I keep thinking I’m done being all stressy, and then something comes along to kick me in the shins again, ha. A close relative is in hospital, under upsetting circumstances, and it’s getting under my skin. That and I’m just feeling super overwhelmed with my assignments…

Anyway, I’m almost certainly behind on comments again, maybe even from last week, and I’m sorry. Catching up is on my list for the weekend, I promise.

As per usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz… though I might not get out and about as much this weekend. I’ll visit back anyone who visits me, though!

Books acquired this week:

After last week’s spree, I didn’t expect to get anything this week, but actually my British Library Crime Classic subscription book arrived. It’s by John Bude, which means it’s probably solid and enjoyable without blowing your mind — and that’s probably exactly what I want right now.

So that’s something to look forward to!

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s the roundup of reviews posted!

• Poetry anthology: Tell Me The Truth About Life, edited by Cerys Matthews (3/5 stars)
• Gritty fantasy graphic novel: The October Faction vol 2, by Steve Niles & Damien Worm (2/5 stars)
• Urban post-apocalyptic fantasy novella: Magic Stars, by Ilona Andrews (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: Doctor, by Andrew Bomback (2/5 stars)

And other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: To Reread or Not to Reread
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

Things went a bit quiet as this week went on, but I’ve tried to spend a little time each day reading! Here’s a glimpse of the books I finished in the last week which I intend to review on here soon.

I’ve made ambitious reading plans for the weekend, but we’ll see how they go. Mostly I just want to find some time to read, and read stuff I enjoy. My first plan is to finish the British Library Crime Classic I’m reading, Big Ben Strikes Eleven, by David Magarshack. After that, we’ll see!

How’s everyone else been doing?

Well! Made it through another week. I had a long weekend and then also tried to take it easy, so I’m feeling a bit less stressed and snowed under, and got back to reading (whew!).

As per usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Acquired this week:

So… there was a bit of a book spree. I’d like to say it was because of the British World Book Day (which we have earlier than everyone else so it doesn’t fall into our school holidays), but nope, I’d already indulged plenty before that. Classic retail therapy.

One thing I got was a bunch of new-to-me Object Lessons books. I love these as a concept, and try to get myself a little batch of new ones every so often!

I love how they all look together on shelves, too, so neat and tidy.

Anyway, other than that I also bought some other books I’ve had my eye on for a while:

The Walnut Tree sounds kinda grim, but I’ve read it already and I loved it! A Bookshop of One’s Own is kinda grim, too: I’m partway through it, and of course Silver Moon was established during the Thatcher era…

I also received a book from my mum. Sort of. For Christmas, my wife and I gave my mum a reading subscription from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. Each month, she receives a book chosen for her based on her preferences in the (quite extensive!) interview. However, since she has macular degeneration, the print is often too small, so after she’s had the fun of getting a package and seeing what’s been chosen for her, then I get her an ebook copy and the physical copy goes to someone who’s interested in it. Since we share quite a lot of our taste in books, it’s quite likely that will often be me… and thus did I get given her book choice for February! (My sister has claimed the book from March, Alice Roberts’ Ancestors. That’s okay, I already read it.)

And finally, I did get a new eARC this week as well — I’ve been meaning to read The Fortunate Fall for a long time, but I have no idea where my copy is, and I’m not sure if this version contains any updates. Thank you, Tor!

And — wait, that was not the end! Sneaking in at the last moment, as I was writing this post I spotted that the latest volume of A Side Character’s Love Story is out! I haven’t written a lot about this manga series here, since I read it when I wasn’t blogging or reviewing much, and also I never expected to be breathlessly devouring all (at the time) 14 volumes. It’s a sweet, slow-burn romance (though a quick read). If you’re curious about it, most or all of the series is available on Kindle Unlimited in the UK, and maybe elsewhere. Just sayin’.

Posts from this week:

It was a slightly slower week again here, since I didn’t post reviews on days I had a different post going up, but it’s still worth going over the list:

• Fantasy YA comic: Stone Star: Fight or Flight, by Jim Zub et al (2/5 stars)
• Non-fiction ranging through history: The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, by Roland Allen (5/5 stars)
• Fantasy: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett (4/5 stars)
• Non-fiction about archaeology: Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond, by Alice Roberts (5/5 stars)

And non-review posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: To Google We Go!
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

During my long weekend, I got a bit of my reading mojo back and managed to devour the second Emily Wilde book and Kate Morgan’s The Walnut Tree. I haven’t finished a lot of books, but I’ve been enjoying myself greatly. So here are the books I’ve read in the last week that I plan to review on here:

Over the weekend, I plan to finish A Bookshop of One’s Own (Jane Cholmeley), and maybe make a start on Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup. As ever, though, I’ll let my whim guide me.

And how’s everyone else doing?

Hurrah, the weekend! I’ve been looking forward to it eagerly, as I’ve put in a load of work on my essays this week, as well as working my usual hours, etc, etc. Not as much reading time as I’d like — hopefully I’ll get plenty over the weekend to make up for it.

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

Books acquired this week:

Last weekend, my wife duly went to the bookshop and acquired the book I owed myself as a reward for finishing a draft of my parasitology essay (Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands). Once there, it seems there was another book that couldn’t quite be resisted…

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is by the same author as The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, so we just had to get it, right?!

Technically, my wife went out last night to grab me a couple of new books, because I’ve been working so hard and really fancied grabbing a copy of Alice Roberts’ Crypt when I saw that Waterstones have them out already… But I haven’t unpacked the bag and added it to my StoryGraph TBR yet, so I’ll include them next week.

Posts from this week:

It’s been a busy week on the blog, as usual, so here’s a roundup in case anyone missed it!

• Archaeology: Digging Up Britain: Ten Discoveries, A Million Years of History, by Mike Pitts (4/5 stars)
• Popular science: Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve And/Or Ruin Everything, by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith (3/5 stars)
• Fantasy novella: Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire (4/5 stars)
• Sci-fi comic: Heartstopper: Become Human, by Alice Oseman (4/5 stars)
• Classic mystery: Impact of Evidence, by Carol Carnac AKA E.C.R. Lorac (3/5 stars)
• Anglo-Saxon history: The Bone Chests, by Cat Jarman (3/5 stars)
• SF time travel novella: Permafrost, by Alastair Reynolds (3/5 stars)

Other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Superpowers
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

This week’s been a bit quiet again — with the graphic novels it still looks like I read a lot, but I mostly read non-fiction, which tends to be a bit slower for me. Over the weekend I’ll be continuing with reading Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution, which so far is reassuringly inclusive of all kinds of female bodies.

I’ll probably also finish up my reread of the third volume of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, finish reading Seanan McGuire’s Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, and make a start on Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands. So fiction will make a comeback (I think).

Anyway, here are teaser cover images for the books I’ll be reviewing in the coming weeks.

How’s everyone doing? Reading anything amazing?

I’ve had a busy busy week with writing an assignment — sometimes I wonder why I like studying so much, ha! I think after this degree I’m going to take a break for a couple of years… but I’ve said that before.

Anyway, time to show what I’ve been up to in the reading realm.

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

Books acquired this week:

…Nothing! I know, it’s unusual for me, but I’m really trying to behave myself and read the books I have as well as hungrily acquiring. Plus, I need to build up some buffer on my Beeminder goal so that I can get stacks and stacks of books next time I arrange a meetup with my friend from FFXIV.

(Hey Prof, are you reading this? March sometime maybe?!)

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s a roundup of the reviews I’ve posted this week:

• Popular science: Blue, by Kai Kupferschmidt (4/5 stars)
• Fantasy novella: The Fireborne Blade, by Charlotte Bond (4/5 stars)
• Historical romance: Sailor’s Delight, by Rose Lerner (4/5 stars)
• Video game companion: Encyclopaedia Eorzea volume 3, by Square Enix (5/5 stars)
• Speculative fiction novella: The Tusks of Extinction, by Ray Nayler (4/5 stars)
• Non-fiction about food: Ice Cream: A Global History, by Laura B. Weiss (4/5 stars)
• Cosy murder mystery: Murder on Milverton Square, by G.B. Ralph (2/5 stars)

Other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Quick Reads
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

This week I started on a chonker from my backlog, James Suzman’s Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time, which is no doubt going to take up a good amount of time this weekend. I’m also planning to just go ahead and reread The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System from the start, because there are some details I find myself irritatingly forgetting. Reading the first book or two, I didn’t know I was going to love it so much!

And here’s a sneak peek at the books I’ve finished this week that I plan to review on the blog:

And that’s it for this week! How’s everyone else doing? Reading anything good?

It’s been a long week here. Unfortunately my wife’s grandfather died last weekend (not too unexpectedly), and the funeral had to happen very quickly, so we quickly dropped everything on Monday to sort things out to get my wife there on time. We managed it, which is all that matters, but I’m a little behind on comments and visiting people back thanks to the disruption and being away from home. I’ll catch up this weekend, since I’ll be back on my main PC!

In the meantime, here’s my usual weekly roundup, and I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

Not a lot this week, but my wife caved to my pouting and got me the final volume of the Scum Villain series, which I’ve already devoured:

While the story was already over in the preceding volume, the fourth volume is full of short stories and extras that flesh out the world, the other characters, and what becomes of Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe.

Posts from this week:

I was a bit irregular about my posting schedule, but I think I did post a review every day. I have to, to even start to keep up with my reading speed — to avoid getting an even bigger backlog, I might need to post two in a day sometimes! So here’s this week’s roundup:

• Fantasy novella: In the Shadow of the Fall, by Tobi Ogundiran (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction history: Script & Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, by Kitty Burns Florey (3/5 stars)
• Videogame artbook: Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers: The Art of Reflection – Histories Forsaken (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction popular science: A City on Mars, by Zach & Kelly Weinersmith (4/5 stars)
• Classic crime: Fear Stalks the Village, by Ethel Lina White (4/5 stars)
• Chinese light novel: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System vol 2, by MXTX (4/5 stars)
• Horror graphic novel: Road of Bones, by Rich Douek et al (3/5 stars)

And other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: New To Me Authors in 2023
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

I’ve made a little project this week of finishing books I was partway through, leading to me finally finishing We Could Be So Good (Cat Sebastian), Sailor’s Delight (Rose Lerner) and Murder on Milverton Square (G.B. Ralph). I’ve also finished reading The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, having fallen rather in love with it.

For the weekend, I’m partway through Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s Soon-ish, while also being tempted to start on Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Heather Fawcett).

Aaand a peek at the books I’ll be reviewing soon(ish):

Not bad going for a week’s reading, I think!

How’s everyone else been doing?

Back home now and back to my routines! And back to the problem of somehow making all my books fit on my bookshelves. Hmmmm.

As usual, I’ll be linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, this weekend.

Books acquired this week:

Getting home and back to the routine means there was some book post waiting for me. Each month I get the latest British Library Crime Classic reissue, along with a little bit of extra swag — in this case, two bookmarks and a slightly enlarged version of the book cover, which I guess could make a nice poster or something. I really appreciate that they’ve made the matching cover bookmarks a bit smaller, so they fit nicely in the book! So here’s this month’s book:

I did enjoy the other book by Ethel Lina White I’ve read so far, though it can verge a bit on the histrionic. I’m looking forward to giving this a shot, anyway.

Posts from this week:

As usual, I’ll do a little roundup of my posts this week. First up, the reviews:

• Non-fiction microhistory: Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close, by Hannah Carlson (3/5 stars)
• Fantasy/gothic mystery novella: The Brides of High Hill, by Nghi Vo (4/5 stars)
• Classic locked-room mystery: Till Death Do Us Part, by John Dickson Carr (3/5 stars)
• Cute school romance graphic novel: Heartstopper vol 5, by Alice Oseman (4/5 stars)
• Fantasy romance novella: A Queer Trade, by KJ Charles (3/5 stars)
• Poetry and non-fiction microhistory: The History of Wales in Twelve Poems, by M. Wynn Thomas & Ruth Jên Evans (4/5 stars)
• Apocalyptic graphic novel: The Panic, by Neil Kleid & Andrea Mutti (1/5 stars)

And the non-review posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: When I Get a Round Tuit
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

I read a lot on Sunday, and then had a slow few days as I worked my way through Roland Allen’s history of notebooks — which was fascinating, but slow. Almost right after that I started on Bettany Hughes’ The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which is also a bit slow, and will no doubt take a lot of my reading time in the coming days. Worth it, though!

