As a former translator, I NEEDED to read this book. Translators at the centre of a revolution? Yes please. Despite the book's size, I couldn't put it down. I am also pro-footnotes so liked the discursive footnotes throughout the story, although the asterisk in the main text was sometimes too small for me to find. And I thought the ending was perfect. Highly recommended if the premise interests you.

Another book and shirt pairing. I visited Oxford in 2017 and would love to go back (hopefully the cafe R. F. Kuang mentions in her author‘s note is still there). Really enjoying this book! (Well, “enjoy” might not be the right word; it‘s very powerful and tackles hard truths well.)

Starlight, Richard Wagamese‘s unfinished last novel, is a gripping read. There‘s suspense and quiet joy all at the same time, and I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happened. The publisher included notes about how Wagamese‘s circle think it was likely to have ended, a scene from an unpublished novella, and an essay by Wagamese that fits the theme of the story. I highly recommend this but you need to read Medicine Walk first.

This has a timey-to-the-wimey beginning and a rather scary middle. I like how it throws you into the action and disorients you a bit before putting things back on track. Not as much fun as Vol. 1 but makes up for it in unsettling-ness.

A fantastic resource for anyone playing (or struggling with) Tears of the Kingdom. It contains full walkthroughs for quests (while avoiding story spoilers as much as possible) and shrines, an atlas of Hyrule, a bestiary describing the various types of enemies you‘ll encounter, and much more. The font was just a touch small and the book rather heavy, but that is probably because there is so much information to cram in!

I read book 83 on my list in February (I love seeing that I‘m making progress!), so I‘ll replace it with book 82. Here‘s my October 2023 #Roll100 list:
1️⃣ More Stories for Late at Night (Hitchcock)
2️⃣ Doctor Who: Silhouette (Richards)
3️⃣ La fée carabine (Pennac)

What an emotional story! I basically spent most of the book sobbing because Fukumaru went missing. I've known several people who've had cats run away (all of them came back), so I could well imagine how panicked Mr. Kanda was and how scared Fukumaru was :( The afterword story was very sweet.

Hm maybe a low Pick. I LOVE Denise Mina and will read pretty much anything she writes. I love the idea behind this and the choice of subject matter. It read very quickly, and the details are well chosen. But I feel I might have got more out of it if I knew even a tiny bit about Florence in that period. I certainly learned a fair bit; before this, I knew The Bonfire of the Vanities only as the title of the novel by Tom Wolfe.

We'll call this a Pick. I liked that a cat accompanied Jack and La Grande Sauterelle on their journey across North America, and I liked that the Indigenous narrative was brought to the fore to challenge the traditional colonial narrative. It has a sort of hipster vibe that might appeal to fans of Kerouac, but you do not by any means need to know or like him to find this book interesting. #BookSpin September 2023

Absolutely loved this. The 11th Doctor‘s voice and expressions are spot on, and I loved Alice from the get-go. I liked that they saw the first gig of a young man clearly modelled on David Bowie. His draft version of “Space Oddity” had me cackling, because I am secretly 4. I also liked how the chapters built on each other but felt self-contained as well. Looking forward to Vol. 2!

I liked this a lot. The pacing and atmosphere really did feel like an episode of the show. I'm sure there are some nitpicks I could make about the plot, but I read this in just a few hours and enjoyed it thoroughly, so that's good enough for me :)

Like Death on Gokumon Island, The Devil‘s Flute Murders is a slow burn, but the build-up and heightened tension really works here. What did not work for me was the revelation of the motives behind the murders—it felt really distasteful. There was also a sizeable helping of sexism that I don‘t recall being present in other books in the series. That said, will I keep reading these as they're translated? Probably.

An interesting look at death and burial in the city of London over the centuries, as well as society‘s attitudes toward death It‘s full of facts, and does sometimes feel like it‘s skipping around a bit, so this would be a good for reading in chunks rather than straight through. This book was published in 2006, so although it‘s not dated, it does end “early,” with the most recent historical event covered being the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005.

Not gonna lie, this is my favourite Philip Marlowe novel. Mina makes his world feel more complete just by adding well-rounded female characters. Marlowe has not been my favourite hardboiled detective (that honour goes to Lew Archer), but in this book I liked him a fair bit. Perhaps now I'll go back to my Chandler omnibus and carry Mina's Marlowe in my head.

Belated #BookSpinBingo board for September 2023:
#BookSpin Volkswagen Blues (Poulin)
#DoubleSpin Verdict of 13: A Detection Club Anthology

Ready to go with my September 2023 #BookSpin list! I have two comics, a novella, and a short story collection on there, as well as some free spaces for library books that come in over the course of the month. Or maybe I‘ll work on the pile of books I borrowed from a friend?

August 2023 #BookSpinBingo wrap-up: I was reading, just not my spins!
❌ BookSpin: First to the Front (Rinehart)
❌ DoubleSpin: If Walls Could Talk (Worsley)
0️⃣ bingos but very close in a couple of places.

#20In4 August 2023 wrap-up: finished two books, both 4-star reads.

✅ The Swift and the Harrier (Walters)
✅ The Maintenance of Headway (Mills)

As a veteran bus traveller, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was deadpan and absurd and at the same time felt 100% accurate, probably because Mills himself works as a bus driver. The ending was perfect. Highly recommended.

A very good historical novel. Lots of detail but compelling characters. I liked the matter-of-fact and highly competent Jayne, as well as her mum and Lady Stickland. This was a big book but the story moved at a good pace, with the right mix of drama and quieter scenes. And as far as I know, it‘s a stand-alone novel, making it a satisfying one-time read for those with too many series on the go.

I‘m working this weekend (we‘re slammed at work and I‘m acting manager, so not much time during regular hours to get my own work done 😩), but I‘ll make time for some #20In4-ing where I can. Main plan is to finish The Swift and the Harrier, which is overdue at the library 😅

Because I read book 4 on my list last month, I will replace it with book 5. This gives me the following #Roll100 picks:

1️⃣ The Eleventh Doctor Vol. 1: After Life
2️⃣ The Eleventh Doctor Vol. 2: Serve You
3️⃣ The Archer Files (Macdonald)

Not going to say no to lots of comics 😂

One of the earlier volumes in the 87th Precinct series, and for book 16 to be considered “early”, that‘s a LOT of books. So it has brevity on its side. That said, not too much character development, more for the detectives. Women are objectified a great deal, and the solution to the main crime was unsatisfying (although I suppose unsatisfying solutions occur in real life as well). I finished this, so not a Pan.

This is a detailed story, taking you through every year of the war with a varied cast of characters. Some of the cast changes up throughout the book, and some are more well-rounded than others. Given the theatre of operations, there weren‘t many female characters. This would be a good pairing with HMS Ulysses, by Alistair MacLean.

Am I ever going to rate a volume of A Man and His Cat other than 4 stars? I really love this series. In this volume, Mr. Kanda‘s music rival also gets a cat, so they bond over their pets. Mr. Kanda also learns how to enjoy music in a live setting, which is heartwarming.

This is not a how-to book with quick and easy tips on how to reclaim one‘s life from work. Everyone‘s relationship to work is different, so the book presents a variety of stories that you may see yourself in. This isn‘t telling me personally much new, but it does present the information in a good way that I think will help people who haven‘t thought about work in this way before.

I might have started this in a bad mood, because I ended up losing patience with it. It took a long time to get to the murder, and by the time it happened I didn‘t particularly care who murdered him because his death was nothing but positive. The detective protagonist, Macdonald, is fine, and the view of homefront WW2 in England is good, but this wasn‘t my favourite Lorac novel.
July 2023 #GoldenAgeCrimeClub selection

I tear through Marsh's books in a few hours, and this book is no exception. This book is about his diagnosis of prostate cancer, becoming a patient as a doctor, and coming to grips with mortality. It was interesting reading after What Doctors Feel; Marsh is a retired neurosurgeon and reflects on his whole career and discovers a new perspective on medicine.

This was interesting to read after Brené Brown‘s The Gifts of Imperfection, which also touches on guilt vs. shame. This book is also a precursor to If I Betray These Words, by Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot, which talks about the challenge that physicians face in maintaining empathy in the modern (American) health-care system. I appreciate 2013 Ofri's frankness about her own biases and mistakes and wonder what 2023 Ofri is like.

This is the second Brené Brown I‘ve read (after Atlas of the Heart) and I liked it enough to want my own copy. I like that the guideposts had a spectrum and that Brown emphasized that accepting yourself is not an item to check off the to-do list; it‘s an ongoing practice and some days it‘s easier than others.

