Ashleigh's Bookshelf

Bookish ponderings from a self professed mad scientist.

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Review: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within - Becky Chambers

Review: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within – Becky Chambers

★★★★★ I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC of this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Let me preface this with the truth that I love Becky Chambers. I love every book of hers I’ve read. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is one of my ultimate comfort reads, the universe she has created within these Wayfarers books is so familiar to me now that reading any book in the series…

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Review: Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Review: Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

★★ This book, for me, did not meet the hype that has been thrown about for it. I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, I really enjoy Susanna Clarke’s writing but this book was just a huge miss with my personal tastes. And as much as I hate to say it, this is a marmite book and one that most people seem to be fawning over (much to my confusion). Piranesi is an ambling story – and one that…

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Review: The Covent Garden Ladies - Hallie Rubenhold

Review: The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold

★★★ Having loved The Five last year I really wanted to get around to reading to Hallie’s other work, because I love her writing. After reading A Curious History of Sex I was apparently in the mood to read a book about historical sex workers and the Georgian underworld. So, Harris’ List was a document created and updated over the course of several years in the 1800s. It was a list of sex workers…

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Review: You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce

Review: You Let Me In – Camilla Bruce

★★★★ This book was dark and creepy, full of folklore and atmosphere. I know this is not a book for everyone, as it definitely contains triggers for trauma, childhood abuse, unhealthy/coercive relationships, miscarriage/stillbirth, murder and suicide (I’m also sure I’ve forgotten something). It’s very unsettling but, it has to be said, it is so clever and I really, really enjoyed this. It’s…

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Review: Love in Colour - Bolu Babalola

Review: Love in Colour – Bolu Babalola

★★★★★ This book. This book. Love in Colour is a collection of short stories, which are based on myths from mostly African folklore but also some other cultures, about love. I don’t read romance-y type books, I generally loathe romance in any book (because I rarely see me) and it always invariably disappoints or makes me lose all interest. But this felt raw and real, and passionate and I loved…

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Review: A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes

Review: A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes

★★ I’m going to preface this with my main thought which is – I think I read this book at the wrong time. I’d read a lot of historical non-fiction, and been listening to exclusively history podcasts, and picking up historical fiction straight off of that may not have been the smartest idea. Also, I partially listened to this and I think maybe reading it physically would have been a better…

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Review: Gentleman Jack - Angela Steidele

Review: Gentleman Jack – Angela Steidele

★★★ Another non-fiction book today – this time a biography of Anne Lister. For anyone unfamiliar with Anne Lister, she was an obsessive diarist who wrote not only her day to day minutiae of being a female landowner but also is known for being an unapologetic lesbian. Her diary is filled with coded entries of her relationships with women – quite a few of them – and this is a biography which…

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Review: Dead Famous - Greg Jenner

Review: Dead Famous – Greg Jenner

★★★★ I picked this up because I love Greg Jenner’s podcast You’re Dead to Me (available on all good podcast services). His “specialist subject” as it were is the history of fame and celebrity, and having heard him talk about characters like Lord Byron in the podcast with such enthusiasm I knew this wasn’t going to be a disappointment. Naturally, because I love the podcast, I chose the audiobook…

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Review: A Curious History of Sex - Kate Lister

Review: A Curious History of Sex – Kate Lister

★★★★★ If you’re anything like me, you save a book you know you’re going to love for the first book you read in a year. After what was frankly an abysmal reading year in 2020, I knew that I wanted the first book of 2021 to be one that was a belter. I’ve been wanting to read this since I saw Hannah Witton talk about it when it was first published, so when I saw it was finally on Audible I snaffled…

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Update From Isolation

I’m very out of practice at this, it’s been nearly a year since I last posted on here. Not through lack of love, because I love reviewing books, but through circumstances.

At the end of 2019 my mental health took a real hit. Not only that I was coming off medication for Fibromyalgia and suffering all the fun side effects that come with weaning off a controlled drug, but I was stressed at work…

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Review: Frankissstein - Jeanette Winterson

Review: Frankissstein – Jeanette Winterson

★★★★★

I adore Jeanette Winterson – she’s fast becoming one of my favourite authors and when I was on holiday and saw a signed copy of this book, I just had to buy a copy. I couldn’t resist. As it so happens this has now been longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker Prize and, having now read it, I am going to say I am surprised in the best possible way (because I enjoyed this book, but it doesn’t seem…

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The Odyssey - Homer (Translated by Emily Wilson)

The Odyssey – Homer (Translated by Emily Wilson)

★★★★

I first read The Odyssey in August 2014 – so it’s been 5 years almost exactly since I last read it and, honestly, I think I enjoyed it so much more this time around. I don’t know if that’s because I listened to it as an audiobook this time around, the fact it was a different translation, or a combination of the two, but it moved it from a 3 star read to a 4/5 star read easily.

Most people…

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The Familiars - Stacey Halls

The Familiars – Stacey Halls

★★★★

I was lucky enough to win this book in a competition run by Bibliobeth way back at the start of the year, and I’m so glad I finally picked it up. For me this book had echoes of Rebecca– high praise given it’s one of my favourite books – not in the sense that it is an altered version of it, but in the characters and  the general atmosphere. Rather than being a poor-mans du Maurier, Stacey…

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Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

★★★★

After what feels like a very long reading slump I thought it’d be a great idea to pick up an 850 page epic fantasy novel to ease myself back in to reading gently, I don’t like to make things easy for myself after all. But I’m really, really glad I picked this up. Samantha Shannon is a new author to me, having not read The Bone Season, but as soon as I found out there were lady gays and…

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Getting Out of a Slump. Advice?

Getting Out of a Slump. Advice?

So, reading this year really isn’t happening – at least in the traditional sense. It’s now been 3 months since I picked up a book and I’m starting to feel a little sad about that fact.

I’m in one hell of a reading slump, and it’s one of those that even rereading a favourite book wouldn’t pull me out of, I don’t think. It’s not that I’m notreading at all, it’s a case that I’m reading news, blogs…

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Review: The Gendered Brain - Gina Rippon

Review: The Gendered Brain – Gina Rippon

★★★★★

I’m not going to lie, this book was pretty much a cover buy – just look at how beautiful this cover is – but the content is just as fantastic. If I could give this book 6 stars I would, because honestly it’s one of the most comprehensive looks at the differences, and similarities in human brains on the basis of Sex (assigned at birth).

One thing I am going to applaud is how brilliantly the…

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Blog: Spring 2019 - A General Update

Blog: Spring 2019 – A General Update

Hello again, and welcome to a wee chatty post on my corner of the internet. It’s been quite some time since I checked in with you all – and a lothas changed for me in the last few months, so it feels an appropriate time to do that! So, below the cut there is a 500 word update where I’m talking Fibromyalgia, the Wellcome Prize, Book Slumps, Theatre Trips, Language Learning and lots of other…

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