Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading and highly enjoying the intelligent fantasy novel Tideborn by Eliza Chan. What are you reading at the moment?
Replies
Morning Womble! I'm reading Genevieve Cogman's The Lost Plot, which is the fourth in the Invisible Library series and great fun.
aug 17, 2025, 8:49 am • 8 1 • view
These were really fun books!
aug 17, 2025, 1:23 pm • 2 0 • view
Morning, Womble. I have just finished Lynda E Rucker's collection, You'll Know When You Get There, from Swan River Press (@swanriverpress.bsky.social). Thoroughly recommend if you're into ghostly stories
aug 17, 2025, 10:41 am • 4 1 • view
I'm always on the lookout for new ones! I'll keep an eye out for this one (sad for no ebook that I can see though)
aug 17, 2025, 3:23 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m rereading The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott to take notes for an interview. Have you read this yet? 👀
aug 18, 2025, 12:51 am • 3 1 • view
Hello and good evening to you, Mr. Womble. I am currently about halfway into A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal. Its sequel, A Steeping of Blood comes out next month, and I have an advance copy.
aug 17, 2025, 5:11 pm • 1 1 • view
Afternoon! I just finished Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, a very interesting dark paranormal mystery set among the anti-Asian hate of 2020 pandemic start. started ARC of Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou, a sapphic horromantasy w/ Lady MacBeth & Klytemnestra
aug 17, 2025, 12:38 pm • 8 1 • view
I liked Bat Eater a lot! The combination of real problems and paranormal worked well for me
aug 17, 2025, 12:44 pm • 3 0 • view
yes it was a really cool mix
aug 17, 2025, 1:26 pm • 2 0 • view
Good afternoon Womble! Reading and enjoying my 1st T. Kingfisher - What Moves The Dead. A kind of loose retelling of Poe’s House Of Usher, but with fungus. Also reading The Variegated Alphabet by Caitlin R. Kiernan and Wind And Truth by Brandon Sanderson.
aug 17, 2025, 12:26 pm • 8 1 • view
Morning Womble, I finished The Other Wind yesterday - a very satisfying conclusion to Earthsea - and now I'm starting The Imposition Of Unnecessary Obstacles and enjoying being back on Gaslamp Jupiter.
aug 17, 2025, 10:20 am • 6 2 • view
Morning! I'm at various stages of three different books (this is something I never do!). Nearing the end of Gospodinov's satire, Time Shelter; about halfway through Marina Yuszcuk's gothic historical novel, Thirst; and just picked up Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach prequel/sequel Absolution.
aug 17, 2025, 9:12 am • 6 2 • view
Can happily recommend each of them, btw; though I'm only a few pages into Absolution, it's good and weird and creepy - as those who have read any Southern Reach stuff might expect.
aug 17, 2025, 3:29 pm • 1 0 • view
currently on with reading the brick of Katabasis
aug 17, 2025, 3:51 pm • 4 1 • view
Hello! I've just finished a comfort re-read of Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci books, and I've been immensely enjoying Because Internet by linguist Gretchen McCulloch. Getting ideas for my next fiction read in this thread!
aug 17, 2025, 1:46 pm • 4 1 • view
I am rereading Spirited by Julie Cohen, an interweaved story of fraudulent Victorian mediums, hidden identities, unhappy marriage and photography. It's a fine read.
aug 17, 2025, 8:06 am • 6 1 • view
Nicely encapsulated!
aug 17, 2025, 1:25 pm • 2 0 • view
Afternoon! Still listening to the Last Coliny by John Scalzi, book 3 in whatever series this is. Enjoying it immensely.
aug 17, 2025, 2:27 pm • 4 1 • view
Colony ffs.
aug 17, 2025, 2:28 pm • 3 0 • view
Colony FFS? I think Tor need to add the FFS to future printings
aug 17, 2025, 6:46 pm • 2 0 • view
Ian McKuen Sweet Tooth. Great writing
aug 17, 2025, 1:00 pm • 2 1 • view
It is evening so, Good Evening and I have currently been reading Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson. It is quite a good book, I still remember reading an abridged one in my schooldays
aug 17, 2025, 12:23 pm • 2 1 • view
Morning! Just making a start on Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings.
aug 17, 2025, 10:18 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning Womble. At the moment, Im reading a Wycliffe novel and throughly enjoying it.
aug 17, 2025, 10:05 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning. I'm reading Starstrike by Yoon Ha Lee, a follow up to Moonstorm, YA sci-fi set in a far-future Korea inspired world. Published this week. www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...
aug 17, 2025, 9:48 am • 4 1 • view
Morning Womble. It's another sunny one. This week I read Murder at the Wedding by Helena Dixon, and The Flesh Tailor by Kate Ellis. Now reading The Italian Vineyard by Anita Chapman.
