The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

I’m partway through Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel, part of rereading the Themis Files books. I picked it up intending to read a few sections and then go to sleep. That did not happen. I read something like 200 pages. It’s just so compulsive — you read one section and you think, ahh, what will one more hurt?

I’m pretty excited for the final book.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Sleeping Giants, but before that it was Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside. I can’t wait for that to be out to talk about it more and see other people’s reactions! I got so hooked on that, too. I’m not gonna say much about it, but I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a key before. My review’s posting sometime in the next week, so keep an eye out.

What will you be reading next?

I don’t know, but Only Human (Sylvain Neuvel) might be a good bet. I’m also partway through reading a bunch of other things, of course, like The Summer Tree and (oops, this has been on pause so long) Kushiel’s Chosen, and there’s Blackout (Mira Grant) to read, and, and…

Yep, plenty that I might read.

What are you reading right now?

My exams are over, and all is freedom and binging on books! The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Far too much, as ever, but most actively I’m finishing up rereads of Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, plus a first-time read of The Templars by Piers Paul Read — I am finding the latter interesting, but I doubt it’ll ever be a book I’d read over and over again! I think I originally picked it up because of my interest in learning the actual history behind the Assassin’s Creed games, but honestly it’s amazing how little Robert de Sable or the Assassins actually figure into it. It seems more like a general history of the Crusades than specifically focused on the Templars.

What have you recently finished reading?

I just finished Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom — now, I know the kneejerk reaction is to go “what the hell? Against empathy?“, but it really is worth a read, pointing out that in many cases, empathy is a poor guide of moral decisions. At its best, it can focus the spotlight of our attention on something worthy — but it’s also true that then the spotlight isn’t focused on something else equally worthy. Bloom isn’t saying there’s anything bad about compassion (in fact, he advocates it), only that the idea we’ll attain moral perfection by feeling each other’s feelings seems to be a little unfortunate.

What will you be reading next?

Goodness only knows. I might pick up Jacqueline Carey’s Starless (blog tour post for that coming later today!) or I might just go completely off-piste. I’ve been tempted to read The Prisoner of Zenda, to get the proper background for reading K.J. Charles queer rewriting of it — maybe it’ll be that! I don’t know.

What are you reading?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Far too much at once! I’ve decided exam time is a terrible time for self-restraint, so I’m dipping in and out of a whole stack: Revenant Gun (Yoon Ha Lee), Murder in Piccadilly (Charles Kingston), The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Cat Valente), Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky) and The Shadow in the North (Philip Pullman). I accidentally picked up Revenant Gun just this morning and started racing through it; I shall send Yoon Ha Lee a stern fan note if I fail my exams because of it.

(I won’t actually fail my exams.)

The Valente’s a reread, of course; I felt like I needed something fun. Children of Time is newly picked up, mostly because it fell off my shelf at me, and who can argue with fate? I’m fascinated, I’ll admit. Speculative biology is a thing I can get behind. (I’m not sure how the virus could possibly work, though. Must be a DNA virus; RNA viruses don’t have good proofreading mechanisms, there’d be no way at all to control the behaviour of the virus over generations — not even generations of primates, but viral generations. Not sure DNA viruses are that much better at proofreading either…)

What have you recently finished reading?

I picked up and reread Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke completely on a whim, in between one block of studying and another. I still enjoyed it a lot; it’s rather Penny Dreadful-ish itself, in some ways, and I’m not sure about all the Orientalism at all. Still, as a nostalgia read it’s a solid one, and Sally’s still amazing. O for half of her skill with numbers and steady hand (though she can keep the pistol).

What will you be reading next?

It would be daft to try and guess, I think. More of the Fairyland books, definitely; I also plan to reread Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar books (I know, it doesn’t sound comforting/soothing if you know how heartbreaking those books are, but they’re so familiar and from a totally different part of my academic career).

Other than that, I don’t know. Maybe Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside; I did bring it with me in hopes of getting stuck in. Or Arabella and the Battle of Venus… or…

So! What are you reading?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Too much at once, as ever, but really actively I’m reading Witchmark by C.L. Polk, which is fun and which I really need to give more attention to, and Hadrian’s Wall, by David J. Breeze and Brian Dobson, which is satisfying my brain with information I don’t have to remember. Have I mentioned I have exams coming up? I have exams coming up.

What have you recently finished reading?

My brain actually went totally blank about this. I think the last thing I finished might’ve been The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, a few days ago. I still need to collect my thoughts about that — I liked it, but not excessively. I did enjoy the fact that the characters were all squatters and travellers — not a perspective you see that often (at least in what I read).

What will you be reading next?

Endless flashcards with names of infectious diseases and lists of symptoms. But, uh, book-wise, I don’t really know. I might reread The Invisible Library, and have some good fun to distract my brain. Or I might just dig into Deadline, since I reread Feed for the sole purpose of getting back into reading that trilogy.

What are you reading?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Most actively, iiiiit’s Science and the City, by Lauren Winkless. It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it, but I’m finding it a little difficult to stay focused — a lot of it is no surprise to me, which is probably why. Other than that, I still have Kushiel’s Chosen, An Accident of Stars and How to Survive a Plague on the go, along with a reread of After Atlas. Oh, and Too Like the Lightning, which I really need to pick back up.

What have you recently finished reading?

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christoper de Hamel. Fascinating stuff — I doubt I’ll remember even a fifth of the details, but it’s still a magical read. Some of the manuscripts I knew a little about from doing medieval literature, but mostly it was all new to me. I was a little disappointed that de Hamel did mostly pick the pretty manuscripts. To me, Beowulf (for one) is far more interesting than a Book of Hours, whichever queen once owned it…

What will you be reading next?

I’m going to focus on getting down my currently reading list, so probably I’ll focus on An Accident of Stars. One can hope, anyway. I am really tempted by some other books, including some ARCs, though: Witchmark, Starless, The Poppy War…

But I’m trying to stay on task and get back to only having three or fewer books on the go at once!

What are you reading?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

I’m rereading Planetfall by Emma Newman, since Before Mars just arrived yesterday! I had to stop and take a break last night, though, because Newman is really far too good at portraying anxiety. Meep. I’m also reading How to Survive a Plague by David France, which is just heartwrenching. It’s quite dense, so I’m making slow progress, and maybe I’d like more on the science of AIDs — but it’s an important history, too.

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was Brimstone, by Cherie Priest. I liked it a lot in the end — I liked Tomas, with his sad gentleness, and I liked Alice, with her solid attitude to life and getting on with things (and having the occasional drink of bourbon, Prohibition be damned). And of course, her insistence on helping Tomas.

What will you be reading next?

Pretty sure I’ll be picking up Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells! I got the ARC on… Friday, but only just got chance to put it on my ereader, so I’ll be digging in soon. Other than that, I want to finish my reread of Planetfall, and hopefully go straight into a reread of After Atlas and then read Before Mars for the first time! I’m also planning to reread Mira Grant’s Feed and finally finish that trilogy, now I’ve got my wife reading it.

What are you reading right now?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Let’s see, what have I got in progress… I’m partway through Cherie Priest’s Brimstone, which I meant to read back when I got an ARC, but it always kept shuffling to the bottom of my pile somehow. I’ve got to 30% of the way through in a surprisingly short time; I’m definitely intrigued by the characters and how they’re going to come together.

I’m also still partway through An Accident of Stars, Kushiel’s Chosen and Too Like the Lightning. I know, I suck.

What have you recently finished reading?

Well, I just fled Brian Cox’s Universal, because though everything is really well explained, it still involves being able to clearly conceptualise numbers. If I have to, I can, but it’s not my favourite thing. So, that’s one book off the TBR.

In terms of actually finishing books, I think the last book I finished was my reread of Madam, Will You Talk? and before that, Sue Burke’s Semiosis, which I really need to put together my review of while it’s fresh in my mind. Short version: the narrative voices could have done with being more distinct, but otherwise I enjoyed the concepts explored.

What will you be reading next?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Well, no, obviously not, but I don’t really know where I’m going next. Maybe I’ll pick up Daggerspell for the Wyrd and Wonder readalong. (My mother is probably doing whatever adults do instead of a fistpump, having tried to make me read the Deverry books long ago. (I hope I’m misremembering the horrific homophobia, though I have read that there have been revisions now?)

What are you reading?

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

I’m rereading Exiled from Camelot, by Cherith Baldry. I wrote part of my MA dissertation on it, way back when I was still a lit student, so I have fond memories. Sometimes the emotion feels a bit… overwrought, though at other times it feels just right — and really, aren’t I just internalising the whole modern masculinity shtick? Kay can cry about Arthur if he wants to. (And he does. A lot.)

I’ve also picked up Kushiel’s Chosen, and currently Phèdre and Joscelin are breaking each others’ hearts. Which tells you absolutely nothing by way of where I am in the book, since they do that all the time.

What have you recently finished reading?

I read War for the Oaks over the weekend — that was pretty fun, felt like meeting October Daye and Kate Daniels’ grandma, kind of. I really liked it, actually; it doesn’t feel so unique since I’ve read urban fantasy that followed it first, but I get a sense of the energy around it and, yeah, very fun.

Today, I read A Long Day in Lychford, by Paul Cornell. Didn’t love it, but appreciated it a lot.

What will you be reading next?

I’m partway through Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer, so that’s probably what I’m going to read once Exiled from Camelot is finished. I’m not yet entirely sure what I make of it (it’s one of those that make me wonder if I’m smart enough/have enough background knowledge), but I was just getting into it at the point I stopped.

Also, The Brain Supremacy, by Kathleen Taylor — I’m in a challenge which takes on one Dewey Decimal category per month, and this month is 600-699, and that fits, so, woo.

What’re you reading?