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Books read in April

2026-05-01T11:26:21Z

Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The second book in The Final Architecture series, the character work is great. But for a book focusing on the unknowable, it felt like there was far to much time spent on trying to describe muddle explanations that fail to illuminate them at all.

Raised Embroidery: A Practical Guide to Decorative Needlework by Barbara and Roy Hirst
As an embroiderer who used to do medieval reenactment, I was familiar with stumpwork, a technique that added raised figures to an piece. The Hirsts take these tools and apply them to contemporary work. This gives me some great ideas for a piece I've been planning of an astronaut floating against a background of deep black velvet.

The Doctor Who Cookbook by Gary Downie
I picked this up on a whim at a dealer's table at Gallifrey One this year. Published in 1985, early in the sixth Doctor's era, Downie gathered recipes from Doctors, companions, crew, recurring actors, and many of the crew. Humorous commentary and funny drawings are great additions.

The Glimmering by Elizabeth Hand
This is a post-apocalyptic sf book from 1997. It's set on the cusp of New Years Eve 1999 on an alternate timeline where man made climate manipulation coincided with a massive solar flare to cause catastrophic changes to the atmosphere and ozone layer. The book follows two characters: a middle-aged man tackling his worsening AIDS and the failures of his family's fortunes and prestigious literary magazine and a teenager from a Christian cult on the verge of becoming a rock star as the structure of society unravels around them.

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Books read in March

2026-04-01T19:30:33Z

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Really phenomenal worldbuiding, humans and aliens so different it's hard for them to recognize that the others are alive and sentient. His writing is so addictive I found myself reading very late every night long after I should have gone to bed.

There and Back Again: Diaries, 1999-2009 by Michael Palin
The latest in his published diaries, I've reading a bit off and on for a couple of months. I really wish some of his travel shows that he talks about in them were streaming in the US.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsy
The first book in his Final Architecture series, I liked it quite a bit. I am grateful that he added a glossary to back to help keep everything straight in a complicated universe.

In the Ravine and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
I'd never read anything by him before and these were interesting. For the most part they felt more like little slices of life in Tsarist Russia than plotted stories.

Women in the Kitchen by Ann Willan
The book focuses on women who published cookbooks from 1661 through the early 20th century, providing a brief biography and few recipes from their works. She seemed overly focused on the past 50 years, the balance of history seemed a bit off.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Enjoyable reread after having seen the movie.

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Decisions, decisions

2026-03-23T19:40:18Z

I just got through reading two really long books around 500 pages each. Now I'm on the fence over what to read next - Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky (576 pages) or reread Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary (476 pages). It would be nice to be lured in by a short book for a change.

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2025 book recs

2026-01-01T12:58:12Z

I swear this is the last post on my 2025 reading list, but I wanted to share my favorites this year.

Fiction
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Memory's Legion by James S. A. Corey
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Nonfiction
How We Lived Then, 1914-1918 by Dorothy Peel
A Village Lost and Found by Brian May and Elena Vidal
The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Hold

Rereads
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Murderbot series by Martha Wells

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Annual Reading Summary

2025-12-30T19:31:29Z

In 2025 I read 78 books and purchased 58

Annual reading summary:
Science Fiction/fantasy 47
Nonfiction 7
Cookbooks/food history 13
Fiction 8
Graphic novels 3

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Books read in December

2025-12-30T19:26:26Z

The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi
The latest entry in The Old Man's War series, the shift in focus & POV characters from book to book continues, and brought things to a pretty good ending if he deices to end the series here.

The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt
A history of women working at Walt Disney Productions. Primarily focusing on the era between 1937 to Disney's death in 1966, she also the most modern era of Disney through The Lion King in 2018.
She covers conditions in the workplace, WWII and its aftermath, the affects of technical development on staff & film making, racism and misogyny in the workplace and more.

For the earliest era I took the time to watch some of the early films I hadn't seen. I was really impressed by the surreal and almost psychedelic opening of Fantasia. Also, just before WWII started Disney took some of his top animators & illustrators along on a State Department sponsored trip to South America. The resulting film, Saludos Amigos, included a beautiful sequence on Rio de Janeiro made from Mary Blair's fantastic watercolor sketches she made during the trip.

Archimagus-Anglo Gallica" or Excellent and Approved Receipts and Experiments in Cookery by Sir Theodore Mayerne
Published in 1658, this was a surprisingly good book including at least a couple or recipes I hadn't ever seen in a book this early, including sweet potato pie and instructions for making an egg wash for pastry.

Hokolua Road by Elizabeth Hand
Deftly weaves Hawaiian folklore, a touch of horror, and a serial killer mystery.

Joyride by Guy Adams
This was a tie-in novel for the Doctor Who spin-off Class. The heart of the story in an unscrupulous person gets his hands on an alien machine that temporarily transfer a persons consciousness into another's body and then rents out time on the machine to some very nasty people.

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Oops I seem to have gone on a book binge

2025-08-26T13:01:00Z

Because I've mostly been reading books from the library and my personal TBR pile, I'd only bought 10 books this year, a record low. I thought I'd pick up some books at the Worldcon in Seattle, but nothing in the dealers room tempted me. Then I got home and so far in the past week I've acquired:
A batch of pdfs of 43 16th & 17th cookbooks, about 18 of which are new to me.
Four books (sf, social history, food history) from Bookshop.org
A bunch of crochet and knitting books from Humble Bundle

And this weekend in the annual Mark Twain Library book sale in Redding, always a treasure trove of the unexpected.

My TBR pile just exploded.

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