vivdunstan: Photo of some of my books (books)
[personal profile] vivdunstan
Crikey I so wanted to type 2024 there haha!

I've got off to a flying start this year, partly with 2 books that were hang overs from before, but also a quick read for my book club. But then I also quickly read 3 other books that had been hanging around for too long, and I wanted to pass on to charity shops. I'd previously started reading a couple of them.
  1. An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson
  2. Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
  3. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
  4. Egyptian Myths: Meet the Gods, Goddesses, and Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Jean Menzies
  5. Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb by Zahi Hawass
  6. ABBA: The Treasures by Ingmarie Halling and Carl Magnus Palm
An Academy for Liars is a dark academia book, with rather a lot of violence and gore added to the mix. It was ok, but I had to push to keep reading it to the end. 3/5 stars.

Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri was an incredible insight into the experience and history of black hair. A strong 4/5 stars.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop was another 3/5 star read for me. Ok, mostly, but a rather odd writing style, and an unexpected and lengthy shift away from the cosy bookshop setting mid way through. 3/5 stars.

Egyptian Myths by classical historian and YouTuber Jean Menzies was an entertaining and informative text, full of striking large format illustrations from Katie Ponder. I did find the order and structure a little confusing in places, but I learned a lot. 4/5 stars.

Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb is a large format coffee table book, filled with huge photographs and details of many hundreds of items from Tutankhamun's tomb. The items chosen are a selection carefully curated by Zahi Hawass, and it's not exhaustive. But for what you did get it was jaw dropping, including multi-page folding out large photographs. Both Martin and I were stunned by parts. 5/5 stars.

ABBA: The Treasures is a large format squidgy book telling much of the story of ABBA in photographs, reminiscences, and reproductions of paper ephemera connected with them, tucked into folders inside that you open up and work through the contents of. It's a nice book, but a rather narrow perspective on their life, focusing mainly on some of their 1970s international tours, which one of the authors accompanied them on. I did feel that I was missing out on the wider story. But the folders of paper ephemera were a delight. I was particularly amused by the customs list, for the Australian tour I think, including a "piano accordion". 4/5 stars.

Date: 2025-01-30 02:59 am (UTC)
a_cubed: caricature (Default)
From: [personal profile] a_cubed
I look at Academy for Liars when you mentioned it before but it didn't seem quite my thing from the reviews. I've enjoyed other "Dark Academia" books like Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House and Hell Bent as well as Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy and (before that term was coined) The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman (though, unusually I think the TV adapation is better than the books). But the description of this didn't attract me.

I started doing books read last year but failed half way through. I might yet catch up on listing last year's at some point. Currently reading We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen. Some shades of Jeff VanderMeer in this.

Date: 2025-02-03 03:27 am (UTC)
a_cubed: caricature (Default)
From: [personal profile] a_cubed
I know what I've read because I read (fiction) almost entirely on my phone and the app shows what books I've opened. From that list I can easily remember if I just looked at is as a possible "next read", started but DNF, or read it through. Since I changed phone last year I'd need to charge and open the app on the previous phone to get some of last year's. It's just a case of going through and doing it. I could probably remember most of them anyway, at least if I finished it. A short DNF might escape me, and the order wouldn't be right.

Profile

vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
vivdunstan

May 2025

S M T W T F S
     1 2 3
45 678 9 10
11 12 1314 15 16 17
1819 202122 2324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 24th, 2025 03:03 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios