vivdunstan: Photo of some of my books (books)
Current main reading, on my Kindle as usual, so I can read with the utterly gargantuan font needed now due to my progressive neurological disease. A mix of fiction and non fiction.

A screenshot of a greyscale Kindle Paperwhite e-reader held in portrait mode. 6 book covers are visible, in 2 rows of 3. On the top row are "Shakespeare" by Bill Bryson (featuring a cartoon version of Shakespeare sitting on top of a Globe like theatre), then "The All Souls Complete Books 1-3" by Deborah Harkness (the "Discovery of Witches" series, and I am rereading book 3 in there, "The Book of Life"), then "The Book of English Magic" (with woodcut like illustrations on the white cover) by Philip Carr-Gomm and Richard Heygate. Then on the row below are "The Haunted Library: Tales of Cursed Books and Forbidden Shelves" edited by Tanya Kirk in the British Library "Tales of the Weird" series (the cover features a woman in old style dress looking towards disturbingly curving bookshelves and strange figures), "Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica" by Duncan Mackay, and a "Complete Sherlock Holmes" collection. Percentage progresses are given for most of the books. I am well through the Bill Bryson, Boudica and Holmes books. The Deborah Harkness book looks far through from the quoted 68%, but I'm rereading the 3rd book in there, and have only newly started that last night. The magic and library books are newly started too.

First date

Jan. 16th, 2026 06:46 pm
vivdunstan: Photo from our wedding in Langholm (martin)
Reminded when a tune came on at random of my first date but-not-quite-date with Martin. In 1992. I was sitting on my own in the New Picture House in St Andrews, watching Batman Returns for the second time. And Martin turned up with some friends, and ended up sitting beside me. This song is in the movie. Our next date - first proper one - was a ghost tour around St Andrews. I ended up wearing thumbscrews! But yes, memories.

vivdunstan: Photo of some of my books (books)
Just finished this, the first in a new trilogy of British set fantasy novels. I’d say urban fantasy at a push, but it’s somewhat rural too, set largely in northern England. The story revolves around five witches who we first meet as young girls. Then we meet them again years later, by which time there’s been a magic war. All are now involved to some extent in the secret witches organisation run as part of the UK establishment. And then things kick off. I found the book tricky initially, with probably one too many main characters for me to not get confused. The back story of what had happened in the magical war was also a lot of information to take in as it was gradually revealed. However by halfway through I was well and truly gripped, and remained so to the end. The book has an extremely novel take on gender identity issues, which is totally fitting here. And the ending is a stunner. I will absolutely have to read the next book. Good stuff. Rating: 4 stars.

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