#pixie reads

Tagged by the delightful @polarcell thank you kindly!

the last book I read: The last one I finished was Speed Thief by Sean Hennessy. A comic to start May off nicely.

a book I'd recommend: I always recommend people Piranesi and A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. I think they're just books it's hard to not like.

a book I couldn't put down: It's odd because it's never the books I give high ratings too... The last book I read in one sitting was In Memoriam by Alice Winn (and I didn't even like it that much) but I think The Spear Cuts through Water by Simon Jimenez was the one that grabbed me the most recently. I just really wanted to know what happened next.

a book I've read twice or more: I used to constantly reread childhood books, so I'd going to say Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. I still have large chunks memorised lol.

a book on my tbr: Good God, way too many. Let's say Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse.

a book I've put down: I have finally surrendered to my distaste and redonated The House on the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune without finishing it. I don't want that in my house.

a book on my wishlist: Argh, so many! I think on my fiction list it's Unknown Soldiers by Väinö Linna, and on my non-fiction list it's The Sacred Band by James Romm.

a favourite book from childhood: Apart from the aforementioned Artemis Fowl, Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis (I do need everyone to understand that I did not comprehend any of the Christian allegory in these books as a child. Like zero.)

a book I'd give to a friend: I lend people anything they ask for, I throw my books around very easily (because my friends generally treat them well), but for gifts I always give A Natural History of Dragons. Idk, it's fun.

a book of poetry or lyrics that I own: Liriche scelte by Ugo Foscolo. It's a really lovely copy from the 60s that someone annotated parts of that I found in a corner of a secondhand bookshop in Rochester.

a non-fiction book that I own: Lots of them! I'm going to go with The Singular Beast by Claudine Fabre-Vassas.

what I'm currently reading: The third Cadfael book, Monk's-Hood by Ellis Peters, and also, as always, Les Miserables.

what I'm planning on reading next: I think I'll reread Temeraire so I can lend it to a friend, and then aslo read a non-fiction book, because I'm behind on those.

“Anything.”

A grin slipped out. “Say it again. I didn’t pine all these years to only hear it once.”

“I’ll say it however many times you want. I’ll romance you until you get sick of me. I am horrendously, horrendously in love with your dreadful face, and we need to go, now.”

13. Name a book with a really bad movie/tv adaption

Spoilt for choice in this category, aren't we? God... Well, the Hobbit, of course, the Jackson Hobbit trilogy is awful. Back when I was like 16 and still liked Eragon I definitely hated the Eragon movie, that was atrocious, my friend and I spent the entire ride home complaining about it at length. The Kenneth Branagh version of Murder on the Orient Express was genuinely fucking offensive to Poirot, I remember coming out of the cinema with the friends I'd seen it with and we all just stared at each other in horror (I mean, once you've seen David Suchet is there any other Poirot possible?).

WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Jesus fucking Christ lock her away for that.

Ooh follow-up questions like an interviewer. :o

25. Did you read any non-fiction?

I did, yes! I read Leningrad: State of Siege by Michael Jones, Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis J. Bremer, Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton and Life Along the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield.

I started reading Leningrad in 2024 so it sort of rolled over to 2025, when I finished it. That was very interesting, I learnt a lot and I'm eager to start my final book on Leningrad, for comparisons.

Puritanism was fic research, for a fic I've barely started and keeping meaning to knuckle down and write but who knows (it's the Gibbet Fic, the one where Nicky is stuck in a gibbet). I really do want to! I've been meaning to! I've just sort of... lost my way with it, for various unhappy reasons.

Madhouse was one of the surprises for me, I do love a book about some Maritime Bullshit and White Men Where They Shouldn't Be so this was a lot of fun and I definitely learnt more about Antarctica and polar exploration. I don't know why the fact only primates and guinea pigs don't produce their own vitamin C stuck with me.

Life Along the Silk Road was a more spontaneous choice, I saw it on Vinted by chance and decided to buy it, and even though it was kind of superficial it did success in broadening my knowledge of Central Asia. I liked how it was broken up into vignettes of specific (fictionalised) lives based on documents we have.

I only read four nonfiction books in 2025, which is... three down from 2024. Not good, must do better this year!

I already answered the favourite one here!

23. Did you DNF any books? Which ones?

Hmmmm... I don't want to say I DNF'ed, because I have every intention of getting back to it, actually, I got halfway! I just needed a break.

A very long break.

Of several months.

It's Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Like I get it, I know what's going on, the plot intrigues me... but dear God is Raskolnikov fucking insufferable. He drives me nuts. Like ffs dude, lock the fuck in!!! [marcus voice] robert... it's pissing me off.

I will probably finish it this year at some point. I know exactly where it is, hidden under a pile of post.

Benedikt was staring. His pulse jumped once at the terrible realization, and jumped again at the thought of getting caught.

“You have more scars.” His recovery was fast, barely stuttering even while his neck burned. This moment would probably come to him as he was trying to sleep, and then he would cringe so hard he would invert into himself, becoming an inside-out sheath of skin.