Happy Saturday from surprisingly sunny Yorkshire! At least, it was a surprise to me, after all the grey and rainy days. I’m not looking forward to the high temperature forecast for Monday, but this morning I’m sat by the window with a fresh breeze, so things feel pretty good.

Books acquired this week

A quiet week on this front, but I did just borrow a couple more books from the National Poetry Library for the weekend! So here they are: first the translated poetry I read earlier in the week, and the two I just picked up for weekend reading.

I wasn’t initially drawn to The Home Child, and then I spotted it was a verse novel. Given that I did enjoy The Black Flamingo, I thought I’d give a totally different verse novel a chance too and see what I think. Not sure if the National Poetry Library has any others I might be interested in, but I’ll take a look next time I have a loan slot free.

Posts from this week

Let’s start with the reviews as usual:

• Graphic novel: My Heart in Braille, by Joris Chamblain, Pascal Ruter & Anne-Lise Nalin (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
• Manga: Dinosaur Sanctuary, vol 1, by Itaru Kinoshita (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy romance: The Keeper of Magical Things, by Julie Leong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy: Solo Leveling light novel, vol 5, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• History: Folk Song in England, by Steve Roud (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• YA: The Black Flamingo, by Dean Atta (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

As ever, those aren’t the books I’ve been reading this week, for the most part. Those are below in the next section!

Aaand the other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Fairytale Retellings
• Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Secondary/Minor Characters
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading

It wasn’t a great week for reading, via a combination of getting a bit blocked by a book I wasn’t settling down with but was stubborn to finish plus my new crochet project. The former I’m finally just 50 pages or so from finishing (and things are coming together better than I’d feared), and the latter… well, it’s still going to steal a lot of my time, but I understand the technique and how to read/interpret the pattern now, so each row goes a little faster and smoother than at the start.

Anyway, here’s what I did manage to read since my last post!

Which looks like quite a bit, but they were all fairly short reads, especially The Brothers, which is a kid’s book — I’d got curious about it because it’s a retelling of a Hmong myth, and references to the Hmong have come up in various bits of reading lately.

For this weekend, I hope to finish Cecilia Edward’s An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating and Tom Service’s A History of the World in 50 Pieces. I’d love to fit in reading some comics and poetry around that as well, but (as ever) it’s down to my whim. There’s also a possibility I’ll just snag something random from the books I’m currently reading, curl up and go to town on finishing it. I’d love for that to happen, because I am starting to feel a biiiit overwhelmed by the number of books I have on the go, heh.

But of course there’ll be plenty of casual video games and crochet, too. Or so I hope!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Happy weekend! And happy reading time? Well, for some of us at least.

Books acquired this week

I had no intention of getting anything this week, except maybe some more poetry from the library, but then I realised that volume three of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint novel was out… and volume ten of the manhwa. How is a person of flesh and blood supposed to resist?

I did also get some more poetry from the library, since I’m trying to use some short books to fill gaps in my day, so there they are:

I’ve already dug into two of those, so I’m sure I’ll have more loans soon. Hurrah for libraries!

Posts from this week

First the review posts, as per usual:

• Horror graphic novel: Home Sick Pilots, vol 3: Three Chords and the End of the World, by Dan Watters et al (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy: The Grendel Affair, by Lisa Shearin (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Fantasy: Solo Leveling light novel, vol 4, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Mystery: The Murder at World’s End, by Ross Montgomery (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Non-fiction: The Meteorite Hunters, by Joshua Howgego (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Craftland: A Journey through Britain’s Lost Arts & Vanishing Trades, by James Fox (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Poetry: Somewhere There is a Sky for Us, ed. Joelle Taylor (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, these aren’t necessarily recent reads, since I store up reviews to spread out the genres I’m posting about as much as possible. See below for the books I’ve been reading this week!

And of course there have been some other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Early Memories
• Top Ten Tuesday: May Flowers
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading

Things are still a bit quiet on the reading front, and let’s admit it, it’s at least partly due to my newfound special interest in hidden object games. Oh well: I don’t read as part of a curriculum or obligation or whatever, but for my own enjoyment… and these things come and go. And I did do quite a bit of reading this week all the same — here are the books I finished!

