Greetings from my graduation day! This is very late, but I’ve had a long day. I have successfully added a fourth qualification to my collection (BA Hons, BSc Hons, MA, and now  MSc) — gotta catch ’em all, right? Right…?

What have you recently finished reading?

I snagged a copy of Japanese Dress in Detail from the V&A museum yesterday, and read it that evening! Like the other books in this series I’ve read, it was pretty interesting; maybe my favourite part was reading about firefighters’ dress, which was wadded both for protection and so it could be soaked with water for protection.

Before that, I finished Steve Roud’s Folk Song in England, which was slow and thorough, and an enjoyable survey of both the history of folk song and (necessary to understand it) the history of collecting folk songs.

What are you currently reading?

I just started on Stephanie Boonstra and Campbell Price’s Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries, which I picked up at the Petrie Museum. I haven’t got very far in, though!

I have several other books on the go, including Emma Southon’s Servus, R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis and Nicola Whyte’s Murder Like Clockwork. I’m furthest into the latter, and I’d love to finish it this evening, though it’s a PDF only advance copy so I can only read it on my laptop, which is a bit at odds with my desire to become one with the nearest horizontal surface (the hotel bed) after a long day.

What will you be reading next?

It’s a good bet I’ll start on Twentieth-Century Fashion in Detail, another of the books from the V&A soon! Possibly even tonight. That won’t keep me occupied very long, though. I brought a bunch of the books I’m meant to be reading for my BookSpinBingo card with me, so maybe one of those!

What have you recently finished reading?

Volume 13 of the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua adaptation was the last thing I finished, I think! I enjoyed the adaptation quite a bit, it helped cement things in my head a bit more and give me more of an idea how things look (being totally aphantasic, I don’t imagine things in the way other people do). It’s still not my favourite MXTX story, but it was enjoyable in its own way.

What are you currently reading?

Oh boy. Let’s think. The last one I picked up was Steve Roud’s Folk Song in England, which is dense and slow going, but I would like to finish it before my graduation trip — if only so we don’t have to haul such a big book with us! I’m enjoying it, though; the far-away and petty-sounding arguments of the early folk song collectors are mildly entertaining, and the things they wrestled with are useful to understand.

I also started on R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis last night. I don’t feel like I have a good handle on what I’ll think of it yet, but it certainly feels like it has an axe to grind about the postgraduate experience at Cambridge, and abusive/careless advisors.

I’m also slowly easing into Joseph Shearing’s Airing in a Closed Carriage, which is a classic crime novel reissued this month by the British Library Crime Classics series, and definitely the chunkiest book they’ve published. It’s slow going, because it’s setting up a story based heavily on a real murder case, in which Florence Maybrick was accused of killing her husband. I really want to read up more on that case to get the context for this, really.

At the weekend, I started on T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart, and really want to get back to it. It feels like the male protagonist/presumably love interest (given the pattern of these books) maybe isn’t quite such a typical paladin as many of the other male protagonists? But of course I’m not far in and it’s all been from Halla’s perspective so far; we’ll see.

That’s still not quite it, but we’ll stop there, because the rest are pretty much on pause.

What will you be reading next?

An Opinionated Guide to London Museums (Emmy Watts) and An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops (Sonya Barber and James Manning), somewhat on a whim. I won’t be in London that long for my graduation next week, and we do have some tentative plans already… but that includes a day of bookshopping and potentially some extra time to look at museums, so I thought I’d do a little research.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Gryffin Murphy’s Twig’s Traveling Tomes, which I got as an ARC via Netgalley. The romance didn’t really work for me, since it felt a bit too much like insta-love and I didn’t feel the chemistry, but the book magic was pretty fun. I’d love to have magic that can tell me the perfect book for someone I don’t even know; that sounds pretty darn cool.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, I have a couple of books on the go. My current non-fiction read is a chonker by Steve Roud, Folk Song in England. I’ve been a fan of folk music since I was a teen, though Roud is using a stricter definition that excludes singers like Seth Lakeman or bands like Bellowhead (who have done modern interpretations of traditional folk songs, often with a decidedly non-traditional sound). He draws a line at the 1950s and declines to discuss modern stuff for the purposes of his work. Still interesting to me, since many of these traditional songs are sources for the modern folk singers I’ve enjoyed.

I also settled into a classic mystery yesterday while feeling sorry for myself about my dentist visit: Michael Gilbert’s Sky High, which enjoyably features a comfortably middle-aged lady who rides a motorbike, manages the choir, and has some clever ideas about amateur detection. After the last book of Gilbert’s I read (Death in Captivity) I was kind of putting this off in case it was similarly grim, but though it’s haunted by war, it doesn’t have the same feel. I’m enjoying it well enough so far!

What will you be reading next?

If I told you, I’d have to kill you…

Nope, as so often, I have no real idea. I’m trying to clear the decks a bit since I’m going to have a few days in London at the end of the month, and undoubtedly that will mean getting some new books. I have a challenge for 2026 (that worked well in 2025) not to have more than 20 books bought in 2026 that I haven’t started yet, plus a goal of generally reading more books than I buy to slowly chip away at the backlog, so I want to create some space there. That means I’ll probably read the rest of the MDZS manhua volumes I have, and maybe start on a couple more ARCs.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was George the Poet’s Part of a Story That Started Before Me, a reflection on Black British history through poetry. It has introductions to most sections explaining what we know about Black people in a given period, some of which I didn’t know about already, so it was a worthwhile read for that alone. I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the selections, admittedly, though some of the poems have a heck of a rhythm to them — you can practically hear them spoken, you can’t help it — which was fun.

What are you currently reading?

I finished a lot of the books I had on the go, so I’m onto pastures new! I just started reading James Fox’s Craftland, though so far I’ve only read through (most of) a chapter about dry stone walls and the work that goes into repairing those. I’m curious what other almost-lost crafts he’ll discuss.

I’m also reading the February British Library Crime Classic, Carol Carnac’s The Double Turn. It feels very much an E.C.R. Lorac novel so far, though since it’s under her other name, I think the detectives are likely to hit quite different to her usual MacDonald. I prefer him, somehow; he’s a very humane, ideal detective.

What will you read next?

Probably Uketsu’s Strange Buildings, which is just out. I’ve been anticipating it for a while, and it arrived today, so it’d be nice to dig in right away.

Other than that, I don’t know, though I have my new Book Spin Bingo card ready… so maybe something from that, so I don’t end up reading nine books in one day again as I did on Saturday, stubbornly finishing February’s card.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished up The Keeper of Magical Things the day before yesterday; I didn’t love it as much as I loved Julie Leong’s previous book, because I felt the magic was a little less interesting (or a bit less of a unique angle, anyway). Still, it was cute and fun, and I’m glad I finally settled in and got round to it!

What are you currently reading?

A few books at once, as always. I’ve finally got back to Heather Fawcett’s Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter; I’d actually hoped to finish it yesterday, but I didn’t manage to settle down into quiet reading time early enough to have a chance. I still think it has such Howl’s Moving Castle vibes.

I’m also now reading Selena Wisnom’s The Library of Ancient Wisdom, which I started a while back and then stalled on because it was quite dense and I was in the middle of exams. It’s really interesting, because working from the starting point of discussing the library of Ashurbanipal means the author is able to dig into various aspects of ancient Mesopotamian beliefs and knowledge. I didn’t know (for instance) that they were actually really good on hygiene and quarantining the sick: it might sound a little patronising to be surprised that they washed their hands with soap and had good hygiene around sick people, but when you consider that in the 1800s Ignaz Semmelweis was treated as a literal madman for suggesting washing your hands between doing autopsies and delivering babies… welp.

What will you be reading next?

Definitely Molly O’Neill’s Nightshade and Oak, and probably also Martha Wells’ Platform Decay, since they’re both on my BookSpinBingo list! I’ve been more into reading again in the last couple of days, so I’m still hopeful of finishing most of it.

What have you recently finished reading?

Other than my ongoing Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua read, the last thing I finished was Nicholas Jubber’s Monsterland, which was not quite my thing. It was much more into the travelogue aspect than I was, and while I understand that it added “authenticity” and “local flavour”, and was genuinely a good way for the author to gather information from the people the customs actually belong to… it’s not something I enjoy for its own sake. I did like the folklore it picked, though, and the fact that it went on to discuss modern monsters.

As far as MDZS goes, we just had the flashback about the destruction of Jiang Cheng’s golden core, and in the present we’re heading to the Burial Mounds. Lan Xichen stubbornly believes in Jin Guangyao, and my heart hurts already, since I know the story now.

What are you currently reading?

I just started on Julie Leong’s The Keeper of Magical Things, which is fun so far, though I’m not very far into it. I really enjoyed The Teller of Small Fortunes, and I’m enjoying that the protagonist of this one also has a magic that seems quite small. I’m wondering how Leong is going to play with that, and hoping that it’s a similarly interesting take.

As ever, I have a few other books on the go at once, including Alice Roberts’ Domination, with which I’m going relatively slowly. I keep losing the thread… I like her work, but the topic just doesn’t interest me, sadly.

I’m also still reading Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, or more accurately, I still need to get back into reading it. It’s fun! I’m enjoying it! But I put it down for a bit and then life intervened a bit, and now I need to find my way back into it.

What will you be reading next?

I want to keep on with rereading Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills books, since I have an ARC of the new one, so I’ll be rereading The Brides of High Hill next.

Other than that, I need to really get to work on reading the books I lined up for Book Spin Bingo this month. Maybe I’ll finally start on KJ Charles’ How to Fake it in Society, even if I’m already cringing at the idea of the fallout of the characters’ bad choices already laid out in the blurb. I know I’ll enjoy it when I get started, and that Charles likely handles it more subtly than I’m imagining, buuuut seeing the probable third act breakup coming from this far away is a bit of a kicker to me.

What have you recently finished reading?

Several volumes of the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua! I’m quite enjoying it, because having read the light novel recently, it’s helping the plot and characters fall into place, little details I didn’t notice are popping out, and stuff I couldn’t picture (due to having aphantasia) is, well, right there, by the very nature of the medium. I’m on the Yi City arc, having my heart broken all over again.

What are you currently reading?

A couple of things, but most actively it’s Alice Roberts’ Domination: The Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity. So far it’s low on Roman Empire and high on Celtic Christianity, largely using sources like hagiographies and place names, which is a bit slow. The next section says it’s about archaeology, though, and I look forward to that — I’ve loved Roberts’ books like Ancestors and Crypt, and I think the archaeology is likely to be a strong point of the book.

It’s fundamentally not my interest, though — I’m more reading it because I like Roberts’ other books — so I imagine I’ll be working through it for a while.

What will you be reading next?

Needless to say, it’ll be more of the MDZS manhua… but other than that, I hope to get back to Heather Fawcett’s Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, and maybe Molly O’Neill’s Nightshade & Oak, since both of them are books I received to review.

Excitingly I also have the next Singing Hills novella by Nghi Vo, so that might jump the queue.

What have you recently finished reading?

I’ve mostly only found time for reading poetry at the moment, now I’m back at work and catching up on stuff. So yesterday I fit in reading Chris McCabe’s Hedonism, a collection which I chose to read believing I wouldn’t really like it (based on the blurb). True enough, there were a bunch of poems I didn’t get or didn’t really like, but there were also a number I really liked, and lines in ones I didn’t like that I still thought were superb. I couldn’t entirely tell you what “the self-hauntedness of Tony Blair” means, but it rings true all the same…

What are you currently reading?

I’m working my way through Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems at a pace of a couple of chapters a day, during breaks. I’m really enjoying it, both the chapters on poems I know well (like ‘The Battle of Maldon’, large chunks of which I translated during my undergrad English Lit degree) and ones I know less well, like one written during the war between Stephen and Matilda.

I’ve also started reading Syou Ishida’s We’ll Prescribe You A Cat, which I’m enjoying well enough — so far it feels very of a piece with books like Before the Coffee Gets Cold in style, audience and intent, and thus not quite 100% my thing, but something I can appreciate for what it is all the same.

What will you be reading next?

No idea. I’ve been struggling to devote much time to reading at the moment, during my time off and especially now with more limited time during work. Scheduling breaks for reading time during work seems to help, but it’s a sadly fragmentary way of reading. Not sure where my reading mojo went, but I’m also not going to try to twist my own arm about it.

Most likely I’ll read another collection of poetry by Mimi Khalvati, or something else randomly chosen from the National Poetry Library’s available online loans.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was the first volume of the official English translation of the Heaven Official’s Blessing manhua. STARember’s art is gorgeous, and it’s a really nice edition. Before that, I finished Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites, which was okay but focused more on people’s reaction to meteorites than I was entirely interested in — I’m more into the science side of things (and even then, it’s not really one of my major interests). So not entirely what I was looking for, but a fun enough read.

What are you currently reading?

I have a few books on the go, but I’ve been kinda bouncing around and not super focused. The ones I’d like to sit down and finish today are Lisa Shearin’s The Grendel Affair — the title of which is annoyingly spoilery, and really should’ve been something else to my mind — and volume one of Priest’s Guardian. I’m close to finishing both.

I don’t think I’ll read the sequel to The Grendel Affair, because it just doesn’t stand out against other urban fantasy enough for me, but I’ll continue reading Guardian unless it weirdly jumps the shark in the last 70 pages. I have some theories about what’s happening, and there’s a nice simmering sense of longing going on, so looking forward to finishing it up and getting the next volume.

What will you be reading next?

I don’t really know, because I’ve been finding it hard to settle down to anything. I think I’ll probably focus on finishing up T. Kingfisher’s Snake-eater, which I was enjoying, and then perhaps focus on reading some of the manhwa and manhua I’ve been piling up.

Buuuut, as ever, it’ll be whatever I feel like in the moment.

What have you recently finished reading?

I was kinda struggling to finish anything for a bit, but last night I did finish volume five of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa! It’s juuust getting beyond the bit I read in the light novels so far, so things are heating up; I did expect this plot twist somewhat, but it’s fun to see my theories confirmed.

Before that, the last thing I finished was an ARC of Molly Tanzer’s And Side by Side They Wandered, which I found really interesting, albeit very obviously referencing the antics of the British Museum.

What are you currently reading?

Last night I started a bunch of books at once trying to find something that fit, and I think I found some winners! I’m first going to finish up C.L. Clark’s Fate’s Bane, which is a novella; I’m curious where it’s going, and the shortish chapters are really tugging me through it. I also started T. Kingfisher’s Snake-eater, which is likely to be a quick read for me because I find most of Kingfisher’s work pretty compulsive.

I also started volume one of Priest’s Guardian, though I don’t have a good sense for where that’s going yet, so I need a bit more time to get sucked in, and Nicholas Jubber’s Monsterland, which I’m probably going to read a bit at a time, since it’s non-fiction and structured in a way that lends itself to that, with separate chapters for different kinds of monsters/superstitions/etc.

I’m also slowly working my way through Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites, and would like to finish that soon, and I have a volume of the Solo Leveling novels part-read. Clearly I’ve been a bit flighty lately!

What will you read next?

I’m not entirely sure. I’m likely to read more of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa quite soon, and I picked up the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua as well, which is high on my list. Seamus Sullivan’s Daedalus is Dead is looking tempting too, since it’s a novella and maybe suited to my current attention span.

But as ever, it’ll be wherever my whim takes me in the moment!