This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about bookish places I’ve visited! I think the emphasis is more generally on cool places from books, author residences, etc, but somehow that’s not a thing that really excites me and I can’t think of much right now!

So… time to talk about my favourite bookshops! After each I’m listing their locations that I’ve visited and can personally recommend, not their full list of shops.

1. Portal Bookshop (York).
   From when Lali saved my bacon with a copy of one of Martha Wells’ books at a signing at Worldcon, I’ve been a big supporter of Portal Bookshop, and was so happy when they managed to set up premises in York — which is close enough to be a good day trip. They stock a range of queer books and diverse SF/F works, and I have them to thank for my love of authors like Jordan L. Hawk and much of my collection of KJ Charles’ books in print.
2. Topping & Company (Bath, Edinburgh, Ely).
   This is a growing chain of indie bookshops, but I first met them in Edinburgh, where the shop is downright magical. I swear there are more rooms than physically make sense with the footprint of the shop, and every time I turned around there was somehow another one. The ladders on wheels and wooden shelving add to that experience a lot. They’ve recently opened a shop in York too, though I just visited their shop in Bath yesterday as part of my birthday trip!
3. Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights (Bath).
   I love the name of this bookshop; the whimsy is definitely part of why I went there. I did find the organisation of the shop a bit bewildering, since all fiction is shelved together without distinction by genre: maybe it sounds weird, given the range of genres I read, but I don’t really like that. It makes my job browsing the shelves harder, when I don’t know if a dragon on the spine means a dragon or just a literary thing. If you’re looking for a bookish conversation or some bookseller recommendations, though, it’s a good one.
4. Gay’s the Word (London).
   Gay’s the Word is the oldest queer bookshop in the UK, and I visited it recently on my graduation trip to London. The shop feels pretty small, but I carried away a sizeable pile of books anyway. I recently read and cried a little over the history of the shop and persecution against its owners and workers in A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, which is a book I definitely recommend.
5. Forbidden Planet (London, Bristol).
   I know, this is somewhat less potentially niche, but the London store is amazing, with a selection of comics, manga, danmei, and SF/F books that really have to be seen to be believed. I can never leave without new books, and the sheer number of books they showcase means I often find temptations that Waterstones don’t seem to stock. I found a few treasures in the Bristol shop, too, though it’s considerably smaller.
6. Troutmark Books (Cardiff).
   This secondhand bookshop was vital to me in my teens and twenties. Whenever I went home to Wales in my teens, and when I lived there as a student, I loved turning up to look at the SF/F section, poke my nose into the comics, etc. It’s been a long time since I visited, but I imagine it pretty much unchanged, with the high shelves still packed to the ceiling. Maybe I’ll pop my head in today, since I might be in the area…
7. Paramount Books (Manchester).
   In the same vein, this secondhand bookshop in Manchester impressed me so much that at one point I actually wrote a review of it on this blog. I don’t buy secondhand books much at the moment, but if that changes I’ll definitely make return visits — perhaps not too regularly, as Manchester isn’t super convenient… but when I can!
8. Criminally Good Books (York).
   On my last trip to Portal Bookshop, I also heard about this shop and had to take a look. I was admittedly more impressed by their non-fiction selection, since I’m a fan of classic crime and there wasn’t a lot of that to be seen (and what they had, I’d read), but I did enjoy the selections of non-fiction and inevitably left with a few books.
9. The American Book Center (Amsterdam, The Hague).
   When I lived in Belgium, we made semi-regular trips to get me English-language books to keep my engines running. The selection (particularly at the Amsterdam location) was unbelievable, though it was mostly the SF/F that drew me. I haven’t visited since we moved to the UK in 2018, but I’m sure it’s still amazing.
10. Bookshop.org (online).
    If you want to support indie bookshops, then this is an indispensable resource in the UK, and almost as quick as getting your books off Amazon — just as quick, if you pay a little extra for first class delivery, at least in the UK! You can choose a specific bookshop to support with your purchases, or it’ll be divided up between signed-up bookshops.

There are a few others I would’ve mentioned but found out they’ve closed since — don’t forget that an independent bookshop can be a fragile thing and needs the support of its enthusiastic community!

This week’s prompt for Top Ten Tuesday is about series you want to catch up on and… uhoh. So many!

1. Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books.
   I haven’t read Radiant Star yet, despite having a review copy. Ugh. I’m sorry. I also haven’t read Leckie’s short story collection, Lake of Souls, which I’d love to catch up with.
2. Vivian Shaw’s Greta Helsing books.
   I still haven’t got round to Strange New World. I hadn’t even realised there would be another book, so I was very surprised to see it, and I guess not mentally ready yet!
3. T. Kingfisher’s… everything.
   This is cheating slightly, I know, but I know there are various of Kingfisher’s books that I haven’t got to yet, including books that fit in the same world/series. I’ll get there, I swear.
4. Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher books.
   I didn’t actually know there had been more books after Murder and Mendelssohn until a few months ago, so I had no idea I was behind! Not sure how I’d missed that. I want to do a reread of at least the later books before I get to the new ones, but I’m looking forward to it.
5. Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell books.
   I was getting a little tired of the repeated artificial barriers to Veronica’s relationship with Stoker, but still, it’s a fun series and I’d like to read at least the next book to decide whether I’m really done with it.
6. Erica Ridley’s Wild Wynchesters.
   These books are a lot of fun, and I think there’s… 2-3 I haven’t read yet? Certainly I have at least one on my shelves.
7. Genevieve Cogman’s Scarlet Revolution trilogy.
   I read the first book and liked it quite a lot, but I didn’t get round to Elusive when it came out, and now I think I’d have to reread the first book — or at least do a quick skim — to get myself back in the loop. Still, I usually have fun with Cogman’s books so I expect it’ll be a riot.
8. Freya Marske’s The Last Binding trilogy.
   This is another where I read and loved the first book, but have yet to continue.
9. Tad Williams’ Osten Ard books.
   I’ve read the original quartet and loved it, but that’s it!
10. Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou’s The Husky and His White Cat Shizun.
    I haven’t even started this series, but it seems fitting to end with it because there’s a lot to catch up with: there are eleven volumes! And I regularly get asked by other danmei fans if I’ve read this one…

So many books, so little time… especially for a mood reader!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years”. I stopped using Goodreads and didn’t have a replacement for a couple of years in the middle, so this will be easier to do with the books I was reviewing on this day (or as near as possible) in previous years, so I’m going to go with that!

So without further ado…

1. 11th August 2016: Brother Jacob, by George Eliot (1/5 stars). No memory of this one, really, but I don’t think I ever did read any more George Eliot!
2. 11th August 2017: Incognito, by David Eagleman (3/5 stars). I sort of remember the discussion of what to do about criminal behaviour, but not enough to have an opinion now
3. 11th August 2018: Witchmark, by C.L. Polk (3/5 stars). I wasn’t an enormous fan of this at first, just kind of liked it, but IIRC I liked it more on a reread, and liked the second book!
4. 11th August 2019: The Pandemic Century, by Mark Honigsbaum (3/5 stars). Hmm! I do actually remember this one, and that I was kind of irked that it wanted to have things both ways: you shouldn’t panic about a pandemic but you should contain it effectively. I’d have recently graduated from my BSc, so I was in a good position to critique the book (having studied infectious diseases for part of it and chosen that for my dissertation topic). I’m kinda curious if there’s been a version updated to discuss SARS-CoV-2.
5. 10th August 2020: The Green Mill Murder, by Kerry Greenwood (4/5 stars). This was from a point where I was still writing fresh reviews for every reread of a book. It’s one that always sticks in my mind from this series, though I can never remember the way the two halves fit together. (The 11th that year was a Tuesday, so my post on that day was a Top Ten Tuesday post, Books My Bookclub Have Read!)
6. 11th August 2021: Magic Strikes, by Ilona Andrews (4/5 stars). Another reread review! I do love the Kate Daniels series still, and this book is a fun one since it features the arena.
7. 1st July 2022: The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison (4/5 stars). I don’t understand why there are no posts between this and the end of 2022; I have no memory of such a massive blog hiatus. But my next post seems to be a post at the start of 2023, where I apologise for a long absence… so I guess it must be so. Anyway, I loved The Grief of Stones, and have reread it a couple of times since. Shame I didn’t like the third book in the series much.
8. 11th August 2023: The Bookshop and the Barbarian, by Morgan Stang (1/5 stars). I definitely remember this one! I was infuriated by it.
9. 11th August 2024: A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, by KJ Charles (4/5 stars). I really enjoyed this one; it’s not my favourite of Charles’ work, but I had a lot of fun, as usual.
10. 11th August 2025: Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher (4/5 stars). My goodness, this was over a year ago already? I read this one while we were in the process of moving and I was staying with my parents, and I frankly devoured it.

As a reminder, ten years is a long time! Who knows what I’d think of these books now.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt sees me, and I’m not sure I like it: “Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read”.

I confess, sometimes I even plead with my wife to go out and get me a book that’s just released, and then fail to read it for… months? Fortunately, it’s well-understood that I’m a mood reader, and that the point is having the book available for when the mood strikes makes me happy, so Lisa doesn’t mind this at all.

Anyway, let’s get on with the public shaming showcase! Since I haven’t read these books yet, I’ll stick to showing off the covers…

To be fair to myself, I’ve actually been a lot better about this in 2025 and 2026, since I had a goal of having no more than 20 books concurrently that were bought in the same year and not yet started. That was part of the point, and it’s working well! Three of the books above are ones I got in 2025, and two from 2026 that I feel I could’ve jumped on sooner given how much fuss I made about wanting them… but otherwise, the books are from longer ago. I’m actually quite impressed!

This week’s prompt from Top Ten Tuesday is about books that live in your head rent-free, and I think there aren’t going to be many surprises here from me — many of my favourites are well-known! Let’s see.

1. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison.
   I’ve reread this book several times and will no doubt reread it many times more: I love it a lot, and there’s so much around the edges of it that the story doesn’t cover. Some of that is covered in the Thara Celehar books, but even then, there’s so much more. I adore the characters, too.
2. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
   The same is true of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and Heaven Official’s Blessing, to be fair — all of MXTX’s characters have really stuck with me, despite and sometimes because of the stories’ flaws. In the case of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, you’ve got Wei Wuxian and his manifest fuck-ups, but also characters like Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui, who have a ways to go to find happy endings out of their pasts, even as the story ends.
3. Feed, by Mira Grant.
   I wasn’t even into horror when I read this, but it stuck with me, and especially so after I studied infectious diseases for my MSc and after the whole world went through a global pandemic (which was comparatively mild compared to what it could have been). Reading it in the wake of that is… yeah. And I’ve no doubt I’ll read the series again in future. It’s also a book that I didn’t like that much when I first read it, but which I came back to again and again.
4. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan.
   This another of those books that I didn’t love the first time, but I found myself drawn back — and then I loved it the second time. I’m a huge champion for this series and the way it explored a woman being a scholar in a patriarchal society, how she was still an instrument of imperialism at times when she didn’t mean to be, and how it never loses sight at the same time of the wonder of the idea of dragons being real. Also, the way the whole series slowly adds information for us until that final book…!
5. Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie.
   This one always makes me think of a particular friend. I didn’t warmly love the book the first time I read it (more admired it), but over time, I’ve got such fond feelings for all the characters. Someone even did a recording of a potential tune for one of Breq’s songs, and every so often that gets stuck in my head.
6. Chalice, by Robin McKinley.
   Another one I didn’t absolutely love at first read! Those often seem to be the ones I really end up adoring, if there’s enough to them to draw me back in to try again — I can think of a couple of other examples, even. The magic in Chalice is weird and difficult to understand at times, because the protagonist doesn’t understand it: she has to struggle to figure things out for herself, and I loved her journey (and the slow building of trust between her and the Master).
7. The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwell.
   I think of everything on this list, this is the one I read longest ago. It was definitely a part of shaping my interest in Arthuriana, and it’s amazing how often I think about it, even if I haven’t read it in a long time. It’s a good crack at a historical, human, unmagical Arthur, and at his companions. It gave me a serious distaste for Lancelot which other books have never really shaken, even despite my studies!
8. Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee.
   I can’t believe it’s this book’s 10th anniversary this year. What?! And I still haven’t got round to rereading it. I went into it concerned that I wouldn’t understand, but the math is basically just magic, and you can just accept that and let the weirdness sweep you along. When I couldn’t think of a name for my chocobo in FFXIV, I actually named it Jedao, which might be one of the weirdest “I named my pet after your character” situations I’ve heard of.
9. Lifelode, by Jo Walton.
   I could’ve picked Farthing or Among Others as well, or even My Real Children… but Among Others was very much a book that spoke to me a lot in my late teens/early twenties, while Lifelode is something I think about more now. I wish more people had read it, so that I could say “my lifelode is learning”, and have people understand what that means. It’s an excellent fantasy, if not a very traditional one.
10. The Hands of the Emperor, by Victoria Goddard.
    There are ways in which this is very like The Goblin Emperor, which is part of what originally drew me to this book. It’s a very different world with a very different inspiration, though, and the main protagonist is a common man (albeit one who has been elevated very high). I really want to get round to rereading it, and reading the sequel, which I was desperate for after I finished it! It’s just been too long now for me to go into it cold.