This weekend I’m planning to finish up An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating and A History of the World in 50 Pieces, for the latter of which I might switch to audiobook, especially if the audiobook has any snippets of the actual pieces. I’m being somewhat hindered in following the text by not knowing all the music, and there doesn’t seem to be a handy playlist or anything.

Other than that, I do also want to dig into volume ten of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa, and probably read another couple of shortish reads: a manga or comic, probably, and another poetry collection (the Mimi Khalvati collection is rather calling to me).

That said, I might be slowed up this weekend by the arrival of yarn for a new crochet project. It’s been a while, but I ended up sorely tempted by this beautiful pattern, and I didn’t see any reason not to give it a shot. Listening to the audiobook of A History of the World in 50 Pieces might be a good accompaniment to that, once I’ve got started and sorted out my initial stitch count. The whole width is worked for each row, so I’ll want to concentrate to make sure I get that right.

And of course, I’m sure I’ll be playing plenty of hidden object and puzzle games, too!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Oof, another long week, but here we are on the other side!

Books acquired this week

This week I’ve been blessed with a couple of review copies from Hachette/Orbit, one of them being extremely exciting to me: the new Ann Leckie!

I’m hoping to dig into both pretty soon; I’ve been meaning to read more of Fonda Lee’s work as well, though I think Radiant Star is likely to jump the queue straight onto my currently-reading pile, ahaha.

I also “had to” grab a book to fill out an order for express delivery (oh no), so I picked up a highly anticipated non-fiction:

I’m excited to dig into this as well: I’ve always been fascinated with Pompeii, and (to the complaints of my traveling companion) thoroughly explored every area tourists had access to when I visited.

Finally, I’ve been trying to keep up my explorations of poetry, despite the sad news about Carol Rumens (editor of the Guardian‘s poetry column, which I’d been using to give me ideas). So here’s a couple of books I borrowed from the National Poetry Library:

Posts from this week:

I’ve kept up with posts pretty well, so there’s plenty to highlight. Starting with the reviews:

• Fantasy novella: Fate’s Bane, by C.L. Clark (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Fantasy light novel: Solo Leveling, vol 3, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Ramesses the Great: Egypt’s King of Kings, by Toby Wilkinson (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
• Poetry: Felicity, by Mary Oliver (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
• Non-fiction: How Flowers Made Our World, by David George Haskell (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

As ever, these aren’t a reflection of my reading week — often the reviews I post are of books I finished a couple of months ago, depending on the genre. See below for this week’s reads!

First, though, there have been some non-review posts, though Let’s Talk Bookish is currently on hiatus. Here’s the roundup:

• Fantasy with Friends: Further Reading
• Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Picked Up On A Whim
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

I’m still not up to my normal reading speed, but I added a little daily habit for this month that I’m hoping will at least keep things moving: every day, I read at least 15 minutes of whichever book I’m closest to finishing. That has been pretty effective so far, whittling down my currently-reading pile from 30 to 26 since the start of the month. That said, I think I’m going to undo all that work this weekend by starting new books, ahaha.

In any case, here are the books I’ve finished this week!

It’s been a pretty good week for reading! I’m not sure what I’ll focus on this weekend, honestly. I think the book I’m next-closest to finishing is Ai Jiang’s A Palace Near the Wind, so probably I’ll spend some time with that, and I probably want to start Radiant Star and The Lost Voices of Pompeii.

I’ve had a busy and weird couple weeks, though, so I’ll probably mostly follow whatever urge hits me: I’m keen to read more of Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen, for instance.

Hope everyone’s been having a good week, and I wish you all a nice weekend!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Oof, that was a busy week! I’ve been making up for it so far this weekend by lazing around: I don’t usually wait so late in the day to compose my weekend post. So without further ado…

Books acquired this week

I didn’t do much shopping while I was in London, since it was a flying visit, but while I was waiting for my train home in the evening, I did pop into Hatchard’s in St Pancras International. I actually had some credit for free books on my Waterstones card, and of course you can use that at Hatchard’s too.

In other words, it was inevitable! I got a few new non-fiction books:

I’ve been looking at the first two for a bit, the first because of my interest in fashion history, and the second because I love that kind of popular history. As far as The Black Death goes… well, given I was in London to receive my MSc in Infectious Diseases, it seemed only right, since the book was right there and so appropriate.

I did pick up a couple of fiction books I’ve been curious about, as well:

I’ve been curious about The Murder at World’s End since I saw it in the shop and then only a couple of days later saw Mogsy’s (very enthusiastic) review; I dove into that one almost right away, and I’m enjoying it so far. Thistlemarsh is one I’ve mostly seen on people’s wishlists, and haven’t seen many reviews (if any?) for yet.

Posts from this week

I didn’t post quite as much this week as usual, since there was no Let’s Talk Bookish prompt, and I was too busy on a couple of days. Still, there’s plenty to round up even so! Reviews first:

• Fantasy mystery: The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, by C.M. Waggoner (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Mystery: Murder at Gulls Nest, by Jess Kidd (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Boring Postcards USA, by Martin Parr (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Romance manga: Do You Really Want Only a Meal? vol 2, by Yasu Tadano (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Fantasy manga: Delicious in Dungeon, vol 1, by Ryoko Kui (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, some of these reviews have been waiting in the wings for a while, since I have a huge backlog of reviews written and not yet posted, and I try to mix things up rather than dump sixteen reviews of a manga series in one go, ahaha.

And of course, there were other posts this week:

• Fantasy with Friends: Future Classics
• Top Ten Tuesday: Power Couples
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• April Reading Wrap-Up

Really, I think I kept busy enough around here, ahaha.

What I’m reading

It’s been a mixed week, reading-wise; I read quite a bit last weekend, and then only 20 minutes or so per day for the last couple of days. As ever, I have a sneak peek at the books I’ve finished this week which I plan to review:

Lots of non-fiction, as you see! I’m hoping to settle down to some fiction this weekend and finish S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, and I’ve already found myself quite drawn to The Murder at World’s End, so I’ll probably focus on those two. I do want to read more of Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen… and I’ve vowed to finish Gareth Russell’s Queen James as well.

Quite the stack I have before me — oh nooo, what shall I do, etc.

Hope everyone’s got a fun and/or relaxing weekend planned!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Woo, weekend! I look forward to a day of hidden object games and reading. Hope everyone’s had a good week!

Books acquired this week

I haven’t really been meaning to acquire anything this week, but somehow library books have been happening to me… First up, from the National Poetry Library:

And from my local, a book I’d rather randomly reserved based on someone’s review. I’ve forgotten who! If it might’ve been you, speak up, ahaha:

And finally, I decided after a fair bit of dithering to request TJ Klune’s new novella:

I’d been hesitating, but it’s a novella — it shouldn’t take me that long to read, after all! And I have enjoyed Klune’s work in the past, I just didn’t want to accept more to review without being pretty certain I’d actually get to it anytime soon, ahaha.

Posts from this week

As ever, time for a quick roundup of what I’ve been posting, starting with the reviews:

• Fantasy romance: The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, by Brigitte Knightley (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Horror: Snake-eater, by T. Kingfisher (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Classic mystery: Jack on the Gallows Tree, by Leo Bruce (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Poetry: Blue Horses, by Mary Oliver (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
• History: The Library of Ancient Wisdom, by Selena Wisnom (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
• Horror graphic novel: Home Sick Pilots, vol 2, by Dan Watters et al (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Fantasy: Solo Leveling (light novel), vol 2, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

And the other posts:

• Fantasy With Friends: Favourite Subgenres
• Top Ten Tuesday: April Showers
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Climate Fiction

What I’m reading

It’s still been a quiet sort of week for me when it comes to reading — I’m hoping to bust out of my funk somewhat this weekend! It looks like more reading than it is, because the poetry and the manga were pretty short. All the same, I did finish a few books, especially last weekend:

I’m planning a bit of a catch-up this week, focusing on a few books I’m actually meant to be trading in soon (oops), including Queer Georgians (Anthony Delaney), How Flowers Made the World (David George Haskell) and The Meteorite Hunters (Joseph Howgego). It seemed a lot more reasonable I’d have them read in time at the start of the month when I set up the trade-in, ahaha. I also want to work on finishing my Book Spin and Double Spin books for the Litsy challenge, so that’s Queen James (Gareth Russell) and The Water Outlaws (S.L. Huang).

I don’t expect to finish them all this weekend by any means, but I’d like to get a chunk into them. I may also go for some lighter reading and tackle that TJ Klune novella, though.

Does anyone else have grand reading plans for the weekend? Good luck, folks!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Happy weekend! It feels genuinely springlike at last here in the UK — sure, we’ve had our rainy days, but also some lovely sun. Hope everyone’s had a good week!

Books acquired this week

Unsurprisingly, after the spree of my London trip (documented over the last couple Saturdays!), I haven’t been looking to acquire new reading material this week. Still, predictably enough new reading material has found me. First up, two borrows from the National Poetry Library:

I picked up milk and honey because of this week’s Let’s Talk Bookish discussion topic (both my review and my answer to the topic are below in the roundup, if you’re curious!). Ambush at Still Lake was a random choice based on amusement at the pulpy cover; the brief excerpt of poetry I saw suggests I may well not enjoy this volume, but I do like trying random poetry anyway.

I also got a couple of review copies, excitingly — Del Rey sent me a link to get A Trade of Blood on Netgalley, woooo, while I have autoapproval from Tor so simply pounced on The Killing of a Chestnut Tree. I’d seen Tammy talk about it as an upcoming book a few weeks ago, and my interest was piqued, especially given the Holmes pastiche.

Finally… somehow, I’d left a book out of my posts about the London trip! I realised once I was finally getting everything properly shelved. I kinda can’t believe I’d forgotten it, because the title kinda tickles me:

I’m looking forward to digging into that one, too!

Posts from this week

First, as always, let’s round up the reviews I posted this week (though some of them have been written for months):

• Fantasy light novel: Solo Leveling, vol 1, by Chugong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy: The Hedgewitch of Foxhall, by Anna Bright (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Mystery: Murder Offstage, by L.B. Hathaway (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Poetry: milk and honey, by Rupi Kaur (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Non-fiction: Domination: The Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity, by Alice Roberts (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Romance manhwa: Tied to You, vol 4, by WHAT/Chelliace (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

And of course, the other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: High or Low Fantasy
• Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Describe Me
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Poetry in the Age of Social Media

What I’m reading

I’m still having trouble settling down to read, finding myself more interested in messing around with casual games (currently doing a lot of hidden object games like A Park Full of Cats), but I did finish a few books this week anyway, so here’s a preview of what will (eventually) be coming up for review on the blog!

For this weekend, I have a few books targeted that I want to finish: Daedalus is Dead (Seamus Sullivan), A Palace Near the Wind (Ai Jiang), The Murder at Gulls Nest (Jess Kidd), and — even though I only just got it! — The Killing of a Chestnut Tree (Oliver K. Langmead).

Other than that, we’ll see. Maybe it’ll be mostly hidden object games. If so, that will be fine!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

It’s the weekend again, wooo!

Books acquired this week

First up, let’s have the library books! It’s been a few weeks since I checked out any poetry, but I found myself turning to it this week, hoping for more of Mary Oliver’s work and thus inclined to click on other stuff that looked interesting.

I also got a new book that genuinely arrived this week — this month’s British Library Crime Classic. The author wrote the Sergeant Beef short stories, if I understand rightly, so I’m not sure if I’ll like this one; it’s not about Sergeant Beef, but still, I don’t think I enjoyed the style. Still, novels and short stories can be quite different, as can different characters by the same author! So we’ll see.

We’ll see, anyway! And now it’s time to get back to the books I got in London. We’re now onto the Forbidden Planet section of the “report”! First up, the SF/F. I’d heard of a couple of these from other bloggers, or seen them around for ages (like Wooing the Witch Queen), but a couple were more random choices, like The Palace Near the Wind.

I definitely tried to let myself just browse pretty freely and go with whatever jumped out, without looking it up too much or hesitating. Sometimes the unexpected will jump out at you that way… but honestly the selection at Forbidden Planet was pretty overwhelming and I mostly found myself gravitating to titles I recognised from somewhere, ahaha.

And now onto the danmei, the very last section to explore. Most of the danmei is technically also SF/F, but they also fit together well:

 

The sharp-eyed and strong of memory will remember that I’ve been hankering after The Wife Comes First and After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine for a while, so I’m curious to get stuck into them.

If you’re curious about the indie bookshops I visited, the books I got there are in part one of my London trip STS report, while part two has the non-fiction books I found at Waterstones Piccadilly (the biggest bookshop in Europe). I definitely had myself a good time for my graduation treat, ahaha, but how often does one get a master’s degree?

(Well, for me it’s happened twice, admittedly. Shush and don’t ruin my excuse.)

Posts from this week

First up, the reviews:

• Fantasy: Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (light novel), vol 2, by singNsong (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy: Breath of the Dragon, by Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• History/poetry: Part of a Story that Started Before Me, ed. George the Poet (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Mystery: Murder Like Clockwork, by Nicola Whyte (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Science: The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs, by Riley Black (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy/romance manhwa: Tied to You, vol 3, by WHAT & Chelliace (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)

And quite a few other posts!

• Fantasy with Friends: Definitions of Fantasy
• Top Ten Tuesday: Recent Five-Star Reads
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Casting in Adaptations

It’s been nice to get out and about doing more discussion posts, lately!

What I’m reading

This week still involved less reading than I would’ve liked, since I didn’t settle down to it very well… but I did still have some fun reads. Let’s have a peek at what this week and what might be coming up for review on my blog (sooner or later, depending on the genre — Murder Like Clockwork’s review is already up because I haven’t read a lot of crime fiction lately!):

A very small number read for me, but oh well. Maybe this weekend? Or maybe not! Whatever’s fine, really — I don’t want to force myself.

As for this weekend, I’m not sure what I’ll read exactly, but I’d like to get further into Finn Longman’s The Wolf and His King, and I also started reading Jess Kidd’s The Murder at Gulls Nest since it’s due back at the library. Ditto There is No Antimimetics Division. So maybe those!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Wooo, it’s the weekend. It’s been a long week, but I think I’m starting to be caught up with everything. Let’s talk books!

Books acquired this week

Technically this is actually part #2 of my London book haul (part one covers my purchases from museum bookshops and indies). This time we’re going through my haul from Waterstones Piccadilly, which was actually the last destination after the Forbidden Planet Megastore. The SF/F floor was closed, so I spent all the time on the non-fiction floor… which probably saved my wallet somewhat, it must be admitted.

First, let’s have some science!

I did see a potentially interesting book about infectious diseases, but I’ve got so picky about that topic now — I no longer find it as soothing to read, at least for now. So I gave that a miss.

Next up, let’s have the Egyptology books I found, a significant subset of what I got. I’d probably have got them even if I hadn’t gone to the Petrie museum recently, as I have always been fascinated by Ancient Egypt, but it had certainly put me in the mood for them.

I already tore through Ramesses the Great and loved it, but I’m looking forward to the others, too! I imagine there won’t be as much new to me in Egypt’s Golden Couple, because I’ve always been fascinated by the Amarna period, but I don’t mind the refresher.

Finally, a more miscellaneous bunch:

I’d seen Threads of Empire on someone else’s post a couple of weeks ago and added it to my wishlist, so I was pleased to spot it in person, and I’d heard about Queen James somewhere or other, probably from KJ Charles. The title made a couple of people to whom I mentioned it wince, so I’d note that it’s presumably based on the contemporary saying Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Iacobus (“Elizabeth was king, now James is queen”), and it does seem to be a serious examination of James’ relationships with men. If it turns out weird and homophobic/biphobic, I promise there will be a scathing review, but I’m pretty sure KJ Charles would’ve said something already if so.

As for A Woman’s Work, I remembered liking Cleghorn’s Unwell Women… while Rummage was a completely random choice just out of interest.

Almost-finally, I have a manga I got this week on a whim, and the single manhwa I got in Forbidden Planet, since it seems appropriate to put them in the same post:

I was not a huge fan of Cat + Crazy, sadly; I tried it because I liked Cat + Gamer, but I think it’s too goofy and “out there”. I’m excited for volume 9 of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, though!

And finally-finally, here’s my library hold of the week, which came in way sooner than I’d been expecting:

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give this a try, but the sheer market saturation of it has finally needled me into giving it a shot. Thank goodness for libraries, which let us take a chance on things sometimes.

Posts from this week

Let’s start with the reviews, as ever:

• Non-fiction: A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke (5/5 stars, “loved it”)
• Horror graphic novel: Home Sick Pilots: Teenage Haunts, by Dan Watters et al (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy novella: A Long and Speaking Silence, by Nghi Vo (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Travel and folklore: Monsterland: A Journey Around the World’s Dark Imagination, by Nicholas Jubber (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Poetry: Southernmost: Sonnets, by Leo Boix (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)
• Horror manga: Sailor Zombie, by Jiji, Pinch and Isshin Inudo (1/5 stars, “didn’t like it”)

As ever, most of those aren’t recent reads, I just have a huge review backlog written but not yet posted, in my efforts to post a mixed selection of reviews.

And the other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Underrated Fantasy Books
• Top Ten Tuesday: Surefire Tropes
• What Are You Reading Wednesday
• March Reading Wrap-Up
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Novels in Verse

I’m steadily getting to the point of doing a bunch of non-review features again after a long drought where I really just posted STS posts and reviews, which is nice. Actually having people visit my blog and having people whose blogs I read, and having time for all that… magical!

What I’m reading

I’m not sure how much I’ve actually read this week, because it’s felt like I’ve been too busy. Let’s have a look — here are some previews of covers of the books I finished this week which I will review on here soon(ish):

Not bad, really!

As for this weekend, I hope to finish Amal El-Mohtar’s Seasons of Glass and Iron, for a start, and maybe start my BookSpin book for the month, which is actually Gareth Russell’s Queen James (featured above). Or maybe I’ll go with some of the fiction I’ve just barely got started, like Stephanie Burgis’ Wooing the Witch Queen.

Whatever I read, I’m hoping to do more of it this weekend, and charge up my batteries for the week ahead.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Hello from London! We’ll be driving home today, but we still have the morning here and a late checkout from the hotel…

And of course — as mentioned in my post on Wednesday — I am now once more a graduate, for the fourth time! All went well, and I’m officially The Bibliophibian, BA (Hons), BSc (Hons), MA, MSc, and an alum of Cardiff University, the Open University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine/University of London.

Don’t ask what’s next, because I’m still resting! The MSc was seriously hard work, along with life stuff in the last year or two. But I’m sure I’ll be back to studying sooner or later.

But you’re all here for the books…

Books acquired this week

Hold onto your hats, it’s going to be a wild ride. My wife and I saved up for months so we could go on a book spree to celebrate my graduation, and we certainly managed to do that. I’ll split the new books into at least two posts, maybe three, since it’s nicer to be able to chat about individual books rather than have an overwhelming wall of them, and I won’t be getting othernew books for a bit (except maybe some to review).

For this post at least, since it covers a couple of indie bookshops, I thought it’d be nice to group them by where I picked them up. So let’s start with the first books I got this week, from the Victoria & Albert Museum! Sadly their fashion gallery is closed, just when we’d have loved to take a look at more of these garments for real… but we did get to see some of the kimonos and other Japanese items in the Japanese gallery.

I’m not honestly sure why there was a bunch of Beatrix Potter merchandise and books, but I wasn’t complaining. I love the fact that she was actually a naturalist and a close observer of nature.

On the way back from there, I ducked into an indie bookshop while my wife was getting snacks and bubble tea: South Kensington Books. I didn’t really intend to get anything, but I found there were waaaay too many books jumping out at me to be ignored…

Once I got back to the hotel and could look them up better, I found a couple of these have few or no reviews on StoryGraph, which I actually find fairly exciting. It’s nice to get my hands on something a bit more niche thanks to the curation of indies.

Next up, we have a book from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, which is smallish but crammed full of artifacts. It’s not very heavily curated: there are lots of display shelves and cases packed with finds, which have their labels with them but not a lot of context or sorting. Still, you can find artefacts from Amarna, which is a personal interest, and some fascinating pieces definitely jumped out at me. The display of a beaded dress, some cloth fabric remains and the display of ushabtis are a highlight, along with a pot burial that is a bit macabre.

Meanwhile, the gift shop yielded up treasure for me:

On Thursday we meant to hit quite a few indie bookshops, but the dwindling budget and my aching feet meant we stuck to Waterstones Piccadilly, Forbidden Planet Megastore, and Gay’s the Word. We trekked out to get the books from Waterstones and Forbidden Planet to the car, so I haven’t catalogued them yet… but here are the books from Gay’s the Word, the oldest queer bookshop in the UK. First, some poetry…

But don’t worry, it wasn’t all highbrow!

