tea_and_scones

Can't believe it's Holy Week already except that that was definitely Palm Sunday last night. The weather's been oscillating between "too warm for the start of spring" and "too cold for the start of spring", which is relatively normal, but on Wednesday we had rain, sleet, hail, and snow, which actually stuck on the ground for a bit! And the Wednesday before was 17C. It is, however, definitely spring now and not late winter. Friday was the first day I got tricked by the lengthening days into not realising that it was later evening than I thought, and the clocks hadn't even changed then! We're into BST now, though.

I feel like I've been busy but I couldn't say with what. The big testing thing at work is now into week seven of two, and is certainly not going to be done before Easter (...admittedly part of this is because the team in charge have had to go away and make some decisions about how things are going to function in the new set-up, because apparently it didn't occur to anyone that they needed to agree basic processes before they went into UAT...). Choir has been a contributor, as ever, and I'm off shortly for a double Sunday rehearsal. I have done a little bit of socialising, but not as much as I would like.

However, today's big achievement is that I finally! managed to de-DRM my Kindle books, and am now putting them into my ebook reader at LAST. A triumph.

wychwood

( 17. An Academic Affair - Jodi McAlister ) Enormously fun and I'm hoping for sequels!

( 18. The Shots You Take - Rachel Reid ) Fairly forgettable, but still entertaining enough to keep me reading.

( 19. The Spy Who Loved Me - Ian Fleming ) I don't think Fleming is for me, but there was some enjoyment available.

( Greenwing and Dart - Victoria Goddard ) Fluffy, fun (despite a substantial amount of mortal peril) and a generally satisfying binge.

( 26. How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie ) Dated but I think still worth reading.

( 27. Holiday in Death, 28. Festive in Death, and 29. Framed in Death - JD Robb ) I always enjoy these - but particularly liked the opportunity to revisit the early part of the series in contrast to the newer state of things!

( 30. Derring-Do for Beginners - Victoria Goddard ) I was hoping for more actual, you know, Red Company, but this was so much fun I can't have too many regrets.

( 31. Jane Austen: A Life - Claire Tomalin ) I think this is probably as enlightening as it could reasonably have been, but I was a little disappointed, somehow, despite learning a fair amount. It's not badly-written at all, but it never really won me over somehow.

( 32. Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ) Ultra-violent, really thumpingly Message-y, and strangely compelling; I don't think I'll ever want to re-read it, but I am interested to see where Adjei-Brenyah goes from here.

( 33. Blood Sport, 35. The Edge, and 37. Risk - Dick Francis ) A trio of delightfully exciting nonsenses; I'm so sorry I didn't discover Francis years ago, but on the other hand at least they are a source of joy for me now.

( 34. Men Explain Things to Me - Rebecca Solnit ) A short but concentrated dose of feminist rage.

( 36. Outcrossing - Celia Lake ) On paper this absolutely should be my jam, but it entirely is not.

( 38. Batman: Wayne Family Adventures vol 2 - CRC Payne and Starbite ) Adorable. This series is just so fun.

( 39. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor ) This is a fun concept, but the archaeology / history is worse than in Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travel books and that's saying something. I didn't hate it, but I had to disconnect my brain way too much to enjoy it.

( 40. Ambiguity Machines - Vandana Singh ) A really excellent collection, even though I couldn't muster quite the delight I wanted from it.

( 41. Get A Life, Chloe Brown - Talia Hibbert ) I enjoyed this, although I'm not sure if I'll read more Hibbert.

Current Mood: accomplished

wychwood

I was fascinated to read Jo Walton's post on How to read sixteen books at once at all times, because I have recently - and somewhat inadvertently - set up something similar for myself.

In mid-February I got fed up of all the half-read things in my ebook reader, so I went through and tagged a bunch of them - things I wanted to read, things I meant to get around to, etc - in a special collection, and then said "OK now you can only read things from this collection". I started out with 25 books, but added a few more either because a) they were new Dick Francis books that I wanted to read (2 books), or b) they were for a book group meeting that I had suddenly realised was approaching (2 books). Since then I have read only one ebook not in that collection (another book group! but a chapter-by-chapter one, so I don't want to read the whole thing yet), one paper book (oh look for a different book group), and a few chapters of other paper books, and the collection is down to 12.

It's actually been tremendously productive as an approach ( rambling about my reading habits )

In conclusion, it's been great for my reading but terrible for my booklog, which is sadly behind even though I've been working on it reasonably regularly.

Reading

it's not that i have anything to say but if i don't post soon i'm going to forget how

february booklog of excess

voluntary constraint of choice: a rediscovery

Profile

March 2026

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags