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!

This week I’m gonna go back to trying to link up with folks doing WWW Wednesday via Taking On a World of Words! I didn’t get a lot of return comments or anything before, but still, it’s a nice way to read more blogs and maybe find more like-minded people myself.

What have you recently finished reading?

Unusually for me, it’s actually been a couple of days since I read anything at all, but I think the last thing I finished was volume ten of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa, which was (as ever) fun. I’m eager for big events, though: it feels like this volume was doing some setup, and when you think about what actually happened it was important, but… it didn’t feel like it got us much further forward.

What are you currently reading?

Assuming I get round to reading ever again, I want to focus on finishing Cecilia Edward’s An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating. It’s a bit too much on the romcom side for me, but I’m juuust curious enough to keep going with it. I knooow it’s meant to be funny, but I do find Thorn’s focus on using love potions to snare herself a guy grating, not just because she’s basing her value on whether she can find herself a husband, but also because hello, consent?! The scenes at the start with the guy she gave the love potion weren’t funny to me because of it, and I couldn’t sympathise with her (still can’t, really). So far I do not get a sense the book’s ever going to address that, but I guess I’m going to find out.

Other than that, it’s been a few days since I picked anything else up: I do still have a lot of books on the go, and would like to whittle it down, but less-than-ideal time management and a shiny new crochet project have been eating my reading time.

What will you be reading next?

Let me read anything at all and I’ll get back to you on this, heh. But most likely the next new thing I pick up will be Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint vol 3, the novel version, and otherwise I’ll focus on books I started reading but haven’t finished. One candidate there would be Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain, because I started reading volume one and was definitely having fun. Song Qingshi’s lack of genre-savviness is very entertaining.

What have you recently finished reading?

Last night I polished off volume nine of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint manhwa in one fell swoop, which is fun. I found the whole thing with the Catastrophe of Questions so frustrating (stop! answering! his questions! how many times do you have to be told!) but I am veeeery intrigued by the ways Junghyeok is surprising Dokja.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve got back to my reread of the light novel version of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, hoping to finish volume one today. Boooy, it’s so awkward at first, but I do love Aresh’s obviously growing crush.

Other than that, I actually finished the books I had most “on deck” at the moment, but I still have loads of books I’ve technically started, so I’ll get back to those next. I got the latest British Library Crime Classic this week (Carter Dickson’s The Unicorn Murders), but only read a chapter, so probably I’ll focus on that next. I also got an early copy of Ann Leckie’s Radiant Star, and definitely want to spend more time with that!

What will you be reading next?

I think it’d normally be quite sufficient to focus on the books I’ve already started, but I did just get volume three of the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint light novel, and volume ten of the manhwa… so you know, probably those.

What have you recently finished reading?

Just earlier I finished TJ Klune’s We Burned So Bright, which… I don’t think it was a good moment for me to read it in general, given the themes, but also I didn’t think it was that well done. A bit info-dumpy in structure, and the black hole swallowing the world did not feel “real”.

What are you currently reading?

You know the drill by now: a lot of things at once. But most actively, Jarod K. Anderson’s Strange Animals, which I wasn’t sure if I would like, but I’m pretty hooked on it — from the point with the rag moth, which I found a fascinating scene. I’m very curious where the whole thing is going.

Other than that, I’m still reading Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen, which I paused last week to try to finish some other reading. I’m not so interested in the royalty part, just the artisans and craftspeople working on the clothes, and it’s giving me that in spades.

Also on pause awaiting a free evening to just mainline it is Ross Montgomery’s The Murder at World’s End, which definitely has classic mystery vibes. Aunt Decima and the protagonist are kinda reminding me of the dynamic between Ana and Din in Robert Jackson Bennett’s series.

What will you be reading next?

Speaking of Ana and Din… possibly my eARC of the new one! However, I also know there are two physical review copies wending their way to me courtesy of Hachette, one of them being Leckie’s Radiant Star, so — maybe that?!

But as ever, really it’ll be down to my whim.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was Joseph Howgego’s The Meteorite Hunters, which was pretty good. I liked it more than Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites, even though at times they were covering the same thing, I think because Howgego stuck to a more popular-science framework while Gordon was a bit more focused on cultural stuff at times.

Before that, I finished Anthony Delaney’s Queer Georgians, which had fewer new-to-me stories that I’d anticipated, actually (though I’m not saying there was nothing new to me, and though I knew of the ladies of Llangollen, I didn’t know about their lives in any detail before they arrived in Llangollen). I thought it was pretty good, though it’s not a pet period/topic of mine, so hard to really judge.

What are you currently reading?

I started Kate Strasdin’s Dressing the Queen on the train back from London yesterday, having picked it up in St Pancras, and got a chunk of the way in. It’s not about any given queen per se, but about the clothes and textile items provided for royalty over the last 200 years or so, and who made them, a bit about how they were made, etc. It’s highlighting fairly ordinary people at times, and I’m finding it fascinating.

Other than that, I’m slowly inching my way through Gareth Russell’s Queen James, which is less focused on the romantic partners of James than I had guessed from the subtitle, blurb, etc. I believe there are some more solidly understood lovers coming up from the chronological point I’ve got to, though.

And finally, I’m deep into S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, and curious where it’s going exactly.

What will you read next?

I’m honestly going to try to focus on books I’ve started already. More of Cecilia Edwards’ An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating, for one, and I think I’m not that far from finishing (or DNFing) David Crystal’s William Tyndale and the English Language, which is just… talking to a reader who isn’t me, and I think has made most of the points that are interesting to me already — the rest seems to be detail. But we’ll see, I’ll give it time next, is the main thing.

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was, on a total whim based on seeing it in the offering in my library’s Comics Plus subscription, Chiuko Umeshibu’s Yankee & Carameliser. It turned out pretty cute, with a “bad boy” protagonist who loves to bake and a supportive classmate who encourages him, and (of course) ends up falling in love with him. There’s some pretty sad/homophobic backstory for Maki which doesn’t entirely get addressed, keeping the tone mostly light.

What are you currently reading?

A lot of books at once, more than usual still, but I can’t say I’m actually focusing on all of them. I most recently started Cecilia Edward’s An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating, which so far feels a bit too rom-com for my tastes… but I’m giving it a chance, especially as I remember seeing some positive reviews of it which led me to add it to my TBR in the first place.

I also recently started Alexa Hagerty’s Still Life with Bones, on a much more serious note: it’s a bit like Sue Black’s books about her work as a forensic anthropologist, but focuses on work in Latin America pursuing the truth about state terror and genocide. I’m not very far into it yet.

What will you be reading next?

I’m trying not to start any new reads, and instead focus on some of the ones I’ve got started but haven’t got far with. That means I need to get back to Gareth Russell’s Queen James, for a start, since that’s the BookSpin choice for me for April’s challenge on Litsy — though I also need to start S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws.