Good morning! I’m in the UK again, visiting my parents for my birthday, so I’d better go with the tradition — here’s a pic of one of the buns which my wife sent me! Here Breakfast is somewhere he shouldn’t be, looking very curious…

So, right, the haul. Here goes…

Received to review:

 

I asked for Harkworth Hall after reading Bob @ Beauty in Ruins’ review, and it was worth it! Swearing Off Stars was a random grab, while I got Fowl Language because I’ve loved the cartoons from Brian Gordon’s series that I’ve seen around.

Fiction books bought:

 

I know, I know, it’s an amazing haul. Woohoo for the American Book Centre in Amsterdam — definitely recommended: great deals on books, a good selection, and friendly staff. 10% off for students, too! A bunch of these were just €6.99, which is amazingly cheap for imported books in Europe.

Non-fiction books bought:

 

 

I was initially going to complain that I wanted more non-fiction books, but I let myself buy a few more as I passed through London, and now I have quite the satisfactory haul!

Books read this week: 

    

Four stars to: Hengeworld, Catching Breath, Harkworth Hall.
Three stars to: Fowl Language.
One star to: The Secret History of the World.

Reviews posted this week:

–Star-shot, by Mary Ann Constantin. This wasn’t quite my thing, but I was still impressed by the way it was written and some of the fascinating images. 3/5 stars
–Machine, by Jennifer Pelland. This left me with pretty mixed feelings. It’s a powerful story, but also disturbing. 3/5 stars
–Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie. I want more, but this is still a great book. 5/5 stars
–The Refrigerator Monologues, by Catherynne Valente. Very fun, although also depressing. 4/5 stars
–Life Unfolding, by Jamie T. Davies. A really fascinating exploration of how the human body develops. 4/5 stars
–The Paper Magician, by Charlie N. Holmberg. This is a bag of cotton candy as far as my brain is concerned. Sweet and some fascinating magic. 3/5 stars
–Incognito, by David Eagleman. Very readable, but it won’t contain any surprises if you’ve read other pop-sci about the brain and its weird ways before. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Forced To Read (And Loved).
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update!
–The Reading Quest. My sign-up for a new readathon.

Good morning, folks! Today I’m off to Amsterdam with my wife to celebrate our paper wedding anniversary in bookshops. Hurrah! To celebrate the one-year anniversary of our wedding (and the 12th anniversary of being together), here are a couple of our wedding pics! Click to embiggen, if you’re so inclined.

And now, back to books.

Bought:

I needed Caliban’s War for a book club read, and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived was on sale on the Kindle store for 99p!

Received to review:

A lucky week, though I’m still sad I didn’t get approved for Provenance or Into the Drowning Deep on Edelweiss!

Books read this week:

 

 

Reviews posted this week:

–Unnatural, by Philip Ball. This is billed as popular science, but honestly it’s as much lit-crit as it is science. Interesting topic, of course, but… 3/5 stars
–Nova, by Samuel R. Delany. I wasn’t as big a fan as I hoped I was going to be. I feel like a bad SF fan. 3/5 stars
–Personality, by Daniel Nettle. Landmark science this is not, but it is interesting enough. 3/5 stars
–Reality 36, Guy Haley. Not characters I want to hang out with. 1/5 stars
–Caesar’s Last Breath, by Sam Kean. Not as entertaining as his book on neurology, but still interesting. 3/5 stars
–Killing is My Business, by Adam Christopher. Another entertaining entry in this series — and I want to know where it’s going next! 4/5 stars
–Genomes and What To Make of Them, by Barry Barnes and John Dupré. Somewhat out of date now, and probably not worth picking up. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Bookshops I Have Loved. More or less as you’d expect, though you might not expect that bookshops in Dublin, Ireland and Calgary, Canada are on the same list…
–WWW Wednesday. This week’s update on what I’m reading.

Good morning, folks! Today I’m off to spend the day with my grandparents-in-law until evening, so I might not comment (or comment back) until tomorrow. It’s been a quiet week, really; I worked on reading some difficult stuff, so I haven’t finished nearly as many books as I’d like. As for new books, well… just one ARC, and a quiet week ahead too, I think. But next weekend is my paper wedding anniversary, and we’re celebrating in style by going to Amsterdam to browse their bookshops, so that might well be a busy week for books!

Received to review:

I was going to pass on this one, until I realised that the warrior princess in question is Welsh, and this is set in Wales! You have my attention, sir!

Finished reading this week:

   

Four stars: Mapping the Interior, The Trouble With Physics, Life on the Edge, American Gods (reread).

Reviews posted this week:

–Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie. I appreciated this one more on a reread, just like the first book. A really great trilogy, and this middle book doesn’t disappoint. 5/5 stars
–Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest. I didn’t love this as much as I remembered, but there’s still so much awesome about it. 4/5 stars
–The City of Dreaming Books, by Walter Moers. So much to love about this, particularly the way it bursts at the seams with inventiveness and love of books. 4/5 stars
–Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by David Whitehouse. Not my favourite area of science, but still an interesting diversion. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Pet Peeves About Blogging. Featuring: why do I get spammed with my own copy?!
–WWW Wednesday. The update on what I’m reading, what I’ve just read, and what I’m going to read.

So how’re you all doing?

Good morning! It’s been a week already?! I got my exam results this week — I’ve passed everything, and I even got a distinction in Human Biology. No books for rewards so far, though my birthday presents have been ordered — I’m getting all the re-issues of the Peter Wimsey books, with the snazzy new covers. There’s only one where I haven’t been able to get the new cover, and I have found one that at least matches. Woo!

Received to review:

Yay! I didn’t think I’d be approved for A Pocketful of Crows. It sounds like it’s something different for Joanne Harris, which will be nice.

Read this week:

   

  

Not as good a reading week as last week, but not too shabby either!

Five stars: A Crack in Creation.
Four stars: Life Unfolding, Spellslinger, The Glass Magician, Clouds of Witness, A Pocketful of Crows.
Three stars: Just Six Numbers, False Colours.
Undecided: Buffalo Soldier.

Reviews posted this week:

–The Worm at the Core, by Sheldon Solomon et al. A fascinating book about the human fear of death. Some might find it morbid, but I found it rather affirming, really. 5/5 stars
–Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers. A reread, of course, and one I enjoyed greatly, as usual. 4/5 stars
–A Rough Ride to the Future, by James Lovelock. I found this rather incoherent, in comparison to the original Gaia. 2/5 stars
–The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard. I suspect that if the first book didn’t work for you, this wouldn’t either. I found it riveting, though. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Blogs I Follow.
–WWW Wednesday. An update on what I’ve been reading!

It’s been a pretty awesome week for reading, I’ve gotta say. Exam results next week, so I’m starting to get nervous, though…

Received to review:

 

Yeees. Here’s hoping Andy Weir’s new book is as entertaining as The Martian!

Bought:

  

I’ve heard conflicting things about the first two, but they were on sale, so I thought I’d give them a try… and then I did enjoy The Paper Magician, so I bought the sequels.

Finished reading this week:

  

 

   

Yeah, it’s been quite the week for reading! No, I am not fucking kidding. And yes, I really have read all of these, and no, there isn’t a secret to it. I just make the time, often while my wife catches enough zzzs for both of us.

Five stars to: Ancillary Mercy.
Four stars to: Killing Is My Business, The Refrigerator Monologues, The Martian.
Three stars to: Unnatural, Personality, Nova, Wicked Plants, Caesar’s Last Breath, Star-shot, Machine, The Paper Magician.
Two stars to: The Westing Game.
One star to: Reality 36.

Reviews posted this week:

–NeuroTribes, by Steve Silberman. Interesting exploration of autism and autistic people, though I didn’t always like where it focused and it got a bit rambly. 4/5 stars
–Walking on Knives, by Maya Chhabra. I wanted to like this, since it’s a lesbian retelling of The Little Mermaid, but all the epithets instead of names didn’t work for me, and the dubious consent scenes were… gah. 2/5 stars
–Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty. A fascinating mystery with a bunch of misfit characters, most of whom were interesting if not exactly loveable. 4/5 stars
–Shattered Minds, by Laura Lam. This feels darker and more difficult than the first book, in that the characters are way more messed up, but it’s still a pleasure to read. I really enjoyed it. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Rereads. Books I can reread (or have reread in the past) over and over again…
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what’s in my immediate TBR pile.

So what have you been reading and adding to your shelves?

Good morning! This has felt like a long week for some reason — maybe because I have no class and not much work to have been worrying about! Fortunately, there’s always books.

Received to review:

Dragons and dragon-slayers? I’m in!

