Everything to do with books! Mostly book reviews, but occasionally, I have the non-review bookish post too.
I intended to leave a bit of time between the Dark is Rising series, but I was just too keen to revisit this series so I picked up The Dark is Rising, the second in the series (and from which the series derives its title) and promptly got absorbed into the story. The Dark is… Read More Book Review: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
Lately, I’ve been looking into a mysTEAry regarding a line in one of Agatha Christie’s books and how many types of afternoon teas there might have been. Which is how I found Afternoon Tea: A History by Julia Skinner. I’ve read a bit about afternoon teas while reading other tea books (such as in A… Read More Tea Book Review: Afternoon Tea by Julia Skinner
Okok, I said the next DWJ book would be Book 2 of the Chrestomanci series, but I got way too curious about Black Maria and couldn’t wait so here we are. Black Maria is a standalone novel about Mig, her brother Chris, and their mother Betty as they visit Great Aunt Maria at Cranbury-on-Sea. Despite… Read More Book Review: Black Maria by Diana Wynne Jones
I’m here with a little review of a really cute book that I’ve owned for a while but never talked about! ベルの読書日記, which the book writes as “Belle’s Library” but I feel is better translated as “Belle’s Reading Diary” is a collection of quotes from various classics alongside Belle’s commentary. It doesn’t make sense to… Read More Reading in Japanese: ベルの読書日記 (Belle’s Library)
I first saw The Twyford Code in a bookshop around the end of last year and the cover intrigued me. But since I’ve been pretty good with not buying books (I’m sorry, bookshops!), I recently ended up borrowing the book from the library. Told through a series of audio transcripts, The Twyford Code is the… Read More Book Review: The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
I am here with another classic! This time by Dostoevsky, whose last book I read was Notes from Underground and The Double in 2021. What I remember of Dostoevsky in general is that his words have a pessimistic, dark quality about them, which makes them harder for me to read than say, Tolstoy (though I’ve… Read More Book Review: Winter Notes on Summer Impressions by Fyodor Dostoevsky
It has been some time since I talked about Studio Ghibli, so it’s time to remind everyone that Studio Ghibli makes amazing films by talking about Mixing Work with Pleasure, Toshio Suzuki’s account of his time spent at Studio Ghibli as a producer and company president. If you want to see some of his calligraphy,… Read More Book Review: Mixing Work with Pleasure by Toshio Suzuki
I picked up this book mostly because I had a suspicion I would be caught in a very, very bad traffic jam and I wanted something to kill the time (I was right but I didn’t have as much opportunity to read). What I didn’t expect was that this book would be captivating and so… Read More Book Review: The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
Four friends, a safari, and long-held secrets – the premise of The Wild Girls hooked me immediately and after some time on my TBR list, I finally read it. The Wild Girls has estranged friends Grace (isolated from unmentioned past events), Alice (financial issues + abusive boyfriends), and Hannah (mother who has complicated feelings towards… Read More Book Review: The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan
I read the Dark is Rising sequence way back when I was in school, but reading Re-Enchanted made me want to re-read this series (especially since I remember liking it). So I borrowed a copy of this from the library and settled in for a rollicking ride. In Over Sea, Under Stone, Simon, Jane, and… Read More Book Review: Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper