I finished The Britannias by Alice Albinnia, which is a popular history of islands associated with the UK. Made me want to find out more about Claude Cahun.
Someone read an illustrated, book length, poem aloud to me which was an unusual and enjoyable experience.
Finished book 47: The Masquerades of Spring, by Ben Aaronovitch, a Rivers of London series fantasy novel, 5/5. I've always enjoyed Aaronovitch's work, since I saw Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988, but this felt as if he'd written it for me. I loved every detail! Might even replace What Abigail Did That Summer as my favourite Rivers of London book. And, honestly, if you'd asked me if what I truly wanted was a re-telling of Jeeves and Wooster set in New York, and particularly Harlem, in the Jazz Age, with magic and fairies, then I probably wouldn't have been that enthusiastic, although I would've signed up for the knowing word games, obv. I do like that Aaronovitch has the publishing credit to be able to indulge his whims for side projects because he's so good at them and they prevent the main series from becoming repetitive, hopefully for the author as well as his readers. I'm looking forward to Stone and Sky even more now! P.S. I also loved that at the end he gifted four plot bunnies to his fan writers and co-pro-writers (+ earlier in the story, mentioning the possibility of Gussie and Lucy visiting New Orleans, where is Beauregard is from).
Currently reading poetry in Unincorporated Persons in the Honda Dynasty by Tony Hoagland.
The Britannias is very densely packed with sourced facts (a few of which are still inevitably wrong, lol), each island is viewed through the lens of a limited time period or set of themes, but also includes the author's speculations. I enjoyed Albinnia's prose style and decided I might also like her fiction so I've acquired Cwen, although not to read immediately (note: Cwen is a feminist book about women and community that includes a Mx character in the wider cast). Some of the chapters will be duds for some people (nothing has ever made the Second English Civil War interesting to me) and others won't be detailed enough (tell me more about Tortola...) but the book tried to do a lot and mostly succeeded. I learned some weird facts about the Channel Islands that led me on a brief wiki-tour, and also made me want to find out more about Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun, which is the point of reading popular general history for me: to find subjects I want to know about in more depth. I wish I'd waited for the paperback though because the book was sooo heavy! :-)
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booknook2025-04-30 12:30 pm
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Someone read an illustrated, book length, poem aloud to me which was an unusual and enjoyable experience.
Finished book 47: The Masquerades of Spring, by Ben Aaronovitch, a Rivers of London series fantasy novel, 5/5.
I've always enjoyed Aaronovitch's work, since I saw Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988, but this felt as if he'd written it for me. I loved every detail! Might even replace What Abigail Did That Summer as my favourite Rivers of London book. And, honestly, if you'd asked me if what I truly wanted was a re-telling of Jeeves and Wooster set in New York, and particularly Harlem, in the Jazz Age, with magic and fairies, then I probably wouldn't have been that enthusiastic, although I would've signed up for the knowing word games, obv. I do like that Aaronovitch has the publishing credit to be able to indulge his whims for side projects because he's so good at them and they prevent the main series from becoming repetitive, hopefully for the author as well as his readers. I'm looking forward to Stone and Sky even more now! P.S. I also loved that at the end he gifted four plot bunnies to his fan writers and co-pro-writers (+ earlier in the story, mentioning the possibility of Gussie and Lucy visiting New Orleans, where is Beauregard is from).
Currently reading poetry in Unincorporated Persons in the Honda Dynasty by Tony Hoagland.
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