Book 59 of 2022

Just finished Mischief Acts by Zoe Gilbert, a set of stories and poems through time of Herne the Hunter. I should have enjoyed this so much. It started off well, and I loved the opening literary style, including some chaining links between successive stories, and reworking of myths and folklore, and a forest setting throughout. It generally swaps between short stories and poems. But after the 1606 story (which was quite superb) the next run of stories became extremely confusingly similar for me, with too similar settings, plots and characters. So I soon struggled to finish them, which continued into the next section too. I also found the story lengths increasingly frustrating, some over long, some could have been better with more room to breathe. It became a major struggle for me to finish the book, though eventually I did. But I am confident I will never read it again. That merits 2/5 on Goodreads at most, though if I was to give a more precise score it might be closer to 2.5/5.

Current reading October 2022

Current reading October 2022 edition. For fiction Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. Non fiction Rob Wilkins’ bio of Terry Pratchett, David Long’s Lost Britain, Loren Wiseman’s Traveller RPG columns, and Brian Kernighan’s Hello World columns.

Latest TBR recommendations

Just a few minutes ago got my latest TBR Tailored Book Recommendations and delighted again with them! All 3 books I haven’t heard of, all look great for me. I’ve got a fantasy/folklore novel, a book of essays celebrating different gender identities, and a historical fiction whodunnit(?) set in 1930s Singapore. Fab!

I plan to start reading some of them in November. The recommendations come quarterly, and I’ve paid for a year’s worth, so am halfway through now. Sure I’ve still got to read these ones, but they look really promising. I got onto this service via a book YouTuber I watch, and I’m so far very happy to have treated myself to a year.