Hello, folks! Once more, I’m out and about this weekend — time to go spend a day with my grandparents-in-law, but before I go, here’s the haul from last week’s paper (two year) wedding anniversary trip. Shoutout to both the American Book Center and Stanza Bookshop in the Hague for being lovely. <3

Oh, and here’s Breakfast reacting to the full haul (I’m splitting it in two to post!).

And let’s get to it!

Non-fiction:

A bit broad in scope, as ever. I’d been looking for something on the Aztecs especially, so I’m glad I found that!

Misc:

All a bit classic. I’ve been meaning to reread Rebecca, and my wife picked it up for me mostly because the owner of Stanza Bookshop is so lovely.

Received to review:

Thank you, Angry Robot! And Tor. I need to get to reading my ARCs!

Books read this week:

  

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett. A lot of fun, with a heck of an ending. 5/5 stars
–Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart. I keep coming back to this, and I think part of it is the mature view of love the characters have. It’s just… lovely, even if other parts of the novel are decidedly not. 4/5 stars
–Immune, by Catherine Carver. A good rundown of the immune system, at a fairly basic level. 3/5 stars
–Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel. A reread to get back in the swing of things. So many little things I’d forgotten! 5/5 stars
–The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, by Catherynne Valente. Another lovely entry in the series. 4/5 stars
–The Ruby in the Smoke, by Philip Pullman. A fun reread for me, and Sally is still awesome. 3/5 stars
–Almost Human, by Lee Berger and John Hawks. A really fascinating account of finding hominin remains and what they might mean. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Deciding What To Read. What it says on the tin. Are you lister, or a random grabber?
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what I’m reading.

Whew! That’s that. How’s everyone doing? What’ve you been reading or stacking onto your overflowing shelves?

Hi all! This would actually be an Unstacking week if I weren’t still highlighting my purchases from when me and my sister went on a post-exam shopping spree. But fear not… today is me and my wife’s trip to the Hague (including a book museum and the excellent American Book Center), so I’m pretty sure I’ll have new books next week. Today’s batch showcases the non-fiction books I grabbed during that shopping trip with my sister, though.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet reading week because a) I’ve decided to write my entire dissertation in a week, no pressure, and b) I have the attention span of a gna

Bought:

Bit of an odd mix, perhaps…

Read this week:

 

Reviewed this week:

–Kin, by John Ingraham. Not well edited, moderately interesting, but really I’d rather read Nick Lane’s work. 3/5 stars
–The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Catherynne M. Valente. Enormous fun, as always, though I missed Ell and Saturday. 4/5 stars
–Deadline, by Mira Grant. I don’t 100% love Shaun as the main character/narrator, but there’s still a lot of awesome stuff going on, and I enjoy the greater focus on epidemiology. 4/5 stars
–Mystery in the Channel, by Freeman Wills Croft. Solid writing and I did kind of get into the plot — enough to be disappointed that the mystery wasn’t solved the way I wanted. 4/5 stars
–Science and the City, by Laurie Winkless. Just… not my thing at all. 2/5 stars
–The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djeli Clark. A lot of fun, and there’s badass nuns. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Hugo for Best Series. Pondering on how that award works (and doesn’t).
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’m currently reading and what might be up next.

So how’s your week been? Been doing anything exciting?

Good morning, folks! It’s time for another installment of my post-exam book binge. This time, it’s the British Library Crime Classics edition. (Yep, I am addicted to these.)

Bought:

 

Books read this week:

    

Reviews posted this week:

–The Secret of High Eldersham, by Miles Burton. Okay, the plot is bananas, but it’s a really compulsive read. 4/5 stars
–The Templars, by Piers Paul Read. Not just about the Templars, but about the Crusades more broadly. 3/5 stars
–Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones. A favourite reread. <3 5/5 stars
–A Quick and Easy Guide to Using They/Them Pronouns, by Archie Bongiovanni & Tristan Jimerson. Pretty good, but not perfect. 4/5 stars
–A Little History of Archaeology, by Brian Fagan. Not quite everything I wanted, but fun enough and informative, if a little scatter-brained. 3/5 stars
–Feed, by Mira Grant. A reread to let me get back into the trilogy and finish it this time, and it was great fun. 4/5 stars
–Planetfall, by Emma Newman. Another reread, this one because I want to read the new book in the same world. Remains a great read, and I think I liked it more this time. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Interacting with Authors. Advice for both authors and bloggers…
–Top Ten Tuesday: Summer TBR. What I might be reading this summer.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

So what’ve you been reading? What have you been stacking your shelves with? I want to know!

Good morning, folks! I’m back in Belgium with the bunnies, and they are precious clingy creatures right now. It’s the best. And I had quite a book splurge this week with my sister, celebrating the end of our exams. I’m going to split it up into a couple of posts by category, though, just so I don’t have to spend too long uploading things and such. So this week, here’s a review copy received this week, and the SF/F books I picked up.

Received to review:

 

Lucky as ever — thank you, Tor and Rebellion! <3

Bought:

I’ve heard mixed things about all three of these, actually, but they intrigue me all the same, so we’ll see!

Books read this week:

   

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Murder in Piccadilly, by Charles Kingston. Not the best of the British Library Crime Classics so far, definitely. I found the characters unpleasant, almost all of them, so it was no fun, and the mystery itself was never a mystery, yet nor was it never satisfactorily wrapped up. 2/5 stars
–Koko Takes a Holiday, by Kieran Shea. Bloody gorey fun, but not really more than that. And the portrayal of depression doesn’t really bear a longer look. 2/5 stars
–The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin. It was nice to revisit this as an adult and understand more of what it was driving at. I got distracted by all the wrong things, as a kid. 4/5 stars
–Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom. A fascinating dissection of why empathy may not be the best guide to morality. 5/5 stars
–The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. A reread, and I’m so glad to spend time with the narrator again! 5/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Blog Tours. When they work for me, and why they often don’t.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update on what I’ve been reading.
–Blog tour and giveaway for Jacqueline Carey’s Starless. There’s an international prize as well as a US/Canada one! There’s also an excerpt exclusive to this blog tour.

Good morning, folks! It’s been a rough week for me, with a horrible cough and a horribler exam, but I’m very nearly at the end now — the cough’s tapering off, and the last exam of my degree awaits me at 10am on Monday morning. On Wednesday, me and my sister are going for a post-exam jaunt in a bookshop, and then on Thursday I’m heading back to Belgium to smoosh my face into my bunnies’ fur and snuggle them good.

For now, here’s the now-traditional I’m-away-from-my-bunnies pic.

Which is actually a favourite from before I left, where you find Breakfast napping by my leg with my teddy bear. <3

Anyway, no books bought this week (when would I have had time?), but I have managed to do some reading, hurrah.

Books I’ve finished this week:

  

The non-fiction books were new to me, but the fiction books were all rereads. I needed Valente, Le Guin and Greenwood to take me to familiar places this week. It helped. <3

Reviews posted this week:

–The Seafarer’s Kiss, by Julia Ember. I wanted to like this queer retelling of My Little Mermaid, but it didn’t quite come together for me. There is fascinating stuff — mostly Loki and the fact that they are genderqueer — but, meh. 2/5 stars
–The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, by Margaret Killjoy. Like an origin story for a hunter on Supernatural, only not so white nor so co-dependent. And, you know, queer, and involving women. It didn’t quite grab hold of me enough that I’m in a hurry to get the second book, but I enjoyed it. 4/5 stars
–The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, by Charlie English. The author isn’t honest in the way he tells his story: there are doubts about some of the sources he uses and the story he presents as fact, but he waits until the end to let you know that. Not something I appreciate. 2/5 stars

Like last week, I might not comment back right away, but once my exam is over I’ll be all over you fine people. Have a good week!

Technically, I think this might be an unStacking week, but I found some books I never featured so hey! They get their chance to shine this week. Also, I haven’t been doing much unstacking anyway, given that I am hurtling towards my final exams (and caught a horrible stupid virus).

But first, of course, here’s a bunny pic, since I’m still away from them. Breakfast wants to know what y’all are doing!

And here’s the new(ish) books!

New books:

A rather random assemblage, but that will surprise no one when it comes to me!

Books read this week:

 

Reviews posted this week:

–Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel. I found this really relaxing to read, just something where I could let tons of information wash over me while enjoying descriptions of beautiful books. 4/5 stars
–Seven Dead, by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Melodramatic, of course, but also oddly compelling just from the weirdness of the opening. 4/5 stars
–On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard. This writer has a gift for complex characters you can’t quite root for, but who seem very human all the same. (Even when they’re not.) I enjoyed this, and I’m looking forward to trying more of the stories in the same world. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Romance. Tl;dr? Don’t knock romance just because it’s not your thing.
–WWW Wednesday. The weekly update on what’s on my plate or, er, stack right now. Spoiler: too many books at once.

So, what’re you reading? Stacking your shelves with anything fascinating? I can’t promise I’ll comment back immediately (EXAM TIME!), but I always do visit back in the end!

Good morning, everyone! I’m in the UK again ready for my exams, and getting up bright and early every day to study. So it’s no surprise that I’ve, uh, had quite a haul and not managed to read much. But before we get into that, here’s the obligatory bunny pictures!

I miss ’em, even though they’re a pile of chaos.

Received to review:

I also now have a paperback copy of Yoon Ha Lee’s Revenant Gun to go with the ebook! Now I definitely must hurry and read it.

Bought this week:

 

Yay, more British Library Crime Classics! I think there are two more in the post, too… Better be the last of the books for a while, heh.

Read this week:

Yep, that’s the sum total.

Reviewed this week:

–The Great Mortality, by John Kelly. A historical look at the Black Death, how it started and how it spread. Less science details than I’d have liked! 3/5 stars
–Death on the Cherwell, by Mavis Doriel Hay. Entertaining, but not a patch on that other book written in the Golden Age about a women’s college in Oxford. 3/5 stars
–Keeping Their Marbles, by Tiffany Jenkins. One of my more in-depth and conflicted reviews in quite a while. This book examines the case for repatriating artefacts and remains, and the author’s opinion is a resounding “don’t”. I struggle with that. 3/5 stars
–The Fisher of Bones, by Sarah Gailey. Some fascinating ideas, and particularly the ending, but it felt more like a sketch map than a painting. 3/5 stars
–Brimstone, by Cherie Priest. This one worked for me because of the strength of the characters. I’m not sure it’s Priest’s most memorable book, but I enjoyed reading it and definitely got invested. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The usual update!

And now, studying… What’s everyone else up to?

Good morning, folks! It’s been another week already, strange as it seems to me. I’m in the depths of exam revision and such, but I’m still finding some time to read (thank goodness).

Received to review:

Starless! There are stars in my eyes right now.

Read this week:

 

Reviews posted this week:

–Universal, by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Probably great if you’re more into maths, but not really for me. 2/5 stars
–American Hippo, by Sarah Gailey. Contains the two novellas plus two short stories — to my mind, worth getting, but a little disappointing as I wanted more about Hero. 4/5 stars
–Seven Daughters of Eve, by Bryan Sykes. For the most part, this is really informative and covers some really awesome science, but it’s a little out of date now and there are a few chapters which are just too weak academically for me (as in, I don’t even want them in my pop-science). 4/5 stars
–Permeable Borders, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. The impression I took away from one of these stories was basically rapey rapey mcrapeface, so I decided to quit. 2/5 stars
–The Sisters of the Crescent Empress, by Leena Likitalo. I found this a little disappointing in some ways, in that I wanted some more resolution of certain plotlines, but it’s still a fascinating world. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Audiobooks. Do you listen to audiobooks? Personally, I mostly stick to radioplays, because my attention spa
–WWW Wednesday. The latest on my currently reading pile!

How’s your week been? Anything exciting going on?

Good morning, folks! As this goes live, I’ll be spending a weekend in a holiday cottage, possibly ignoring my emails, definitely doing things like sleeping in and going swimming. I will catch up with everything when I get back, I pinky-promise. Since I’m technically away from the bunnies, I have to go with tradition — so here is a pic of Breakfast from earlier this week. He jumped up onto my study notes to make it clear that I should have other priorities. Like petting him.

Meanwhile, I got some new books this week, so of course, it’s time to showcase them.

Received to review:

I asked for American Hippo for the short stories included, but y’all should be all over it for the novellas too, if you haven’t read them. Hero!! <3

Bought (with a gift voucher from my rabbits):

What, your pets don’t buy you book vouchers?

Books read this week:

 

   

Reviews posted this week: 

–The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang. I really got to love Akeha and the world of this book! All aspects of it: the magic, the gender stuff… <3 4/5 stars
–The Red Threads of Fortune, by JY Yang. A great followup, though I kind of like Akeha more than Mokoya, even if she seems like more the protagonist of the series as a whole. 4/5 stars
–Void Black Shadow, by Corey J. White. This goes some really dark places, with some really good writing. 4/5 stars
–Time Was, by Ian McDonald. Hello, Bury Your Gays trope. Nice to see you aga — wait. 2/5 stars
–Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells. YAAAAY MURDERBOT. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Did Not Finish. Do you put down a book if it isn’t working for you? Or do you stick at it till the bitter end?
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly update!

What’re you doing this weekend? Hoping for plenty of time to read? I sure am!

Good morning! Thank goodness it’s the weekend — not that I work any less over the weekend, typically, but I decided to do a readathon from Litsy and thus put a lot of effort into clearing my backlog of things to do. Including the last major assignment of my degree! Just my exams (erk) and my dissertation to go now.

Anyway! Onto the books.

Received to review

Yaaaay, Murderbot!

Oh, and I almost forgot (how rude of me!) — I won this from Imyril‘s giveaway!

Read this week:

  

  

Reviews posted this week:

–Exiled from Camelot, by Cherith Baldry. Reread of a book I wrote part of my MA dissertation on. Sometimes feels overly emotional, but I loved what it does with the Arthurian material. 4/5 stars
–Spider-woman: Shifting Gears – Baby Talk, by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez. A bit of a left turn out of nowhere for Jessica Drew, but still fun. 4/5 stars
–Semiosis, by Sue Burke. I had a couple of quibbles with the narration, but I loved the ideas behind this one. 4/5 stars
–Island of Apples, by Glynn Jones. Nope. Didn’t really get it, nor get along with it. 2/5 stars

Other posts:

–Discussion: Affiliate links. That experiment on The Bibliophibian is now over! It didn’t work out very well for me, so this is a bit of a post mortem — and a plea for people to support other bloggers whenever they can.
–WWW Wednesday. The usual weekly report on what I’m reading right now.

So what’ve you been reading this week? Anything fun going on for you? Let me know!