Tag: weekly roundup

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 20, 2024 by Nicky in General / 14 Comments

Good afternoon, folks! I’ve been spending a good amount of today so far reading, in part thanks to listening to the audio versions of the Murderbot books. I’m not sure whether I’m going to review them — after all, I’ve reviewed the original books probably more than once, and I don’t think I have that much to say about audio. That said, I find reviews of audiobooks super helpful when I find them, so maybe it’d be good anyway? We’ll see.

Anyway, 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:

Two books this week! My wife buys me one book a month of my choice (which has long been our Valentine’s Day agreement: no big fuss on that day, spread out the love through the year), and picked up Ann Leckie’s short story collection for me last weekend. Plus, my British Library Crime Classic book for this month arrived.

Cover of Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie Cover of London Particular, by Christianna Brand

So that’s nice! I’m already most of the way through London Particular, though I haven’t figured out whodunnit yet.

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s a roundup!

Other posts:

What I’m reading:

As I mentioned, I’ve been tearing through the Murderbot audiobooks, but I’ve also been trying to get to grips with the tottering pile of books I have partially read. I’ve been pretty successful in the last couple of days, hurrah. So here are some of the books that I’ll probably be reviewing soon, having finished them this week!

Cover of The One-Cent Magenta: Inside the Quest to Onw the Most Valuable Stamp in the World by James Barron Cover of Mountains of Fire by Clive Oppenheimer Cover of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah Cover of the audiobook of Artificial Condition, written by Martha Wells and narrated by Kevin R. Free

Cover of the audiobook of All Systems Red, written by Martha Wells and narrated by Kevin R. Free Cover of Email by Randy Malamud Cover of The Ha-ha Case by J.J. Connington

For the rest of the weekend, it’ll be more Murderbot, finishing up London Particular, and then… who knows?

How’s everyone else doing? Anything exciting from the library this week, or landing on your ereader?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 13, 2024 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

It’s been a quiet week — hurrah! And I’m pretty caught up on comments and blog visits too. It’s a shame that in a few weeks things will ramp up again for my exams, but hey, at least I’m on an even keel right now.

So, 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.

Books acquired this week:

Technically, there are no books acquired this week, but here’s the rest of last week’s haul! First off, the non-fiction:

Cover of The Oxford History of The Book by James Raven Cover of Email by Randy Malamud Cover of Mountains of Fire by Clive Oppenheimer

I’ve started on Mountains of Fire; I’m finding it a little slower than I expected, but maybe that’s just my mood. It has a pretty cover, though; it’s actually shiny.

And here’s the rest of the fiction!

Cover of Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh Cover of Crimson Snow ed. Martin Edwards Cover of The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

It definitely isn’t the season for Crimson Snow — I’ll probably keep that for December, but it gets me closer to completing my British Library Crime Classics collection. As for the other two, I’ve been curious about both for a while!

Posts from this week:

And here’s the usual roundup of the books I’ve been reviewing this week!

Other posts:

What I’m reading:

This weekend I have all kinds of cute plans to read a lot, but goodness knows if I actually will, or whether I’ll read the things I’m intending to read. I’m content as long as I have fun. A lot of my reading this week was manga I don’t intend to review here (the Fairy Tail series by Hiro Mashima), but I did finish up two other books which I will review, or already have:

Cover of A Fish Caught in Time by Samantha Weinberg Cover of Sticky by Laurie Winkless

So, back to my books! Hope everyone else has had a good week, and some lovely books to read.

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted April 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 19 Comments

Hurrah, the weekend!

Last weekend I got my assignments all handed in, so the last week has been all about catching up with life stuff. Unfortunately that hasn’t yet included comments on my blog or visiting people back yet — sorry! I got stressed out and I’m digging my way out of that now, but I plan to do some commenting and visiting tomorrow.

Right, time to talk about books. 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.

Books acquired this week:

As is my wont when I’ve been a bit stressed, I went totally overboard, so I’m going to split up my haul over the next couple of weeks. It’s hard to choose what to show off, so I’ll just pick a bit randomly. First off, here’s some of the non-fiction I picked up:

Cover of Chillies by Heather Arndt Anderson Cover of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah Cover of Color by Victoria Finlay

Cover of Embroidering her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Language of Power, by Clare Hunter Cover of The Ship Asunder by Tom Nancollas Cover of The New Noise by Charlotte Higgins

A bit of a mix, as ever! I wouldn’t have been that interested in The Ship Asunder, except that on a pure whim I read Seashaken Houses (a history of lighthouses in the UK) a while ago and really loved it. I wasn’t that interested in lighthouses, either, so I thought I’d give this a try.

And here’s some of the fiction I picked up:

Cover of Death in the Spires by KJ Charles Cover of Threading the Labyrinth by Tiffany Angus Cover of If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu

Always love KJ Charles’ work, and I’ve heard really good things about If Found, Return To Hell. The other book is more of a whim, based on someone on Mastodon describing it as “garden fantasy”. Sounds perfect for a certain friend of mine, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Posts from this week:

Here’s the usual roundup of reviews:

I skipped Top Ten Tuesday this week, so there was just one other post:

What I’m reading:

First of all, let’s start with the books I’ve already read this week.

Cover of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Cover of Chillies by Heather Arndt Anderson Cover of Good Neighbours by Stephanie Burgis Cover of The Religious Body by Catherine Aird Cover Honey & Pepper by A.J. Demas

It’s been a lovely reading week. Howl’s Moving Castle was a reread, but my first time listening to the audiobook narrated by Kristin Atherton. It was lovely; highly recommended. I also had great fun last night with Honey & Pepper, and was sad when I finished it.

As for what I’m reading this weekend, I’m not sure. I’ve started on Lapidarium, one of my new books, and also If Found, Return to Hell. But where my whims will take me, no one can tell…

How’s everyone else doing?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 30, 2024 by Nicky in General / 7 Comments

Well, what a busy week! I spent yesterday at a wedding, and I’ve been working hard on finally finishing my assignments as well. I’d hoped to get an extension for at least one of them, given the family stuff that’s been occurring, but my GP never replied to me… so I’ve been hard at work trying to get them all done. I think (as I write this) that I’m done: I just need to format the cover sheets. Oof!

I know I take pretty much any excuse to buy celebratory books, but last week I had a book voucher to assist me… and there are some books bought for me by my wife on the way as well. I’d say oops, but I don’t mind at all.

That said, I haven’t done a lot of reading this week. I did my best to make time for it, but I’ve been tired and not in the mood. Here’s hoping this weekend I can start to catch up!

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.

Books acquired:

So for now I only have the books that have already arrived, not the big spree of books from my wife. It’s a bit of a mix: only one fiction book, history, and ecology (in the form of a whodunnit). I read more non-fiction when I’m stressed out, so that kind of influenced my choices this time.

Cover of Ghosts in the Hedgerow by Tom Moorehouse Cover of Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body by Caroline Vout Cover of A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft Cover of Uproar! Satire, Scandal & Printmakers in Georgian London by Alice Loxton

Plus a few books I got in ebook format to try and tempt myself this weekend:

Cover of The One-Cent Magenta: Inside the Quest to Onw the Most Valuable Stamp in the World by James Barron Cover of The Religious Body by Catherine Aird Cover Honey & Pepper by A.J. Demas Cover of The Ha-ha Case by J.J. Connington

And yep, I know, I know! It’s another weird mix. I hope to review The One-Cent Magenta in the near-ish future, over on the Postcrossing blog. My book reviews are a steady feature over there, though I usually write a review for this blog too, slightly differently tailored.

Posts from this week:

It seems like I’ve been a bit of a misery guts in my reviews this week, but it’s happenstance that it was mostly meh reviews this week — I didn’t read these all at the same time, I’m just getting to the reviews in my posting queue now. I do try to vary what genres I post about a bit, to avoid being too samey.

And other posts:

I actually really liked my Top Ten Tuesday post this week, I wrote quite a lot of fun stuff, but I didn’t join the linky because I didn’t think I’d be able to get round to commenting back anytime soon.

What I’m reading:

This week started off well, but then my brain exploded a bit because of stress about my assignments and I didn’t read much for a few days. I haven’t even read much this weekend, since I’ve been recovering from partying hard (attending a wedding, wearing heels, drinking two glasses of wine, and dancing for five minutes to keep the bride company, and then getting home at 10pm — such hard partying! But apparently I’m getting old and my legs hurt). But we’ll see how it goes! I did read the following books that I intend to review soon.

Cover of The Eye of Osiris by R. Austin Freeman Cover of Hyphen by Pardis Mahdavi Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Cover of Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti Cover of Ghosts in the Hedgerow by Tom Moorehouse Cover of The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

So really not so bad after all. So far today I’ve been listening to Howl’s Moving Castle in audiobook, and I’ve peeked into Good Neighbours by Stephanie Burgis… but we’ll see where my whims take me.

How’s everyone else doing?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 23, 2024 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

Yay, weekend!

I’m still struggling to get to grips with my essays etc, but I have finished full drafts of all three. One might need a total rewrite, but two are pretty much good to go, which is a relief. I did spend a book voucher to celebrate, but the books haven’t arrived and been unboxed yet, so I’ll show those off next week.

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.

Books acquired this week:

This week I got a gift from a friend, which I’d added to my TBR lately thanks to a really nasty review. Sometimes those do some good, ha.

Cover of Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti

And a review copy that has a pretty cover, via Tor:

Cover of Swordcrossed by Freya Marske

I really enjoyed one of Freya Marske’s other books, though I haven’t finished reading that trilogy yet. So I’m excited for this one. Some Swordspoint vibes, unavoidably, but that’s a good thing.

Posts from this week:

As usual, here’s the roundup of what I’ve been posting! Reviews first.

And the other posts:

What I’m reading:

At the moment I seem to be going ham on the weekends and then it’s a bit quieter during the week. I’m okay with that! Here are the books I finished this week which I intend to review on the blog:

Cover of Big Ben Strikes Eleven by David Magarshack Cover of Wine by Meg Bernhard Cover of Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard

Cover of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude Cover of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes Cover of Nick & Charlie by Alice Oseman

Over the weekend I have a lot of lovely-sounding plans to read various books and spend hoouuuurs reading. We’ll see how that shakes out — as always, the most important thing is getting a restful, restorative weekend, and reading whatever I feel like.

How’s everyone doing?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 16, 2024 by Nicky in General / 20 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?

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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?

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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!

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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?

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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?

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