A book cover depicting an old house and black/dying flowers beneath that. The title is Temple Fall. By R.L.Boyle.
Better late than never.
I've just started Temple Fall by R. L. Boyle.
A big ol' trade paperback cover of an Element Books book by Nigel Pennick, _The Complete Illustrated Guide to Runes_. It's a mostly red cover, with a darker red frame around the red main field, and thin light red lines framing that inner area and providing some sort of graphic element dividing the various words on the cover, of which there's the title, with the word "RUNES" between two of those graphic element lines, and the author's name at the bottom, and just above that (still towards the bottom) is the subtitle of the work: "How to Interpret the Ancient Wisdom of the Runes", and then in the center of the field (there's other pictures strewn across the cover in Photoshop or whatever cover-generator program they use at Element Books, which … ahem … 'elements' we'll be getting to in just a second) are words which are gonna turn out to be powerful runes and I guess just putting them on the cover brings up powerful magic and like that, and those words or rune names are: "Fehu" & "Uruz" & "Raidho" & "Gebo" & "Wunjo" & "Hagalaz" & "Thurisaz" & "Eihwaz" & "Jera" & "Sowulo" & "Ansuz" & "Isa". Whew! (And whynot you try typing those out with spell-check constantly trying to 'correct' you?) And then there's the pictures, which are beaten metal artifacts tending to prove the ancientness of this 'wisdom', and some stones with runes on them (I'm not gonna list them all out) (such stones are available wherever books of ancient wisdom are sold), and a carved stone figure of an armored man on horseback (it's cute!), and, at the bottom right corner, a stone with carved markings on it (the markings highlighted in more red so you can see clearly the picture (again a guy on a horse) and some runes carved above it. Oh, I forgot a metal thingie with runes on it. Ah, me
Finished the Shirer yesterday, and am cleansing my palate (so to speak) with an air-filled piece of piffle, Nigel Pennick's _The Complete Illustrated Guide to Runes_. (Though I did enjoy his _Sacred Geometry_, this is much more the 'DK Guide' to runes and rune 'magic'.)
"The Testaments" by Margaret Atwood
Audiobook
The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear. Cover is of a space station to the lower right, space suited person central-ish with a white space hole behind them all framed by black deep space.
The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social
Cover of After That Night showing a person in boots standing in a blue puddle, their reflection visible; dark, moody thriller design.
Been working my way through Will Trent series. Right now I’m reading this one.
If I’d designed this cover, I’d have given her reflection in the water only one shoe.
The Uncool by Cameron Crowe
👋It's been a very busy day in the kitchen, but I can't let what-are-you-reading Monday pass by! Still pootling along with Tristram Shandy. Also playing catch-up with some non-fiction RSS feeds & newsletters that have been sitting there for a while, looking at me in a sorrowful, reproachful manner.
The Black Spectacles, by John Dickson Carr
Photo of a paperback book on a cross-hatch pattern tabletop. Cover is blue with gold print and writing, main image a stylised plan view of a moth.
Still enjoying Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor. It's become more apparent as I've got further into it that it's very much YA-oriented, but I'm not finding that detracting from the very unusual and as far as I know original storyline, not to mention the strong imagery and characterisation.
white circle in a blue background and the words "It's Monday! What are you reading?" in the circle
It's Monday again and today I'm reading "Men, Women, and Chain Saws" by Carol J. Clover
What book(s) are you reading this week?
💙📚 #BookSky #AmReading #MondayReads #TBR
alt text in images please
A copy of Lightfall: A Place Between by Tim Probert
This beauty has just arrived in the post and will be going to the top of my pile!
Screenshot of the Audible version of The Faith Of Beasts by James S A Corey, narrated by Jefferson Mays. Book two in the Captives War series
Currently listening to The Faith Of Beasts by James S A Corey, narrated by Jefferson Mays. Book two in the Captives War series
"The mountains we call home" by Kim Michelle Richardson. Third in the Book woman of Troublesome Creek series and I am loving it.
A pile of books: Bridge of Storms by Philip Reeve, Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow, Moonlight Travellers by Quentin Blake and Will Self, Project Hail MAry by Andy Weir and A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett.
Nipped t'library this morning so the current tbr pile looks like this
Spring time has me celebrating everything out of doors. So my reading includes Robert Macfarlane's Is a River Alive on audiobook and sampling my way through Mary Oliver's Devotions
Montage of covers for the following: Putin, his life and time by Philip Short (Uk, 2022, Political biography) The Black Wolf (Armand Gamache #20) by Louise Penny (Québec-Canada, 2025, Mystery/Political thriller) Slow Gods by Claire North (UK, 2025, Space Opera) Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (UK, 2025, Space Opera Noir/crime fiction)
Good Monday Stephen. I'm finishing the Canadian thriller The Black Wolf by Louise Penny, Slow Gods by Claire North and progressing more slowly through Philip Short's Putin biography. I'll soon start on Halcyon Years, the latest novel of Alastair Reynolds. #Booksky #AmReading #MondayReads
Started 'Lone Wolf, walking the Faultlines of Europe' by Adam Weymouth (leant to me by somebody I told about 'when there are wolves again', which I finished last week).
Also rereading 'The Selkie Pact' by Judith Fullerton, YA selkie trilogy.
Circe book cover with an illustration of a Greek woman’s face all in gold
Circe by @madelinemiller.bsky.social
I have just started Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay and I am listening to Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan
The cover of the book THE SALT LINE, in large white font. The image shows a single grey car driving on a straight road surrounded by tall fir trees. The sky on the horizon is orange and yellow.
#Reading The Salt Line, by Holly Goddard Jones, and because the novel’s “monster” is ticks, I’ve been scratching while reading! 💙📚
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers
Bethnal Green by Amelie Skoda
Afternoon! I’m reading Bethnal Green by Amelie Skoda and really enjoying it.
The cover for Beyond Here be Monsters by Gregory Frost. It shows a sepia toned city with a large fissure running through it and bug-like tentacled monsters crawling up from the hole.
This week’s #MondayReads is Beyond Here Be Monsters by Gregory Frost. Going through my backlog. Picked this up at an authors’ fair last summer. Out of the stories listed on the back, “a werewolf gets caught up in a bank robbery” sounds the most interesting.
💙📚 #AmReading #TBR #BookSky
*still* reading the acid/psychedelic folk music history - but also reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers, whose writing makes our mind thrum like a double bass string (in a good way)
Shift by Ethan Kross. (Sorry about the earlier submission…autocorrect beat me to the punch!)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Libby app showing The Faded Sun Trilogy by CJ Cherryh
The Faded Sun Trilogy by CJ Cherryh: The Faded Sun: Kesrith (1978), The Faded Sun: Shon'jir (1978), and The Faded Sun: Kutath (1979)
Dune-esque series with interstellar war and a race of desert dwelling fighters who will change everything.
Currently reading:
THE FIFTH SEASON
by N. K. Jemisin
A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE
by Mariana Enriquez
💙📚
The cover of 'Sword & Scimitar' by Simon Scarrow. A man in armour rides a horse on a beach. There is a fort, with palm trees, in the background.
Hello, I was rather unwisely left unsupervised in a secondhand bookshop over the weekend, so now I have a pile of historical fiction to get through. Currently reading the siege-of-Malta-set 'Sword & Scimitar' by Simon Scarrow. The cover seems alarmingly alliterative, now I look at it.
I *just* finished Colour out of space and damn, some descriptions will haunt my nights