The Sunday Salon: In Which, Hopefully With Your Help, I Return For Good

Hi! Remember me? I’m happy to report that the worst of my grad school deadlines are behind me now, and I’m determined to once again make room in my life for regular blogging. As I’m sure you can imagine, after more than a month away I have a bit of a backlog of books to write about. It’s not anywhere near what it would be if my reading hadn’t slowed down considerably for the past two months, but still, I don’t quite know where to start.

Which is where you come in: it would be really helpful if you told me which of the following books you’d like to hear about first. And it would be even more helpful if you were to ask me any specific questions about them. Even though I try to keep reading notes, I’m afraid that after all this time my memory might need some prodding before I can write a decent post about some of these. The books are:

• Temeraire by Naomi Novik (I may or may not have compulsively read the whole series over the past few weeks.)
  
  
• The 10PM Question by Kate DiGoldi (My first pick for the Kiwi YA challenge, and one of my favourite reads of the year so far. I really wish I’d written about it sooner after I finished it, because I’m worried about not being able to do it justice now.)
  
  
• Rebel Girls by Jill Liddington (Excellent social history about the suffrage movement in Northern England.)

• Tamara Drew by Posy Simmonds (I’d probably need a few questions to be able to review this one at all, as I failed to keep any decent reading notes. Which is too bad, as I really enjoyed it.)
  
  
• The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard (As the title suggests, non-fiction about gender issues.)
  
  
• The Magicians and Mrs Quent by Galen Beckett (A Brontësque secondary world fantasy.)
  
  
• The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (A mix of memoir, biography and art history, and very deserving of all the accolades it’s been getting.)
  
  
• Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson (My first Eva Ibbotson, and every bit as charming as I was hoping it would be.)
  
  
• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (New Patrick Ness! Enough said, right? I swear, my head hurt from crying after I finished it.)

Also, the other day I decided to celebrate handing in my research proposal with a reckless book order of the kind I hadn’t placed in a very long time. I can’t take a proper picture of my loot, because they haven’t arrive yet, so here’s a cover collage instead:


I’m so ridiculously excited to read them. Have you read any of them? And if so, are they as good as they sound?

Have a great Sunday, everyone. I can’t wait to catch up with you all.