book reviews – Page 2

Book reviews: 2025’s first five

January 18, 2025 CaptainFezLeave a comment

That’s FIRST not FAMOUS, fuck’s sake.

So we’re almost three weeks into 2025 and it’s been… meh? I suppose that’s how most people view this part of the year: if you work in an industry that has a Christmas shutdown, you’re in the position of a car that’s driven daily then left alone while its owners go overseas for a bit: when they get back, it doesn’t roar back into life with quite the same aplomb.

Things groan. Starting becomes a little more of a trial than it had been. Things will, with a bit of coaxing and care, get back to proper running once more. But it’s gonna take time.

Consequently, writing reviews after a little break feels a little rusty, but I’m gonna give it a go. Elon Musk features in the fifth book I’ve consumed this year, so as long as this ends up reading better than one of his fucking jokes, I figure I’m ahead.

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Book reviews: reaching the end

December 30, 2024December 31, 2024 CaptainFez1 Comment

Well, here we are. It’s almost the end of 2024! I figured I’d better get some reviews in for the books I’ve been reading recently. I want to ensure I’ve written up everything before the calendar flips over, because… OCD reasons.

Who knew the dreadful abyss featured fucking numbers? Not me.

The larger stuff I liked post for this year will be coming along (ideally on the last day of the year – i.e., tomorrow – but let’s not hold our breath too much) but here’s the books I read in the dying days of December.

(Ooh, alliteration! I’m fancy.)

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Book review: another five down

December 1, 2024December 7, 2024 CaptainFezLeave a comment

The year keeps rocketing towards its end. I keep trying to read more and get bogged down in the whole rocketing-towards-the-endness of things at present. You know how it is – everyone is busy at this point, and things don’t seem to get less hectic. I’m continuing to read Miss Macintosh, My Darling and Finnegans Wake and I’m hoping to have both of those finished before the end of the year, though the chances of the latter actually getting done diminishes with each day. Largely because I’m increasingly feeling like I ain’t got time for Jimmy Joyce’s bullshit on this one.

Yeah, you stop and thing about what you’ve done, you fart-fancying pirate.

Happily for my TBR list, I’ve been out of town for business and so have had a bit of time to read – hello, four-hour layover – during travel. So here’s another few reviews of what I’ve been working through.

(I seem to be continuing my exploration of both the built environment (and its fuck-ups), so it’s nice to know there’s some kind of theme at work.)

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Book review: cinq?

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024 CaptainFez2 Comments

Not as quick as I’d hoped, but here’s another five book reviews.

Inside you are two wolves, and they’re these guys. (Also, you know who’ll like this gif? MY WIFE.)

I say ‘book’, but in this lot there’s just one physical book. The rest were audiobooks because the physical books I’ve been powering through are phonebook-sized volumes, and I’ve needed something shorter to break them up a bit.

(It’s an indicator of Books of Some Length when Paradise Lost is considered a quick read.)

Anyway, there’s nice range of stuff in here, and I’m quite pleased to have powered through them while driving, whether that be a) to Sydney and back or b) around the block on the mower.

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Book review: bites, knuckles, magical coffee and droughts

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024 CaptainFezLeave a comment

Obviously my intent to power through my backlog of reviews has stalled like my Mazda 323 shitbox once did on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (Embarrassingly, lots of honking.)

Pictured: you, the blog reader.

So yeah, let’s get to it.

(You’ll be pleased to know that my reading has slowed down a little, at least in terms of numbers of books read: I’m currently ploughing through two volumes – one fiction, one not – of more than 1000 pages each, so the numbers are not ticking over especially quickly at present.)

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Book review: recommendations, rereleases and revision

October 6, 2024October 6, 2024 CaptainFez1 Comment

Time for the first in a number of catch-up posts. Since I last wrote the reading has continued apace even as the reviewing has fallen off the cliff.

Time to get back on the keyboard.

Fear not, though: I’m not going to subject you to dozens of recaps in one go. I figure five will be more than enough to be going on with (at least until I write up the next five, right?)

Right.

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Book reviews: post-trip reading

August 25, 2024 CaptainFez2 Comments

Returning from the Northern Hemisphere to home where a feels-like temperature of minus nine is more common than not? A bit of a rude awakening, I must admit.

What’s positive about this state of affairs, though, is that I have continued to plough through the books. There’s nothing better to do in winter than hunker down with text, and I’ve been enjoying it greatly. Even if I have to wear a beanie throughout.

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Book reviews: holiday reads

July 12, 2024July 12, 2024 CaptainFez1 Comment

I’m back. Not from outer space, but from the other side of the world where a nice holiday was had, and I purchased some eau de toilette that smells like a David Lynch movie or a murder weekend:

A calm yet confrontational scent that traces your neck like a sharp cold blade with buchu sulfur, metallic bloody notes and cold aldehydes. There is a feeling that something is going to happen with burnt rubber, cold cedar notes creating a concrete effect, combined with birch tar, leather and bay oil. Dying out on a cold, damp cellar smell with cedar atlas, dark musk and moss.

I also bought two dozen-odd books from across the UK, lest you think I would be caught slacking on the purchasing front. In particular, I must laud Halcyon Books in Lewisham (£2 per book! Any book!) and Criminally Good Books in York (a murderer’s delight).

In addition I can recommend staying in the Bram Stoker-themed room at La Rosa in Whitby, close to the spot where old mate came up with Dracula. (It’s suitably atmospheric, and the proprietors are lovely.)

On with the reviews!

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Book reviews: pre-flight five

June 2, 2024June 2, 2024 CaptainFezLeave a comment

We’re about to go overseas for a month, and so I’m hoping that the next post here will be a recap of all the things I get through during fifty-odd hours of flights and however many hours of sitting in gardens.

HOWEVER that means that I need to clear my backlog of books read before I place myself at the tender mercies of security at the international terminal.

Same, except it’s a paperback.

So let’s get to it, because fuck knows I’ve got a lot of pre-trip packing and organisation to get through.

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Book reviews: carnies, conspiracies, despots and degenerates

May 10, 2024 CaptainFez1 Comment

So I’m back on the five-books-per-review thing because let’s face it, a dozen-ish (as per my previous entry) is a bit much, even if you’re into the kind of stuff I write. Or the books I read. Or me, really.

Pictured: you.

On with it.

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