So… there we go, my fairly predictable list, ahaha.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “Books I Want to Read by New to Me Authors”, which I can surely do easily… Because I’m feeling a bit not-100% (like I might develop a migraine or something maybe), I’m going to stick to just showing the covers this time rather than do my usual ramble — after all, I don’t have much to say about books I haven’t read yet!

I’m not actually sure if the mentioned authors have written other books, but presumably one day they might write others… and these will (probably) be the first books of theirs I get to!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a fun prompt: “Book Titles That Include the Word [insert word of your choice here]”, and I glanced around my shelves and took a bit of a guess at what might be interesting, picking the word “city”. Let’s see what I’ve got!

1. The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman.
   I don’t entirely know why, but this is one of my favourites of this series — something about the atmosphere, and we’re still learning about the world, and because it’s strong on the Fae elements… And perhaps because it’s Venice.
2. A City on Mars, by Kelly & Zack Weinersmith.
   A great non-fiction look at how we could settle on Mars, what technology we’ve got that would work and what we still need to develop. Sadly, they’re not very optimistic — but it’s still a fascinating read, and they’re fun writers.
3. The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo.
   An absolute fever-dream of a book: I keep repeating that description, but it’s apt. It’s gorgeous and grotesque and weird, and I had a great time with it.
4. The Buried City, by Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
   The author is the director of archaeology at Pompeii, and this book is about Pompeii, so of course I was interested! It isn’t only about Pompeii, also musing on why archaeology is worth doing and what archaeology can do.
5. City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett.
   I actually want to reread this one so I can finish the trilogy — I only read the first two books. Both were really fascinating, and I do enjoy a fantasy mystery.
6. The Drowning City, by Amanda Downum.
   I’ve got to admit it’s been a long time since I read this one, but I remember enjoying the series a lot (though perhaps especially the second book, The Bone Palace). I can’t vouch for it as current-me, but past-me really enjoyed it.
7. The Shambling Guide to New York City, by Mur Lafferty.
   This is also a book I read quite a long time ago, and the details are somewhat obscured by time… but I know I enjoyed it, and found it a lot less gimmicky than I’d expected from the title.
8. The Just City, by Jo Walton.
   This is a fascinating thought experiment about how people might enact a thought experiment for real, and I really enjoyed the ride.
9. In the Watchful City, by S. Qiouyi Lu.
   This prompt is proving excellent at resurfacing books I’ve really enjoyed! In the Watchful City was a great novella, though perhaps not for everyone (I just stumbled across someone else’s review where they hated pretty much everything about it, haha — and I did understanding their points).
10. City of Bones, by Martha Wells.
    There is so much going on in this book, from weird gender stuff to different species interacting and fantasy archaeology, and I really need to reread it.

NB: some of my linked reviews are quite old, and I don’t know if I stand by my thoughts and feelings from back then! The suck fairy might’ve visited in the last decade+ in some cases. I’m just going by fond memories and enthusiasm, and maybe I’ll revisit some of these books myself.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is all about upcoming titles, and I must confess, as always I’m not very up on this, aside from the ARCs I get offered by Orbit or happen to see on Netgalley. Honestly, how do you all keep up?!

Still, I did some research and poked around, and checked my wishlist too for books I previously noted wanting, and thus found some books I’m interested in!

1. Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 3, by Feng Yu Nie.
   This is supposed to be out today according to Seven Seas, making it technically ineligible for the list. However bookshop.org say it’s out tomorrow, so it counts. I just devoured volume two a couple weeks ago, and I’m very eager to continue the story: Yue Wuhuan is pretty unhinged, but Song Qingshi is pretty fascinated by him too, and weird and over-intense though the relationship might be, I’m very curious about how they end up and what the system intends for Song Qingshi in the wake of his choosing the wrong character to rescue. The fourth volume is also due out in the latter half of the year, hitting shelves in October.
2. The Feywild Job, by C.L. Polk.
   Technically this seems to come out today as well, but I’m highlighting it because I thought it was next month, and no one can stop me, mwahaha. I’ve really enjoyed Polk’s books in the past, and this heist story sounds like a lot of fun. I like the cover, too!
3. The Reimagining of Thornwood House, by Jaleigh Johnson.
   I don’t know a lot about this, but the idea of a house getting grumpy and walking off and needing to be coaxed back sounds like a lot of fun. It comes out 2nd July, so I guess I don’t have long to wait!
4. An Expert Witness, by Sue Black.
   I only just learned about this one, but I’m excited! I’ve really enjoyed Sue Black’s previous works, because she pairs technical detail with a resolve never to lose sight of respect and humanity when handling the dead. It’s coming out on 2nd July.
5. The Wife Comes First, vol 3, by Lv Ye Qian He.
   I haven’t read the second volume yet, so there’s just a chance there’ll be a dealbreaker there… but I flew through the first volume despite its flaws, and I imagine I’ll be keen to find out how all the court intrigue comes to a head in the third, by the time it comes out. I have volume two on my ‘on deck’ pile, after all! I love Jing Shao and his realisation that Mu Hanzhang was loyal to him to the end, and the way he’s seizing his chance to do better. This one’s coming out on 21st July.
6. Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 8, by Itaru Kinoshita.
   I love this manga so much, it’s just the perfect palate cleanser for anything. My reviews have been going up recently, actually, but I’ve been waiting since just before Christmas when I originally devoured the first seven volumes (I have a huge backlog of graphic novel/manga reviews that I trickle out to avoid overwhelming the blog with those). I love that it’s basically a story about a zoo, only the animals are dinosaurs. I also really enjoy the fact that it has a dinosaur consultant and adds little fact files by him. This one’s due out 28th July, and I think I’ll preorder it on Kobo!
7. A Trade of Blood, by Robert Jackson Bennett.
   This is the third book of the Shadow of the Leviathan series which I’ve been enjoying a lot. I actually have the ARC and need to get back to it, but I have to read it on my other device because (sigh) it couldn’t be sent to Kobo because it’s a PDF. I couldn’t resist requesting it anyway, though, and I’m so glad I’ve been able to dig in. The mystery sounds intriguing, and I imagine we’ll get more details toward a clearer picture of the world/the Empire… It’s due out in August.
8. Our Cut of Salt, by Deena Helm.
   This one is a bit out of my comfort zone, coming out from Tor Nightfire on 22nd September. It’s a horror story, with three generations of a Palestinian family linked with a home in Haifa. It might actually be one that’s more for my wife, but something about it has kinda grabbed me. Maybe the setting? Anyway, I think I’ll be giving it a try!
9. The Scarlet Ball, by Nghi Vo. 
   I love Nghi Vo’s work, so I’m planning to read this even without knowing much about it. The set up (now I’ve actually read the blurb) sounds intriguing, too: the main character can literally take the face of a missing debutante to play her part — in exchange for what? How does that all work out? Well, unless I request the ARC I’ll have to wait until 6th October to find out.
10. As You Wake, Break the Shell, by Becky Chambers.
    I didn’t know this was coming out but I’m definitely excited: I’ve enjoyed Chambers’ work so much in the past. I’m intrigued by the living ship/pilot link, too, as well as Chambers’ normal ability to make me care about the characters and relationships. It’s not due until 22nd October… big pout.

Excited to see what others highlight today! My wishlist is waiting for new finds.

I am late to post today because I had a dentist appointment today (big sadness, but at least I should have a clean bill of dental health again), so I’ll make this quick! I recently posted my 20 Books of Summer list, but there are some others I’d love to get to…

The first five are non-fiction, and the second lot fiction!

It’s a bit of a random selection, but there’s a bunch of library books and recent purchases here, so I really ought to make time!