This is super cute and I love the dinosaur consultant's commentary between chapters. The bit with baby Benkei is just aaaaah. 💙

This was the cute, fairly low-stakes manga I needed today, due to the loss of a pet (Hulk, for those who know us). I love the little fact files between chapters -- it's obviously aimed at kids, but I'm enough of a dinosaur nerd to enjoy it all the same.

Masaruuu. 💙
(That's the triceratops.)

The goriness/sex focus of this was not super my thing, but I did enjoy the way it tried to play with language/orthography (the translators' note about trying to represent the things the original in Korean does is fascinating), and how it's obviously about queerness and gender, really.

This was a silly bit of fun, I enjoyed it, though it felt a bit rushed through toward the end. Still... lots of classic mystery moments + the Great British Bake-Off setup (and gentle mockery of the format). A light pick!

I should really do a new #ComicsBingo card...

This gets a bit dry and repetitive, unless perhaps you're super super interested in genealogy and chasing down the minute details of family trees. It rarely touches on the actual content of the postcards, just confirms birth/death/some family details/occupation, and moves on.

Welp, here we go! The #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin are the ones I most needed a nudge to read, so this has worked out well. I don't do a lot of seasonal reading, but there's a couple that seem apropos (The Palace of Illusions is a loose retelling of the Nutcracker, and Death in Ambush is set at Christmas. Murder Most Actual isn't, as far as I know, but has snow on the cover.)

#BookSpinBingo

This is a pretty random set of picks, ahaha. But this format's been working for me, so let's push it one more time. #BookSpinBingo

Hm. Maybe this would've been better if I knew the original book? It just seemed like Victor's story faded out and was totally subsumed in Marie's success, and some stuff was really rushed.

Oh no, the drunk chapter... I find all the drunk chapters excruciating but oh noooo this one.

But oh, MXTX sure does torture her characters. Wei Wuxian's golden core...

Oh boy, this is all going south so swiftly. Poor Wei Wuxian.

The relationship is a bit rushed (and the hoarding is resolved super quickly, all in all), but cute. A light pick.

I loved how this never quite pinned itself down to anything about Rose and Aimé, they just enjoy one another's company and the love is perfectly clear. I liked the art a lot.

I enjoyed this and the grounding in details of the wool industry quite a bit ultimately, but waiting for the payoff had me anxious, especially given the relationship between them also gets so amped up and explosive.

And a #BookSpinBingo blackout, and it's not even the last day of the month! It just kinda. Happened.

You know, sometimes I wish it was normal to just have full plot summaries for every book out there on the internet for easy lookup. Right now I'm being too neurodivergent to read more of this book without knowing how things work out, but I keep reading a chapter at a time because I do *want* to finish it.

I got into this shortly after complaining I wasn't getting into it, and oof, what a ride. This certainly goes places. I feel like the relationship between Shane and Marguerite was more background than e.g. Piper and Galen, so that I found it less strong mattered less, ultimately.

? I was pretty certain that was what was going to happen with "Ian", but ah, still, poor Wren.

I'm not really sure why this isn't 100% clicking for me? I'd expected to adore it, but I'm much more inclined to pick up Paladin's Faith (which I'm reading at the same time). Hmm.

I know I showed an update yesterday already, but I just want to marvel again at being THIS on track for a blackout. #BookSpinBingo

I was tempted to read vol 4 of MDZS but in the end I used my internetless evening to finish this off. Now just two books left to complete my November #BookSpinBingo.

This was okay. Fairly predictable, all in all, with the main characters both stupidly keeping secrets. A very light pick, maybe a so-so. I wasn't tempted to DNF but I won't read more in the series.

The internet's completely dead and has been for five hours now. Is that an excuse to drop my other reading and start vol 4? Probably not... Unless?

Ahhh look! I don't think it'll have to come down to the wire so much this time!

I might still break each book down into a few chapters each day and finish them on the last day, because I'm currently really wanting to focus on Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but still, three books is way more manageable than 5-6!

#BookSpinBingo

Oof, I wish it didn't bounce around in time so much!

But oh boy, that first kiss was SO cute. Ahh, Lan Wangji, you're such an idiot.

I decided to get started on this right away, so I won't fall out of remembering who's who again, and can build on what I remember from book two.

Of course, that means it's instantly gone into flashback mode with some new characters on top...

I think my favourite thing remains Greta's nerdery about Oasis Natrun and Erebus General.

I'm really not sure how there's another book after this, but now I'm all set to try it!

Ridiculously cute. Not a lot of substance or conflict, just two dudes dating and nobody having a problem with it, even with an age gap.

There's a lot to like about this historical mystery, though I found Sarah a bit too inclined to judge, and overall it was a bit darker and more filled with trauma than I usually find enjoyable.

CN: misogyny, homophobia, rape, violence, medical trauma, forced institutionalisation, forced sterilisation, probably more that aren't springing to mind.

This is a lovely concept, and inevitably a mixed bag -- some of the poems and interpretations of how to answer them speak to me or fit my taste, and some don't. A worthwhile collection.

I'm still finding myself a little lost at times; there's so many similar names, and I feel like I need to draw a dang family tree including everyone's birth names and courtesy names.

Still, I know I'll get the hang of it as the story goes on, so I'm trying not to sweat the details.

I really liked the Yi City story in the end, even if it's tragic.