aug 17, 2025, 8:29 am • 1 1 • view
Good morning! I'm reading 'Fearless' by Lauren Roberts right now!
aug 17, 2025, 9:14 am • 1 1 • view
Just finished The Living Stones by Ithell Colquhoun and stared The Great Deception by Syd Moore
aug 17, 2025, 4:02 pm • 1 1 • view
Morning Womble! I just finished a cute short story in the Manners and Monsters series by Wallace. Now back to this, which has been on hold for ages, due to no fault of the book! I just needed lighter and shorter reading for a while, now the brain is up again for epic stories in the ice.
aug 17, 2025, 8:17 am • 4 1 • view
Good morning, Womble. I'm reading Murder in the Air, a Poirot to revive the little grey cells.
aug 17, 2025, 9:44 am • 4 1 • view
Morning. I’ll be listening to Mexican Gothic written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and read by Frankie Corzo.
aug 17, 2025, 8:50 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning. I’m reading Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, which is gripping, even though I usually find it hard to read a book with an unlikeable protagonist.
aug 17, 2025, 8:57 am • 6 1 • view
What do you think accounts for the difference with this book?
aug 17, 2025, 1:27 pm • 2 0 • view
A combination of feeling some sympathy with June at the very start of the book then wanting to find out how much worse she will get; I used to follow authors on BookTwitter so understand the social media discourse in the book; and the fact I’m reading it for my book club so need to keep going!
aug 17, 2025, 4:35 pm • 2 0 • view
Good (checks time, groans) afternoon Womble. I'm reading "The Wilding" by Ian McDonald. Writing is OK, but the characters are getting on my nerves so much, I might wind up rooting for the monster.
aug 17, 2025, 11:20 am • 7 1 • view
That doesn’t sound like their authors intention but lots of time the monster is just misunderstood so it might work.
aug 17, 2025, 6:44 pm • 1 0 • view
I quite liked the character work in this. The monster here is very much a monster but there is stuff going on as well
aug 17, 2025, 6:46 pm • 1 0 • view
I have been remiss in reading thanks to being at Worldcon! I feel shamed ;)
aug 17, 2025, 2:19 pm • 2 1 • view
In sentence you to The Dealer’s Room for book hunting and booktempting 😇
aug 17, 2025, 2:19 pm • 1 0 • view
Hey Womble, today I started "A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians" by H.G. Parry. On the non-fiction front I'm half way through Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham and enjoying it immensely.
aug 17, 2025, 9:47 am • 5 1 • view
Midnight in Chernobyl is so good! Loved it. Once you've finished, you might be interested in Chernobyl Roulette: War in the Nuclear Disaster Zone by Serhii Plokhy, which is a detailed account of what happened when Russian forces took over the Chernobyl site during their 2022 invasion of Ukraine.😱
aug 17, 2025, 11:13 pm • 2 0 • view
Morning Womble! Although my reading has been a little interrupted by holidays and decorating, I have a few on the go at the moment. Ringlander: Fallen Shards by Michael S. Jackson, The Quantum Revelations by Stuart Heinrich and The Witching Hour by Jeph Loeb & Chris Bachalo.
aug 17, 2025, 9:55 am • 5 1 • view
Blind Man With a Pistol, the last of Chester Himes’ Harlem Detective sequence,
aug 17, 2025, 4:32 pm • 2 1 • view
Good afternoon Womble. Just finished A Reluctant Spy by @davegoodman.bsky.social . It's really quite good. Next is Cyanide in the Sun and Other Stories of Summertime Crime. Perfect holiday reading.
aug 17, 2025, 2:08 pm • 4 1 • view
The Good Father Noah Hawley A doctor’s son assassinates the Democratic presidential candidate … Or maybe he didn’t…
aug 17, 2025, 7:49 am • 3 1 • view
I’m reading the novel, “No Name”, by Wilkie Collins. He was friends with/influenced by Charles Dickens. Great book!
aug 17, 2025, 8:43 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning! I just finished The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August, and have started The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow, both of which are/were excellent so far! #SFF 💙📚🪐
aug 17, 2025, 8:52 am • 14 4 • view
I need to read more of Alix’s work. I was gripped by Starling House.
aug 17, 2025, 9:37 am • 3 0 • view
That's the first one I read too. Loved Ten Thousand Doors of January even more. Currently trying to seek out some of the backlist and novellas.
aug 17, 2025, 10:16 am • 3 0 • view
I love it when an author grips you and you go hunting their stuff
aug 17, 2025, 10:19 am • 5 0 • view
Absolutely! And Harrow's definitely in the category of authors where as soon as you spot they have a new book coming out you run around the shop like a mad person, gesticulating wildly and enthusiastically telling all your colleagues.
aug 17, 2025, 10:24 am • 2 0 • view
I've read Starling House twice, and could probably read it twice more. All her books have been good, though.
aug 17, 2025, 2:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Happy Sunday Womble! I'm reading this year's EBRD winner Sons, Daughters, by Ivana Bodrožić, translated from Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursać. Only a few chapters in but it's shaping up very nicely so far! My second #WITMonth read. 💙📚 🌐 #translatedlit #xl8
aug 17, 2025, 1:59 pm • 2 2 • view
Morning! Just started Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson. So far really enjoying it, a bit overwhelmed with all the characters and lore but that's a good sign for an epic fantasy right?
aug 17, 2025, 2:04 pm • 3 1 • view
Morning Womble, hope alls well! I read Ben Aaronovitch’s Stone and Sky in the last week, and now have started on Prit Buttar’s Bagration 44, about the Soviet offensive of 1944
aug 17, 2025, 8:32 am • 5 1 • view
Good morning, Womble! I’m into the second volume of a John Gwynne series that’s been on my shelves, unread, for years. The series name is The Faithful and the Fallen and the second volume is Valor. Very good series so far. And two more fat volumes to go after this one!
aug 17, 2025, 1:08 pm • 3 1 • view
Morning Womble! Enjoying a re-read of The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. Listening to The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.
aug 17, 2025, 10:12 am • 6 1 • view
Reading Francis Young's scholarly little Pre-Christian Baltic Religion and Belief, and the 6th Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki light novel, so, folklore and suchlike all round.
aug 17, 2025, 2:52 pm • 3 1 • view
I just finished The Specimens by Mairi Kidd about the wives of infamous murderer and anatomist Burke and Knox. Well written and thoroughly enjoyed. A quick search leads to a book with a nearly identical title on a similar subject published a month later. Only accept the original
aug 17, 2025, 11:26 am • 1 1 • view
Afternoon! I’m about half way through Towers of Midnight, book 13 (!) of the Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson epic series, which I never managed to complete bitd…leavening that with dipping in and out of Halfway to Hollywood by Michael Palin (diaries 1980-1988). Enjoying both muchly 😊
aug 17, 2025, 11:01 am • 1 1 • view
Morning Womble! I'm reading 'Acts of God' by Kanan Gil. A pocket universe story that I'm not sure I fully understand.
aug 17, 2025, 9:42 am • 2 1 • view
Reading @haileypiperfights.bsky.social A Game In Yellow! I love evil cosmic horror lesbians. 💖
aug 17, 2025, 2:26 pm • 5 1 • view
They are a vibe 💅 (and thank you!)
aug 17, 2025, 2:29 pm • 2 0 • view
Still reading Ruin by John Gwynne and also reading Dawn of Fate and Fire by Mariely Lares. Just started Last Outlaw by Lee Hall
aug 17, 2025, 9:12 am • 1 1 • view
Morning ToberMoriarty 😆 In the eyes: On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle In the ears: House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
aug 17, 2025, 8:15 am • 3 1 • view
Ah measuring up poisons Assassin I see
aug 17, 2025, 8:18 am • 1 0 • view
As if, at this stage of my career, I would need to measure. I mean, if that was indeed my career. Which it is not.
aug 17, 2025, 8:21 am • 1 0 • view
Still working through Stephenson's "Polostan". The usual rule with Stephenson is that the books are great IFF you happen to be interested in whatever he's geeking out on. In this case I'm very pleasantly surprised to find him geeking out on polo among other things. Bonus fun.
aug 17, 2025, 9:49 am • 7 1 • view
Good morning! Yesterday I finished Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, today I’ll start American Rapture by C. J. Leede
aug 17, 2025, 9:42 am • 3 1 • view
Light from Uncommon Stars was one of my favourite books the year I read it!
aug 17, 2025, 9:55 am • 2 0 • view
I really enjoyed it! Nice to read a sci fi book where the galactic empire stuff is out there and real but the stakes in the story are all very personal
aug 17, 2025, 11:58 am • 2 0 • view
Good day, I hope your weekend has been lovely. I finished the truly excellent Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker yesterday, I couldn't put it down. Not sure what's next. Maybe Hungerstone by Kat Dun
aug 17, 2025, 12:51 pm • 3 1 • view
'Morning, Womble. I've got Battle Ground by Jim Butcher (paperback) and The Copper Promise by Jen Williams (kindle) on the go today
aug 17, 2025, 9:12 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning! I'm reading Lolly Willowes. I'm trying to savour it, but that's turning into a bit of a struggle.
aug 17, 2025, 12:48 pm • 3 1 • view
Morning! I'm reading and really enjoying The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey.
