finished reading The Scar 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by China Mieville. An exuberant, barely believeable steampunk world with cactus & mosquito people, underwater & floating cities, and mysterious powers. Very very long, and rather too serious. #bookreview #books #bookstodon #sff @WildWoila @[email protected]

finished reading Bookshops & Bonedust 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Travis Baldree. A worthy prequel to Legends & Lattes. New friends come together to reinvigorate a bookshop, with a couple of baddies dealt with along the way. Loved Satchel the animated skeleton. Moist! #bookreview #books #bookstodon #SFF #fantasy#sff[…]

finished reading Playground 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Richard Powers. The glorious wonder of the ocean, the fraught love of competitive friends, our tangled dependence on both extraction & love of the natural world, the tempting appeal of AI. Felt like there was too much to wrap up in so short a space, but he […]

finished reading The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by David Spiegelhalter. A fairly readable overview of probability & uncertainty, from the straightforward games of chance through to the deep uncertainty of future risks such as climate change & AI […]

finished reading A Court of Thorns and Roses 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Sarah Maas. My first foray into #romantasy. The plot is so-so (humans vs faeries, love & intrigue) but finishes strongly. The romance is weak - it's never clear why she loves the faerie lord, except for his sexy man-beastiness. Hopefully […]

finished reading The Cruel Stars 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by John Birmingham. Action space opera that doesn't take itself too seriously. Humanity has become a diverse species dangerously dependent on digital & genomic enhancement - a zealous puritan strain plans to change that. A few too many characters to begin […]

finished reading The Help 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Kathryn Stockett. In 1960s Mississippi, white women and the black maids they employ navigate the upheaval of the civil rights movement. The contrast of ingrained racism and the deep emotional integration of black women into white family life is astounding […]

finished reading Skyward Flight: The Collection: Sunreach / ReDawn / Evershore 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson. While the hero of the series is lost in the Nowhere, her fellow pilots get on with being awesome and taking the fight to the oppressors. Decent YA fare with lots of […]

finished reading Slade House 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by David Mitchell. Every nine years, people disappear into a house which otherwise can't be found. The author's usual layering of stories across different time periods gradually reveals the truth, though it's not particularly clever this time around. Dark arts […]

finished reading Comes the Night 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Isabelle Carmody. YA dystopian set in Canberra! In a polluted world, cities have been enclosed in domes and pervasive tech & propaganda keep the population in line. A teenage boy gets entangled in mysterious intrigue, and soon starts to wonder if his […]

finished reading The Mars House 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Natasha Pulley. A sci-fi romance set on Mars, where recent refugees from climate-riven Earth are so strong in the low gravity that they are a mortal accidental risk to Martians. Excellent premise, and the contradictory reactions of the protagonist feel […]

finished reading The Season 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Helen Garner. The author shadows her grandson's under-16 Aussie Rules team for a season. A glimpse from the boundary line of boys on the cusp on manhood, the solidarity of teammates, the strange spiritual appeal of sport. Wonderfully written & absorbing, but […]

finished reading Watership Down 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Richard Adams. The trials & adventures of rabbits setting up a new warren: strange cultures, claw-biting escapades and the terror of war. Similar to Wind in the Willows but the anthropomorphism is weaker and the characters less vibrant. It's just as […]

finished reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Robert Louis Stevenson. When our baser urges are allowed to run free, they end up dominating. Disturbing, even if the 'science' is a bit amusing […]

finished reading The Sound of the Mountain 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Yasunari Kawabata. In post-war Japan, an aging man grapples ineffectually with the autumn of his life, the failure of his children's marriages, and his slightly inappropriate relationship with his daughter-in-law. Calmly mellow & unfocussed […]

finished reading The Lathe of Heaven 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Ursula Le Guin. A man's dreams shape reality, and his therapist uses him as a tool to fix the wrongs in the world. But if utopia lacks free will, diversity & creativity, is it still utopia? #bookreview #books #bookstodon #sff #ursulaleguin […]

