Time for a further upate on my attempt to clear the outstanding books from my TBR pile. It’s been a productive couple of months, reading-wise, and the pile is now down to just 102. No chance I’m going to clear it by the end of the year, but I have made a significant dent.
Since the end of July I’ve read (or attempted to) the following books:
Sadly, right out of the gate I had a DNF: Caraval, by Stephanie Garber. I don’t DNF books often. Usually I’m pretty good about picking ones I think I will enjoy, but sometimes I just don’t vibe with the prose style or the characters, and I have to put it down. In Caraval‘s case, I think I simply wasn’t the intended audience, and rather than struggle through to the end I moved on.
Another DNF was Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist. Whilst I wanted to love it, and indeed moments charmed me, I quickly grew tired of the narrator and the very mannered prose. Perhaps it was simply a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, but I found that once I put it down I was not motivated to pick it back up.
Stand-out reads:
- The Golem and the Jinni was a delight: easy to read, with an exquisite sense of place. Two non-humans learning how to be people – immigrants to humanity, as well as to New York.
- I was utterly captivated by Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames by Lara Maiklem. What a treasure trove of history and glimpses into the daily life of our ancestors, rich and poor alike, as well as a love letter to the river itself. Recommended for anyone who – like me – has an irresistible urge to pick up treasures on the beach or from the forest floor and take them home.
- Kate Elliott’s Unconquerable Sun surprised me with rather more pew-pew battles than I was expecting, but also did not stint on the intrigue, characters, culture and worldbuilding. More. please.
- The Thousand Names by Django Wexler. Imagine Sharpe’s Rifles transported to alt-North Africa, with a dollop of fantasy on top. Enormous fun.
- Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins. This had absolutely bags of atmosphere, oppressive and unsettling: part Soviet spy thriller with the serial numbers filed off, part tone poem exploring the clash between man’s ruthless enforcement of systems and the built environment onto the natural landscape and its denizens. Left me quite breathless.
- The Bear and the Nightingale was a gorgeous Russian fairytale, which I ate up in heaping helpings. Worthy of the praise that has been heaped upon it.
- Nunslinger by Stark Holborn. I have previously enjoyed both Triggernometry and Advanced Triggernometry by this author, and this book serves up more Old West, lean prose and quick-fire pace. I am eager to sample Stark’s scifi now, too.
- Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell. A rollicking adventure: fast, fun, and the instant I finished I was dying to pick up the next one. The fact that the copy I read was an ARC given to me by the publisher Jo Fletcher will tell you how long this one had been sitting on the shelf patiently waiting for my eyeballs. I know, I should be shot.
- Andrea Stewart’s The Bone Shard Daughter was another absorbing read, with just enough creepy to keep me turning the pages. Another I’ll be reading the sequels to, in due course.
None of the books I haven’t highlighted were bad, by the way, even the ones I didn’t click with; the list above is just the ones that stuck in my memory as I was writing this post. Needless to say, as a result of this exercise my list of continuing series has grown: I am currently midway through no less than 43 series, and it shows little sign of slowing down.
And I am not sorry.
