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Fiction log - April 2026

2026-05-01T01:28:29Z

Fiction books
Peter S Beagle. The Last Unicorn (e)
Marshall Browne. The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders
William Gibson. Neuromancer
Max Gladstone. Three Parts Dead (e)
James McGee. Wolf's Lair
Caroline Stevermer. A College of Magics (re-read)

In progress
Antony Johnston. The Dog Sitter Detective

Abandoned
James P Blaylock. The Last Coin (e)
Olaf Stapledon. Last and First Men

Non-fiction books
Erik Larson. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
MV Woodgate. St Vincent de Paul

In progress
John Green. The Anthropocene Reviewed (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Jack Weatherford. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (e)

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Fiction log - March 2026

2026-04-01T01:19:11Z

Fiction books
Richard Adams. Watership Down (e)
Charles Dickens. Bleak House (e)
Clark M Gesner, Michael Mayer. You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
EW Hornung. The Amateur Cracksman (e)
WC Sellar, RJ Yeatman. 1066 and All That (re-read)
Caroline Stevermer. When the King Comes Home (e)
Jodi Taylor. Just One Damned Thing After Another (e)

In progress
Caroline Stevermer. A College of Magics (re-read)

Abandoned
Stephen Fry. Mythos (e)

Non-fiction books
Simon Lamb. Devil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes (e)
Keri Smith. Wreck This Journal Everywhere

In progress
John Green. The Anthropocene Reviewed (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
James P Blaylock. The Last Coin (e)

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Fiction log - February 2026

2026-03-01T02:30:36Z

Fiction books
Hazel Gaynor. Before Dorothy (e)
Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary (e)

In progress
Stephen Fry. Mythos (e)
EW Hornung. The Amateur Cracksman (e)

Non-fiction books
Ben Crystal, David Crystal. You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents (e)
James W Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me (e)
Jason Morningstar. Fiasco (re-read)

In progress
Simon Lamb. Devil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes (e)
Keri Smith. Wreck This Journal Everywhere

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Caroline Stevermer. When the King Comes Home (e)

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Week in review: Week to 31 January

2026-02-01T09:13:48Z

. The group from the board game club that sometimes meets on Sunday afternoons to play longer games met on Sunday afternoon to have another shot at Tainted Grail, a long-form game (the kind where there's a mechanism to save your progress because you're definitely not finishing in one session) that involves exploring and learning the stories of a land being overwhelmed by chaotic magic. ( Read more... )

. We had another long session on the regular board game day, because it was a public holiday so we started in the early afternoon instead of being restricted to the evening.

We took advantage of the extra time to play Nemesis: Retaliation, ( Read more... )

Afterward, to finish off on a lighter note, we played a game of Jamaica, a game in which each player is a pirate competing to sail back to port with the most gold and best treasures. ( Read more... )

. I spent much of the week reading Sansûkh, and ended up being happy I'd put in the time. The ending is pretty satisfying, as long as you're able to take it on its own terms and not worry about how much or little it has to do with Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

. I had another go at Zombies Run; I took a water bottle with me, which contributed to having a significantly better experience than last time I tried it.

. I'm currently running a few episodes behind on Natural Six, but the advantage is that when I hit a big cliffhanger like the one at the end of episode 43 I don't have to wait a fortnight to find out what happens next. I might be able to catch up again soon; part of why I've been lagging is that the last few episodes had been making me uncomfortable waiting for a plot shoe to drop, and Episode 44 dropped it good and proper.

. Speaking of an absence of shoes, my week came to an unhappy conclusion when I was getting ready for bed and banged a toe against a piece of furniture I was too sleepy to successfully navigate past. I think it's just bruised, but it complained loudly and at length. It seems to have mostly settled down now.

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Fiction log - January 2026

2026-02-01T06:34:41Z

Fiction books
Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs. Monstrous Regiment (stage adaptation)
Lewis Carroll, Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (re-read) (ish)
Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Lee Sullivan. Cry Fox (e)
Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Lee Sullivan. Water Weed (e)
Brian Daley. Han Solo at Stars' End
Mark Dunn. Ella Minnow Pea (e)
Dashiell Hammett. Red Harvest (e)
CS Lewis. Till We Have Faces
Jean Webster. Daddy-Long-Legs (e) (re-read)
Jean Webster. Dear Enemy (e)

In progress
EW Hornung. The Amateur Cracksman (e)

Abandoned
Arthur W Ryder. Twenty-Two Goblins (e)

Non-fiction books
James Randi. James Randi: Psychic Investigator

In progress
Jason Morningstar. Fiasco (re-read)
Keri Smith. Wreck This Journal Everywhere

In hiatus
James W Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Hazel Gaynor. Before Dorothy (e)

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Fiction log - December 2025

2026-01-01T00:35:03Z

Fiction books
Douglas Adams, John Lloyd. The Deeper Meaning of Liff
Travis Baldree. Bookshops & Bonedust (e)
Guy Boothby. A Bid for Fortune (e)
Susan Cooper. The Dark Is Rising (re-read)
Susan Cooper. Over Sea, Under Stone (re-read)
Eva Dolan. Long Way Home
Robert Harris. Lustrum (e)
Patrick O'Brian. HMS Surprise
Patrick O'Brian. Master and Commander (re-read)
Patrick O'Brian. Post Captain
Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Jules Verne, tr. George Towle. Around the World in Eighty Days (e)

Abandoned
Max Allan Collins. The Pearl Harbor Murders
M Ruth Myers. No Game for a Dame (e)

Picture books
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam (re-read)
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam and the Big Jump (re-read)
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam and the Rocket Ride (re-read)
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam at the Rocket Port (re-read)
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam Is Caught (re-read)
Jack Wassermann, Selma Wassermann, George Rohrer. Moonbeam Is Lost (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Leonard Nimoy. I Am Not Spock
Eddy Webb. Watson Is Not an Idiot (e)

In progress
James W Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me (e)
Keri Smith. Wreck This Journal Everywhere

Abandoned
Niccolo Machiavelli, tr. George Bull. The Prince

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Lee Sullivan. Cry Fox (e)

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Fiction log - November 2025

2025-12-01T00:24:45Z

Fiction books
Zen Cho. The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo (e)
Agatha Christie. N or M? (re-read)
Graham Greene. Brighton Rock
Robert Harris. Imperium
Joan Lindsay. Picnic at Hanging Rock
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle. The Mote in God's Eye
Naoki Urasawa, tr. John Werry. Asadora! volume 3
Gene Luen Yang, Gurihiru. Superman Smashes the Klan (e)

In progress
Douglas Adams, John Lloyd. The Deeper Meaning of Liff
Robert Harris. Lustrum (e)
Jules Verne, tr. George Towle. Around the World in Eighty Days (e)

Non-fiction books
Kelly Bishop. The Third Gilmore Girl (e)
Ben Macintyre. Operation Mincemeat (e)
Ewen Montagu. The Man Who Never Was (e)

Abandoned
Eric Thompson. Tales of True Adventure volume 1

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Robert Harris. Dictator

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Week in review: Week to 29 November

2025-11-30T01:41:52Z

. Having finished last week's post by saying I was feeling well-rested and energetic for the first time in a while, I immediately came down with the Dreaded Lurgi, which has been hanging around all week trying out various combinations of coughs, sneezes, and interesting mucus. ( Read more... )

. Consequently of the lurgi, I had to miss the weekly board game meet again this week.

I did, in the brief space on the weekend before the lurgi struck, get to play some board games with friends, including Hellboy: The Board Game. ( Read more... )

. On the plus side, I got a lot of reading done -- which is just as well, because I signed up for an unwise number of reading challenges this year, and had fallen badly behind on several of them. Apart from the progress on the Book Chain, I also caught up on the Buzzwords challenge and made up some ground on the monthly random challenge.

For the September Buzzwords prompt ("Events"), I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, an Australian classic I'd never read with a famous film adaptation I've never seen. ( Read more... )

For the November Buzzwords prompt ("Never"), I read The Man Who Never Was, Ewen Montagu's memoir of his involvement in Operation Mincemeat, a deception operation carried out during the Second World War ( Read more... )

This made me curious enough to check whether there were any more recent and complete accounts available, and Libby had Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat, so I went straight on and read that as well. ( Read more... )

For the October random book selection, I'm reading The Deeper Meaning of Liff, "a dictionary of things there aren't any words for yet, but there ought to be" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. ( Read more... )

. I've been vaguely intending for some time to expand my exercise repertoire beyond a brisk walk, and one of the things I've been considering trying out is Zombies, Run!, an app which makes your exercise part of an ongoing story about a small group of humans trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.( Read more... )

. On an evening when I didn't feel like reading, I watched an episode of The Muppet Show -- which turned out to be the one where they have to try and keep the show going without Kermit because he's at home with the flu.

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