Holiday Reading
Aug. 3rd, 2025 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosanicusWife and I have just returned from our honeymoon trip to the Canary Islands and, in the midst of eating a lot of pizza and drinking a lot of free drinks, I did manage to read a few books! We also watched series 3 of Is It Cake? because the bungalow had free Netflix, having never watched it before, and unfortunately we were enthralled.
Not including it here as I didn't finish it, but I am enjoying Jacqueline Winspear's The White Lady for what it is, although I think the past-present-past chapter structure is a bit annoying as I'm much more interested in the present storyline than the build-up of the espionage backstory, which is sort of surprising to me as usually WW1-era espionage being carried out by genteel Belgian ladies would be 100% up my alley.
Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy and Network Effect by Martha Wells
Slightly cheating with this as I actually read two of these the night before we left. I fucking love Murderbot and this was my first time reading Network Effect, which adds so much to the Murderbot & ART dynamic and also has some great Ratthi content, in its way. Three great reads and I can't wait to get to the last two books - I bought all the paperbacks last week because my class gave me Forbidden Planet vouchers for an end of year gift. Also excited to go back and read all the extra content which I am aware exists but haven't actually sought out yet.
Biggles Flies East by WE Johns
There was quite a large gap between Network Effect and this, I have to tell you. I read a LOT of fanfic while lying by the pool, including this excellent Murderbot fic by Chrome, and Reading Actual Books takes a lot of mental effort when it's very hot and you just sort of want to melt with a cocktail by your elbow. Of course I love Flies East the mostest, so this was a delightful reread, and I did then immediately read half of & Co on the back of it just to experience double joy. Biggles is having a terrible time, the opposite of me reading it having the Time of My Life.
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
I put this on the Kobo (mostly because my dad has always extolled Buchan's virtues as an author of exciting yarns) and was then very close to putting it away forever on page 8 when one of the characters started going in deep on antisemitic conspiracy theories. Luckily that character was shortly dispatched by virture of Getting Horribly Murdered (and is later condemned by a different character, although that one's a bit more wishy-washy than one might prefer!), so I persevered and had a fairly good time with the breathless, breakneck pace of the rest of the book. I can't say whether I strictly recommend it given the mentioned dose of oh my god what the fuck, but I did enjoy Hannay's insane ballsiness and general willing to do whatever it took to survive, generally involving putting on disguises, doing grand theft auto, and beating up people who irritate him. I may yet read the next Hannay book, so I suppose this was a success?
Fete for a King/Infinite Jes by Sam Storyteller
These are on Ao3 but damn it they ARE romance novels so I'm counting them. I think this is my third read of these two because I find them so endlessly charming. Short pitch: Ruritanian-set romance series about the royal family of a small nation in the Mediterranean, between France and Italy. The first book is about the king-elect (it's a democratic monarchy a la Naboo apparently) falling in love with a Guy Fieri style celebrity chef, and the second book is about the king's dad (the retired king) learning how to do podcasts. I enjoy them a lot, they're very charming in style and the characters are fun, and there's also nearly twenty stories in the series now so I might need to catch up past the one where they go to Eurovision for the first time.
We got home from said holiday at 1am and I immediately slept for 13 hours, so it remains to be seen how much reading will get done between now and the Wednesday Meme. Hoping to get through at least one of the remaining Murderbots, anyway.
Not including it here as I didn't finish it, but I am enjoying Jacqueline Winspear's The White Lady for what it is, although I think the past-present-past chapter structure is a bit annoying as I'm much more interested in the present storyline than the build-up of the espionage backstory, which is sort of surprising to me as usually WW1-era espionage being carried out by genteel Belgian ladies would be 100% up my alley.
Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy and Network Effect by Martha Wells
Slightly cheating with this as I actually read two of these the night before we left. I fucking love Murderbot and this was my first time reading Network Effect, which adds so much to the Murderbot & ART dynamic and also has some great Ratthi content, in its way. Three great reads and I can't wait to get to the last two books - I bought all the paperbacks last week because my class gave me Forbidden Planet vouchers for an end of year gift. Also excited to go back and read all the extra content which I am aware exists but haven't actually sought out yet.
Biggles Flies East by WE Johns
There was quite a large gap between Network Effect and this, I have to tell you. I read a LOT of fanfic while lying by the pool, including this excellent Murderbot fic by Chrome, and Reading Actual Books takes a lot of mental effort when it's very hot and you just sort of want to melt with a cocktail by your elbow. Of course I love Flies East the mostest, so this was a delightful reread, and I did then immediately read half of & Co on the back of it just to experience double joy. Biggles is having a terrible time, the opposite of me reading it having the Time of My Life.
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
I put this on the Kobo (mostly because my dad has always extolled Buchan's virtues as an author of exciting yarns) and was then very close to putting it away forever on page 8 when one of the characters started going in deep on antisemitic conspiracy theories. Luckily that character was shortly dispatched by virture of Getting Horribly Murdered (and is later condemned by a different character, although that one's a bit more wishy-washy than one might prefer!), so I persevered and had a fairly good time with the breathless, breakneck pace of the rest of the book. I can't say whether I strictly recommend it given the mentioned dose of oh my god what the fuck, but I did enjoy Hannay's insane ballsiness and general willing to do whatever it took to survive, generally involving putting on disguises, doing grand theft auto, and beating up people who irritate him. I may yet read the next Hannay book, so I suppose this was a success?
Fete for a King/Infinite Jes by Sam Storyteller
These are on Ao3 but damn it they ARE romance novels so I'm counting them. I think this is my third read of these two because I find them so endlessly charming. Short pitch: Ruritanian-set romance series about the royal family of a small nation in the Mediterranean, between France and Italy. The first book is about the king-elect (it's a democratic monarchy a la Naboo apparently) falling in love with a Guy Fieri style celebrity chef, and the second book is about the king's dad (the retired king) learning how to do podcasts. I enjoy them a lot, they're very charming in style and the characters are fun, and there's also nearly twenty stories in the series now so I might need to catch up past the one where they go to Eurovision for the first time.
We got home from said holiday at 1am and I immediately slept for 13 hours, so it remains to be seen how much reading will get done between now and the Wednesday Meme. Hoping to get through at least one of the remaining Murderbots, anyway.