I had no idea volume seven of Fence was out! As for the others… well, I’m curious to know at least a little about the Heated Rivalry hype, and I’m unlikely to ever get round to watching the series (I barely watch anything unless it’s over dinner, when me and my wife watch Taskmaster or Gladiators at the moment). I’ve been wanting Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die for ages, and Straight Acting was just a random choice.

Posts from this week

I made post drafts ahead so I could keep up with posts as usual while away, so there’s plenty to round up! Reviews first:

• Romance manhwa: Tied to You, vol 2, by WHAT & Chelliace (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy: Nightshade & Oak, by Molly O’Neill (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Poetry: Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Classic crime: Sky High, by Michael Gilbert (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Cat Tales: A History, by Jerry D. Moore (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Fantasy/horror graphic novel: Carmilla: The First Vampire, by Amy Chu & Soo Lee (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Fantasy romance: Twig’s Traveling Tomes, by Gryffin Murphy (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Poetry: Black Cat Bone, by John Burnside (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, don’t forget many of these reviews are from weeks ago, since I hold ’em back to try to create a diverse mix of genres in my reviews. The books I’ve been reading this week are discussed in the next section below! ↓↓↓↓↓

Other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Religion in Fantasy
• Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2026 Reading List
• WWW Wednesday

What I’m reading

It’s been a bit of a weird week for reading, given I’ve been busy with planned outings and tired from a lot of walking, but I did finish some books this week, all the same! Here’s a peek at the ones I intend to review (eventually) on the blog:

Folk Song in England is quite the chonker, but at least I got it finished before the trip! I enjoyed Mary Oliver’s poetry quite a lot, and the Fashion in Detail series from the V&A is always good, so it was a good reading week.

As for reading this weekend… well, we’re traveling home today which is quite the drive, and it’s my sister’s birthday dinner tomorrow, so we’ll see. I hope to dig into more of my new books, though; I’ve started William Tyndale and the English Language and Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries, so it’d be nice to finish those at least!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Whew, it’s the weekend! It’s been a long week, since my teeth issues haven’t entirely settled; we’re hoping it’s a bite issue that will start to settle soon… Anyway, let’s jump into the good stuff.

Books acquired this week

First up, two library holds came in, which my wife kindly picked up for me since my wrist is still in no shape for cycling:

I can’t actually what prompted me to put a hold on There Is No Antimemetics Division? Maybe a review in New Scientist, I think? Anyway, I was curious about it — and I’ve had a hold on Mythica forever, since I love the idea of it.

I got a book to review this week, too — requesting it was a long shot, so I was very pleased to receive a copy.

I’ve really enjoyed Emma Southon’s work before, so I’m looking forward to this.

I also snagged two guides for London just to see if there were some niche joys that we might explore. Predictably, I went for museums and bookshops…

I’ve reviewed both of those already and posted that here, while it’s topical!

Posts from this week

Reviews first!

• Non-fiction: Repast: The Story of Food, by Jenny Linford (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
• Graphic novel: DPS Only! by Velinxi (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Fantasy romance: Stay for a Spell, by Amy Coombe (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• SF mystery novella: Nobody’s Baby, by Olivia Waite (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
• Poetry: Wain, by Rachel Plummer with illustrations by Helene Boppert (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Hadrian’s Wall, by Adrian Goldsworthy (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
• Non-fiction: Opinionated Guides to London… Museums & Bookshops, by Emmy Watts and Sonya Barber & James Manning (4/5, “really liked it”, and 3/5 stars, “liked it”, respectively)

And some other posts:

• Fantasy with Friends: Oz
• Top Ten Tuesday: Green Covers
• WWW Wednesday

What I’m reading

I’ve been head-down in some quite long books this week, but I do have some finished books to report. Here’s a sneak peek at the books coming up for review… eventually.

As for this weekend, I’d like to finish Steve Roud’s Folk Song in England before I go away on Monday, since it’s a chonker of a book… and I’d like to finish R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis as well. Other than that, I don’t know, though.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.