Sunday Summary mainly functions as my personal record of book-related topics that have captured my interest over the past week. It also acts as a public memory prompt and bookmarking system.
Books Read/Reading This Week.
Finished:
The Trees by Percival Everett [2021]
Currently Reading:
the long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers [2015]
Book-ish Thoughts
I deleted my NetGalley account this week. That’s the end of an era.
I also treated myself to a remote page turner for my Boox Palma and Kindle. I hope it will make for easier reading.
Books Out This Week (and Last)
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) [Bobiverse: Book 1] by Dennis E. Taylor
The Sacred Space Between by Kalie Reid
On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle [Trans. Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell]
Slow Gods by Claire North
Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz
Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow: A Novel by Kelley Armstrong
The Haunted Library: Tales of Cursed Books and Forbidden Shelves [Compiler Tanya Kirk]
Woman in the Pillory – Penguin Modern Classics by Brigitte Reimann [Trans. Lucy Jones]
Books That Others have Tempted Me With:
Collective: The Collaborative Art of Anthologies, edited by Dan Coxon and Pete W Sutton [Out Oct 2026] via Ann VanderMeer
The Delusions by Jenni Fagan [Out March 2026] via Jenni Fagan
Sunday Summary mainly functions as my personal record of book-related topics that have captured my interest over the past week. It also acts as a public memory prompt and bookmarking system.
Books Read/Reading This Week.
Finished:
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo – I have this 3.75 – there was a lot to like, but ultimately it didn’t fulfil its potential.
Currently Reading:
Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good [Loki: A Bad God’s Guide #1] by Louie Stowell – I’ve borrowed this (and the next two) from the library, and I’m really enjoying the mix of silliness and seriousness.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh – off to a cracking start in terms of pages read – not sure where this magic/modern world school mix is going, but I keen to find out.
Paused:
I am going to read The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed so I can complete half of my challenge but I’m not going to complete the anthologies in time
I may have to admit to myself that I’m not going to finish reading all the stories contained in the BFA 25 Best Anthology Category before next week’s announcement. I can’t seem to blast through them: Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology, ed by Dan Coxon – is deeply impactful and needs room
I am struggling to switch between immersive worlds when I start a new story. I think this is a strength of the collections, but it also means that I don’t want to rush just to meet a deadline. I’m taking a break. I’ll carry on after the award announcement. But I do recommend you read all the finalists.
Newsy Things
FUNDED!!!
They Are Still Here (Maen Nhw Yma O Hyd) has Funded!! There is still time to back the Kickstarter and help it reach some unannounced stretch goals.
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation longlist 2025
Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing, And the Walls Became the World All Around, translated from Swedish (Sweden) by Sigrid Rausing (Granta)
Evelyne Trouillot, Désirée Congo, translated from French (Haiti) by M.A. Salvodon (University of Virginia Press)
Fatma Aydemir, Djinns, translated from German (Germany) by Jon Cho-Polizzi (Peirene Press)
Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium, translated from Polish (Poland) by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Maylis Besserie, Francis Bacon’s Nanny, translated from French (France) by Clíona Ní Ríordáin (The Lilliput Press)
María Bastarós, Hungry for What, translated from Spanish (Spain), by Kevin Gerry Dunn (Daunt Books Publishing)
Elsa Morante, Lies and Sorcery, translated from Italian (Italy) by Jenny McPhee (Penguin Press)
Krisztina Tóth, My Secret Life, translated from Hungarian (Hungary) by George Szirtes (Bloodaxe Books)
Kim Hyesoon, Phantom Pain Wings, translated from Korean (South Korea) by Don Mee Choi (And Other Stories)
Liliana Corobca, Too Great A Sky, translated from Romanian (Romania) by Monica Cure (Seven Stories Press UK)
Laura Wittner, Translation of the Route, translated from Spanish (Argentina) by Juana Adcock (Bloodaxe Books and Poetry Translation Centre)
Sara Mesa, Un Amor, translated from Spanish (Spain) by Katie Whittemore (Peirene Press)
Lucija Stupica, Vanishing Points, translated from Slovenian (Slovenia) by Andrej Peric (Arc Publications)
Han Kang, We Do Not Part, translated from Korean (South Korea) by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK)
I only planned to read The Empusium. Are there any others you’d recommend?
