Fiction log - May 2025

Fiction books
Andrei Baltakmens. A Hangman for Ghosts (e)
Eugene Byrne. Things Unborn
Diana Wynne Jones. House of Many Ways (re-read)
Diana Wynne Jones. Howl's Moving Castle (re-read)

In progress
Helen Simonson. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (e)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, tr. Michael Guybon. The First Circle

Abandoned
CL Moore. Jirel of Joiry (e)

Non-fiction books
Xavier Duff. Noose: True Stories of Australians Who Died at the Gallows

In progress
Isaac Asimov. A Choice of Catastrophes

Abandoned
Raymond Lamont-Brown. John Brown: Queen Victoria's Highland Servant

( short, screen, and stage )

( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Ursula K Le Guin. Always Coming Home (e)

Week in review: Week to 31 May

I haven't been watching the just-finished season of Doctor Who, ( and I was rather put out this morning to be told, by someone who assumed I'd already seen it, how the season finale ends )

In more cheerful TV news, the current season of Taskmaster is very, very good.


At board game club, ( we played Risk Legacy and Century: Golem Edition )

( Computer games: Battletech, The Beekeeper's Picnic, Mark of the Ninja )

( Reading challenges )

( Podcast: The Hidden Almanac )

( I overslept and missed Parkrun )

I've discovered a new word for the list of Words I'd Only Ever Seen Written Down And Was Pronouncing Wrong All This Time. This one is a character name: Methos, a recurring character from the 1990s TV series Highlander. I've been reading about him sporadically for decades, but I've never actually seen an episode with him in, and when I went looking for Youtube clips of Peter Wingfield performances a few days ago I discovered that I've been mentally pronouncing the E wrong: I always figured the first syllable of his name rhymed with "death", but it turns out it rhymes with "teeth".