The books are right here, no need to go anywhere else. 📚
#caturday #bookstodon #photography
bookstodon
finished reading Slade House 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by David Mitchell.
Every nine years, people disappear into a house which otherwise can't be found. The author's usual layering of stories across different time periods gradually reveals the truth, though it's not particularly clever this time around. Dark arts & illusions, bit creepy, not really my thing.
Five stars:
Deadly Crush by Maddie Day and Linda Jones (Narrator) (2024) is the second Cece Barton mystery, or third if you count the short story that launched the series. Cece hired the wrong electrician to redo the lights in Vino y Vida something she realizes as Karl takes too long to complete his work and in the rude way he treats his assistant, Ian.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_10/deadly_crush.html
finished reading Enemy of God 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Bernard Cornwell.
The Saxons threaten to overrun Briton; a search for a legendary artifact to bring back the Old Gods; a little blissful romance; Lancelot is a backstabbing, cowardly bastard; oaths, what are they good for? A touch more magic than in the first book, but just as hard, dirty & cynical.
Thrilled to see my novel The Expert of Subtle Revisions on Oldster's first Bookshelf list (especially since Oldster "explores what it means to travel through time in a human body at every phase of life" Great list. Check it out!
#books #WritingCommunity #readingcommunity #bookstodon @bookstodon
Here’s my review of The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley, 1953, a wonderful novel about class, memory and the loss of youthful innocence, with a dash of magic! #bookstodon #BookReview #Braille #reading #Storygraph
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/0160c5fb-2919-4971-ab84-7f037475dfbd
finished reading The Help 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
by Kathryn Stockett.
In 1960s Mississippi, white women and the black maids they employ navigate the upheaval of the civil rights movement. The contrast of ingrained racism and the deep emotional integration of black women into white family life is astounding. Potential for deep analysis, but you can also just enjoy the story.
Review: Bloodtide by Sophie Burnham
@princejvstin.com has our review for your Friday
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/12/review-bloodtide-by-sophie-burnham.html
"Sargassa and Bloodtide are the queer forward alternate history/future history SF novels you may not have known you wanted, but are here for you."
#books #fantasy #sciencefiction #alternatehistory #bookstodon @bookstodon
Five stars:
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (2025) is the third novella in the Sworn Soldier series. This one takes Alex Easton far of their comfort zone and into the mountains of West Virginia. A friend's cousin has gone missing from a reputed cursed mine. Alex with their experience with the unnatural is called into help locate the man.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_10/what_stalks_the_deep.html
finished reading Skyward Flight: The Collection: Sunreach / ReDawn / Evershore 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson.
While the hero of the series is lost in the Nowhere, her fellow pilots get on with being awesome and taking the fight to the oppressors. Decent YA fare with lots of dogfights, light humour and a little romance. The hyperslugs are adorable.
Into the Wardrobe: THE GHOST OF FOSSIL GLEN by Cynthia D. DeFelice
@Reading1KLives has the newest
@skiffyandfanty review
https://skiffyandfanty.com/blog/wardrobe-ghost-of-fossil-glen-by-defelice/
"This is a book that deserves to stay in circulation for kids and adults to both continue enjoying and learning from."
Book Review: The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah
A good entryway to non-Western fantasy for readers in search of new ground
our co-founder, @The_G , has our review at the blog
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/10/book-review-stardust-thief-by-chelsea.html
Five stars:
Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop by Darci Hannah and Amy Melissa Bentley (Narrator) (2021) is the start of the Beacon Bakeshop mystery series. Lindsey Bakeswell has purchased the Beacon Harbor lighthouse to convert into a bakery. On opening day her exfiance's lover is murdered and Lindsey is the prime suspect.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_10/murder_at_the_beacon_bakeshop.html
A biography I read largely in honour of my late father brought up the halfway mark in my #DeanStreetDecember
https://robinwalter31.blogspot.com/2025/12/ten-from-ten-dean-street-december-iv.html
#Bookstodon #nonfiction #biography #cricket #Arsenal
@bookstodon
“It’s devastating for us to know that these kids who put in hundreds of hours of hard work had that torn away from them because of the objections of a single parent,” says Picoult... "I had 20 books banned in one school district in Florida alone because of a single parent’s objection and she admitted she had not read any of the books...She said that they were banned for ‘mature content and sexuality.’ There were books of mine that did not even have a single kiss in them.”
#books #writing #writersofmastodon #WritingCommunity #bookstodon @bookstodon
Book Review: The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott
Elen’s story continues and finishes in a land of lost magic, royal intrigue and much more
@Princejvstin has our review at the NOAF blog
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/10/book-review-nameless-land-by-kate.html
I’ve written a few thoughts on Penance by Eliza Clark, 2023, a disturbing look at the grizzly world of True Crime #bookstodon #BookReview #reading #Storygraph #audiobook @bookstodon
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/da51ecd6-c05b-438d-9f55-dde1c2b36c13
"[You] must begin a reading program immediately ... Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books."