Out This Week in the UK – ish
Too many books are being released, and I can’t keep up or list them all, but these are the ones that stood out.
Unquiet Guests ed. Dan Coxon
Queen Demon – The Rising World by Martha Wells
What Stalks the Deep (The Sworn Soldier Series) by T. Kingfisher
Absolute Zero
Absolution: by Jeff VanderMeer (Paperback)
The Albino’s Secret by Michael Moorcock & Mark Hodder
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri comes
What have you seen coming out that I’ve missed?
Books That Others have Tempted Me With:
I do love the thrill of finding interesting books or seeing others discover them. These are some books that have rang a bell along with the person who rang it.
The Albino’s Secret by Michael Moorcock & Mark Hodder via Reactor’s
Sunday Summary mainly functions as my personal record of book-related topics that have captured my interest over the past week. It also acts as a public memory prompt and bookmarking system.
Keeping Everything Tracked
I sought Bluesky’s advice on tracking books, as I am feeling a mix of lost, confused, or overwhelmed due to all the options.
Do you keep a list of books you want to read/buy? How long is that list? Could you make it ten or less and keep it that long on a constant basis?
The following discussion prompted me to compile a spreadsheet of all my pre-orders, clearly showing that I have enough pre-orders to keep me occupied until June.
Tufty McTavish reminded me of the power of tags in the Story Graph and why it’s good to invest time in adding them.
I’m also going to try more immediate (the next week or two) reading lists to see if that cuts through the ever-growing physical TBR.
Newsy Things
Introducing a new bona new quarterly literary magazine:
FANTABULOSA!
Pushing the boundaries of bold, authentic, QUEER storytelling. Bringing you stories of the uncanny, the dangerous and the fantastical.
& thanks to our brilliant #WrathMonth backers, we’re fully funded for 2026 🤘
The UK’s largest book chain, Waterstones, had a pre-order sale on releases for 2026 this week. Did I fall into the trap and order some books? Yes. Did I also get a bit too invested in what is coming out in 2026? Also, yes.
I placed orders for various new releases and paperback reprints.
Thanks to the spreadsheet mentioned above I now know when to look out for post.
And the offer wasn’t all the books coming out in 2026, but I now expect to stay busy with new releases from January to June.
But the reason for mentioning it was that I had to sift through many books to decide on those I chose.
Which is probably why I felt the urge to look at all the books coming out this week… there are a few.
Womble from Runalong The Shelves has been doing a “Wombling Along” post for the last few weeks, highlighting reviews and other articles that caught their attention over the past week.
This is mostly going to be about books and book-ish things that have come to my attention — and possibly serve as my own public bookmarking system.
Let’s start with this stack of… I’m genuinely not sure what to call it… books?
It was inspired by Roseanna Pendlebury
Thinking about the things I would love to have read by the end of the year, and pulling together a few piles to drawn from as an aspirational to do list.I will not read all of these. I mean, I possibly theoretically could. But I doubt it. They're just the ones I really want to get in, if I can.
I badged mine as “the stack of books it would be nice to have read by the end of the year.” I added three caveats:
But since I’ve made the pile with the intention of prompting myself to read them, I’ve started with The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater. One chapter in, I’m intrigued—but also wondering why I haven’t heard much about it from others.
I haven’t reviewed my recent reads:
The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso [2024]
Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells [2017]
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis [2025]
If I get the time, a joint review of The Last Hour Between Worlds and The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association might be fun. Both are excellent, and both explore parenting in a fantasy setting—though in very different ways. Each had great twists and turns, and both had me emotionally gripped. I highly recommend them.
And if you’re looking for something cosy in an SF setting, The Murderbot Diaries is turning into just that. Nice to see that Martha Wells has the adventures of Murderbot well under control.
It’s October this week. The clock is ticking to get my reading in before the World Fantasy Convention 2025 announces the various award winners. I’m seriously going to need to weave in some novellas alongside the anthologies.
The issue I’m having with Heartwood is that all the stories centre on the mythos at the heart of the wood—and speeding through them would do them a disservice.
I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
The dive into my BookTok bookmarks is going to have to wait until next week.
A review of Network Effect by Martha Wells, which I’m going to avoid until I’ve got to it myself.
A takedown of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. I read the last paragraph, as I still hope to finish The Stand and then read the anthology.