Here’s a sneak peek at the books I’ve read recently which are upcoming for review:

How about everyone else? What are you reading right now? Any great books landed on your doormat or in your shopping cart this week?

After last week, this one’s been nice and quiet. I’ve had a little more time to read than usual since I’ve been out of my usual routine… though at the same time, I did have my eye injury limiting things a bit, and I promise I helped out with stuff like washing dishes and so on! So I haven’t read as much as I might’ve liked — but when do I ever get to do that?

As usual, I’m linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, this weekend.

Books acquired this week:

After the acquisitions of the last few weeks, this has been a quiet one. I’m sure my British Library Crime Classic subscription book of the month is waiting for me at home, but I haven’t been home to pick it up yet… so this week it’s just the most recent in Juliet E. McKenna’s Green Man series, which was on sale for 99p. I haven’t actually read any of this series yet: I really have to hop to it!

I’m pretty sure it’ll be a good time when I do get around to reading it, thanks to Imyril’s reviews. That’s why I keep picking up the ebooks when I see them on sale…

Posts from this week:

This week I’ve continued posting reviews daily, slowly trying to catch up on my backlog. So here goes the roundup!

• Fantasy romance: Blood Moon, by M.J. O’Shea (1/5 stars)
• Historical non-fiction: The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes, by Kate Strasdin (4/5 stars)
• Video game tie-in: Encyclopaedia Eorzea volume II, by Square Enix (4/5 stars)
• Fantasy horror novella: The House of Drought, by Dennis Mombauer (2/5 stars)
• Fantasy graphic novel: Cold Iron, by Andy Diggle & team (3/5 stars)
• Popular science: The Science of Sin, by Jack Lewis (2/5 stars)

As you see, I’m trying out adding an indication of genre in case it helps people decide whether they’re interested in checking something out!

And other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2024
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

As I draft this on Friday night, I’ve just finished up Cat Jarman’s The Bone Chests, so I’m not sure what I’ll focus on for the weekend. I’m feeling an itch to read more non-fiction, so I might try Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking On Paper, or possibly Bettany Hughes’ The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I want to do a bit of catching up on my reading goal as well, so I’m eyeing some novellas.

I have done some reading this week, though, so here’s a little sneak peek of reviews to come in the next weeks/months…

Hope everyone else has had a good week! Anything exciting in your reading plans for the weekend?

Greetings! It’s been a rough week for me that featured an urgent trip to the eye casualty unit. I’m recovering pretty well given the givens, and escaped with just a corneal abrasion and multiple antibiotics to apply every couple of hours, but I’m a tad limited on how long I can use screens without eye strain right now.

Biscuit Bun is really very sorry for causing all this…

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

Books acquired this week:

I may have had a book-buying spree to help make me feel better, even though it’s only just been Christmas and there’s already plenty on my TBR heap…

Bit of a mix, as usual! I’m excited about The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which Waterstones had on sale a biiit before the release date. I was lucky: I walked in just as one of the booksellers put this on the shelf.

I also received a few of books to review:

If you saw my Top Ten Tuesday post, you’ll have noticed this means I actually got several of the books I’m most looking forward to in the first half of 2024, which is really nice!

Posts from this week:

I didn’t post as many reviews this week due to it being a really bad week, but there were plenty of posts to recap, all the same!

• Dragons’ Teeth and Thunderstones, by Ken McNamara (2/5 stars)
• Tickets for the Ark, by Rebecca Nesbit (3/5 stars)
• Twilight Falls, by Juneau Black (4/5 stars)
• Clean Room vol 3 – Waiting for the Stars to Fall, by Gail Simone et al (3/5 stars)
• The Governess Affair, by Courtney Milan (5/5 stars)
• The Impossible Impostor, by Deanna Raybourn (2/5 stars)

And other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: New Releases To Look Forward To
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

It’s been mostly graphic novels so far this week, which were short and easy while I was stressed, but I did also finish (and love) A City on Mars, by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith. Over the weekend I hope to get stuck into some of my new non-fic reading, and polish off a novel or two.

Assuming my eye holds up, anyway… I’ll skip the preview of reviews to come because I’m not on my usual computer and I need to take a break from my screen now.

How’s everyone else doing? A better week than mine, I hope!