finished reading The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Paul Davies. How did life come about, how does it work, how does it seemingly defy entropy, and what has information theory & quantum mechanics got to do with it? Doesn't quite […]

started listening - Pride and Prejudice Audiobook (Part 1) - Down To Sleep #122 by Jane Austen. 4.5 stars. Long-time viewer (BBC only, thank you), but first-time reader (well, listener), and it did not disappoint. If anything the Bennetts are even nuttier. Love Lizzie's snark, and the frission […]

finished reading Spring Snow 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑 by Yukio Mishima. A doomed romance in early 20th century Japan. Interminably slow, with frequent tangential digressions into philosophy and description. Nearly gave up but something finally happened 100 pages in. The climax verges on the tragi-comic, but it's […]

finished reading The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Sangu Mandanna. A lonely witch finds family & love when she is sought out to tutor three young witchy girls. A cosy romantic fantasy. Some enlivening characters and fun use of magic. Very 'House by the Cerulean Sea' […]

finished reading The Erratics 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Vicki Laveau-Harvie. Two sisters deal with the aging of their estranged parents, the mother psychopathically unhinged and the father cowed & abused. Morbidly fascinating but scattered and purposeless. #BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #autobiography#bookreview#books…]

finished reading The End and Everything Before It 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Finegan Kruckemeyer. A tangled weave of lives lived for love, community, place & simple pleasures. Beautifully written. I didn't quite grasp the ending, worth a revisit. #bookreview #books #bookstodon @WildWoila @[email protected]

finished reading Sleeping Giants 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Sylvain Neuval. An alien artifact triggers a race to harness its immense power. Told mostly via interview transcripts, which kinda works (I liked how the interviewer gradually becomes more of a protagonist, and more invested in the interviewees) but […]

finished reading Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Tim Harford. The importance of randomness & spontaneity in creativity & problem-solving. Plans, order & rationality are often counter-productive! So don't beat yourself up about meeting simplistic measures of […]

finished reading Question 7 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 by Richard Flanagan. An exploration of life & death, love & fate, encompassing everything from his family history to HG Wells and the development of the atomic bomb. Damn he can write! The description of his near-death experience is mesmerising. Didn't fully […]

finished reading Akarnae 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Lynette Noni. Fairly derivative YA fantasy: teenage girl crosses into a parallel world, where she becomes a fish-out-of-water at a school for talented students, and discovers she's the only one who can prevent the obliteration of humanity. Some ingrained […]

finished reading The Mark 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Frida Isberg. An attempt to enforce empathic behaviour creates stark divisions at all levels of society. Very effectively conveys the ambiguous ethics and the entrenched positions taken by opposing sides. Strong parallels with toxic masculinity and vaccination […]

finished reading The Odyssey 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Homer (trans. Emily Wilson). Travel back in time for a little insight into the worldview & values of the ancient Greeks. Fickle meddlesome gods, male honour, rampant war and liberal violence, slavery & female subjugation. Easy flowing translation, though I […]

finished reading The Man Who Died Twice 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 by Richard Osman. More fun times with the crime-solving (& committing!) pensioners. The stakes are higher but doesn't feel so fresh. A bigger role for the inscrutable Bogdan is welcome. Laughs off some pretty substantial abuse of the justice system […]

finished reading Enemy of God 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Bernard Cornwell. The Saxons threaten to overrun Briton; a search for a legendary artifact to bring back the Old Gods; a little blissful romance; Lancelot is a backstabbing, cowardly bastard; oaths, what are they good for? A touch more magic than in the […]

finished reading The Grand Sophy 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Georgette Heyer. A irrepressible cousin comes to stay and causes a great upheaval, but between cunning plans and good luck it all works out neatly. More wit than romance, but it does that well. #bookreview #books #bookstodon #perioddrama @WildWoila […]

finished reading Nervous Conditions 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Becoming a familiar refrain in African literature: girl fights for education & freedom against patriarchy & colonialism. This one, set in pre-independence Zimbabwe, might be the original (?) and the best, with carefully crafted & […]

finished reading Mind of My Mind 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Octavia Butler. The god-like mutant Doro finally breeds his race of super-powered telepaths. Can they hold it together, and can he tolerate them? Not much narrative tension or interesting characters, and not a lot happens. #bookreview #books […]

finished reading Every Secret Thing 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 by Marie Munkara. Mission mob vs bush mob in the Top End. Crude & cutting humour, with occasional glimpses of the raw, traumatic truth of dispossession & cultural genocide. #bookreview #books #bookstodon #indigenousliterature @WildWoila […]

finished reading My Father and Other Animals: How I Took on the Family Farm 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Sam Vincent. After an unsettled life of freelance writing, the author takes on the family farm. A memoir of his father and the land, an ode to regenerative agriculture, and an example of how to connect with […]

finished reading The Tainted Cup 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Robert Jackson Bennett. A murder mystery fantasy novel - why is this a first for me?! Fairly standard whodunnit which escalates to political intrigue, made distinctive by very cool world-building: an empire built to defend against leviathans attacking […]

finished reading Anxious People 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 by Fredrik Backman. A bunch of charming idiots (i.e. everyday people) get thrown together and muddle their way through a crisis in the only way humans can: messily, and hilariously. Occasionally heavy-handed but the portrayal of people and their […]

finished reading Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 by Ed Conway. A high-octane tour through the materials that underlie our civilisation: sand, salt, steel, copper, oil & lithium. So many intriguing side notes that sent me off down rabbit holes (African […]

finished reading Howl’s Moving Castle 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 A young woman gets caught up in magical machinations and is turned old & fabulously crotchety. Great characters and vibe but I lost track of the plot a bit (disclaimer: listened to this as a sleep story), and wasn't really into the romantic ending […]

finished reading Record of a Spaceborn Few 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 Centuries after sending colonies into space as insurance against Earth's collapse, humans have integrated into alien civilisation. But now what purpose do those colonies serve, and what happens to their distinctive communal culture? Good premise & […]

finished reading Home Fire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 A British-Pakistani family gets caught (& distraught) on the three horns of identity, politics & jihad. Deeply immersive for a range of perspectives. #bookreview #books #bookstodon @WildWoila @[email protected]

finished reading The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 Essays on the author's experience of schizophrenia (along with bipolar, PTSD & chronic Lyme!) in the US. Fascinating & unsettling view into psychiatric hospitals, mental health 'support' in Ivy League colleges, and what the hell a […]

finished reading The Broken Kingdoms 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 A woman gets caught up in the manoeuvring of gods, godlings and grasping humans. Most notable for the protagonist's blindness, except for her ability to see magic. #BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #Fantasy #SFF @WildWoila @[email protected]#bookreview

finished reading Scythe 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 A future where AI has created the perfect world without war, illness or death, and a select group keeps the population in check via 'gleaning'. Great premise but occasionally feels like a parody of itself and missed the opportunity for thought-provoking world […]

finished reading Jasper Jones 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 A murder mystery & coming-of-age story, with hefty lashes of abuse & racism, set in a small country town, 1960s Australia. Dark stuff, but leavened with teen romance and hilariously on-point best-mate banter (Jeffrey Lu is a legit superhero) […]

finished reading Lola in the Mirror 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 A homeless girl searches for identity while on the run from organised crime, expressing herself through art, finding solace in dreams of a glorious future, with support from Brisbane's idiosyncratic 'houseless' community. A rivetting, energetic […]

finished reading Legends & Lattes 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 A lovely little story about an ex-adventurer who turns her orcish hand to opening a coffee shop. Everyone is nice except for the odd dickhead who provides narrative tension. Imagine the Discworld with hygge instead of satire. #bookreview #books […]