What have you recently finished reading?

Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 8, which has a cruel, cruel cliffhanger! I can’t believe the next volume isn’t slated to come out until March, arrghhh.

Before that, it was volume one of Liu Gou Hua’s After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine, which I had quite a bit of fun with. It’s a slower burn than the other danmei I’ve been reading recently, but the feelings are starting to develop and I’m very curious about where it will go exactly.

What are you currently reading?

The only book I am currently actively reading is Natasha Tidd’s A Short History of the World in 50 Lies. I’m finding it kind of suspect due to a couple of basic/silly errors, like referring to Geoffrey of Monmouth as “Monmouth”. The fact that he’s called Geoffrey of Monmouth is like literally saying “Geoffrey from Monmouth”, as opposed to “Geoffrey from Caerphilly”. In most contexts you’re not going to then refer to them as “Monmouth” and “Caerphilly”, and indeed, scholars just say “Geoffrey” after the first time they’ve specified “Geoffrey of Monmouth” (unless it’s unclear due to multiple Geoffreys, in which case they say, you guessed it, “Geoffrey of Monmouth”).

Anyway it’s something that I was taught in undergraduate English literature would be a terribly silly mistake to make, and would have my examiners carefully looking to see what else I goofed up or didn’t understand, and thus it has been with me and this book. My grasp on most of this history is thin, so I haven’t caught any other errors, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. I’m probably being a bit too generous in finishing it, but I love this non-fic format and am always so susceptible…

What will you be reading next?

I have, for once, very firm plans! I want to finish up reading Emma Southon’s Servus and Gareth Russell’s Queen James, which are both chunky non-fiction, while also rereading Jordan L. Hawk’s Widdershins (much lighter) and getting started on Becky Chambers‘ As You Wake, Break the Shell.

On a separate note, because I’ve tweaked something, I want to warn that tomorrow I’ll probably do a test post. I’m sorry if that ends up spamming anyone’s email! Honestly most likely you won’t get an email at all, because this thing’s been broken for ages and this isn’t a very likely fix, but it’s worth trying.

What have you recently finished reading?

I got an ARC of Sally Smith’s newest Gabriel Ward novel, A Case of Fear and Favour, and fairly leapt upon it. I didn’t get to dig in much until yesterday because I was finishing other books, but then I sped through it. I do love Gabriel and his fussy ways, and his slow opening up to the world. He is so fundamentally decent, and works so hard when he has a duty, even if he’s also kind of stuffy and privileged and shut away from the world.

Before that, the last thing I finished was Suzanne Palmer’s Ode to the Half-Broken, which I also liked a lot; I thought it maybe could’ve been a liiiiittle bit tighter, because with all the chasing here and there the page count really stretched out. But I enjoyed how hopeful it was, and how the protagonist grows.

What are you currently reading?

You know the drill: a number of books all at once! Most actively, Peter Parsons’ City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, which is about papyri found in the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchos. I wish it would focus a little more on the papyri themselves, rather than reporting information we know because of them without explaining exactly where the info came from, but it’s interesting all the same.

Other than that, I’m still working on Jon Cannon’s The Stones of Britain, and I’ve just barely started Fonda Lee’s The Last Contract of Isako.

What will you be reading next?

I just got a bunch of advance/complimentary copies from Hachette, including H.G. Parry’s The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood, which I’ve been super curious about, so chances are high I’ll dig into one of those. I did also get volume three of Lv Ye Qian He’s The Wife Comes First, which finishes the story, so I’ll probably dive straight on that tonight.

Plus… although the fourth volume of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint novel doesn’t seem to be out in paperback in the UK, it is available on Kobo. I’m not sure if I want to snag the ebook to read it sooner, because there’s something about the physical format that I like — can’t put my finger on it, maybe it’s the font or the way things are laid out… so I guess we’ll see how impatient I get, on that front!

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished up Daryl Gregory’s The Album of Dr Moreau almost in one go, which surprised me — it’s a novella, so I figured it’d be a quick read, but I wasn’t much in the mood for reading, so I wasn’t expecting it to grab me so well. It takes the premise fairly seriously, while also being somewhat playful — inevitable when you’re writing about a boy band made up of human-animal hybrids. I enjoyed the concept, though, and the mystery! I don’t think I’ve read anything by Daryl Gregory before, and now I’m definitely curious (though if I remember rightly none of his books immediately spoke to me, maybe I’m more tempted now).

What are you currently reading?

Let’s stick to the ones I have in my ‘active’ pile, though I have a lot of other books in various states of suspended animation. In no particular order, we have Suzanne Palmer’s Ode to the Half Broken, which I am enjoying quite a lot. Inevitably there’s something a bit reminiscent of Murderbot at first in a first-person narrative about a synthetic intelligence (albeit completely non-human) navigating the world, and you can imagine Murderbot being similarly cranky about losing a leg… but it’s definitely its own thing, too, and I am really enjoying this one. It’s one of the few books lately that I feel the itch to pick up, rather than nudging myself to pick it up: I enjoy books I read in the latter way, but it’s fun and special when it’s the former.

Next, I started on Carter Dickson’s The Magic-Lantern Murders; some of John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson’s work is decidedly not for me, and this is verging into that category. I feel like ‘Yakety Sax’ ought to be the soundtrack, is the problem: coincidences and near-slapstick scenes of chaos just… don’t work for me.

There’s also Jon Cannon’s The Stones of Britain, which I am enjoying inasfar as Cannon is having a ball thinking about geology and how that has shaped human settlements. It is not my interest, but he’s fascinated, and so it’s enjoyable.

Finally, volume two of Lv Ye Qian He’s The Wife Comes First, which I’m enjoying so far — albeit that Jing Shao really does deserve to sleep on the couch sometimes, and Mu Hanzhang shouldn’t let him get away with trying to be a big cute puppy of a man to get out of it. (Though it’s very cute.)

What will you be reading next?

I’m not sure what long-form stuff I’ll read next, but I’m definitely planning to read Sian Northey and Ness Owen’s bilingual poetry anthology Afonydd, not least because I’ve spent several days talking to StoryGraph’s support team to try to convince them to understand that searching the word “afonydd” should pull up a book called Afonydd, not 25 other items which contain only 3-4 of those characters in different orders, such as Rick Remender’s Deadly Class Volume 11: A Fond Farewell Part One or Deanne Dietz’s Hearts Held By Barbed Wire, which matches the search because it is #1 in her “Afton Adders” series.

(If you were wondering, they said thanks for the feedback and told me to add Welsh — a language I don’t speak, because English imperialism — to my profile in order to find the book. That doesn’t work, not least because the edition is listed as being in English, but also because, as stated, I don’t speak Welsh.)

I’m also interested because it’s bilingual: poems written in Welsh have been provided with an English translation, and those written in English with a Welsh translation. It seems like a lovely project, and I feel compelled to note that the book seems to be available on Kobo Plus, and you can find it on StoryGraph if you add Sian Northey’s name to your search. Wouldn’t it be lovely if more people a) read such a lovely and thoughtful project, and b) rated/reviewed it on StoryGraph to maybe convince them to care about their broken search?

What have you recently finished reading?

I’ve finally been getting through some books that’d been sort of paused for a while, so I finished up Charlotte Booth’s Lost Voices of the Nile and Stephanie Burgis’ Wooing the Witch Queen at last. That’s… a pretty weird mix, I’ll admit; Lost Voices of the Nile is a bit dry, but really interesting (to me, anyway; I never grew out of the obligatory childhood Egypt phase). Wooing the Witch Queen was pretty fun, too: I was pretty worried about the identity reveal part and whether it’d be a totally stupid third act breakup, but honestly, that wasn’t bad.

I also finished volume three of Mistakenly Saving the Villain, and I really wish it was October already so I could have the next/last book. It is unclear to me how everything’s going to work out, but wow. Things sure are messed up!

What are you currently reading?

I’m focusing on three books at the moment: one is Jon Cannon’s The Stones of Britain, which is soothing because I have no actual interest in geology or psychogeography, but Cannon is fascinated by stones and place and how the combination of the two have worked out, and someone else’s enthusiasm is (usually) very enjoyable to me.

I’ve also got back to Helen Pilcher’s Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth, almost none of which is coming as a surprise to me (nor would’ve when it was new), but is sort of soothing because of it.

And finally, I’ve got back to Carwyn Graves’ Welsh Food Stories, which is interesting enough so far; the importance of bread and cheese didn’t come as a surprise, but the chapter on cockles and other seafood was more unfamiliar.

What will you be reading next?

I’m not sure, but I’d like to add some fiction into the rotation with the other three. There are a few books I have already started that I could pick up, so I might just randomly reactivate one of those and see how I get along. Since I have 32 books marked as “paused” on StoryGraph… it’d probably be sensible.

That said, I do also have some ARCs I should get to or should’ve got to already, so maaaybe one of those — Fonda Lee’s The Last Contract of Isako, maybe, or John Wiswell’s The Dragon Has Some Complaints.

Technically it’s now Thursday, but pfft, doesn’t count as a new day until I’ve slept, right?!

What have you recently finished reading?

Cassandra Khaw’s Find Me Where It Ends, which I’m going to find difficult to review and talk about because it’s profoundly a book I don’t think it was a good idea for me to read. It’s about suicide, and while there’s an amount of metaphor going on with the black dog that shows up to let the women of Antigone’s family know they’re going to die, and the fact that she welcomes it into her home… it’s also very much not a metaphor, and suicide is woven through the whole book. Read with care if you have any mental health issues — if I thought too hard about this one I know I’d end up feeling very, very anxious, and those who struggle with low mood and suicidal ideation might struggle as well.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve actually finished most of the books I was rotating through, and am about to figure out the next batch to be on deck. The only one I didn’t finish yet that I’ve got a decent way into is Charlotte Booth’s Voices of the Nile. A lot of the info is familiar to me, but then there are titbits that aren’t, e.g. the discussion of same-sex relationships in ancient Egypt and the theories around the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum.

I suspect that the other in-progress books I’m going to resume are Stephanie Burgis’ Wooing the Witch Queen, which I anticipate being fun but maybe a bit agonising for me with the mistaken identity thing and waiting for that to be found out, and Carwyn Graves’ Welsh Food Stories. I’m very curious about the latter, since I only really know bara brith (sort of like fruitcake), picau ar y maen (Welsh cakes) and cawl (soup).

What will you be reading next?

Probably volume three of Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain, which just came out and is even now winging its way to me, and/or volume two of Lv He Qian Ye’s The Wife Comes First. I’m eager about both. There’s also an outside chance I’ll read volume three of Priest’s Guardian, which I also just got and completes that series.

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words again!

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Jean-Yves Mollier’s A History of Booksellers and the Bookshop, which was quite focused on the history of French bookselling — not something I really know a lot about, and though the trends are different to those in the UK that I’m (slightly) more familiar with, there was a lot of new information. A bit dry, but overall interesting!

What are you currently reading?

I’m rotating through several books at once, which is working really well for me. Most prominent in my mind at the moment are A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, singNsong’s Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint vol 3, and E.C.R. Lorac’s The Last Escape. I’m enjoying all three. The chapter on Gay’s the Word discussing the police raids, and the following chapter on the vital role queer bookshops played in giving people information about AIDs really choked me up.

As for Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, I’m not far into the volume, but it’s fun to remember that it’s narrated by Dokja and does give a bit more of an insight into what he’s thinking than the manhwa.

Finally, I started The Last Escape on a bit of a whim. It’s actually chronologically the last book about Inspector Macdonald, but so far it doesn’t feel like it (even if he’s planning for his retirement). It’s very much of a piece with the other books set in Lunesdale, though.

What will you be reading next?

Probably The Wife Comes First vol 2, because my wife kindly grabbed that for me the very day after I finished the first volume, and I’m definitely enjoying it.

Other than that, I’m not sure: probably something from my 20 Books of Summer list, and/or a return to something I’ve had started for a while.

But, as ever… it depends on my whim.

Linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters, which was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I found the world-building a bit goofy: these people literally eat books, like… chew and swallow them. And that transmits the information into their brains somehow? But someone within the story refuses to call that magic, and other stuff frames it as biological? Yeah… no. That’s not how any of that works. If it’d just called it magic, I’d have got along with it a lot better — but then other stuff wouldn’t have worked so well.

On the other hand, the discussion of monstrousness and motherly love and family, all of that was pretty powerful and well done.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve started even more books at once, because it sparked joy in the moment, so I’ll mostly highlight those! I started two queer books and one about booksellers, and the three of them are additive in interesting ways: A.K. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, Jean-Yves Mollier’s A History of Booksellers and the Bookshop, and Harry Tanner’s The Queer Thing About Sin. The latter has a premise I’m very curious about, that acceptance of queer relationships is stronger when there’s higher levels of economic and political equality; I hope Tanner carries it through the book and reflects on it more, because I’d like to see more evidence than just ancient Greek city-states.

I also started on volume one of Lv Ye Qian He’s The Wife Comes First, which is leaning into court intrigue type stuff that I’m very curious about. Jing Shao definitely didn’t deserve Mu Hanzhang’s loyalty in his past life, and I’m wondering whether it’ll ever show us why Mu Hanzhang was so loyal. Either way, I’m enjoying Jing Shao’s eagerness to please Mu Hanzhang now that he understands how amazing he is.

What will you read next?

I got a couple of poetry collections by Mary Oliver at the weekend, and Fred Fordham’s graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea, so those are high on my list! I also need to get round to some of my library books, like Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, because the library wants them back.

Here we are again! As usual lately, trying linking up with Taking on a World of Words.

What have you recently finished reading?

I haven’t finished anything in a few days; I’m trying not to stress about that and just let my brain do a bit of a reset, because I have been reading… just not necessarily focusing on finishing books. Looks like the last thing I finished was How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside, by Brian Bilston: it’s ostensibly a guide to writing and enjoying poetry, but it largely felt like a platform for Brian Bilston to show off his poetry and humour. That might work better for others, but I didn’t enjoy it a lot.

What are you currently reading?

A bunch of books at once, as ever, but with a decent amount of enthusiasm now, which is a relief. I most recently started John Darnell and Colleen Darnell’s Egypt’s Golden Couple; so far I’m raising an eyebrow slightly at their stated decision to take “the small liberty of providing the royal couple with personal quirks”. I’m giving it some time, especially as the bibliographical essays in the back do show sources, but I do hope the speculative/invented stuff is clearly flagged up.

I’ve also got started on volume two of Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain, and I’m eager to see how the relationship develops now that some time has passed and Yue Wuhuan has gained more power and confidence.

I diiiid also start on Moorea Corrigan’s Thistlemarsh, but haven’t got far with that, and am knee-deep in Hal Rubenstein’s 100 Unforgettable Dresses, too many of which I find kinda forgettable. Mostly I think it’s not as focused on fashion history and what fashion tells us as I’m interested in, and more on “dresses make women beautiful”, with a dip in the last few entries I read into beliefs that all women want to look beautiful (implied: in a dress), so, yeah, not entirely my thing.

What will you read next?

I just got this month’s British Library Crime Classic via my subscription, and this month’s is a short story collection: Puzzles of the Parish, focusing on stories around churches and clergy (I expect at least one appearance of Father Brown). I often end up gobbling up the short story collections, and they’re a nice range of different authors/periods/styles, so I might well pick this up next.

Linking up with Taking On A World of Words.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finally got round to finishing Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen! I enjoyed it a lot: it doesn’t actually focus on the various royal women it references, but on the craftspeople who created their clothes and accessories, repaired them, laundered them, sorted them, packed them for journeys, etc. Sometimes there’s not a lot of information out there, but Strasdin did a pretty good job of pulling together what there is, I think.

What are you currently reading?

I still have a ridiculous stack of books I’m supposedly partway through, but I did a bit of reorganising and paused some that I wasn’t really getting anywhere with, so I’m hoping to feel a biiiit more in control and less overwhelmed with that. So I’ll just talk about the two I’ve picked up in the last two days!

First, a random pick that I’d added via Kobo Plus at some point: Marilyn Johnson’s The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries, which is mostly a deep dive into the lives and thoughts of obituarists she admires, with examples of their work and how it influence obituaries as a form. I’m getting a little bored with it now, but it has been a mostly interesting read.

I also started a book I put on hold at the library and forgot about until it actually came in, Brian Bilston’s How to Lay An Egg with a Horse Inside, which is about writing and enjoying poetry (and by enjoying poetry, so far it mostly means the process of writing it). I know nothing about Bilston and only realised I’d read one of his poems (“On ‘;..p'[[[[[[[[[[[[[;’;////////////////////////3,’“, about his cat’s “poetry”) when he included it here. It’s a mostly tongue-in-cheek musing on poetry that so far has offered nothing new or insightful as far as writing or enjoying poetry goes, but it’s mildly entertaining and I will probably finish in it.

What will you be reading next?

Not a clue, but volume two of Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain is a possibility, as is finally getting round to Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint vol 3. We’ll see — at the moment it’s pretty much whatever gets me reading, so I might also dip into the randomness of the books that turned out to be available on Kobo Plus, got added to my Kobo, and haven’t been thought of since.

Linking up with Taking On A World of Words.

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I pretty much mainlined volume one of Mistakenly Saving the Villain (Feng Yu Nie), and… this is why I hesitate to start series which haven’t been finished or fully released in translation or whatever reason there might be for me not being able to read the whole thing. I did order volume two, which is out, but volume three isn’t until the end of June, and volume four not until autumn. Sob!

As you can guess, I had fun with it — Song Qingshi and Yue Wuhuan are completely unhinged about each other, even while Song Qingshi is kinda oblivious to why either of them are that way. I am suspicious of everything about An Long, and very curious where other things are going. I will probably read volume two pretty soon after it arrives — or I hope so, anyway; I can’t always keep up the momentum.

What are you currently reading?

I’m actually currently in a state where I’m technically reading a lot of books, in that they’re marked as “currently reading”, but I haven’t touched any of them in a little bit. I think my next target to try to focus on and finish is John Dickson Carr’s The Unicorn Murders, which was this month’s British Library Crime Classic and should be a fun one. I slightly stalled at first because the main character pretty much launched the book by lying about something kinda high stakes (pretending he is indeed a spy when a mistake is made by an old acquaintance), and I hate that… but it’s classic crime, so, you know, the emotional part of things is likely to be skated over reasonably lightly. It’ll be fiiiine (they said, in hopeful tones).

What will you be reading next?

I think I’m going to try to focus to get the currently reading pile under control, really. It feels pretty blocked-up and like it’s unfun to have so many books on the go. Some of it might be being realistic and going “clearly it isn’t the time for this book” and deciding to DNF or put it back onto the TBR. Some of it might just be picking something to focus on — like Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen, which I am in fact pretty enthusiastic about!