Cathy L

Time to update intro post: 📚 Current read: The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington ✍️ Fave authors: Robin Hobb & Katharine Kerr 📺 Umbrella Academy, Orphan Black, Sense8, Stranger Things - always looking for new stuff to watch! 🥾 Like hiking ✈️ Love travel 学习中文 learning Chinese 🇳🇿 New Zealander

Made a bookish post 10 minutes ago which immediately got 20 likes, mostly from clearly bot accounts. So spent the next few minutes blocking them all. Well, that takes all the fun out of posting...

Was asked what I was reading now, excellent! I think, a book conversation! "The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie"... blank looks all round... "It's an epic fantasy"...more blank looks. Awkward conversation about what epic fantasy means. Oh dear. Not my people 🤷‍♀️ 🪐🐉📚💙

Any recommendations for books set in Wales or by Welsh authors? Travelling there next month & would like to get into the atmosphere! Preferably SFF but not necessarily. Also going through Bath and planning on a reread of some Austen, showing I don't ONLY read SFF! 📚🪐🐉💙

Currently reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones & watching East of Eden and just really needed a bit of light heartedness to break it all up! Just started this, it's working perfectly. Even though it actually starts with a murder.... 📚🪐💙

The first of 2 slightly disappointing books this week - I love much of Kuang's work, &this one about a young woman's time at an intensive Chinese course in Taiwan seemed right up my alley. It is wonderfully written & a few good anecdotes about learning, but was really hoping for more...fun maybe? 📚💙

Revised October TBR challenge. Difficult finding books on TBR to suit, but for a Spooky tale, I have The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and for a countryside setting, it's We are all Ghosts in the Forest. (bonus - ghosts fits spooky as well?). Particularly looking forward to the second 📚🐉🪐💙

Well this is cool, just discovered someone I know through work (which yeah, I never talk about here) is an author, and he's now sent me a copy of his book! So that's up next on the TBR. 📚💙

If you see this, could you please reskeet it? I want to test something.

Expected more from this. I did like the 2 main characters, a female knight & a modern scholar, & nice to see MCs who aren't physically gorgeously hot. But the relationship never seemed right, the villain was one dimensional & the writing wasn't my thing. ⭐⭐⭐for characters & good premise. 🐉🪐📚💙

August reads! Featuring 4 Epic fantasy (2 irreverent, 2 serious); 1 Dragon fantasy set in the Napoleonic wars; 2 Speculative fiction inc. robots; 1 Portal fantasy, 1 Scifi & 1 Non-fiction about teaching in China. Favourites: Homebound & The Malevolents & excellent end to The Expanse series! 🐉🪐📚💙

September TBR challenge time! And quite different from my usual reads. For non-fiction I have Other Rivers: A Chinese Education by Peter Hessler, and for not my usual genre I have... another non-fiction, a biography of Jacinda Ardern, who was New Zealand's Prime Minister 2017-2023. 📚💙

Haven't read any Terry Pratchett before & picked this up as someone said it was a good place to start. Just noticed it's listed as Discworld #8, does this matter? Should I be starting somewhere else? 🐉📚💙

Just finished the last of the 9 Expanse books and the very next book I pick up is the first of the 10 books of Malazan Book of the Fallen. Didn't plan on getting into another huge series, it just happened! 🪐🐉📚💙

Really enjoyed the first 2 of the Old Man's War series, and have just discovered the next one my library holds is ... number 7! Hmm. I bet that one doesn't get borrowed often. And guess I need a trip to a used bookshop to see if I can track more down. 🪐📚💙

July reads… featuring 2 space opera sci-fi, 1 cozy sci-fi, an epic renaissance fantasy, a gothic witchy horror, a time-loop book and a contemporary novel about trans lives. Good books, good range! Only one not for me: On the Calculation of Volume. I like more action. And characters. 📚💙

August TBR challenge time! Author not UK/US - Reconnaissance by Kapka Kassabova (Bulgarian-New Zealander); and book with a long journey - Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Challenge going well! 📚💙

Excellent article about buying books you don't read and how it contributes to well being 📚💙 And love that the Japanese have a word for it! #tsundoku theconversation.com/why-you-keep...?

Five living writers that you’ve read five books by each: Margaret Atwood Robin Hobb Katharine Kerr VE Schwab Becky Chambers and many more!

Trying out a June reads post: Favourites: - Seek the Traitor's Son - The Devils - Old Man's War - Red City Good reads for different reasons: - Poseidon's Wake - The Fireman - The Girl with a Thousand Faces Not for me: - The Book of Guilt - The Poet Empress 📚🪐💙

Time for my July TBR challenge books! A book with an empire – starting, ending or changing - Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay; and a whole series - didn't have a whole series on TBR so chose the last 3 books of The Expanse, James SA Corey. Have the rest of year to finish those. 📚🪐💙

Juggling library holds, TBR reading challenge and next in various series can be challenging. So I've just now added an "Up next" section to my LibraryThing app so I don't have to keep working it out. And...here it is Ta-dah!!🎉 🪐🐉📚💙

A recent DNF. Really expected to like this but I just didn't get it. Kept expecting it to get better but eventually I had just had enough of the 2 characters effectively being told they really COULD do better. I realise I didn't get to the reveal, googled it later. 🐉📚💙

I don't read a huge amount of sci-fi but really enjoyed this one! An odyssey into far flung parts of space. Good characters, excellent writing and interesting mysteries. And I REALLY wasn't expecting the elephants... 🐘🪐📚💙

Current read: The Fireman. Joe Hill is right up there with his Dad Stephen King in showing the horror of well meaning but deluded people trying to do what they think is the right thing... 📚🪐💙

June TBR challenge: A book with less than 150 pages - Exit Strategy is just over but I didn't have anything smaller on TBR; and a book with more than 500 pages - The Fireman doesn't look so impressive on a tablet, but it definitely qualifies at 700! 📚🪐🐉💙

Unexpectedly, a non-book post.. my son has just suggested a 5km run together when we catch up in 8 weeks, so there's a challenge! Just realized I haven't run 5km since 2022 😬. Ready, set go... 🏃‍♀️

Love Sunday afternoons meandering through the library, found some good ones this week! 📚🐉🪐💙

Introduce yourself with 10 bands you've seen live: Foo Fighters Red Hot Chili Peppers Arctic Monkeys Bruce Springstein & the E Street band Herbs Stray Cats Split Enz When the Cat's Away The Swingers Boston Thus showing both my age & geographical location to those who know...