Tag: weekly roundup

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!

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted January 6, 2024 by Nicky in General / 40 Comments

Welcome to 2024! Has it started out well for you?

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.

New books acquired:

Last week I showed off my nerdy FFXIV books and the fiction books I got for Christmas. Now for the non-fiction!

Cover of The History of Wales in Twelve Poems by M Wynn Thomas

Cover of The Science of Sin by Jack Lewis

It’s a bit of a mix of topics, as ever — just as I like it!

And in addition, I have some new books to review from authors I’ve loved in the past:

Cover of Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Cover of The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo

Which I’m obviously excited for! Thanks so much to Rebellion, Hodder & Stoughton and Tordotcom for these. I’ll probably dive into The Brides of High Hill first, because I really love this series and the books are quite short. I’m really trying to stay on top of Netgalley copies and read them quickly, this year…

Posts from this week:

It’s been a busy week again on the blog, so here’s a little recap of the reviews posted:

And a couple of non-review posts:

As a quick update on the latter post, I’ve now removed all my posts from the schedule so they’re all being manually published, which means emails should work. If you have any idea what might be going wrong/how to fix it, my friend Adam’s got a post up on the Jetpack forum asking about it.

What I’m reading:

First off, here’s what I’ve been reading that’s coming up in reviews in the next few weeks…

Cover of How To Make A Vaccine by John Rhodes  Cover of Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers: The Art of Reflection - Histories Forsaken

Cover of Encyclopaedia Eorzea, volume III Cover of The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond Cover of In The Shadow of the Fall by Tobi Ogundiran

As for the weekend, I’ve started reading Kelly and Zack Weinersmith’s A City on Mars, which pours cold water on the idea that we’re pretty much ready to have colonies on Mars (though it’s not that they want to be killjoys). I’m enjoying that so far, but I’ll probably mix in a little fiction, and maybe read something that checks off a square on my bingo card for the BookSpin challenge over on Litsy.

So that’s my updates! How’s everyone doing? Has 2024 started well for you? Read anything amazing yet?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted December 30, 2023 by Nicky in General / 44 Comments

Oof, almost time to put 2023 to bed. It was a weird transitional year for me, letting go of some stuff that had become a burden and getting out of an exploitative environment that was sucking out all of my free time and a lot of my energy. It brought me back to blogging by the end of the year, which is nice. Here’s hoping 2024 is kind to us all.

Anyway, it’s time for the post-Christmas haul, or at least the first part of it…

As before, I’ll be linking up with a few different posts: Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

I got quite a lot of books, in fact, so it’s hard to know just how to split them up into two batches. I think I’ll show off my dorky Final Fantasy books received and the various fiction books I received, this week, and then the non-fiction books I got next week, just to avoid it being too big!

So first of all, here are the additions to my Final Fantasy XIV collection:

Cover of Encyclopaedia Eorzea, volume II Cover of Encyclopaedia Eorzea, volume III

Cover of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward: The Art of Ishgard - Stone and Steel Cover of Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers: The Art of Reflection - Histories Forsaken Cover of Final Fantasy XIV: Eorzea Academy

The artbooks are gorgeous, and the encyclopaedias have a lot of fascinating information. I previously got volume I of the encyclopaedia, so it’s nice to get up to date!

As far as fiction books go, I was equally spoiled by my family, and I’m also including a book bought off my wishlist by Cheryl Malandrinos from The Book Connection, The Book of Perilous Dishes. (Thank you so much!)

Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol 3 by MXTX

Cover of A Surprise for Christmas, edited by Martin Edwards Cover of The Book of Perilous Dishes by Doina Rusti

I’m eager to dig into all of these, though I need to acquire Curse of the Pharaohs before I can read The Mummy Case, in order to avoid getting out of order. I think I’ll leave that a bit until my TBR pile is a little less inclined to overflow! 😀

And of course I must also include the two review copies I’ve been approved for this week:

Thanks, Tordotcom!

Posts from this week:

It’s been a quieter week for posts, since I paused for a bit while celebrating Christmas, but there are some new posts:

Other posts:

What I’m reading:

For the weekend, I’m working on hitting my reading goal for 2023: 400 books in total! Just two more books to go, but I haven’t really decided what to read yet.

Here’s a glimpse of the books I’ve read this week which I’ll probably be reviewing on here soon:

Cover of Blood Moon by M.J. O'Shea Cover of An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner Cover of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward: The Art of Ishgard - Stone and Steel Cover of Encyclopaedia Eorzea, volume II Cover of Final Fantasy XIV: Eorzea Academy

Cover of The History of Wales in Twelve Poems by M Wynn Thomas Cover of A Surprise for Christmas, edited by Martin Edwards Cover of The Science of Sin by Jack Lewis Cover of Script & Scribble by Kitty Burns Florey

And that’s it! Hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that we’re all looking forward to the new year. Let’s hope it’s a good one (with plenty of books).

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted December 23, 2023 by Nicky in General / 31 Comments

Another week gone by already! After this post, I’ll be catching up on comments today and tomorrow, and there’ll be one more review post, and then I’ll take a little break from posting for a couple of days. I celebrate Christmas, so I’m going to be busy with my family!

As before, I’ll be linking up with a few different posts: 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 have just two books to show for myself: first, my British Library Crime Classic for this month, Margot Bennett’s Someone from the Past… and my present from Ana and Paulo at Postcrossing, a book on handwriting!

Cover of Someone From The Past by Margot Bennett Cover of Script & Scribble by Kitty Burns Florey

So that’s a pretty restrained week, compared to what my wife assures me will happen on Christmas, haha.

Posts from this week:

As usual, let’s have a bit of a roundup of my reviews this week:

And my Top Ten Tuesday this week:

What I’m reading:

This week I’ve been reading a few manga (which I often don’t review in full), but I did also finally pick up The Impossible Impostor again, after someone assured me that they got on better with the next book in the series. I skimmed a bit, but I got back into it — whew. Over the weekend, I think I’ll work on finishing Christmas: A History by Judith Flanders, and maybe a couple of shorter reads. I’ve been a bit stressed out, though, so I’m just going to follow my whim and try to relax!

Here’s a peek at books I read this week that I will be reviewing soon…

Cover of The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson Cover of Silent Nights, edited by Martin Edwards Cover of The Impossible Impostor by Deanna Raybourn Cover of Who Killed the Curate by Joan Coggin Cover of Christmas: A History by Judith Flanders

And that’s it! It was a quieter week this week, reading-wise, but that’s OK.

How’s everyone doing? Ready for Christmas, if you celebrate?

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted December 16, 2023 by Nicky in General / 27 Comments

And oof, another week gone! Christmas is creeping closer, for those of us who celebrate — I’m most looking forward to giving people all their gifts, I must admit, though I know a tidy book haul is coming my way as well thanks to my wife. I got the most perfect thing for my sister… ah, but I can’t tell you, she might read this.

It’s been another busy week, with an assignment due yesterday for one of my classes, but now that’s out of the way I’m gearing up for a quiet week or two, I think!

As before, I’ll be linking up with a few different posts: Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Books acquired this week:

I split my haul from my trip to Bath into three lots, since I was a little, ah, excessive about it. This is the final bunch, from the lovely bookshop Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. I wasn’t 100% won over by their fiction section, since books of all genres were jumbled together: even though I read very widely and some would even say randomly, I’m not always in the mood for the same thing. So I pretty much bypassed their fiction selection, sorry to say, picking up only this one which I found in their bibliotherapy room from their list of recommendations:

Cover of Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee

It’s an Arthurian retelling and prominently features Sir Kay, which means it called out my name right off the bat. I wrote my postgrad dissertation (back when I was doing English Literature) on the character of the Welsh Cei and how it echoed throughout later literature, so I’m interested to see what this one does.

What shone for me at Mr B’s was the selection of non-fiction, and the conversations I had with staff members about the books I was choosing. I’d trust their recommendations for sure. Without further ado, here’s the rest of my haul:

Cover of Pockets by Hannah Carlson Cover of The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin Cover of The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman Cover of Digging Up Britain by Mike Pitts

Cover of The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club by Christopher de Hamel Cover of The Long Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford Cover of Adrift by Tracey Williams Cover of Tickets For the Ark by Rebecca Nesbit

As you can see, I had a heck of a time!

Technically I’ve also just received my British Library Crime Classics subscription book, complete with matching bookmark (which they’ve made smaller now, yay!), free postcard and blackmail note (reproduced from this month’s story), but I’ll keep that for next week to ensure I have something to post…

Posts from this week:

I’m pretty much caught up from all the reviews I wrote while my blog was down, but I’ve kept on reading at pace in the meantime, so here’s a roundup of this week’s reviews:

And I’ve also posted about some of my (potential) upcoming reads:

What I’m reading:

I’m still trying to make myself finish The Impossible Impostor, by Deanna Raybourn. Having stalled, it’s difficult to nudge myself to get back into it. Still, other than that I’ve been reading a lot, and I have quite a few  reviews upcoming for my reads this week. As ever, here’s a sneak preview of the titles/covers:

Cover of Rebel Cell by Kat Arney Cover of The Christmas Card Game edited by Martin Edwards Cover of Clean Room volume 3: Waiting for the Stars to Fall, by Gail Simone et al

Cover of The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin Cover of Pockets by Hannah Carlson Cover of A Trace of Copper by Anne Renwick

I did read a couple of volumes of manga as well, but I’m not planning to review them here as I don’t have much to say.

And that’s it for now! How’s everyone else doing? Got any exciting books this week?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted December 9, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 18 Comments

And here we are again, it’s been another week! As with last week, I’ll be linking up with a few different posts: Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz. If you know of any other similar linkups, let me know; I’m eager to do some more socialising on blogs, after a quiet couple of years.

For me, it’s been a relatively quiet week: plenty of work and studying to do, but no major crises or something. I’ve been trying to get in plenty of reading time, so I can reach my goal of reading 400 books this year, but I’ve also had commitments to my raiding group in Final Fantasy XIV, etc. Slowly does it!

Books acquired this week:

Technically, I haven’t had any new books this week, but I still have parts of my massive haul from my holiday to show off. This time I’ll show off what I got from Bath’s branch of Waterstones, which surprised me by having a broader selection of classic crime than I’d usually expect in a Waterstones (which can vary a lot depending on the interests of local booksellers).

Cover of The Lost Gallows by John Dickson Carr Cover of The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr Cover of Curiosity Killed the Cat by Joan Cockin Cover of Who Killed the Curate by Joan Coggin

I also picked up a non-fiction book I’ve been eyeing for a while, and I’ll also include here a book I grabbed in Topping & Company and should’ve included in last week’s haul, but which got forgotten!

Cover of The Golden Mole by Katherine Rundell Cover of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon

Which leaves my haul from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, which I’ll put up next week!

Posts from this week:

I’m still posting quite a few reviews per week to keep up with my reading output, so here’s a quick roundup:

And as well as reviews, I posted for the usual Top Ten Tuesday linkup with some non-fiction titles I’ve really enjoyed:

What I’m reading:

I’ve started quite a few books at once, trying to figure out what I’m feeling most right now. I most want to finish Kate Strasdin’s The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes, this weekend, and I’d like to finally get back into Deanna Raybourn’s The Impossible Impostor. Something about the latter just wasn’t working for me — mostly I wish they’d communicate, and also I’ve peeked ahead at the ending and it makes me sad.

I’ve finished quite a few books this week, so here’s a sneak peek at books I’ll be reviewing sometime soon:

Cover of Clean Room vol 1: Immaculate Conception, by Gail Simone et al Cover of The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark Cover of Murder at Maybridge Castle by Ada Moncrieff Cover of Clean Room vol 2: Exile, by Gail Simone et al Cover of Overkill by Paul Offit

Cover of Who Killed Father Christmas, ed. Martin Edwards Cover of The Magician's Angel by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of Tickets For the Ark by Rebecca Nesbit Cover of The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan Cover of A Queer Trade by KJ Charles

Not pictured, a couple of my textbooks that I’m counting as read because yaaay, I’m pretty close to finishing up the courses. I’m counting them toward my reading goal, ’cause darn it, I read them — but I’ll spare the blog the review of Heymann’s Control of Communicable Diseases Manual.

So that’s me for the week; how’s everyone else doing?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 21, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Yay, it was my birthday! I mean, um, hi! Look, I have books!

Books acquired:

Cover of The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson Cover of Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes by Virginia Nicholson Cover of Curry by Lizzie Collingham

Cover of The Chianti Flask by Marie Belloc Lowndes Cover of Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia Cover of Murder by the Book ed. Martin Edwards Cover of The Black Coast by Mike Brooks

All from my wife. 💙 I am a spoilt creature.

Read this week:

Cover of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien Cover of Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno Garcia

Reviews posted this week:

So how’s everyone doing? Any good books come your way lately?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 14, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Greetings, folks, from the end of a busy week! I can’t promise I’ll be under less stress going forward, but my work life will be a little simpler, which is something! How’re you all doing?

Books acquired:

Cover of Stormblood by Jeremy Szal Cover of Witchmark by C.L. Polk

Early birthday presents from Portal Bookshop! 💙 I have actually read Witchmark before and liked but didn’t love it, but something’s been itching at me lately and I’d like to try it again — and read the rest of the series. So this was lovely.

Books read this week:

Cover of Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky Cover of Burning the Books by Richard Evenden Cover of The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler Cover of The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead

Reviews posted this week:

Giveaways:

  • Worldwide Book Giveaway: I’ll be choosing one random person who replies to this tweet to receive one book of their choice. I’ll do the draw on the 21st.
  • UK Book Giveaway: I’m choosing three random people who respond to this tweet to receive a book of their choice via Portal Bookshop. Plus, some other folks are signing up to buy a random person a book, so I think so far there are five chances to win. Also drawn on the 21st!
  • Buy Someone A Book: If you’re interested in joining in with buying a book for a random Twitter user, you can sign up to join in by replying to this tweet. When the time comes, I’ll pick a random winner for you, and get you two connected so you can sort out the purchase. I’ll let you know who you’re buying for on the 21st, with the help of my trusty RNG.

And that’s everything!

So, any good books joined your TBR this week? Thrown any books against the wall in anger? How’s reading going in general?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted August 8, 2021 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Welp, busy week here. I keep hoping that “next week” will be less bumpy, but it never seems to be true. Ah well!

Received to review:

Cover of The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler

I had this on my wishlist, and then spotted that I was auto-approved by the publisher on Netgalley, so… here we go!

Books read this week:

Cover of Sea People by Christina Thompson Cover of Black Water Sister by Zen Cho Cover of Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Reviews posted this week:

Aaaand that’s all for this week! How’s everyone doing?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted July 31, 2021 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Gooood evening! I had a busy day of, um, questing on FFXIV… so I’m only just setting up this post now. Not that I have much to report! No new books, and only a couple of books read.

Books read this week:

Cover of Calamity in Kent by John Rowland Cover of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover of Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan

Reviews posted this week:

Aaand that’s it for me, for this week. How’s everyone doing?

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