a happy ending for some of the characters.

I’ll definitely grab the UK edition when it comes out, to match Clockwork Boys; it’s a series I want to keep around, and I was surprised by how quickly I wanted to go on and read The Wonder Engine right away, because normally I space out a series by at least an unrelated book or two.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, T. Kingfisher

Review – Solo Leveling, vol. 5

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

Solo Leveling

by Dubu, Chugong

Genres: Fantasy, Manga
Pages: 314
Series: Solo Leveling #5
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Jinwoo knows it won't be long before his true power fully comes to light and the guilds and Hunter's Association of Korea descend, seeking his allegiance. Since his training has thus far been a solo endeavor, Jinwoo decides he ought to at least see what an A-rank raid is really like. Joining the Hunters' excavation team is the perfect opportunity to assess a high-level guild in action, even if his role is limited to hauling and mining. That is, until a particularly nasty dungeon boss requires the luggage carrier to step up to carry the team as well!!

Volume five of Solo Leveling feels a bit… like filler? Jinwoo hitches himself a ride with a guild on the “excavation” team, and we get to see a bit more about how the guilds make money by totally stripping out the dungeons, so it’s not bad for worldbuilding, but it felt like the bit about the re-evaluation was kinda stretched out.

Still, we meet Cha Hae-In, who seems pretty cool, and it was kinda nice to tone down the darkness a touch and have Jinwoo spend some time reminding himself what it used to be like when he went on raids with other people. Despite thinking he’s not going to rely on other people etc etc, Jinwoo’s still actually protecting the innocent, which is good to see.

He is getting super overpowered though, like me overlevelling in the first dungeon of a game. I’m thinking the ants are gonna be a good opponent for him; it’d be pretty disappointing if that doesn’t even challenge him either.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Chugong, Dubu, manga, SF/F

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 27, 2025 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

Happy weekend! It’s been a nice short week for me, and I’m still glad to see the weekend. Hope everyone has fun plans — even if “fun plans” means hiding away in a cosy corner with a book, of course.

Books acquired this week

I’m trying not to buy too many books, but a couple of impulse buys here and there can’t hurt when I plan to read them right away, right?

Posts from this week

Bookish comics: I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf, by Grant Snider (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Fantasy: Clockwork Boys, by T. Kingfisher (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Poetry: Eat the World, by Marina Diamandis (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
Fantasy: Reignclowd Palace, by Philippa Rice (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time, by Emma Chapman (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Crime: Nine Times Nine, by Anthony Boucher (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Non-fiction: Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, by Wendy A. Woloson (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

And the other posts:

What I’m reading

It’s still been a good week for reading, though a lot of these are quite short! Here’s a peek at the books I’ve finished and intend to review on the blog:

I’m planning to play a lot of Final Fantasy XIV this weekend, as I want to work on my weapon relic, so that’s going to be fun! But I do want to finish off the books I need to finish to get a blackout on Book Spin Bingo on Litsy, which means I’ll be doing plenty of reading too, as the end of the month approaches. My first focus is You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian, which I’m loving, but… I have quite a bit of reading to do!

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

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Crap

Posted September 26, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America

by Wendy A. Woloson

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 416
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Crap. We all have it. Filling drawers. Overflowing bins and baskets. Proudly displayed or stuffed in boxes in basements and garages. Big and small. Metal, fabric, and a whole lot of plastic. So much crap. Abundant cheap stuff is about as American as it gets. And it turns out these seemingly unimportant consumer goods offer unique insights into ourselves--our values and our desires.

In Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, Wendy A. Woloson takes seriously the history of objects that are often cynically-made and easy to dismiss: things not made to last; things we don't really need; things we often don't even really want. Woloson does not mock these ordinary, everyday possessions but seeks to understand them as a way to understand aspects of ourselves, socially, culturally, and economically: Why do we--as individuals and as a culture--possess these things? Where do they come from? Why do we want them? And what is the true cost of owning them?

Woloson tells the history of crap from the late eighteenth century up through today, exploring its many categories: gadgets, knickknacks, novelty goods, mass-produced collectibles, giftware, variety store merchandise. As Woloson shows, not all crap is crappy in the same way--bric-a-brac is crappy in a different way from, say, advertising giveaways, which are differently crappy from commemorative plates. Taking on the full brilliant and depressing array of crappy material goods, the book explores the overlooked corners of the American market and mindset, revealing the complexity of our relationship with commodity culture over time.

By studying crap rather than finely made material objects, Woloson shows us a new way to truly understand ourselves, our national character, and our collective psyche. For all its problems, and despite its disposability, our crap is us.

