Good morning, folks! Here it is mostly far too warm and I am very much hoping that when I travel back to the UK on Tuesday, it’s going to be cooler there. Mind you, I hope it cools down here too, because the bunnies are too warm to even be nuisances, which is always worrying.

Received to review:

Read this week:

Reviews posted this week:

–Hadrian’s Wall, by David Breeze and Brian Dobson. Lots and lots of info, most of which the layperson won’t want to memorise, but interestingly presented. 4/5 stars
–Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A book I enjoyed a great deal, although a good bit of my review is puzzling over the science! 4/5 stars
–Human Universe, by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen. Very much a book by Brian Cox, so it’s quite physics-focused, but more comprehensible to the non-math minded than, say, Universal. 3/5 stars
–The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home, by Catherynne M. Valente. A lovely end to a lovely series. 4/5 stars
–The Henchmen of Zenda, by K.J. Charles. An entertaining rewrite which doesn’t quite rehabilitate the Zenda side of the conflict, but adds some interesting motivations. 3/5 stars
–Thirteen Guests, by J. Jefferson Farjeon. I find something really moreish about this author’s books: it’s a shame I only have a couple left to read. Thank goodness the love story in this one is far less creepy, though. 4/5 stars
–Gorgon, by Peter D. Ward. Mostly about Ward’s work in the field, rather than actually being about gorgonopsids. Interesting in its way, but not quite what it says it’s going to be. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Rereading. Once more, probably predictably, I argue in favour of reading for fun, whatever that might be, and never letting it turn into work for any reason.
–WWW Wednesday. My usual weekly update on what I’m currently reading.
–Find me elsewhere. If you feel like checking out my other blogs…

Out and about:

–NEAT science: the first giant. Wanna read about one of the earliest giant dinosaurs?
–NEAT science: should boys get the HPV vaccine? Spoiler: yes. Obviously.
–Once Upon A Blue Moon: ‘How The Story Goes’. A short (very short) story about two men and a woman and a story many of us know very well indeed. If you’re a fan of Arthuriana, this one might just be for you.

So how’s everyone doing? Too warm where you are, or not so bad? Plenty of reading getting done?

Good morning folks! Today me and the wife are off on a trip to see a friend, but I’ll be dropping by to see people’s weekend posts when I get back. It’s been a quiet week… except, you know, the bit where I got my exam results. A distinction and a grade 2 pass — in other words, I kicked butt.

In the meantime, here’s two new books I got using the credit from a Kobo Price Match (if you use Kobo and didn’t know about Price Match, when Amazon seriously beats Kobo’s prices, definitely consider asking them to price match!).

Books bought:

Books read this week:

 

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, by Michael Marshall Smith. I wanted a lot more from this, really; there’s just something off about it, like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. 3/5 stars
–Scarweather, by Anthony Rolls. Atmospheric and rather creepy, and I think I enjoyed it more just reading it than I do thinking it over afterwards. Then it gets rather threadbare — and also tropey. 2/5 stars
–The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, by Catherynne M. Valente. Very clever, if perhaps a little repetitive of the previous books — intentionally so, but nonetheless, when you’ve read the others recently it’s very obvious. Fun, as always, though. 4/5 stars
–Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, by Nick Lane. Good on both mitochondria themselves and what they mean in terms of the origin of life. 5/5 stars
–The Deep, by John Crowley. I kind of… don’t get it. I mean, I get the story, but I don’t get why it’s a Masterwork. 2/5 stars
–The Notting Hill Mystery, by Charles Warren Adams. Fairly typical, and mostly of interest if you’re interested in the classics of the Golden Age (and before, since this was a first) in a more academic sense, I think. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Book Fandom Friends. Sometimes we’re all so close it’s like we know each other, and then you remember you haven’t a clue about the basics of someone’s life.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

So how’re you? How’s your week been? Got any plans for the weekend?

Hello, folks! Once more, I’m out and about this weekend — time to go spend a day with my grandparents-in-law, but before I go, here’s the haul from last week’s paper (two year) wedding anniversary trip. Shoutout to both the American Book Center and Stanza Bookshop in the Hague for being lovely. <3

Oh, and here’s Breakfast reacting to the full haul (I’m splitting it in two to post!).

And let’s get to it!

Non-fiction:

A bit broad in scope, as ever. I’d been looking for something on the Aztecs especially, so I’m glad I found that!

Misc:

All a bit classic. I’ve been meaning to reread Rebecca, and my wife picked it up for me mostly because the owner of Stanza Bookshop is so lovely.

Received to review:

Thank you, Angry Robot! And Tor. I need to get to reading my ARCs!

Books read this week:

  

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett. A lot of fun, with a heck of an ending. 5/5 stars
–Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart. I keep coming back to this, and I think part of it is the mature view of love the characters have. It’s just… lovely, even if other parts of the novel are decidedly not. 4/5 stars
–Immune, by Catherine Carver. A good rundown of the immune system, at a fairly basic level. 3/5 stars
–Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel. A reread to get back in the swing of things. So many little things I’d forgotten! 5/5 stars
–The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, by Catherynne Valente. Another lovely entry in the series. 4/5 stars
–The Ruby in the Smoke, by Philip Pullman. A fun reread for me, and Sally is still awesome. 3/5 stars
–Almost Human, by Lee Berger and John Hawks. A really fascinating account of finding hominin remains and what they might mean. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Deciding What To Read. What it says on the tin. Are you lister, or a random grabber?
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading.

Whew! That’s that. How’s everyone doing? What’ve you been reading or stacking onto your overflowing shelves?

Hi all! This would actually be an Unstacking week if I weren’t still highlighting my purchases from when me and my sister went on a post-exam shopping spree. But fear not… today is me and my wife’s trip to the Hague (including a book museum and the excellent American Book Center), so I’m pretty sure I’ll have new books next week. Today’s batch showcases the non-fiction books I grabbed during that shopping trip with my sister, though.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet reading week because a) I’ve decided to write my entire dissertation in a week, no pressure, and b) I have the attention span of a gna

Bought:

Bit of an odd mix, perhaps…

Read this week:

 

Reviewed this week:

–Kin, by John Ingraham. Not well edited, moderately interesting, but really I’d rather read Nick Lane’s work. 3/5 stars
–The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Catherynne M. Valente. Enormous fun, as always, though I missed Ell and Saturday. 4/5 stars
–Deadline, by Mira Grant. I don’t 100% love Shaun as the main character/narrator, but there’s still a lot of awesome stuff going on, and I enjoy the greater focus on epidemiology. 4/5 stars
–Mystery in the Channel, by Freeman Wills Croft. Solid writing and I did kind of get into the plot — enough to be disappointed that the mystery wasn’t solved the way I wanted. 4/5 stars
–Science and the City, by Laurie Winkless. Just… not my thing at all. 2/5 stars
–The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djeli Clark. A lot of fun, and there’s badass nuns. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Hugo for Best Series. Pondering on how that award works (and doesn’t).
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’m currently reading and what might be up next.

So how’s your week been? Been doing anything exciting?

Good morning, folks! It’s time for another installment of my post-exam book binge. This time, it’s the British Library Crime Classics edition. (Yep, I am addicted to these.)

Bought:

 

Books read this week:

    

Reviews posted this week:

–The Secret of High Eldersham, by Miles Burton. Okay, the plot is bananas, but it’s a really compulsive read. 4/5 stars
–The Templars, by Piers Paul Read. Not just about the Templars, but about the Crusades more broadly. 3/5 stars
–Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones. A favourite reread. <3 5/5 stars
–A Quick and Easy Guide to Using They/Them Pronouns, by Archie Bongiovanni & Tristan Jimerson. Pretty good, but not perfect. 4/5 stars
–A Little History of Archaeology, by Brian Fagan. Not quite everything I wanted, but fun enough and informative, if a little scatter-brained. 3/5 stars
–Feed, by Mira Grant. A reread to let me get back into the trilogy and finish it this time, and it was great fun. 4/5 stars
–Planetfall, by Emma Newman. Another reread, this one because I want to read the new book in the same world. Remains a great read, and I think I liked it more this time. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Interacting with Authors. Advice for both authors and bloggers…
–Top Ten Tuesday: Summer TBR. What I might be reading this summer.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

So what’ve you been reading? What have you been stacking your shelves with? I want to know!

Good morning, folks! I’m back in Belgium with the bunnies, and they are precious clingy creatures right now. It’s the best. And I had quite a book splurge this week with my sister, celebrating the end of our exams. I’m going to split it up into a couple of posts by category, though, just so I don’t have to spend too long uploading things and such. So this week, here’s a review copy received this week, and the SF/F books I picked up.

Received to review:

 

Lucky as ever — thank you, Tor and Rebellion! <3

Bought:

I’ve heard mixed things about all three of these, actually, but they intrigue me all the same, so we’ll see!

Books read this week:

   

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Murder in Piccadilly, by Charles Kingston. Not the best of the British Library Crime Classics so far, definitely. I found the characters unpleasant, almost all of them, so it was no fun, and the mystery itself was never a mystery, yet nor was it never satisfactorily wrapped up. 2/5 stars
–Koko Takes a Holiday, by Kieran Shea. Bloody gorey fun, but not really more than that. And the portrayal of depression doesn’t really bear a longer look. 2/5 stars
–The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin. It was nice to revisit this as an adult and understand more of what it was driving at. I got distracted by all the wrong things, as a kid. 4/5 stars
–Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom. A fascinating dissection of why empathy may not be the best guide to morality. 5/5 stars
–The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. A reread, and I’m so glad to spend time with the narrator again! 5/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Blog Tours. When they work for me, and why they often don’t.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’ve been reading.
–Blog tour and giveaway for Jacqueline Carey’s Starless. There’s an international prize as well as a US/Canada one! There’s also an excerpt exclusive to this blog tour.

Good morning, folks! It’s been a rough week for me, with a horrible cough and a horribler exam, but I’m very nearly at the end now — the cough’s tapering off, and the last exam of my degree awaits me at 10am on Monday morning. On Wednesday, me and my sister are going for a post-exam jaunt in a bookshop, and then on Thursday I’m heading back to Belgium to smoosh my face into my bunnies’ fur and snuggle them good.

For now, here’s the now-traditional I’m-away-from-my-bunnies pic.

Which is actually a favourite from before I left, where you find Breakfast napping by my leg with my teddy bear. <3

Anyway, no books bought this week (when would I have had time?), but I have managed to do some reading, hurrah.

Books I’ve finished this week:

  

The non-fiction books were new to me, but the fiction books were all rereads. I needed Valente, Le Guin and Greenwood to take me to familiar places this week. It helped. <3

Reviews posted this week:

–The Seafarer’s Kiss, by Julia Ember. I wanted to like this queer retelling of My Little Mermaid, but it didn’t quite come together for me. There is fascinating stuff — mostly Loki and the fact that they are genderqueer — but, meh. 2/5 stars
–The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, by Margaret Killjoy. Like an origin story for a hunter on Supernatural, only not so white nor so co-dependent. And, you know, queer, and involving women. It didn’t quite grab hold of me enough that I’m in a hurry to get the second book, but I enjoyed it. 4/5 stars
–The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, by Charlie English. The author isn’t honest in the way he tells his story: there are doubts about some of the sources he uses and the story he presents as fact, but he waits until the end to let you know that. Not something I appreciate. 2/5 stars

Like last week, I might not comment back right away, but once my exam is over I’ll be all over you fine people. Have a good week!

Technically, I think this might be an unStacking week, but I found some books I never featured so hey! They get their chance to shine this week. Also, I haven’t been doing much unstacking anyway, given that I am hurtling towards my final exams (and caught a horrible stupid virus).

But first, of course, here’s a bunny pic, since I’m still away from them. Breakfast wants to know what y’all are doing!

And here’s the new(ish) books!

New books:

A rather random assemblage, but that will surprise no one when it comes to me!

Books read this week:

 

Reviews posted this week:

–Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel. I found this really relaxing to read, just something where I could let tons of information wash over me while enjoying descriptions of beautiful books. 4/5 stars
–Seven Dead, by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Melodramatic, of course, but also oddly compelling just from the weirdness of the opening. 4/5 stars
–On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard. This writer has a gift for complex characters you can’t quite root for, but who seem very human all the same. (Even when they’re not.) I enjoyed this, and I’m looking forward to trying more of the stories in the same world. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Romance. Tl;dr? Don’t knock romance just because it’s not your thing.
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what’s on my plate or, er, stack right now. Spoiler: too many books at once.

So, what’re you reading? Stacking your shelves with anything fascinating? I can’t promise I’ll comment back immediately (EXAM TIME!), but I always do visit back in the end!

Good morning, everyone! I’m in the UK again ready for my exams, and getting up bright and early every day to study. So it’s no surprise that I’ve, uh, had quite a haul and not managed to read much. But before we get into that, here’s the obligatory bunny pictures!

I miss ’em, even though they’re a pile of chaos.

Received to review:

I also now have a paperback copy of Yoon Ha Lee’s Revenant Gun to go with the ebook! Now I definitely must hurry and read it.

Bought this week:

 

Yay, more British Library Crime Classics! I think there are two more in the post, too… Better be the last of the books for a while, heh.

Read this week:

Yep, that’s the sum total.

Reviewed this week:

–The Great Mortality, by John Kelly. A historical look at the Black Death, how it started and how it spread. Less science details than I’d have liked! 3/5 stars
–Death on the Cherwell, by Mavis Doriel Hay. Entertaining, but not a patch on that other book written in the Golden Age about a women’s college in Oxford. 3/5 stars
–Keeping Their Marbles, by Tiffany Jenkins. One of my more in-depth and conflicted reviews in quite a while. This book examines the case for repatriating artefacts and remains, and the author’s opinion is a resounding “don’t”. I struggle with that. 3/5 stars
–The Fisher of Bones, by Sarah Gailey. Some fascinating ideas, and particularly the ending, but it felt more like a sketch map than a painting. 3/5 stars
–Brimstone, by Cherie Priest. This one worked for me because of the strength of the characters. I’m not sure it’s Priest’s most memorable book, but I enjoyed reading it and definitely got invested. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

And now, studying… What’s everyone else up to?