Tag: Review

  • Cry Fox

    It is no secret I’m a fan of the Rivers of London series and one of the things I like is the multiple ways in which the story is told, e.g. here the graphic novel. Like its predecessors it is good in keeping you entertained while waiting for the next novel in the series. Cry… →

  • Goblin Market

    As I’m slowly making my way through Penguin Little Black Classics, I come across authors that are completely new to me, like Christina Rossetti. In school we skipped the Victorian literary area altogether because our teacher didn’t like Dickens. (So straight from the Romantics to the First World War we went). Goblin Market, the poem… →

  • The Hanging Tree

    One of the things I really worry too much about when it comes to books is their height. I want my series to fit together and have on occasions taken a ruler into the bookstore to make sure I bought the right one. It completely beats me why there are so many different heights available… →

  • Detective Stories

    The Rivers of London/Peter Grant is one of my favorite ongoing series and one of the things I like about it is the many different ways the stories are being told (novels, shorts, comics and there is also a free audio-exclusive). Also, it is British. Detective stories includes four short stories of Peter’s Falcon cases… →

  • A Rare Book Of Cunning Device

    A Rare Book of Cunning Device is a short audiobook free on Audible that is a part of the ever expanding universe around PC Peter Grant and his ‘Falcon’ adventures. I like how the series is spread across all different ways of reading (besides the main books and some short stories, the graphic novels –… →

  • The Atheist’s Mass

    These two short stories serve as my introduction into the literary legacy of Honoré de Balzac, and frankly, it’s probably going to stay at that. While both stories were crafted okay, and had a messages of loyalty, I found them rather dull to be honest. It may very well be the translation, I can’t be… →

  • My Dearest Father

    I was looking for a book with a music theme for a monthly challenge and this was the first that came to mind so I skipped a couple of books ahead in the Little Black Classics series to this entry by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, although I think his father wrote at least half of it.… →

  • The Battersea Barricades

    Having only just finished An Argumentation of Historians (the ninth book in the series), this short story was already published two weeks later. And it was completely not what I expected. It is different from the rest in A) there is no ‘investigating major/minor historical events in contemporary time’ and B) the usual main characters… →

  • An Argumentation Of Historians

    Collective noun for historians: an argumentation. One of the consequences of having a Mt. TBR that is just short of keeping me awake at night (both literally and figuratively speaking) is that there are few times I’m really waiting for a book to be published, because I have at least twenty (or a hundred) that… →

  • Dead Wrong

    Dead Wrong introduces us to detectives Calladine & Bayliss in the start of a new series of police procedurals. A lot has been said and done in that genre so it is difficult to stay original but they make nice quick reads. The balance is a little bit too much towards the personal life of… →

  • Black Mould

    I was looking forward to this so much I pre-ordered it three months in advance (something I’m not wont to do). When it finally arrived I was looking for a particular good moment to sit down with it and read it in one go. The comics of Rivers of London are a nice addition to… →

  • Night Witch

    For years I’ve been following Peter Grant around as he manages his business with the Rivers of London and all other magical creatures in London. The comic series, for me, was the latest instalment and after some initial hesitation, I’m really glad I joined in on them. While they are (so far as I can… →

  • Woman Much Missed

    I’m not very experienced in reading poetry. I can say I like it, but always is small portions. Woman Much Missed collects poems Thomas Hardy wrote after losing his wife in 1912. Therefore, they are all dark in sadness, but beautifully so as Hardy struggles with his loss. There was a lot of symbolism there… →

  • The Communist Manifesto

    This was part of the Little Black Classics collection from Penguin I’m reading my way through. And while I’m really glad there is a great variety of different kinds of books in this collection, there have been some disappointments on the way. I was interested in reading The Communist Manifesto, not because of its communist… →

  • Body Work

    I’m a big fan of the Rivers of London series, but I did hesitate a little before ordering Body Work, the first of a series of graphic novels that tell additional stories to the main series. I’m not always pleased with the way an artist interprets characters, so I was not sure I would like… →

  • The Furthest Station

    This was so much fun! For years I’ve been a great fan of the series (I could rage for hours about how I always have to wait just shy of an entire year for the right edition to be published, but that is another case), so I was delighted when I got this review copy… →

  • Femme Fatale

    Femme Fatale combines the title story and three other short stories from French author Guy de Maupassant. I can only say that they felt rather explicit and openly contained lesbianism which quite surprised me since it was being written in Victorian times. Something else I notices was that it had a French-ness that I can’t… →

  • Big Mushy Happy Lump

    Last year I read Adulthood Is A Myth, which was my introduction to Sarah Andersen, but it almost felt like being old friends, as a lot of her short comics were so relatable. So, when I came across Big Mushy Happy Lump, my expectations were quite high, but I need not to worry, because it… →

  • Dark Matter

    I’m at a loss for words. Dark Matter was one hell of a book. Last year I read Abandon, one of Blake Crouch’s previous books, but Dark Matter was a completely different book. In a good way. I don’t want to say too much about the story, because finding out what was happening was in… →

  • Carry On

    Over the last few years multiple people have recommended Rainbow Rowell to me, but as her books are also classified as YA contemporary (a genre with which I have a complicated relationship to say the least) I had been putting of her books for the time. Not in the least because I feared a repeat… →

  • Adulthood is a Myth

    Every once in a while I enjoy reading one of these little books with short comics. They are always promoted as being especially for introvert people, but I think they might apply to a lot of people. Adulthood is a myth is a great example of these books. And completely true, because ever since I’ve… →

  • Abandon

    Christmas Eve. A whole village disappears. 120 years later some people return to Abandon to find out what happened but they are not alone. I thought the premise was really good. I was immediately interested to find out what happened to the village (and even more so how a complete village can disappear without a… →

  • The Beautifull Cassandra

    I read Pride and Prejudice but I didn’t really like it. I know it’s something you’re not supposed to say, but still it’s how I felt. However, when I started collecting the Little Black Classics over the summer, I decided to give her another chance. There are a few very short stories collected in this… →

  • The Dhammapada

    Over the summer I’ve collected Penguin’s Little Black Classics, a collection of 80 little booklets from all parts of world literature. Now, I’m reading them in a random order. This booklet contains ‘Captivating aphorisms illustrating the Buddhist dhamma, or moral system. ‘ I must admit that I read and rated it purely based on reading… →