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?

Uhoh, where do I start? Okay, so last night (well, Monday night, since I’m writing this on Tuesday evening) I started reading Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair, because I read The Gallows in the Greenwood at the weekend and felt like maybe reading another of her books was indicated. Also, someone on Goodreads said the main character’s gender is never revealed, so I was a bit intrigued about how that was handled. They must have a very different copy from me, because Torin is definitely a guy in my copy.

Then on the train I started rereading Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary & Rue, because my wife is mainlining that series right now and I need to reread and then get onto reading the ones I haven’t read yet. Devin is a creep, such a creep, ughh. Then I also started Think Like An Anthropologist, by Matthew Engelke, because it sounded interesting and it totally leapt into my bag of my own accord while I was in St Pancras today.

And then I arrived at my parents’, where my copy of Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw was waiting, so of course I dived right in and I just got to the part with the pastry-baking demon, and I just love these books so much.

What have you recently finished reading?

I think the last thing I finished was probably Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice, a reread I engaged in for a) pure fun and b) because I knew I’d be getting my paws on Dreadful Company. I also read Leonard Mlodinow’s Subliminal, but that was kind of disappointing and pretty much the same as every other book on the weird way humans actually think.

What will you be reading next?

Once I’ve finished Dreadful Company, I’ll focus back in on Rosemary & Rue, and then after that there’s the whole October Daye series to be dived into. Other than that, I would like to polish off something from my backlog, so I’ll probably pick up Blackout by Mira Grant and finally finish that. I’ve had a bookmark in the first chapter for far too long now. On the other hand, A Study in Honor just hit my ereader. I’d forgotten that I preordered it but I’m excited.

So yeah, that’s me. How about you?

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?

The Zoo, by Isobel Charman: it’s not exactly “wild and wonderful”, as the subtitle goes, but it’s still quite an interesting reconstruction of history. It probably takes too many liberties in imagining what the real people it follows thought and felt, but it’s entertaining enough.

I’m also partway through rereading The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. That’s as entertaining as you’d expect, and I’m looking forward to finally getting onto the fourth book, The Lost Plot.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Crooked Kingdom. Everyone who told me it picks up halfway through was right — yeesh, I barely put it down after I got just past 50%. At first it felt like Kaz’s team just weren’t coming together properly to pull things off, but once they figured things out… Also, ouch, that ending. Ouch.

What will you be reading next?

Record of a Spaceborn Few is out, so I’m thinking of rereading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit first, because that’s how I roll. Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw is also about to come out, so I want to reread Strange Practice as well, but I’ll probably read Small Angry Planet again first.

What about you?

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 working my way through The Planet Factory, by Elizabeth Tasker. It’s interesting stuff, of course — it’s about the formation of planets! how could that not be fascinating! — but I’m finding it a little slow going because it’s hard to grasp some of this stuff. There are some diagrams, but not enough to compensate for the fact I totally can’t visualise any of this stuff, and I think it does require visualising. Add the succession of hot Jupiters, super Earths and whatnot, and I’m a little bit at sea.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing was An Accident of Stars, which took me far too long to read, and I don’t really know why that is. There’s lots that I enjoyed about it, but whenever I put it down, it didn’t scream out for me to pick it back up. Although I’m very curious about some aspects of the ending, so maybe I’ll pick up the second book in more of a hurry. We’ll see.

What will you read next?

According to a Twitter poll, I’m pretty sure it’s Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’m already a few hundred pages into it, if I recall correctly, so this will be an effort to finish it — there are some fascinating ideas, even if I don’t really have characters that I’m all that interested in (and that’s often what keeps me reading).

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?

The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. I didn’t expect to find it quite this captivating, actually, but somehow it’s really moreish. The dichotomy between the design work for the World’s Fair in Chicago and what H.H. Holmes is doing is kind of jarring, even though the one informs the other, but somehow it works anyway. I’m very curious about Larson’s other work now: none of it sounds like it’d appeal to me a ton on the surface, but there’s something about his writing…

What have you recently finished reading?

The Notting Hill Mystery, by Charles Warren Adams. It was one of the first detective novels, and the fact that there’s no established conventions does show a bit. It’s an interesting bit of writing, though. The plot revolves around mesmerism and the bond between twins; a little far-fetched, perhaps, but a fun read, even with the stuffier bits.

What will you be reading next?

As ever, goodness knows. I should probably get on with one of the books I’ve already started — like, you know, Revenant Gun — but Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith is kinda tempting me. I only bought it this weekend, but I have a grasshopper mind.

What are you reading at the moment?

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?