aug 17, 2025, 8:03 am • 18 2 • view
I recently read The Book of Koli by Carey and really liked it a lot.
aug 17, 2025, 1:11 pm • 2 1 • view
Such a good book
aug 17, 2025, 9:08 am • 2 0 • view
Reminded me of I Am Legend, the book not the film.
aug 17, 2025, 8:25 am • 2 0 • view
LOL I just purchased that a few hours ago in audible’s 2 for 1 sale. Sounded so interesting
aug 17, 2025, 2:42 pm • 2 0 • view
I loved this ❤️
aug 17, 2025, 8:15 am • 3 0 • view
That’s good. It’s on my TBR.
aug 17, 2025, 4:01 pm • 2 0 • view
Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack
aug 17, 2025, 6:44 pm • 2 1 • view
Oh excellent!
aug 17, 2025, 6:51 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm reading 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. So far, it's an interesting take on a Solar System spanning humanity, and also how humans themselves could change.
aug 17, 2025, 1:47 pm • 3 1 • view
There’s some great hard sci fi in it
aug 17, 2025, 2:56 pm • 2 0 • view
I really enjoyed Tideborn, Eliza had a few Events with @annabelcwrites.bsky.social which we attended. Currently reading the Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah, it’s an Arabian Nights inspired fantasy novel.
aug 17, 2025, 10:18 am • 6 2 • view
I love Ashfire King and that series!
aug 17, 2025, 12:43 pm • 4 0 • view
📌
aug 17, 2025, 1:24 pm • 1 0 • view
Good morning and happy Sunday! Reading M John Harrison's The Course of the Heart currently (your fault, tempter!) & next will be Jennifer Thorne's Diavola - travelling tomorrow and both should fit the mood.
aug 17, 2025, 8:04 am • 7 1 • view
I merely drew attention to it 😇 I have that to read soon too!
aug 17, 2025, 8:07 am • 1 0 • view
It's good so far. I have had The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again on my list for an embarrassingly long time so maybe that one will come along soon too.
aug 17, 2025, 8:10 am • 2 0 • view
Go choices. I am on the last 1/3 of Diavola - so far - so creepy and claustrophobic.
aug 17, 2025, 8:17 am • 1 0 • view
It was so good - really took off in the last third. I didn't expect it to go where it did. Liked the dysfunctional family dynamics too.
aug 22, 2025, 5:51 am • 2 0 • view
I am so glad. And I felt exactly the same.
aug 22, 2025, 5:52 am • 1 0 • view
I expected to like it. :-) Finished it sitting in a basement waiting for air alarm to finish (I am in Lviv this week) Appropriately creepy location for such a book, but I'm glad there were a few other people in there, at least when they weren't nipping outside for a smoke. :)
aug 22, 2025, 5:59 am • 1 0 • view
Really looking forward to it.
aug 17, 2025, 8:51 am • 2 0 • view
Morning Womble, I'm currently reading Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, the last in the Trilogy sadly
aug 17, 2025, 2:29 pm • 1 1 • view
Happy Sunday, Most Free of the Wombling Wombles. I am half way through The Right Amount Of Panic: How Women Trade Freedom For Safety by Fiona Vera-Gray, which is fascinating and so completely relatable. Academic but completely readable it is perfect if you read Laura Bates’s books.
aug 17, 2025, 2:58 pm • 2 1 • view
I *just* finished reading Simon Cleary's account of walking the Brisbane River in a flood year, EVERYTHING IS WATER, and am starting Martine Kropkowski's LEFT BEHIND (out in October) bsky.app/profile/tana... bsky.app/profile/tana...
aug 17, 2025, 8:19 am • 3 1 • view
Morning Womble! I'm currently reading Aliens: Vasquez by @vlatinalondon.bsky.social
aug 17, 2025, 8:10 am • 15 2 • view
I need to read this.
aug 17, 2025, 8:45 am • 3 0 • view
Good Morning Womble Somewhat tired having got up early for the Hugo Ceremony but pretty pleased with the winners we got. Currently reading Viriconium by M. John Harrison which I've been meaning to get round to for a while now.
aug 17, 2025, 8:10 am • 5 1 • view
I'm reading The Glittering Edge by Alyssa Villaire :)
aug 17, 2025, 8:10 am • 2 1 • view
Morning Womble! , The DEVIL REACHED TOWARD the SKY, AN ORAL HISTORY of THE MAKING & UNLEASHING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB Written by @vermontgmg.bsky.social
aug 17, 2025, 10:06 am • 3 1 • view
My current read as well and what fantastic way of retelling historical events by stitching together quotes.
aug 17, 2025, 9:01 pm • 3 0 • view
Good morning! I’m on the 3rd book of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.” I love that it’s taking me a while to read these, her prose is so saturated with these deep feeling emotions that I need to take breaks.
aug 17, 2025, 1:18 pm • 4 1 • view
Oh my daughter has recommended this Trilogy. She says it's wonderful.
aug 17, 2025, 3:49 pm • 2 0 • view
There’s a fourth book now, too, if you’re looking for something long to dedicate to!
aug 18, 2025, 12:16 pm • 2 0 • view
Just checked her shelves. The Story of the Lost Child. She already has it. Just me who is out for touch 🙈
aug 18, 2025, 2:29 pm • 2 0 • view
Oh I must buy it for my daughter. Thank you xx
aug 18, 2025, 1:12 pm • 2 0 • view
I love My Brilliant Friend: it was in my 20 most memorable books in #Skybooks #Bookchallenge. But I just didn't find the 3rd compelling. But hope you're enjoying it
aug 17, 2025, 2:54 pm • 2 0 • view
I had a bit of trouble with the 2nd only because I felt like the main character was letting her jealousy make all these “wrong” decisions or putting her in positions for embarrassment. I’m about two chapters in to the 3rd so I haven’t been hit with the DNF bug yet :)
aug 18, 2025, 12:18 pm • 2 0 • view
I just finished Feebleminded by Ariana Harwicz (Charco Press) - just brilliant, fevered prose and a brutal, dizzying read - and am now about a third of the way through @chris88.bsky.social's new book from PS publishing focusing on the cult horror film Possession, which is excellent.
aug 17, 2025, 8:28 am • 1 1 • view
Happy Sunday! I caught up on some 2025 releases this week and I recommend all of them: a Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna, Meet me at the Crossroads by Megan Giddings, and Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi.
aug 17, 2025, 8:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Just finished The Big Empty, the latest Elvis Cole mystery thriller from Robert Crais, so I've gone back to the start and The Monkey's Raincoat. I'm rewriting and editing a new fantasy novel intensively at the moment, so I'm spending my downtime with familiar authors in a totally different genre.
aug 17, 2025, 8:44 pm • 3 1 • view
It’s great re reading the series. Every time I discover new details, marvellous pleasures
aug 24, 2025, 10:56 pm • 1 0 • view
Greetings, Womble! I'll finish Wiswell's Wearing the Lion this afternoon - been stretching it out because I hate to see it end! Next up: Kashana Cauley's The Payback and Mary Robinette Kowal's The Martian Contingency.
aug 17, 2025, 2:32 pm • 2 1 • view
Morning Womble! For fun I’ve started Vesuvius by Cass Biehn, for education I’m reading why I write by George Orwell, and damn if history isn’t repeating right now. The parallels he’s drawn from his time with today are…scary.
aug 17, 2025, 8:58 am • 2 1 • view
Hi, I’m reading @stephenking.bsky.social The Shining. I’m only about 100 pages in and everything hasn’t gone south yet. But I have a feeling of foreboding which is making me feel sad.
aug 17, 2025, 9:17 am • 1 1 • view
It’s a weird thing when you think, ‘Maybe this time the story will go differently?’
aug 17, 2025, 9:19 am • 4 0 • view
Not at all. The Shining is all about the Torrance family as they enjoy a relaxing winter getaway at the beautiful Overlook Hotel, filled with whimsical hedge creatures, the spirit of fun, and plenty of time for dad to catch up on his writing while the family enjoys exciting games in the maze!
aug 17, 2025, 10:20 am • 3 0 • view
Phew!
aug 17, 2025, 12:04 pm • 1 0 • view
Still reading The Devil Reached Toward the Sky by Garrett M. Graff.
aug 17, 2025, 8:23 am • 4 1 • view
Morning Womble. This week I'm reading M.W. Craven's The Curator and Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Prey. Tentatively I'll start Bee Speaker by Adrian Tchaikovsky next.
aug 17, 2025, 1:22 pm • 4 1 • view
Good Morning! I’m reading KJ Parker for the first time. Not quite what I expected but definitely intriguing 😼
aug 17, 2025, 12:30 pm • 6 1 • view
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor. To be this gripping with a main character so thoroughly unpleasant is quite the achievement. Prose with not a single word misjudged or surplus - extraordinary control.
aug 17, 2025, 2:22 pm • 5 1 • view
She's wonderful.
aug 17, 2025, 3:26 pm • 2 0 • view
Afternoon Womble. Still in a bit of a reading slump this year. I’m about to start The Vengeance by Emma Newman in the hope that it kicks me back into gear.
aug 17, 2025, 2:30 pm • 7 2 • view
Hallooo, just got back from a few days in Bonnie Scotland where I have been mostly reading The Stardust Grail by Yumi Kitasei and I purchased It's The End of the World As We Know It from a bookshop in Stirling...so clearly Scotland is a week ahead in publishing. 2 stories in, so far, so creepy...
aug 17, 2025, 3:09 pm • 3 1 • view
I should have mentioned edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, short stories set in the world of The Stand, by the constant writer himself, Stephen King.
aug 17, 2025, 3:10 pm • 2 0 • view
I started recently reading Galactic Girl by Fiona Richmond from 1980. 1 of ~10 new SF books from a British woman author from a British publisher in 1980, as it was really in the doldrums. However she is more well known as a glamour model and the book is weird. It has rainbow genitalia by page 3...
aug 17, 2025, 5:59 pm • 3 1 • view
I finished a beta read last night. Back to the increasingly dark, Butter today.
aug 17, 2025, 10:19 am • 2 1 • view
I’ve had Demon Copperhead on my TBR for some time. Decided to read that but, in order to give it justice, i have read David Copperfield for the first time. What a joyous novel. Is that why they call them “the Classics”???
aug 17, 2025, 2:39 pm • 1 0 • view
Tideborn was a great ending to the Duology - review to come! Next up for me finishing The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky a new SF novella I’m very interested in where it is going
aug 17, 2025, 2:21 pm • 4 0 • view
I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Needfire by MK Hardy, and I am savouring it slowly which is something I've found I tend to do with Gothic novels for some reason.
aug 17, 2025, 8:46 pm • 2 1 • view
Morning, I'm in the final third of Diavola, and the haunting is getting more harrowing. It's great! I'm reading the 2/6 anthologies for the British Fantasy Awards. It's pulpy, camp, and queer - so joyful and creative. The writers have let loose in the best way. I can't wait to read the next story.
aug 17, 2025, 9:06 am • 4 1 • view
this looks so interesting
aug 17, 2025, 12:41 pm • 2 0 • view
Morning Womble! Just picked up The Bone Raiders, by Jackson Ford, which looks like EXACTLY my sort of adventure fantasy. Looking forward to getting stuck in!
aug 17, 2025, 7:49 am • 5 2 • view
Hello all. Currently re-reading the superb 'The Course of the Heart' by @mjohnharrison.bsky.social, alongside Kelly Clancy's 'Playing With Reality', a study of the influence of games on humanity.
aug 17, 2025, 9:04 am • 2 1 • view
Morning Womble! I am a messy pile reading The Folded Sky by @matociquala.bsky.social enjoying this very much.
aug 17, 2025, 8:02 am • 6 1 • view
I'm beta reading a good fantasy story for a friend.
aug 17, 2025, 9:19 am • 2 1 • view
I’m beta reading The Warlords of Owari by @baptistepinsonwu.bsky.social Loving being back in feudal Japan. Fans of Shogun are going to love this
aug 17, 2025, 9:53 am • 4 1 • view
So looking forward to your thoughts on it! I loved writing this book, and I hope many people will enjoy reading it as much.
aug 19, 2025, 8:01 am • 2 0 • view
I missed that the sequel to Eliza Chan's Fathomfolk was out! Loved that book, looking forward to this one. Currently really enjoying Andrew Knighton's The Executioner's Blade which is managing to do several different things very well.
aug 17, 2025, 10:37 am • 2 1 • view
Morning Womble. Cuppa? I'm falling asleep to the not at all alarming The Hidden Girl and other stories from Ken Liu on audiobook (the falling asleep is intentional, audio helps quiet my mind) and in text, I know it wasn't quite your thing but I'm really enjoying Julia Armfield's Private Rites.
aug 17, 2025, 9:01 am • 1 1 • view
Morning Wimbledon. I’ve been dipping into my latest @britishlibrary.bsky.social Weird subscription book, The Wayfarer’s Weird. I love these books, love the surprise drop once a month, and how they contain both old and new gems.
aug 17, 2025, 8:08 am • 13 2 • view
I love them too! Really looking forward to this one.
aug 17, 2025, 8:13 am • 2 0 • view
Ooh!
aug 17, 2025, 8:16 am • 3 0 • view
Womble even! Damn autocorrect!
aug 17, 2025, 8:09 am • 1 0 • view
I've started watching video book reviews by this brilliant Aussie whose language about the romance/spice she reads makes me absolutely howl, so I'm now reading Credence by Penelope Douglas after seeing what she said about it. Not my usual type of read, but enjoying so far!
aug 17, 2025, 8:34 am • 4 1 • view
whooooo (if we may ask)
aug 17, 2025, 8:51 am • 1 0 • view
Of course 🤣 She's Tierney Reads on TikTok and Facebook reels, and I just find her hysterical - here's an example: www.tiktok.com/@tierney.rea... She reads unhinged stuff so you don't have to (unless you want to 😅)
aug 17, 2025, 8:55 am • 2 0 • view
I'm genuinely sorry I asked hahahaha oh no
aug 17, 2025, 9:00 am • 1 0 • view
Good morrow, Womble! I'm enjoying a collection of short stories by sff author Ian Watson, The Chinese Time Machine. The 3 stories I've read so far are full of wordplay and silliness while still telling a clever story about intrepid-but-clueless academics using the time machine. Really fun!
aug 17, 2025, 7:31 pm • 2 0 • view
Good morning, Womble! Glad to see you around! I'm currently reading Strange Houses, by Uketsu! Fun horror mystery that kinda makes you want to try and solve it before the main character
aug 17, 2025, 11:56 am • 7 1 • view
Happy Sunday! I finished Orbital by Samantha Harvey last night, and I’m mid-way through A Master of Djinn by P. Djèli Clark, which I’m really enjoying.
aug 17, 2025, 8:36 pm • 1 1 • view
An ARC of Mistress of Lies by KM Enright and The Fens by Francis Pryor (non-fiction, mostly about the archaeology of that region).
aug 17, 2025, 8:06 am • 6 1 • view
I'm reading Perspectives by Laurent Binet! It's a murder mystery set in 16th century Florence, written as a series of letters. It's intriguing me so far 👀
aug 17, 2025, 12:49 pm • 2 1 • view
Good afternoon Bluesky peeps:) There are soooo many new books to read I’m reading three at the same time:) The loves of my life by Edmund White (very honest), Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Korean writer Hwang Bo-Reum and The Collected Stories by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield:)
aug 17, 2025, 11:22 am • 1 1 • view
I’m about to start Dark Theory by Wick Welker. Time for some sci-fi
aug 17, 2025, 9:58 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning! Mr Absolutive and I just finished 'The Plot', (Jean Hanff Korelitz), a hilarious romp/farce about a novelist who steals a plot, triggering shenanigans. I just finished The Rook (Daniel O'Malley), after learning that there are now FOUR books in the series, and am reading them all.
aug 17, 2025, 10:22 am • 2 1 • view
I've got about 14 books to skim through/read before OU starts, and more to catch up on/finish. But I've also been reacquainting myself with Peril at End House, my favourite Poirot story.
aug 17, 2025, 8:32 pm • 2 1 • view
Good morning Womble! Currently reading Nova by Samuel R. Delany, really enjoying it so far.
aug 17, 2025, 2:27 pm • 1 1 • view
Still reading Madhouse at the End of the World which is fantastic and utterly gripping.
aug 17, 2025, 8:35 am • 11 2 • view
Its such a grear mix of insane courage and endurance and dark comedy of errors.
aug 17, 2025, 8:39 am • 2 0 • view
I decided it was time to revisit Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May. I love this series. Peculiar crimes. Fantastic characters. Plots like fun house mirror reflections of a corkscrew. And Full Dark House starts strong. There's no sense of Fowler finding his feet. It's blinding from the beginning.
aug 17, 2025, 8:31 am • 13 1 • view
📌
aug 17, 2025, 1:09 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm doing the same with the Bryant & May books! I originally read them from the library so I have a few gaps that I'm looking forward to filling
aug 17, 2025, 9:14 am • 3 0 • view
I have a sneaking suspicion that a friend ran off with one of my Bryant & Mays when they moved to Canada. I'm hoping this jaunt down memory lane, between shelves & a kindle, is going to remind me which one I need to re-buy. So I guess this is technically a fact finding mission for me as well.
aug 17, 2025, 9:40 am • 2 0 • view
😂 this is why I only lend books to my mum! Mind you, I can talk. I only just admitted to my uncle that I've still got his Hitchhikers books 35 years after nabbing them from his room at my grandparents' house!
aug 17, 2025, 9:43 am • 2 0 • view
I've got a copy of Portishead's 1st album that I borrowed off someone at college back when the years started with a 19. I hate the fact I never got it back to them. Not that it's stopped me playing it from time to time. (Which probably makes the book some sort of lender's karma.)
aug 17, 2025, 9:46 am • 2 0 • view
I'd excuse myself by thinking they probably got it on digital years ago & got rid of their cds anyway (not a practice I approve of - I still buy cds) but lenders karma probably is a thing 😂
aug 17, 2025, 9:50 am • 2 0 • view
Digital absolution? I'll take it 😁
aug 17, 2025, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
😂😂😂
aug 17, 2025, 9:58 am • 0 0 • view
My 90s Assassins Apprentice paperback is not ever going to come back :(
aug 17, 2025, 9:47 am • 3 0 • view
Better than when they come back months later absolutely battered, though, I guess, which happened to my Catch 22
aug 17, 2025, 9:51 am • 3 0 • view
My Catch 22 went through the ringer. I wonder if it's a book that leads to anxious page turning?
aug 17, 2025, 9:54 am • 2 0 • view
Tbf, I could definitely see how it could... I ended up getting it on kindle on a deal of the day so it won't fall apart next time I want to reread again
aug 17, 2025, 9:57 am • 2 0 • view
Somewhere out there, in the great & beautiful shelfverse, there has to a library of the borrowed & lost. Which makes me wonder how you apply for a card...
aug 17, 2025, 9:51 am • 2 0 • view
And in that library are a dozen contemporary fiction books about that library, four heist books about it, three alternate histories about it...
aug 17, 2025, 9:55 am • 2 0 • view
Their indexing system must be a work of art.
aug 17, 2025, 9:57 am • 2 0 • view
There's at least two books in there devoted to that very point
aug 17, 2025, 9:58 am • 2 0 • view
Finished reading Demon Copperhead last night. I have Circe, by Madeline Miller, in my ears today as I clean the house. Loving it.
aug 17, 2025, 11:08 am • 6 1 • view
Circe is a great book. Loved it.
aug 17, 2025, 1:44 pm • 3 0 • view
I did too. Didn’t quite hit the heights of Song Of Achilles, but that’s a very high bar.
aug 17, 2025, 4:03 pm • 3 0 • view
That was a masterpiece.
aug 17, 2025, 4:10 pm • 3 0 • view
Definitely.
aug 17, 2025, 4:46 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm reading The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card. Its the last book of 2 different series in his ender's game universe. I genuinely dont think I've ever loved a sci-fi series as much as this one.
aug 17, 2025, 10:47 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning! A week until my next eye surgery so while I can I am reading Harry Turtledove's vampire LA Noir, Twice As Dead. It's got a talking cat, who needs anything more?
aug 17, 2025, 10:04 am • 4 1 • view
Morning Womble! Went to see Wicked at the West End this week, so am about to dive headlong into a Gregory Maguire series re-read
aug 17, 2025, 8:15 am • 6 1 • view
Moominpappa At Sea with No Bones by Anna Burns ready to swing into action tonight when the Moomins are done.
aug 17, 2025, 3:55 pm • 2 1 • view
Happy Sunday, Womble! I’ll be reading The Last Song of Penelope by Claire North on the flight home this evening!
aug 17, 2025, 5:05 pm • 4 1 • view
Evening Womble! Last night I finished On the Calculation of Volume vol 1 by Solvej Balle. Pure science fiction, though no-one is calling it that. Brilliant conceit beautifully explored, and haunting, but I don't think I'm up for 6 more vols.
aug 17, 2025, 8:48 pm • 2 1 • view
I never really put down “The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations” many pages of absolute joy, it’s been a staple of my life for many years
aug 17, 2025, 9:27 am • 4 1 • view
Hello! I'm reading Her Subtle Investigations by Scarlett Gale @scarlettgauthor.bsky.social It's a new work following on from the earlier duology His Secret Illuminations / His Sacred Incantations, with a new MC These are lovely warm fantasy romances with kink and making the world better
aug 17, 2025, 8:21 am • 7 4 • view
Morning! I'm reading the last Lockwood & Co book which is great - but no more Lockwood when I've finished 😭
aug 17, 2025, 10:42 am • 3 1 • view
Good morning! I finished reading an interesting collection of stories published by the British Library: Weird Sisters—Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era. Edited by Mike Ashley, the stories span from the 1920s to a Tanith Lee story published in 1994. 📚💙🪐👻🧛♀️
aug 17, 2025, 7:56 am • 20 2 • view
The @blpublishing.bsky.social collections are such a delight! My favourites are Weird Woods and Spores of Doom (because apparently I love a good bio-horror tale about sinister nature having its revenge)
aug 17, 2025, 8:32 am • 6 0 • view
Oh, that’s great to know. Thank you! Will definitely check them out. I was buying some of the British Library’s crime titles and this collection popped up as either half price or nearly free.
aug 17, 2025, 8:48 am • 4 0 • view
Oh nice Yes- I'm pretty sure the crime series came first and proved popular, and then I remember being delighted when the weird tales series started arriving. As far as I know they've done just as well (at least, they're very popular here!)
aug 17, 2025, 8:56 am • 4 0 • view
Oooh I don't have that one! Sounds great.
aug 17, 2025, 8:18 am • 2 0 • view
While not all the stories in it were my thing, all were interesting and more than a few were excellent.
aug 17, 2025, 8:50 am • 2 0 • view
Good morning. I’m half-way through The Gentleman by Forrest Leo. It’s a wonderful read. Love it.
aug 17, 2025, 9:01 am • 3 1 • view