Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Fascinating account of the Twitter debacle a couple of years ago. Learning more about what actually went on behind the scenes was equal parts illuminating and enraging. Definitely worth a read! ★★★☆☆Sunday, January 5, 2025
Enjoyable fantasy novel about Orhan the engineer who happens to find himself in a city under siege. Unfortunately for him, it somehow falls to him to figure out how to defend it. Amusing, interesting, and quite educational for anyone interested in siege warfare! I liked it. ★★★★☆Sunday, December 29, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley and Udon Entertainment for providing a DARC. Brilliantly useful book! I don’t read a lot of manga, but I do watch anime on occasion and sometimes wonder how much I’m missing because I don’t understand the symbolic language of the genre. Though short, this book opened my eyes to subtext I’ve been missing. Much is self-explanatory to my western eyes, an iconography I’ve been trained to understand via comics and cartoons, but a lot is completely new and will reveal hidden meanings, and deepen my understanding when I see them in the wild.Monday, December 23, 2024
Thanks to Quarry Books who allowed me to read a DARC of Draw Amazing Faces by Pypah Santos. The book consists of a short introduction, eleven chapters covering, in order, Santos' approach, proportions and perspective, shading, lighting and rendering, drawing the eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair, putting it all together, faces in color, and further practice, ending with a 2-page index. Though the art style is not my personal favourite, there are lots of great drawings throughout.Sunday, December 22, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley, I was able to read a digital ARC of Figure Drawing: Rhythm and Language of the Human Form by Gabrielle Dahms. The book begins with a short introduction, then covers a wide range of subjects pertaining to drawing the human figure, and ending with an index. Though text-heavy, it is interspersed by a number of drawings in various styles, showcasing different techniques. This is not for beginners or those wanting to learn how to draw.Friday, December 20, 2024
Quick read about a young woman navigating her first year of college, whilst trying to finish her increasingly popular fan-fiction series. Add in burgeoning romantic feelings, her twin’s withdrawal, some parental drama, and an ethical quandary, you get an engaging YA novel. Excerpts from the Potteresque “Simon Snow” books, as well as snippets of Cather’s fan-fiction, are interspersed throughout the text. Though, for me, it didn’t quite stick the landing, it’s an enjoyable read.Monday, December 16, 2024
This was so not for me, I’m shocked I finished it. A meandering contemplation of our planet as a group of astronauts aboard a spacecraft circle the Earth for multiple orbits. Read for ruminations on the fragility and beauty of Earth as seen from space. Do not read for plot, characterization, dialogue, introspection or action, there is none. And, although the prose at times could be quite beautiful, most of the time it felt like wording for word’s sake.Friday, December 13, 2024
A retelling, or perhaps a reimagining rather, of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man that joins Huck for a portion of his adventure. I really enjoyed this. The book is well-written, and James in particular, is an agonisingly well-drawn character. The final lines gave me the good kind of chills. Read it, it’s very good. ★★★★☆Thursday, December 12, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley, I was able to read a digital ARC of Facial Expressions for Artists by Oliver Sin. The book begins with a short preface of the importance of anatomy, and then dives right into the five chapters covering the skull and essential muscles of the head, anatomy of the eye, anatomy of the ear, mouth and nose, expressions and the ageing face, and finally capturing expressions. It ends with a four-page index.Monday, December 9, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley, I was able to read a digital ARC of Debt-Free Art Degree: Foundations in Drawing by Marco Bucci. Caveat: a scant few illustrations were missing from my copy, so I’ve not seen every single picture contained within the final copy. The book consists of a short introduction, then eight chapters covering 2D shapes, gesture drawing, 3D form and space, building the figure, capturing poses, shapes and characters, constructing the head, shading and lighting, and finally colour, before ending with a helpful index.Monday, December 9, 2024
You get what it says on the tin with this one. A sprinkle of romance, some mild horror elements, a bit of cosiness, believable characters, and Kingfisher’s signature pragmatic protagonists. While I vastly prefer her Paladin series this was an enjoyable read while I wait for the next White Rat book to be published. Could have done with a bit more fancy geese, but all in all, a nice read and I liked it.Friday, November 22, 2024
This started out well, but lost steam around the halfway point. Too many characters to care for any in particular, and I barely know enough to spot the obvious Alexander the Great “nods” (Boukephalas, Sun’s relationships with Hetty and Eirene) never mind the sly ones. I felt it got bogged down by interminable “action scenes” described in excruciating detail, and I honestly just got bored. It’s not a bad book, but not to my tastes and I read it during a period I needed distraction, not something I found myself avoiding picking up.Tuesday, October 29, 2024
I didn’t care much for this. Kell was an OK if somewhat dull protagonist, but I found Delilah tediously annoying. Neither the magic system nor the various Londons were particularly interesting, and I found the plot a bit thin. It’s a fair enough fantasy novel, but I’d rather try a different Schwab novel than continue this particular series. ★★★☆☆Sunday, October 13, 2024
A re-read of an old favourite, and I enjoyed it as much now as the first time. The writing is top-notch, the worldbuilding is delightful and so are the various characters. If you’re in need of a Victorian inspired romance featuring drawing-room politics and genteel manoeuvring you probably can’t do better than Tooth and Claw. Oh, and everyone is a Dragon. It’s pretty great! ★★★★☆Friday, October 11, 2024
Not the book I was expecting but a stonking good read nonetheless. Klein is a clear, incisive and insightful writer, and gave me a lot to think about. Though there is some levity, much of it is absolutely chilling as it takes an unflinching look at the state of the world. Klein is no doomsayer but… it’s not looking good folks. Decidedly worth reading, and a book I’ll be ruminating on for a long time to come.Sunday, October 6, 2024
Fun fantasy romp involving assassins and shenanigans I can’t mention because spoilers. My first P. Djèlí Clark book and I really enjoyed it. The characters were fun, the word building interesting and though it had a slight stumble here and there overall the pace was great. Will definitely be reading more of P. Djèlí Clark’s writing, I can’t wait to see what a full novel reads like. ★★★★☆Sunday, October 6, 2024
Fourth in publication and second in chronological order, it’s a good read that doesn’t quite live up to Lonesome Dove. The writing is good, and though it’s interesting to find out what happened before the events in Lonesome Dove, I didn’t find the story as compelling. There is also a section where a specific torture method described really bothered me and I had to struggle past it in order to finish.Friday, September 27, 2024
This book has an intriguing premise, but though the writing is fair, the protagonists are dull, and the book itself is basically chapter after endless chapter of conversation. The dénouement doesn’t save it, merely serves to point out how good this idea could have been in another’s hands. It’s also the softest sci-fi imaginable, and probably better suited to those who don’t generally read sci-fi. ★★☆☆☆Saturday, September 21, 2024
About a woman working at a tech company in San Francisco who, after being gifted a sourdough starter, becomes enamoured then obsessed with baking bread and what happens. It started out fine, a bit odd but fine, and then gradually devolved into a silliness of a type I abhor. I really did not enjoy this at all. I don’t mind satire when biting and funny, but I found this pointless, boring and a waste of my time.Wednesday, September 11, 2024
A relatively thorough look at how autism can present in girls. The book has a fairly academic perspective of little use to me personally, but should be valuable for adults who spend time around children. An interesting read, and though this is a book I wish adults around me had read when I was young, ultimately it wasn’t particularly useful to me now. ★★★☆☆Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Perhaps this book might be most useful to younger people? Once you’ve been an adult for a few (too many) decades, a lot of the content is information you’ve no doubt seen many times before. That being said, I found a new-to-me technique called cognitive shuffling which sounded both interesting, and potentially very helpful. Age and experiences aside, there is absolutely value in having actionable stuff listed in one place conveniently sorted into categories such as physical, emotional, mental, social, and professional self-care.Wednesday, September 11, 2024
At first, I was very taken with this and thoroughly enjoyed a good chunk of it. However, at a certain point the narrative veers into a type of sci-fi I don’t enjoy, and it became a slog to finish. Though well written, interesting and with well drawn characters, once the pivot happened I simply lost interest and found the rest of the book slow and long-winded. Regardless of how I felt about the book as a whole I also found the ending disappointing.Wednesday, August 28, 2024
This was recommended to me years ago as something I'd love. A female protagonist involved in timey-wimey shenanigans mainly around in Tudor times? Made for me. If I'd read it back then I'd have loved it. Now it fizzled out as a merely OK read. The writing is fine, and I didn't dislike it, but the subtleties of the plot whizzed past me and though I know there is a compelling read lurking inside this book, I just couldn't seem to access it.Wednesday, August 14, 2024
I really struggled with this book, taking a long time to finish it because I found myself avoiding it. I hated the protagonist, didn't like any other characters, didn't get a sense of time or place, and just found it very dull. The prose was too florid for my tastes and without enjoyable or interesting characters, the plot was nowhere near enough to keep my interest. Not for me. ★★☆☆☆Saturday, August 3, 2024
The blurb I read touted this as "Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in a defiantly joyful adventure", which is not how I'd describe it. Though I quite liked the prose itself, I was either annoyed or irritated by every single character, I hated the Faustian/sci-fi crossover, found the endless descriptions of music and food tedious after a time, and thought the ending was obvious and then silly.Thursday, August 1, 2024
A reread of an old favourite. I still really enjoy it and though it's not my absolute favourite Banks book, it's in the running for a spot at the top. I love the writing, the characters, their stories, the layers. The puzzling out what's actually going on and lack of a true, definitive, answer is delicious. Do not read as a first Culture novel. If you appreciate sci-fi, absolutely do read it (ignoring the fact that at first glance it doesn't look like sci-fi) and the rest of the Culture series.Saturday, July 27, 2024
I was hoping for "Austen meets Pratchettian swamp dragons" in this novel set in fantasy Regency England. I did not get that. All the characters felt one-dimensional, the obstacles contrived, and the dearth of shoulder dragon world-building inexcusable disappointing. How do you breed them, train them, show them? Nothing! Romance fans who like fantasy may enjoy this, but it's becoming apparent that I don't appreciate some (many?) of the standard romance tropes and it might not be the genre for me.Friday, July 26, 2024
I didn't care for this almost 100-year-old novel at all. It's a slow, tedious meander through Lolly's life until she, around age 50, decides to go live in a village and then suddenly witches. I thought the book would be more enjoyable once the devil showed up but Warner sure showed me how to suck the fun out of a surprise Satan. Not a book for me, but at least it wasn't very long.Wednesday, July 24, 2024
An uncomfortable but engrossing read and a mirror of sorts to the novel Lolita, which Russell clearly admires as much as I do. Though the prose is not as sublime as Nabokov's, it's well-written and engaging. Set before and after #MeToo Vanessa's story, what happens to her, and how she struggles with her experiences all feel extremely true and real. Though the subject matter is horrible, this is an important and compelling read, potentially at its best as a chaser to Lolita by Nabokov.Friday, July 19, 2024
A strange and interesting fantasy novel set in a warped version of our world where magic, of a sort, is real. Featuring multiple interesting characters, some more unpleasant than others, and a good dose of weirdness, it was quite an enjoyable, though not pleasant, read. I liked being unable to predict where the story was going to end up, and had the ending been slightly more satisfactory it would have garnered 4 stars from me.