My first read of the year is a reread of the cringe comedy classic by #JohnKennedyToole , with the bloviating Ignatius Reilly and the beautifully constructed farce of vivid characters revolving around him. One of my favourite final paragraphs too, ending the silliness and chaos on a surprisingly moving note. @bookstodon #Bookstodon
Even though you may have missed the beginning of advent, it is still possible to catch up.
Christmas in Norway, 2025 is a slim tome of 24 texts, one for each day of December until Christmas Eve, when preparations cease and the day is celebrated with gifts, good food, and (above all) good company.
Details and links: https://norwegianfolktales.net/books/Christmas-in-Norway-2025
#Christmas2025 #Advent #Scandinavia #Norway #Folktales #Legends #Bookstodon #eBook
@bookstodon A medical emergency leaves the passengers of the Scampering Pete fending for themselves! They face pirates, mechanical issues, and more in Death In Transit!
Available on Amazon and more!
#Scifi #Adventure #Bookstodon #ActionAdventure #eBook
finished reading Wind and Truth 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Brandon Sanderson.
An absolute brick of a book - possibly the longest I've ever read. Could certainly have been shorter (successful authors get way too much latitude), with too frequent changes in PoV, and while I appreciate his use of mental health to disrupt tired fantasy tropes, after three weeks of amateur therapy I was a bit over it. But he does pull together sprawling plotlines to a satisfying climax, with an appealing set up for a fresh take on the second half of the series.
I couldn't resist doing some analysis of ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.
How much more likely were people to vote for books because they had read them in recent memory (recency bias)? You would expect that good books are spread out evenly across the years, but it's hard to remember books that you read many years ago! Turns out there was an even spread of books across 2000-2019. But there were 40% more books than expected from 2020-2024. (See first graph.)
Were newer books more likely to be lower down the list? I thought this might be lkely because votes for recently read books might spread out more. But that wasn't completely true. The bottom 40 of the list did lean new, but so did the top 20. (See second graph.)
How diverse were the authors on the list? Not very! Only 22 of the books were by authors with diverse backgrounds, by which I mean non-white or not hetero-normative. The top 20 were the least diverse, but it was pretty even across the range. Probably not surprising - people might connect most strongly with books that speak to their own experience. Would be fascinating to see more demographic info on the voters.
Most books were by authors from Australia (35), the USA (31), the UK (17) and Ireland (7). Ireland seemed to punch above its weight. New Zealand only had one author! (Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz).
There were very few non-fiction books, especially if you exclude memoirs and true crime. I count 4: Dark Emu, Stasiland, Sapiens and A Short History of Nearly Everything. And yet non-fiction accounts for something like 40% of book sales. I wonder if that is because a non-fiction book tends to focus on a particular subject, which would have less widespread appeal. It could also be that the type of people who vote in this sort of poll are book nerds, and book nerds mostly read fiction.
As a keen #fantasy & #scifi reader, I was disappointed. Project Hail Mary is the only full-blown scifi, but I wouldn't say it is a good representation of the genre. There is Hunger Games and Harry Potter, but both are young adult. The others (Cloud Atlas, Station Eleven, Piranesi, Never Let Me Go) feel borderline (I've not read the last two).
How did the list compare with my own ratings? I've read 57 of the 100 books, and I did rate higher books better, but the relationship was very weak. (See third graph.)
Highest ranked book that I didn't really like: #12. Where The Crawdads Sing. (Runner up The Dry.)
Lowest ranked book that I really liked: #86. Cloud Atlas
Highest ranked book I'd never heard of: #9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I've got 43 books to catch up on in the next few years, plus the favourites as voted by my friends. Never short a good book!
Edited 1y ago
Today I emailed an author to ask how to spell one of her character's names. I've read the series as audiobooks and none of the descriptions include his last name. Well now he's married to the main character and she has taken his name. So now I need to know how to spell it.
Have you written to an author? The last time I did was about 40 years ago in 6th grade and that was a homework assignment.
Options: (choose one)
My contribution to the #1925Club this week is a post on the wonderful Love by Elizabeth von Arnim, which had a lot to say about double standards in society and the pressures on women as they age #bookstodon #BookReview #audiobook @kaggsy59
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/3589831a-2956-408e-a6dc-19397cf94635
Five stars:
Book 'Em, Eddie by Laurie Cass and Erin Bennett (Narrator) (2025) is the thirteenth book in the Bookmobile Cat mystery series. Minnie and Rafe are now married and trying to settle into a new routine as a couple.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_12/book_em_eddie.html
