Thursday 18 August 2016

A portion of the TBR pile

I came home from work tonight with a small pile of books to read.  It's not as though my existing TBR isn't already significant, but things just kept jumping out at me today.

Current loans from work include:

New Guard, by Robert Muchamore - the latest "Cherub"
A Call to Duty, by David Weber and Timothy Zahn - first of the new Manticore Ascendant sub-series
The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff
While We Run, by Karen Healey
Queen Isabella by Alison Weir
Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now: Australian stories from a social revolution

So - how long will it take me to get all these read...?

Wednesday 10 August 2016

Wednesday reads - 10 August 2016

It's been a while...

What I've just finished reading:

The Heir/The Crown  - the final two "Selection" books by Keira Cass.  These two were unexpected sequels to the first three "Selection" books, a sort of "The Bachelor" dystopian YA... In The Heir and The Crown, it essentially becomes "the Bachelorette" as Eadlyn Schreave tries to find a husband.  The premise is dodgy, and the writing isn't brilliant, but it says plenty that I came back to this series after having read three books of it already.  I do feel the world building in the final two lacked something from the first three: there simply wasn't as good a sense of the wider world.  But Eadlyn was sympathetic, while flawed, protagonist, and both books hooked me sufficiently.

The White Rose - Amy Ewing, second in the Lone City trilogy.  I believe my summary of the first book in this series, The Jewel, was "Margaret Attwood did it before you, and better than you.'  Needless to say, this is still true. But the story has gripped me sufficiently that I've already put the final book on hold, and I probably wouldn't have done that I hadn't decided that I should follow up The Jewel to see if I liked the continuing story.  It's just that it took a while for me to decide that.

What I'm reading now:

Currently 75% through At All Costs, the next Honor Harrington in the sequence.

I picked up Cadogan Square by Carol Drinkwater today, a two-in-one British My Story compilation of Edwardian stories: it's pedestrian but the time period interests me.

What I'll read next:

I plan to return to Leanda de Lisle's The Tudors, and while I want to get through enough of the Harringtons to finally finish Torch of Freedom in sequence, I'm feeling Harrington fatigue at the moment and may put it off for a while.  I need to go back to the final Netherwood book, Eden Falls, but that will depend whether it's available from the library.