This was a well-put-together book detailing the history of the two Dr. Who films starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor. Long derided as not being canon, they do have their admirers, and I am sufficiently intrigued to want to see the first one. I did check out some of the soundtrack and nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the opening titles: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_wPXXkO14o

I'll call this a Pick because it's Patrick deWitt, but relative to the other novels of his I've read, it's 3 stars. I liked Bob Comet and his story, but I found the flashback element of the novel rather long and I was occasionally restless about reading it.

Apparently the Daleks gatecrashed John and Cynthia Lennon when they were in France 🤣 John was promoting “Help!” and the Daleks were of course promoting “Dr. Who & the Daleks”. John doesn‘t look terribly impressed 😂

August 2023 #BookSpinBingo board is set. Both spins are library books this time!
#BookSpin: First to the Front (Rinehart)
#DoubleSpin: If Walls Could Talk (Worsley)

Matching my outfit to my book 🤣

July 2023 #BookSpinBingo wrap-up:
✅ BookSpin: The Invasion of Canada (Berton)
❌ DoubleSpin: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman)
1️⃣ bingo (B1 to O1)

Belated wrap-up for July 2023 #20In4: all I managed to do from my list was start The Librarianist. I did, however, finish The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, which was a lot of fun.

List for #BookSpinBingo August 2023 is all set! I have a lot of non-fiction on the list…we‘ll see what strikes my fancy.

This was a lot of fun and even though I didn‘t guess the solution, I felt the clues were fair when explained.

Top priorities for #20In4 July 2023 edition:

Finish Fell Murder (Lorac) for #GoldenAgeCrimeClub
Start (and hopefully finish) The Librarianist (deWitt)
Start UNIT: Extinction (Big Finish audio drama)

The Big Ideas Simply Explained books cram a lot of information into an easy-to-nibble at, beautifully presented layout. This book is a must read for anyone looking to learn more about LGBTQIA+ history.

#JubilantJuly 2023 wrap-up: 3/4 books on the list.

✅ A Question of Blood (Rankin)
✅ The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman
✅ The Cat Who Saved Books (Natsukawa)
Silver in the Wood (Tesh)

Also read 🎧 Missy Series 1 (Big Finish) and 📖 The Third Man (Greene). And I got a #BookSpinBingo!

I read this mainly for The Third Man. Greene preferred the movie version of the story to the book, and I wish I hadn‘t read the preface where he said that, because it affected my enjoyment of the story. Also, this was a teeny tiny book with teeny tiny print. Nice gold edges and ribbon bookmark though 😂

Rebus is always a good read. This one shows a bit of his family that we haven‘t seen before, and he reckons a bit with the impact of the army on soldiers‘ lives. This one does show its age in the technology (laptops plugged into the phone line to get internet) but the investigation techniques are timeless.

This is a Pick for the content; I can‘t resist epics featuring women warriors. The translation was mostly fine, although there were some weird shifts in levels of language, odd sentences that sounded more informal than the rest. Perhaps these are difficult passages to render idiomatically in English. With no knowledge of Arabic, I couldn‘t say. Good endnotes, though!

#Roll100 picks for August 2023:
1️⃣ Like Love (McBain)
2️⃣ Hope to Die (Jackson)
3️⃣ The Maintenance of Headway (Mills)
A couple of series and a book that I bought over 10 years ago! Good assortment 😊

My ranking of the stories in this set:
Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated 4 ⭐️
The Broken Clock 3.5 ⭐️
A Spoonful of Mayhem 3.5 ⭐️
The Belly of the Beast 2 ⭐️
The last story was confusing (why was the beast there?) and screamy (I had to keep adjusting the volume). I loved the Henry VIII story though, quite silly in the best way. So overall this set is a low Pick.

I liked this. It was a quick read with a thoughtful core. I liked how Rintaro grew in confidence over the course of the story.
(I had intended to read this for #JubilantJuly 2023 but finished it early 😆)

For #JubilantJuly 2023 I‘ll be ambitious and aim for two bingos on my #BookSpinBingo with these books:

A Question of Blood (Rankin)
The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman
The Cat Who Saved Books (Natsukawa)
Silver in the Wood (Tesh)

A good secondhand find. I was interested in reading about the Pacific part of WW2 and particularly the naval part of it. The narrative frame, that the commander is telling his story to an interviewer for some reason, feels unnecessary; the first-person narration is vivid on its own.