My heart is a little crushed by the story of Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. Oof.

The chapters in this volume are SO long, though, goodness.

I found it a bit slow and lacking in the urgency to, you know, go save the guy's sister. The concept is fun, though, and I enjoy how much of a scientist Laios is (though not explicitly on page called a scientist, he's clearly fascinated by how monsters work).

I'm finding this a bit slow, but I did giggle about the whole recommendation not to eat basilisk raw, because of the risk of Campylobacter!

A very American-eye view of bipolar disorder. Nothing too surprising as far as the (obviously partly autobiographical) experiences go, but “bipolar bear“ is a fun idea.

I can't really complain about it being kinda simplistic since it is, of course, billed as a fable.

It is, and I say this in the kindest possible way, very obviously written by someone with bipolar disorder.

Quite a fun collection, although there's one repeat in there (not sure from which of the collections, but I definitely know it's a repeat). That last one is quite macabre!

And oof, thank you, brain, for getting back to reading again.

Defines "hiraeth" as an "excellent Welsh word for the mournful longing for home", ugh. No. It's a longing for Wales, specifically -- a Wales that may not exist.

Absolutely nuts to say that Mole in Wind in the Willows feels hiraeth when he passes his old burrow.

I should probably sit down and just binge this one, because that's usually the best way for me to get a handle on all the characters (and their courtesy names vs other names, their clans, their sects, and all the other info that shapes how they relate to each other). Also my wife's started vol 1 and is thus raaaapidly catching up to me.

I'm finding this one difficult going because the main character has plainly been horrifically raped and is being blamed for it in a period-typical manner. I don't think I'd have chosen it for myself if I'd known about that part, honestly; I was interested in the fact that she's studying to be a doctor and ends up trying to discover the murderer of a body she receives to dissect.

In accordance with my difficulty in settling down at the moment, I'm also partway through this one. It's surprisingly chonky for one of these anthologies, but either way, the short stories are suiting my rather bitty attention.

Also, I'm enjoying it to a surprising degree, so far, not usually being an “impossible mystery“ fan. I liked that the one I just read was just a mystery and not actually crime at all.

I've been having trouble settling down to read in the past few days, but I did manage to read a few chapters of this today! I'm enjoying it and it matches well with the course I did on children's literature in my undergrad, and what I remember of my third-year housemate's dissertation.

I appreciate that it's very clear that it's mostly talking about British childhood reading, rather than defaulting to that silently.

Bit of a weird mix, being selected and new poems, but some lovely ones. I wonder if you put the poems side by side with the novels, you'd see her playing with the same theme in different media...

I reaaaally don't rate Brand as highly as some people do. There's something so mean about her writing, I think. Not just the homophobia, but the way she writes about unattractive or less intelligent or poor women.

Soothingly completely unrelated to anything I'm normally interested in. Has black-and-white images which helps illustrate the features of the churches it talks about.

Some poor editing (sentences don't make sense, spelling mistakes), it jumped out at me quite a bit. Did also jump around a bit, sometimes mentioning a new term randomly, only defining it a few pages (or chapters) later.

Making good progress on #10BeforeTheEnd.

This is soothingly slow and focused on small, mildly interesting details which I don't have to remember if I don't want to, which is making it the ideal reading for me today, it seems.

But, with two hours estimated to go to finish it, I won't be finishing it tonight and have to go to bed. Boo.

Ah, someone took the idea “what if there's actually something sinister behind all the murders happening in [small town]“ and ran with it.

I found it a bit slow at times, and just... didn't wholly click with it. But overall it was a fun idea.

I'm not the biggest fan of Christianna Brand in general, but oof, the homophobia in this one. And I don't remember Charlesworth being quite such an ass in the other books he features in (though I don't like him).

Yeah, I'm mostly just reading this to be completionist.

I ended up inhaling over half of this today. It's very much food for thought that we have less privacy in law than we used to: in Scotland, now, you can be prosecuted for private speech in your own living room. It's surprising how ambivalent and unsure I feel about some of this.

Definitely gonna sit with it a bit before I write a full review.

This was one of my #10BeforeTheEnd; 5/10 now read.

Well, I thought I was likely to DNF this from the pretentious beginning, especially when it decided folds in clothes obviously should make everyone think of vaginas, but when it refers to a trans girl character with male pronouns throughout, I knew it'd be a skim and bin (or in this case, back to the library with a warning note tucked in for the next reader). Just because the character discussed is fictional gives absolutely no excuse.

Oh boy, don't think this is going to be for me. Rambling, attempting to be philosophical, wants you to know how clever it is.

This was pretty interesting, if sometimes a bit prone to jumping from point to point. I need to look up the sources for the claim that prion diseases are likely caused by viruses; as explained here, it sounds plausible, except that other evidence (like lack of immune response in victims of prion diseases) tells against it. I guess I'll update in a comment if I find anything useful.

Ahhh, this is pretty perfect. It rounds off the whole story beautifully.

I guess the only thing to dislike is that of course Tianchi turns out not to be disabled after all: his muteness is caused by a poison, which can be cured, at which point he learns to speak. There's also a scene where Li Yu seems to treat being disabled like a bad thing, telling the kids that Tianchi isn't “different“, he's just sick. It's... hm. But given the context...

Ohh, that certainly went places. I think I'd hoped for a happier ending, but... no, this makes sense.