Tag: weekly roundup

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 16, 2024 by Nicky in General / 18 Comments

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.

Cover of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude

So that’s something to look forward to!

Posts from this week:

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

And other posts:

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.

Cover of A Bookshop of One's Own by Jane Cholmeley Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 2 by Shio Usui Cover of Seanan McGuire's Mislaid in Parts Half-Known Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 3 by Shio Usui

Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon vol 4 by Shio Usui Cover of A Side Character's Love Story vol 17 by Akane Tamura Cover of Mushroom by Sara Rich

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?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 9, 2024 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

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!

Cover of Spacecraft by Timothy Morton Cover of Wine by Meg Bernhard Cover of Hyphen by Pardis Mahdavi

Cover of Mushroom by Sara Rich Cover of Sticker by Henry Hoke

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:

Cover of A Bookshop of One's Own by Jane Cholmeley Cover of The Walnut Tree by Kate Morgan Cover of The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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.)

Cover of The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson

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!

Cover of The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed

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’.

Cover of A Side Character's Love Story vol 17 by Akane Tamura

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:

And non-review posts:

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:

Cover of Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett Cover of The Walnut Tree by Kate Morgan Cover of Spacecraft by Timothy Morton Cover of Sticker by Henry Hoke

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?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 2, 2024 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

Wow, it’s been a rough week for me. I’ve just been so tired from working hard on my essays, I haven’t even really been reading much. It feels very weird.

That said, I’ve planned myself a long weekend now, so here’s hoping I’m on the upswing!

Books acquired this week:

Last week I sent my wife out for a bit of retail therapy for me, so here are the results…

Cover of Crypt by Alice Roberts Cover of Lost Realms by Thomas Williams Cover of The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Cover of Bride by Ali Hazelwood Cover of Nick & Charlie by Alice Oseman Cover of The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

As usual for me, a bit of an odd mix!

Posts from this week:

I’ve got through a lot of the backlog of reviews, and I’m trying to balance things out so there’s always a mixture rather than a huge run of graphic novel reviews, so I slowed down a bit this week. Still, here’s the recap of the reviews:

Aaand the other posts:

What I’m reading:

Well… right now, nothing actively. Like I mentioned above, I’ve been really tired. I am starting to feel the itch to pick up a book, and when I do, I’ll likely pick up Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett.

I did do some reading this week, so here’s the usual glimpse of books I intend to review in the coming weeks:

Cover of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon by Shio Usui Cover of Crypt by Alice Roberts Cover of Don't Call Me Dirty by Gorou Kanbe

Cover of We Only Kill Each Other by  Peter Krause, Ellie Wright, Stephanie Phillips Cover of Tell Me The Truth About Life edited by Cerys Matthews

And th-th-that’s all folks! Hope everyone is doing well, and I pinky-swear I am going to try to catch up on answering comments and making return blog visits starting this evening. I appreciate them all so much and I know it takes time for people to drop by, and effort to make thoughtful comments, so I won’t be forgetting!

Tags: ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 24, 2024 by Nicky in General / 25 Comments

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…

Cover of Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett Cover of volume one of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

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!

Other posts:

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.

Cover of The Lost Boys by Gina Perry Cover of Book Love by Debbie Tung Cover of Everything is OK by Debbie Tung

Cover of The Hidden World by George McGavin Cover of Oddball by Sarah Andersen Cover of Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss

How’s everyone doing? Reading anything amazing?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 22 Comments

Somehow it’s the weekend again already! It caught me by surprise, and yet it’s felt like a very long week, not helped by my own problems with sleeping. Here’s to a restful weekend!

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:

It was release week for the latest British Library Crime Classic reissue. I have the subscription, so I got my book this week… and because it’s E.C.R. Lorac (under the Carol Carnac pseudonym), I devoured it right away.

Cover of Impact of Evidence by Carol Carnac AKA E.C.R. Lorac

That’s all for now, though yesterday I managed to finish up a first draft of my parasitology class assignment, so I should reward myself with a good book for next week — maybe Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands?

Posts from this week:

As ever, it’s been a busy week: I have to keep up posting one review a day, or I’ll only fall further behind, since I read ~400 books last year and I’m on track to do the same this year! So in case you missed it, here’s the roundup:

And the non-review posts:

What I’m reading:

I did some rereading this week (which I don’t plan to re-review, since I read the book so recently), and read a couple of manga I don’t plan to review. So it looks like kind of a slow week (by my usual standards), but actually I read quite a bit! Here’s a sneak peek of the books I read that I do intend to review:

Cover of Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire Cover of Britannia vol 1 by Dave Sharpe et al Cover of Impact of Evidence by Carol Carnac AKA E.C.R. Lorac Cover of Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time, by James Suzman Cover of Breaklands Season One by Justin Jordan

Over the weekend I’m planning to read Seanan McGuire’s Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, which should bring me up to date with that series, and Gina Perry’s The Lost Boys, a non-fiction book about a psychology experiment that pitted groups of boys against each other. I liked Gina Perry’s work on Stanley Milgram’s experiments, Behind the Shock Machine, so this should be good.

Other than that I’m not sure! How about you folks? Any big plans for the weekend?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 10, 2024 by Nicky in General / 36 Comments

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:

Other posts:

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:

Cover of Soonish by Zach & Kelly Weinersmith Cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett Cover of Someone From The Past by Margot Bennett Cover of Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

Cover of The October Faction by Steve Niles et al Cover of The October Faction vol 2 by Steve Niles et al Cover of The October Faction vol 3 by Steve Niles et al Cover of The October Faction vol 4 by Steve Niles et al Cover of The October Faction vol 5 by Steve Niles et al

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

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 3, 2024 by Nicky in General / 30 Comments

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:

Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 4 by MXTX

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:

And other posts:

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):

Cover of Stone Star Season One by Jim Zub et al Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 3 by MXTX Cover of Fear Stalks The Village by Ethel Lina White Cover of We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Cover of Stone Star Season Two by Jim Zub et al Cover of Sailor's Delight by Rose Lerner Cover of Murder on Milverton Square by G.B. Ralph Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 4 by MXTX

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

How’s everyone else been doing?

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 27, 2024 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

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:

Cover of Fear Stalks The Village by Ethel Lina White

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:

And the non-review posts:

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:

Cover of The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler Cover of Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire Cover of Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

Cover of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen Cover of Doctor by Andrew Bomback Cover of Pill by Robert Bennett

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

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 20, 2024 by Nicky in General / 33 Comments

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!

Cover of The Green Man's Quarry by Juliet E. McKenna

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!

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:

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…

Cover of Glitter by Nicole Seymour Cover of Heartstopper: Become Human by Alice Oseman Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 2

Cover of Digging Up Britain by Mike Pitts Cover of The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow Cover of Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World by Philip Matyszak Cover of The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman

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

Tags: , ,

Divider

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 48 Comments

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…

Cover of Soonish by Zach & Kelly Weinersmith Cover of Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World by Philip Matyszak

Cover of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes Cover of Glitter by Nicole Seymour

Cover of We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian Cover of Heartstopper vol 5 by Alice Oseman Cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett Cover of The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna

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:

Cover of The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler Cover of Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard Cover of Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas Cover of A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

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!

And other posts:

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!

Tags: , ,

Divider