More praise for Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha
An older, very serious discussion on the absolute canon to read
And so much more!
Next week, I may wade into “what’s a reviewer for?”—as that was today’s hot topic on Bluesky.
Womble from Runalong The Shelves has been doing a “Wombling Along” post for the last few weeks, highlighting reviews and other articles that caught their attention over the past week.
This is mostly going to be about books and book-ish things that have come to my attention — and possibly serve as my own public bookmarking system.
Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’ve managed to get some reading done this week.
I kind of did—and kind of didn’t.
I finished the excellent The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso. It sets itself up perfectly for a sequel and absolutely delivered on what I was hoping for. But it also got me thinking about the formula it used to get there.
That’s definitely more of a me problem than a book problem. Maybe writing a review will help get my thoughts in order. I am going to read the sequel, The Last Soul Among Wolves, at some point in the future—by which I mean, when the paperback drops.
I got some train time this week and made more inroads into The Devils and I’m up 6% from last week’s update.
I also picked up Artificial Condition by Martha Wells as my paperback, and I’m enjoying the cosy nature of it.
As a reminder to me, The Murderbot Diaries chronology is:
“Compulsory”
All Systems Red [I’ve read this]
Artificial Condition
Rogue Protocol
Exit Strategy
“Rapport”
“Home”
Fugitive Telemetry
Network Effect
System Collapse
I’ve just started Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology but from what I’ve read so far the authors are embracing the spirit of the original but putting on their own twists. The bar is now high for the rest of the anthology.
Did you know that Bluesky now has bookmarks?
I just counted—I’ve collected 62 in the last two weeks!
I’m trying to be better about revisiting the bookmarks I’ve saved, periodically going through them and actually using them for their intended purpose: reminding me to check something later.
The Haunting of William Thorn — Ben Alderson (Angry Robot)*
House of Idyll — Delilah S. Dawson (Titan)
Play Nice — Rachel Harrison (TItan)*
The Macabre — Kosoko Jackson (Harper Voyager)
You Weren’t Meant to Be Human — Andrew Joseph White (Daphne Press)
Exiles — Mason Coile, Andrew Pyper (Baskerville)
Veil — Jonathan Janz (Blackstone)
Spread Me — Sarah Gailey (Nightfire) *
Midnight Timetable — Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur (Dialogue Books)
What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier #3) — T. Kingfisher (Titan) *
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre — Philip Fracassi (Run for It)
Apart from the ones marked with a *, I think the rest will have to wait until I get my physical TBR under control… though, by my calculations, I may need to shorten the time it takes me to finish a book from my current 16-day average to… something a lot shorter.
I do and I don’t like a stat. Added more books to @thestorygraph—my physical TBR is now over 400. Maybe I’ll just do the ’25 releases? Only 48! If I read one every 2.5 days and never sleep again, I could do it? Any bets on me crying on New Year’s Eve, still buried in unread books?
I stopped by the Trope-ology Podcast with @themythofchris.bsky.social to natter on about Goblin Markets! Have a listen if you fancy!Available in the usual places!open.spotify.com/episode/1cfs…
SciFiScavenger has asked a great question about rereading:
I was asked earlier how many books I re-read. Answer not v many, much as I'd like to, I have too much exploring to do, too many other books on my shelves, even more not yet acquired. I worked out that my re-read rate this year so far is around 3%.🪐📚 #scifbooks #sciencefiction
I’m at 10% for the year. I re-read two books from the Rivers of London series. I’d love to revisit a few more—there are always plans to do so—but I’ve never made the time.
Finally, I want to share Niall’s stack of books:
And here it is with some other recent acquisitions
He always gives me book envy—his picks are often ones I’d never have considered on my own.
Next week, I’ll talk about my TikTok Bookmarks, which currently stands at 236…
This week’s Wombing Along is here and is a A lovely write-up of their week which includes: A reminder of The Scour by Richard Swan (a prequel novella) Writing The Magic hasn’t been dispatched yet Slow Gods is one to look forward to And an answer to Why Anthologies? Plus lots of other temptations and insights.
This week’s Wombing Along is here—a lovely write-up of their week, which includes:
A reminder about The Scour by Richard Swan (a prequel novella to An Empire of the Wolf )
News that Writing The Magic hasn’t been dispatched yet
Gav Reads 