I’m a little torn on how to rate Wendy A. Woloson’s Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America. It’s very thorough, and well-sourced, with 50 pages of numbered end notes, an index, and lots of illustrative images (mostly black-and-white, with a small section of colour plates). The topic is interesting, and somewhat applicable to what I see in the UK too, but it’s lacking a little enthusiasm: I don’t need it to be any kind of memoir, but this feels a touch on the dry academic side.

It’s also a bit repetitive. The chapters/sections are themed, e.g. one on useless gadgetry (though it includes electric toothbrushes, now recommended heavily by dentists, in the category of useless gadgetry? Not entirely sure why, it was a throwaway comment but one which puzzled me), one on free gifts, etc… But that means some comments about the Depression’s affect on the accrual of “crap” feel a bit repetitive, as the trends are usually very similar.

Overall, I think my conclusion is that this was interesting to reflect on, and definitely well presented and sourced, but a bit dry and slow for casual reading, so more for someone who’s interested in quite a serious take on the topic.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Wendy A. Woloson

Review – Nine Times Nine

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

Nine Times Nine

by Anthony Boucher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 255
Series: Sister Ursula #1
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
The man in the yellow robe had put a curse on Wolfe Harrigan—the ancient curse called the Nine Times Nine. And when Matt Duncan looked up from the croquet lawn that afternoon, he saw the man in the yellow robe in Wolfe Harrigan’s study.

When Matt got there, all the doors were locked and all the windows too; all locked from the inside. Harrigan’s sister sat outside the room. She had seen no one come out. But when the door was broken down, there was no man in a yellow robe in the room, and the body of Wolfe Harrigan lay murdered on the floor.

Later the police discovered that at the time of the murder the man in the yellow robe was lecturing to a group of his followers miles away!

A man who could be in two places at once? An astral body? A miracle, perhaps?

Then who better to explain miracles than Sister Ursula, a nun, whose childhood ambition was to become a policewoman.

I probably made a mistake in the timing of reading Anthony Boucher’s Nine Times Nine, as I read Rocket to the Morgue earlier this year during a rough time, and… coincidentally, ended up reading Nine Times Nine at a similar, relatedly rough moment. Boucher definitely has a certain style that I think will now inevitably call up funerals for me!

Which is a bit sad, because it’s not a bad style (not particularly sad or grim, either), there’s just something about it which is very recognisable. Both books I’ve read of his are locked room mysteries, but this one is openly allusive to other locked room mysteries, even directly quoting John Dickson Carr’s work and embedding the reading of it into the attempted resolution of the mystery — as someone who’s read quite a bit of John Dickson Carr’s work, this did make me grin, but might be a bit tedious for someone who hasn’t, regardless of how clever it feels.

I wasn’t enamoured of the relationship between Concha and Matt; it moved in fits and starts, and always felt a lot more serious on her side than his (but in a very juvenile infatuation sort of way even on her side). As in Rocket to the Morgue, I loved the relationship between Leona and Marshall though!

Overall, not bad, with some good atmospheric moments, and of course, gotta love Sister Ursula, the nun who actually solves everything (though one could wish to see more of what she’s thinking and have her more closely involved with the other characters). I’d probably read more of Boucher’s work if it happened to come my way, but I’m not in a hurry.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: Anthony Boucher, book reviews, books, crime, mystery

Review – First Light

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

First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time

by Emma Chapman

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 304
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe's history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There's a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.

This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe's history, known to astrophysicists as the 'Epoch of Reionisation', represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. This was the point at which the chaos of the Big Bang first began to yield to the order of galaxies, black holes and stars, kick-starting the pathway to planets, to comets, to moons, and to life itself.

Incorporating the very latest research into this branch of astrophysics, this book sheds light on this time of darkness, telling the story of these first stars, hundreds of times the size of the Sun and a million times brighter, lonely giants that lived fast and died young in powerful explosions that seeded the Universe with the heavy elements that we are made of. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today. She also offers a first-hand look at the immense telescopes about to come on line to peer into the past, searching for the echoes and footprints of these stars, to take this period in the Universe's history from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of observational astronomy.

It turns out that I am still not great with astrophysics. Emma Chapman is enthusiastic and keen and tries to enthuse the reader, but my eyes just started to glaze over as First Light dug deeper into the detection methods, types of stars, etc, etc. There are important mysteries discussed here, stuff that it would be monumental for humanity to understand — but I won’t be the human understanding them, I’m pretty certain!

It could be that Chapman’s explanations aren’t great, but that’s hard to judge, when I know this isn’t my field or interest. There were bits I found interesting, mostly the less technical stuff, but whenever she started talking about wavelengths, I was a goner.

I will say that I did find some of her extended metaphors a bit annoying/random. I know she was trying to add colour and interest, but I didn’t need the metaphor of cooking Christmas dinner for a full family to understand that launching a complex telescope is difficult. I’d rather just hear about the telescope, thanks.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Emma Chapman, non-fiction, science

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 24, 2025 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

A couple of manga I picked up rather at random, both by Guri Nojiro: In Love’s Key, Reprised and A Beast’s Love is Like the Moon. I liked In Love’s Key, Reprised the better of the two, though A Beast’s Love is Like the Moon has a surprising bittersweetness at the end. Both made for good light reading, even if they weren’t exceptional.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, I’ve got a few things on the go at once, though I did clear the decks a little bit with my offline weekend earlier in the month, and then my long weekend that ended yesterday. I’m most actively reading Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky: I’m not far into it yet, but I’m very sure I’m going to love the dynamic between Mark and Eddie.

Other than that, I’m also partway through Lucy Cooke’s Bitch, which I’m finding really slow going — despite being allegedly myth-busting about female behaviour/evolution across a range of species, I’m not finding it that surprising.

I’m also reading Sydney J. Shields’ The Honey Witch, which is… so far, just “fine”. It’s not really pulling me in, and I’m not a fan of the writing style, though I can’t quite put my finger on why yet. I’m not far into it, though!

What will you be reading next?

KJ Charles’ The Duke at Hazard, certainly, and otherwise I need to get back to some of the books I have on hold, like James Alistair Henry’s Pagans. I’ve read 38 books so far in September, and yet I still have a bunch to read for my Book Spin Bingo card.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Reignclowd Palace

Posted September 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Reignclowd Palace

by Philippa Rice

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 400
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Evnie Treedle makes magical things and for the last few years she has been selling them in magical knickknacks shop, the Magpie Nest.

But everything changes when one day Evnie's crafting abilities catch the attention of the nearby Reignclowd Palace. She is asked to become their resident spellsmith... the original spellsmith suddenly ill under mysterious circumstances.

Evnie is soon put to work making and mending magical objects. Yet, problems start to appear when she realises there's much more at stake than friendship or romance; a dragon looms over the kingdom looking for a soul to devour, and it's eyes are set on their princess.

I picked up Philippa Rice’s Reignclowd Palace on an absolute whim — more accurately, I spotted it in a bookshop, was curious about the colourful cover, and ended up putting it on my wishlist. I hadn’t seen anyone else talk about it or review it, which is pretty unusual for me at this point: a lot of my reading decisions are based on seeing other people’s thoughts about the books first.

Aaand I really enjoyed it: it kinda had Howl’s Moving Castle vibes to me in many ways (which is not to say it was a rip-off of Howl’s Moving Castle, just that something about the world and relationships felt adjacent). Evnie is a pretty good protagonist, new to the palace and thus open-eyed to its wonders and quirks, giving us a good chance to explore alongside her but making it make sense that she doesn’t know what’s going on all the time or figure out the intricacies of it.

I feel like there were maybe one or two inconsistencies that I’d have to flick through the book to check back on (why would Fantacci go and get Evnie if the Oracle is so blind to her and what she’s going to do?), and there were a couple of notes that felt off (what happens to the youngest prince in the end makes sense, but felt abrupt) or things that were just a tad weird but never came to anything much (Ren’s crush on Hadriana really seemed a bit creepy/obsessive).

I loved the way dragons work in this world, though, and the chaos of the palace, the nature of Evnie’s magic, the way that it slowly becomes clear what dragons are and what happened to Evnie’s village… And I liked that it works as a standalone: I’ve no idea if there’s other stuff planned in this world, there would certainly be space for it, but there doesn’t need to be.

Overall, a gamble that paid off. It was a nice semi-cosy book for my mood — by which I mean there’s a cosiness to the fact that Evnie’s spellwork happens through knitting and sewing at times, in the friendships growing up around the palace, the light romance, etc, but there is also peril and trauma. There’s a warmth to it that I appreciated a lot.

Rating; 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Philippa Rice, SF/F

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall TBR

Posted September 23, 2025 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

It’s definitely beginning to feel autumnal here, with the temperatures falling and some very rainy days. I’m all for it — I love rain, especially listening to it against the windows while I’m reading, because I’m a cliché, and I’m also not super keen on very warm weather anyway (despite the problems I have with my poor circulation meaning I’m easily cold).

So it’s time too to think about my fall reading list, thanks to Top Ten Tuesday. I know there are a lot of books releasing soon that I’m interested in, so I’ve included a couple of those, but mostly I’m trying to leave those on my wishlist for Christmas, and focus on some of the neglected books of my TBR.

Mockingbird Court, by Juneau Black. I love the Shady Hollow series, and the one is due out on 7th October, so it has to earn a place on my list. It’s also set in autumn, so it’s coincidentally seasonally appropriate, too! Even though there’s murder and danger, these books are so cosy to me — I can’t wait to settle down with this one.
The Beauty’s Blade, by Feng Ren Zuo Shu. I haven’t read any baihe (f/f Chinese light novels, equivalent to the m/m danmei) yet, but I heard about this one and it sounds like a lot of fun. It’s due out in November, and I need to snag a copy right away so I can check whether my sister will be interested in it. (I mean, probably: badass ladies with swords who presumably end up kissing, it’s right up her street. But I do have to check for a happy ending.)
The Library of Ancient Wisdom, by Selena Wisnom. I’d actually sort-of started this at one point, but got busy and didn’t dig into it properly, but it looks like a fascinating history of Mesopotamia through the library of Ashurbanipal, and I enjoyed the chapter I read. It looks like a bit of a chonker, but I think it’ll be one I gladly sink into once I give it the time.
Pagans, by James Alistair Henry. I’ve technically started this as well, but it wasn’t the right moment, and now I want to get back to it. It’s a mystery set in an alternative universe where geopolitics has worked out very, very differently (e.g. no Norman invasion, Britain’s kind of a backwater, society is largely run by Anglo-Saxons with Celtcs being a heavily marginalised group, etc). Parts of it don’t seem to totally make sense, but I didn’t get that far into it, and I’m very curious how things work out, all the same.
You Should Be So Lucky, by Cat Sebastian. It’s on my TBR for this month, but I haven’t got to it yet (given that I’ve been warned it deals with an amount of grief and loss, last week didn’t seem like the right time mentally). I really want to read it, though, so it’ll probably be one of the next books I pick up! I love Cat Sebastian’s romances in general, and I feel like she’s also always improving as a writer.
The Duke at Hazard, by KJ Charles. Another one that’s on my September TBR but hasn’t been read yet. This one’s definitely a priority — I don’t know why I’ve waited so long on it. I love pretty much all of KJ Charles’ work, so I expect to enjoy it.
The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club, by Christopher de Hamel. This is a bit of a random choice, but it’s been on my shelves for a while and I’d love to dig into it. I really enjoyed Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, and this one has in-page colour illustrations as well, so it should be fascinating. It’s a bit of a chonker, so I might not schedule it for the same month as the other chunky books I’m thinking about!
Folk Song in England, by Steve Roud. I like a lot of modern British folk, and the efforts of singers and groups like Jon Boden (and Spiers & Boden), Fay Hield, Eliza Carthy, Seth Lakeman and Bellowhead have given me quite the appreciation for traditional songs and their many variations. It’s another chunky book, so it’s a little intimidating, but I’m sure I can get to it!
The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish, by Xue Shan Fei Hu. This sounds absolutely nuts as a concept, and I really want to dig in. I want to finish my reread of another isekai-type danmei, The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, first… but once I have, I really want to get to this one, especially as it isn’t super-long (four volumes, I think?).
Paladin’s Hope, by T. Kingfisher. I’ve been loving Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel books, and this is the next up! It looks quite a bit shorter than the last one, but hopefully it will do justice to Piper and Galen. Galen deserves some happiness now!

Yes, yes, I know — a very varied bunch. Very curious to see what other people are hoping to read soon!

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Eat the World

Posted September 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Eat the World

by Marina Diamandis

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 124
Rating:

Synopsis:
For the first time, platinum-certified singer-songwriter Marina shares her singular observations of the human heart through poetry; this collection is essential.

Marina’s talent for powerful, evocative song lyrics finds a new outlet in her poetry. Each poem resonates with the same creative melodies and emotional depth that have made her an artistic sensation. Hailed by The New York Times for “redefining songs about coming of age, and the aftermath, with bluntness and crafty intelligence,” Marina delves even further into trauma, youth, and the highs and lows of relationships in these profound, autobiographical poems to form a collection that transcends the boundaries of music and literature.

When I saw that Marina Diamandis (better known as the singer MARINA or Marina & the Diamonds) had put out a book of poetry, I was… uncertain. I do like Marina’s lyrics, but half of it is also in her tone, her singing, the music. Some lyrics look good written down, and some are lacking without the music, and I mostly feel hers fall into the latter group.

I do think some of the stuff here could make fun songs, but as presented, as poetry, it left me cold. She plays with the words on the page, and there’s a bunch of images added too, so it’s partly that it’s a style I’m not super keen on in general. But also I just found that her turn of phrase didn’t sparkle at all.

I think she was having fun and it was cathartic for her and that’s great! But not my thing.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Marina Diamandis, poetry