Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

Tag: fiction

  • Sunday Summary: 11 th Jan 26

    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:

    • A Conventional Boy (A Laundry Files Novella) by Charles Stross [2025]
    • Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy [2024]

    Two in one week? All thanks to a couple of long-ish plane rides. Both had me hooked. But both had different impacts.

    A Conventional Boy is a side quest for two of the minor characters in the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Derek and his dice leave Camp Sunshine and end up in a game of D&D that turns into a game of life and death.

    1st 26 read: @cstross.bsky.social’s novella A Conventional Boy. The lore is loring, and I think I need to reread some other works from The Laundry in order to do a review justice. Even if you’re not acquainted with the series, it’s a brilliant tale of what happens when TTRPGs get a little too real.

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2026-01-06T19:49:20.218Z

    What worked well for me was how quickly you care about the fate of Derek and his players. It’s also tempted me to go hunting down the links to the main series.

    Sorcery and Small Magics centres around a frenemy trope, with the hint of lovers and I was 50/50 at one point if the main character was too annoying, I pushed through, and it turned into something that had me so invested, as I stated on Bluesky.

    Thank you to everyone who recommended Sorcery and Small Magics. It was my read on a plane ride. The flight flew by, but I also cried. I mean, tears streaming down my face, crying. That f—ing ending!! I was agog. Highly recommend @orbitbooksuk.bsky.social @maigadoocy.bsky.social

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2026-01-09T20:27:56.977Z

    SPOILER: It’s set up for a sequel that hasn’t got a release date yet.

    Currently Reading: 

    • A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare (trans John Hodgson) [2023]
    • The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling [2025]

    FYI: The Starving Saints is on Kindle Unlimited

    DNF’d

    • Love At First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi [2025]

    It wasn’t that the antagonisms were forced exactly, but they are relentless, and as I’m not a fan of interpersonal conflicts in general, it didn’t make for comfortable reading. It might be a trope of enemies-to-lovers romances that is probably going to put me off reading too many like A Fate Inked in Blood. It’s there in Sorcery and Small Magics, and I accepted it was going to be a thing. The situation makes it more believable, but only due to the stoicism of one character, and not knowing what they actually believe, only what’s reported.

    Book-ish Thoughts

    The pre-orders are starting to land. And I’m not sure of past-me’s decision-making in taking a chance on a bunch of books just because Waterstones had either a discount or a points offer. Don’t get me wrong, I am interested in reading them, and the reissued paperback releases are more considered, but new books arriving aren’t really in the spirit of tackling my backlog.

    I am loath to cancel them as I might feel differently in a couple of weeks, and they are interesting in their own ways.

    Anyway, what’s arrived:

    • A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen
    • The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
    • Pagans by James Alistair Henry

    As you’ll see further up, I am not having the best time reading Romantasy of the enemies-to-lovers variety, and I’ve not read A Fate Inked in Blood yet.

    Books That Others Have Tempted Me With:

    I am trying to avoid temptation, and so far I’m doing well… though I’m curious about The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery

    Cover(s) of the Week

    Piper at the Gates of Dusk by Patrick Ness

    Outro

    I am reading more, and I’m more willing to DNF (even at 50% in). I think that’s helped by having both a page count and a books-read goal. I might still DNF The Starving Saints, not because it’s bad, but because I was expecting something different, and it might be too ‘real’ and too bleak for me.

    What have you been reading?

  • Sunday Summary: 4th Jan 26

    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:

    • ???

    Nothing this week.

    Currently Reading: 

    • Love At First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi

    I didn’t expect that this cosy romantasy to have quite as high a spice rating as it did.

    To save me from this predicament in future, Caitlin of Realms of My Mind has shared romance.io, which includes a Steam Rating Guide for every listing in its database. El-Fassi’s latest is rated 4/5

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m going to keep reading as it’s not a reason to DNF or not pick it up in the first place. I am just glad it’s not my commute read or my audiobook choice 😬🤣🤣🤣

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2026-01-02T23:17:16.258Z

    And I am keeping on reading it – it’s just heavy on the spice, and reading location now matters…

    DNF’d:

    • ???

    Nothing this week.

    Book-ish Thoughts

    I have committed on The StoryGraph to read 15,000 pages and at least 33 books, which I’ve badly mathed as reading 50 pages a day.

    I’m hoping that both are achievable, and I’m going to my best to avoid burnout and a reading slump.

    Though I don’t think the amount pre-orders I’ve made is actually healthy, there is a partial list here if you’re curious:

    SFF I have pre-ordered:City of Others (The DEUS Files)by Jared PoonApparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer StothersThe Apple and the Pearl by Rym KechachaThe Astral Library by Kate QuinnThe Rainseekers by Matthew KresselThe Soul-Catchers by Naoko Higashi (translated by Lucy North)

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2026-01-03T20:16:19.888Z

    I am, however, not planning to add more pre-orders or pick up books that aren’t on the shelves for a while as I desperately need to read what I have.

    I am also not reading to deadline, nor accepting ARCs (I currently have two with no deadlines – Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume Three, which was successfully funded via Kickstarter and all entries in The Gulpepper Mythos by Alan Baxter, which sounds like something I’d enjoy as I do love a shared world)

    Books That Others Have Tempted Me With:

    Given what I’ve said above, I should retire this section for a bit… but I do like to see what everyone has been reading, and when I get some brain space, I want to go over everyone’s 2025 reading lists and take notes. It doesn’t mean I have to give in to the impulse to get a copy too. And if I’m lucky, I might already have a copy on standby.

    Cover(s) of the Week

    The Comfort of Distant Stars by I. O. ECHERUO

    Return of the Womble:

    They have furry of end of year/new year posts but this one has actions:

    The 2026 BookTempter’s TBR Challenge

    If I were to take this month’s challenge:

    1 – It’s a classic task for a reason

    Read the very last book to enter your TBR pile. TBRs come from the habit we have of not reading books because we put them off. You have my permission to indulge yourself.

    Stretch goal – Read a book that you’ve had in your TBR pile for more than 5 years

    Then I’d need to go for:

    The Broke into Shining Crystals by Richard Scott with the stretch goal of The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino

    They have also done a lot of the hard work, collecting everyone’s ‘best of’ lists in their weekly Wombling Along post, and I’m humbled to see mine included.

    Outro

    What books have you started the year with?

  • Thoughts: Best Books of 2025 & Reading in 2026

    In yesterday’s post, I confirmed that “I’ll be back” in 2026 and promised a look at what I plan to read this year. Before that, though, I want to share some standout books from 2025. These aren’t definitive “best of” lists—just the ones that really stuck with me.

    What stood out in 2025?

    I’m going to caveat this selection by giving some stats:

    • I read 34 books in total (you can see the full list here).
    • 5 of those were Rivers of London related.
    • 7 were published in 2025
    • 4 were books in translation

    I really like using The StoryGraph app (I’m @gavreads)to capture my reading. They also provide nice graphics:

    This is my way of saying that 34 is a respectable number, but it’s not the biggest pool of work to make proclamations like this is the best book published in 2025, etc.

    I also DNF’d 9 books. I want to retry three of them (Under the Eye of the Big Bird, Extremophile, & The Ministry of Time) to see if I can figure out what others liked in them that I missed.

    If you’re looking for the best released in 2025, this not the blog post you are looking for.

    Anyway, here are some idiosyncratic ‘best ofs’:

    Best of Found Families:

    • August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White
    • The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

    Best Slow-Burn Reveal:

    • The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

    Best Ensemble of ‘Monsters’:

    • The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

    Best Parent Fighting for Their Child:

    • The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
    • The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis

    Best use of humour to present a horrific things:

    • The Trees by Percival Everett

    Best use of a family holiday:

    • Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

    Best Tales of Taxi Riders

    Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida

    Best Questioning of ‘If AI is alive’?

    • The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1 by Martha Wells
    • Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
    • The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
    • Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
    • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

    Best Long Running Series that I’ve read in 2025:

    • Rivers of London (#6 to #9.5)

    Best Time Spent in a Freezer

    • When the Museum Is Closed by Emi Yagi [tr.. Yuki Tejima]

    Best Stories in an Anthology are contained in:

    Best Example of How We’ve Not Really Moved On as a Society:

    • The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle [1957]

    Best Example of How We Have Gone Backwards:

    • Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto [tr. Megan Backus] [1988/1993]

    Do you want to give out any more awards?

    I’m sure I could think of more, but let’s stop here.

    What are you planning on reading in 2026?

    All the books I bought in 2025? Maybe not, as that’s physically impossible at this point. Perhaps the topic of why I keep buying books should be explored in a future post. For now, though, I want to get some ‘quick reading wins’ under my belt and read some of the shorter, standalone fiction.

    The thene of 2026 is:

    • The year of the backlog (recent and extended).

    This might not be the most up-to-date content for future blog posts, but I’m planning to make it the best reading experience I can. With that in mind, here are two lists of 10 books I want to read in 2026 (and if I remember, I’ll report back)

    Selected from 2025 Releases:

    1. The Book of Jonah by Luke Kennard
    2. The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter
    3. Dot Slash Magic by Liz Shipton
    4. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire
    5. Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
    6. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
    7. The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson
    8. Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey
    9. The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch
    10. A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde

    There are so many more… The Isle in the Silver Sea, The Everlasting,The Last Soul Among Wolves, It’s Not a Cult, Spread Me, Dead & Breakfast, Angel Down… I’d better stop.

    Selected from The Backlog:

    1. Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
    2. Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins
    3. House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
    4. Nude Against a Rock by Robert Hamberger
    5. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
    6. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
    7. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
    8. Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
    9. There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job. by Kikuko Tsumura [Tr. Polly Barton]
    10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

    This is just the tip of an iceberg, but hopefully shows a selection of my backlog and the delights that I have to look forward to.

    That’s my plan. What are yours? Any highlights from 2025, and what’s on your list for 2026? 

  • Sunday Summary: 28 Dec 25

    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:

    • Winter’s Gifts [Rivers of London #9.5] by Ben Aaronovitch [2023]

    Aaronovitch broke my reader’s block in April this year, and I’m quite pleased that I’m leaving 2025 on a high. It’s a great side quest for a side character, and for Ben to spend time on the other side of the pond.

    Currently Reading: 

    • ???

    I do need to find something to read before midnight to reach 100 days of pages read on The StoryGraph app. I have no idea what it will be.

    DNF’d:

    • ?

    Nothing this week, and I’ve probably witched myself by typing that.

    Book-ish Thoughts

    Rosanna posed a question on Bluesky that I still don’t have an answer to:

    Reviewer friend question – when is the best time to review a book? I don't mean for the book/author/publisher, but for you as a reviewer, or other reasons if they exist?

    — Roseanna Pendlebury (@chloroformtea.bsky.social) 2025-12-24T17:38:06.052Z

    I want to say that, based on my current experience of buying books, it’s whenever the reviewer has read it. But does that help the book? Should a reviewer be showing off the wares of publishers (whatever form they take) and act like a book merchant?

    This circles back to what is a review for?

    Books That Others Have Tempted Me With:

    I got tempted by the guardian’s best poetry books of 2025 selection and then enabled by my Christmas book vouchers.

    Rishi Dastidar’s The best poetry books of 2025 recommendations is:a) brilliantly written b) persuasive I try to buy some poetry with Christmas vouchers and this year, thanks to Rishi I’m picking up:That Broke into Shining Crystals by Richard ScottThe Book of Jonah by Luke KennardYou?

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2025-12-21T08:06:00.812Z

    I did manage to get copies of The Broke into Shining Crystals and The Book of Jonah, but then went back to get Southern Sonnets by Leo Boix and The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor.

    Two books rest side by side on a train table with a wooden-effect finish. On the left, Southernmost Sonnets by Leo Boix shows a vivid collage of birds, butterflies, flowers, a snake, and a leopard layered over a map, with a quote from Chloe Aridjis. On the right, The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor features a black-and-white photo of a smiling woman, softened by a pink title band. A black bag peeks out beneath them.

    Have you spent your Christmas vouchers yet?

    I also got another voucher that I turned into ebooks – as I got mostly poetry with my one voucher, I thought I’d pick up some ‘random’ SF (random as I’d not heard much, if anything, about them:

    • If the Stars Are Lit by Sara K Ellis
    • Galaxy Grifter (Blackjack Interstellar Book 1) by A. Zaykova
    • The Shattered Skies (The Cruel Stars Trilogy) by John Birmingham
    • The Cruel Stars (The Cruel Stars Trilogy) by John Birmingham
    • Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie (I have heard of Anne)

    Cover(s) of the Week

    The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean
    To Be Published in May 2026

    Outro

    My aim is to post my look back at 2025 (and a glance into 2026) before midnight on New Year’s Eve, but I haven’t started yet. I am going to try, as it would be a nice way to round off the year.

  • Sunday Summary: 21 Dec 25

    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 Incandescent by Emily Tesh [2025]

    If you’ve read Authority by Jeff VanderMeer, you’ll know that the mundane isn’t quite as mundane as the story portrays. I’m not sure where my thoughts and feelings sit after finishing it. At the moment, it feels like an experiment that didn’t quite have the results I expected. But I don’t know what I expected – so is it me or the work?

    Currently Reading: 

    • ???

    As of this post, I’m still deciding. Do I call it quits on my 2025 reading and start afresh in 2026? I have a reading streak on The StoryGraph to keep up, so I will be reading something.

    DNF’d:

    • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir [2021] (in Audiobook format)

    I went in with an open mind. I knew I might not like it after trying The Martian, but so many people love the audiobook that I thought we might have got on. We don’t. Partly, it’s a humour mismatch. I don’t find it funny (that’s on me). But also, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough.

    Book-ish Thoughts

    The only thing that springs to mind right now is that there are still 10 days left, and making a best of the year book lists feels disrespectful to what you might pick up before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

    Books That Others Have Tempted Me With:

    And a special shout-out to Womble for their Santa Womble series, highlighting gifts that someone could get you, you could get someone else, or for yourself across the genres.

    Cover(s) of the Week

    Hello, Limerence Paperback by Momo Yamaguchi

    Outro

    I hope Santa brings you gift vouchers or books from your wish list, and more importantly, time to read your backlogs.