Finished this week:

  

  

Five stars to: Ancillary Sword.
Four stars to: The House of Binding Thorns, Whose Body?, Bloodshot, The City of Dreaming Books and A Closed and Common Orbit.

Yep, this has been a good reading week!

Reviews posted this week:

–The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. I’m definitely not best-placed to comment on the accuracy/authenticity of this book, but I think it’s a powerful and timely one. 5/5 stars
–Spaceman, by Mike Massimino. Basically Massimino’s memoir of his experiences in the space program, and how he got there. Interesting though mostly not about the science. 3/5 stars
–Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts, by Philip Ball. A fascinating exploration of patterns in nature, biological, geological and chemical. 4/5 stars
–Newt’s Emerald, by Garth Nix. Basically a classic Georgette Heyer plot with a magical twist, I found this a lot of fun. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: The Stuff I’ve Gotta Know. Things about people and books I always like to find out.
–WWW Wednesday. An update on what I’ve been reading and what I think about it!

What’ve you been reading? Any exciting new books in your stacks?

Good morning, folks! I’ve spent this week away at a residential school learning lab skills, which was awesome but means I’ve hardly had any time for blog stuff. However, look at the bacteria I made! They’re antibiotic resistant and fluorescent under UV light.

Note: for the concerned, which seems to happen more than I expected, it’s a proper lab with disposal procedures and so on. All the samples have been autoclaved by now, my lab coats have both been washed hot enough to denature anything from the lab, and the antibiotic resistance conferred on these bacteria is common outside the lab already; even if these were introduced into the wild, they wouldn’t do any harm.

In case that didn’t move you, here’s the now-traditional picture of my bunnies, as I’m still away from them:

But I’m not away for much longer! I’ll be back with them on Tuesday. Anyway, back to the books!

Received to review:

Yay, a new Adam Christopher book! I’d say gimme, but they have!

Bought:

This is about the gene editing tool, CRISPR, that I would maybe one day like to work with. Jennifer Doudna is one of the two authors of the paper that first talked about using CRISPR for gene editing, so this is going to be fascinating.

Read this week:

Sneak peek at ratings:

Four stars to: The Vaccine Race and The Emperor’s Railroad.
Three stars to: The Making of the Fittest, Incognito and 15 Million Degrees.

Reviews posted this week:

–Cold-Forged Flame, by Marie Brennan. I think I’d have enjoyed this more if the first book had been fresher in my mind. I love the world, and Ree, but the characters didn’t always click with me in this one. 3/5 stars
–Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrodinger’s Cat, by Rom Harré. Dodges the ethical issues which would’ve made the book more interesting to me. 2/5 stars
–The Shambling Guide to New York City, by Mur Lafferty. So much fun! And not gimmicky in the way I’d feared. 4/5 stars
–Death Before Wicket, by Kerry Greenwood. Fun as ever, but definitely missable. 3/5 stars
–Saturn’s Children, by Charles Stross. Way oversexualised and rapey. Consciously so, and not in a way that celebrates the rapiness, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. 2/5 stars
–The Ghost Train to New Orleans, by Mur Lafferty. A fun follow-up. Zoe can be a bit annoying at times in this one, but it’s a solid story for my money. 4/5 stars
–In Search of the Multiverse, by John Gribbin. Actually made more aspects of quantum physics and string theory make sense to me! 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Series I’ve Been Meaning to Read.

Worth noting:

I’m very conscious that most people are not here for non-fic reviews and that I’ve been posting a lot of them. I suspect that’s why some followers have already unsubscribed. That’s cool if you want to; I’ve never made a secret of being a rather eclectic reader and prone to going through stages, but if you jumped on during a different stage it could be pretty annoying to find me switching gears. I get it. But at the moment I’m going to try and mitigate it a bit by spreading out my non-fic reviews more. For the next couple of weeks at least, that’ll probably mean no new reviews on days when other posts are going up, i.e. Saturdays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Good morning! It’s been a week already? I’ve been spending the week reading, mostly, as you might expect. It’s been fun! And before I get to business, here’s this week’s pic of one of my bunnies — this is Breakfast, ‘splooting’. Apparently he finds it comfortable?

Yep, I still miss them. But, books!

Received to review:

Little Mermaid queer retelling! I’m so there.

Bought/given:

 

  

It’s been a while since I read Traitor’s Blade, so I figured I’d get the whole lot (except the newest one, which wasn’t there anyway and isn’t in paperback yet) and reread from the beginning. And hurrah for getting Six Wakes — thank you to Alys from Habitica for bringing me a copy from the US!

Also, I got just one comic; I’m not buying Marvel at the moment, so I tried not to look!

And finally, a whole bunch of non-fic — of course.

  

…Which you may have noticed includes quite a few books from one of my recent wishlists! Hurrah!

Books read this week:

   

 

Four stars to: The Shambling Guide to New York City and The Ghost Train to New Orleans.
Three stars to: Lightning in the Blood, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, In Search of the Multiverse and Shapes.
Two stars to: Saturn’s Children and A Rough Ride to the Future.

Reviews posted this week:

–Trial by Fire, by Lore Graham. Fun, and though more focused on the sexual relationship than I’m interested in, I did appreciate the theme of clear communication. 3/5 stars
–How We Live and Why We Die, by Lewis Wolpert. Pretty basic from my point of view, but it’d make a good introduction or refresher on the subject of how cells in the body live, work together and die. 3/5 stars
–Words and Rules, by Steven Pinker. If you’ve read The Language Instinct, this probably won’t add anything to your understanding, but Pinker is a clear and accessible writer. 3/5 stars
–Shanghai Sparrow, by Gaie Sebold. This is fairly typical steampunk, but it was a fun and quick read all the same.
–Dino Gangs, by Josh Young. A good overview of Phil Currie’s work on dinosaurs and the way they may have lived in groups. However, it makes Currie seem as if he just rejects evidence he doesn’t like. 3/5 stars
–Raisins and Almonds, by Kerry Greenwood. I might be hesitating a bit about the tendency to describe Phryne’s lovers as exotic and such, but this one does contain a really powerful scene that’s pretty much worth the price of admission on its own. 3/5 stars
–Within the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan. The final book of this series really delivers. That’s all I’m gonna say. 5/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Last 10 Books I Inhaled. What it says on the tin — a departure from the official theme, this week.
–WWW Wednesday. An update on what I’m reading.
–From my other blog, NEAT science: Experiment – Does my mood correlate with the amount I read? Pt 1. It’s a theory, and now I’m out to test it!

How’s everyone doing? Good week, bad week? All the books, nothing new?

This week has been my exams, and now I’m free. It’s not been wonderful — my brain is tired, and at least one of the exams didn’t go well. But I survived!

Here’s the obligatory I’m-away-from-my-bunnies cute pic. Or two:

 

Gah, they’re so sweet they make my teeth hurt. And here’s my book haul!

Received to review:

I requested The Hundredth Queen after seeing someone else’s review, which I think I found through browsing other Stacking the Shelves posts. So whoever you were, thanks! And yaaay, The Tiger’s Daughter!

Bought:

  

Our Dark Duet! I got it last weekend already, but I haven’t managed to start reading.

Read this week:

 

Four stars: The Sixth Extinction and Neurotribes.
Three stars: Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrodinger’s Cat and Death on Earth.

Reviews posted this week:

–How Your Brains Works, by New Scientist. Not exactly revelatory, but probably a good introduction to the subject. 3/5 stars
–Life’s Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable, by Paul G. Falkowski. Crystal clear style, and he managed to make the stuff I already knew fascinating. 4/5 stars
–A New History of Life, by Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink. “New” is a bit of an overstatement, and it needed a date with an editor, but there is interesting stuff in here. 3/5 stars
–The Ghost Line, by Andrew Neil Grey, J.S. Herbison. Genuinely creepy, with an ending that doesn’t cop out one bit. 4/5 stars
–False Hearts, by Laura Lam. I really enjoyed this — I didn’t expect to be so sucked in to the story of the formerly conjoined twins and how they find their pasts entwining with their present all unexpectedly. 4/5 stars
–Alchemy of Fire, by Gillian Bradshaw. Bradshaw can certainly surprise you with the kind of historical fiction she writes — the stories of people who were actually on the edge of history. I enjoyed it, despite the rather low-octane pacing compared to, well, False Hearts. 4/5 stars
–Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes. Nope. Sorry. Miss me with modernism forevermore, please. 1/5 stars

Other:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Non-fiction Books I Want to Read. In honour of exam week, and an unexpectedly non-fic heavy week on the blog!
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading, what I’ve just finished, and what I might read next!

How’s everyone? I’ll be catching up with my emails over the weekend — expect some comment replies and blog visits as I catch up on my rather impressive backlog!