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A Genteel Black Hole

Tag: book

  • Bookish Ramble: The Wee Free Men

    Ally

    Title: The Wee Free Men
    (Discworld #30, Tiffany Aching #1)
    Author: Terry Pratchett
    Year: 2003
    Country: UK

    Format: Hardback
    Pages: 310
    Read: 10 – 16 February 2026
    Reread

    Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching lives with her parents on a farm. Her duties include making the cheese and looking after her perpetually sticky little brother Wentworth. Also she’s a witch… or at least hopes to be someday, just like Granny Aching before her. One day Tiffany’s quiet, peaceful life is threatened by nightmarish creatures from another realm. Using Wentworth as bait, she fights off the first monster with nothing but an iron frying pan and righteous fury. But bigger, scarier things are coming, things too powerful for Tiffany to handle alone. Luckily she has help from a witch called Miss Tick, a talking frog that may once have been human, and a clan of tiny blue pictsies called the Nac Mac Feegle—the titular Wee Free Men. (Imagine, if you will, Braveheart crossed with Smurfs.)

    “Ye ken how to be strong, do ye?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    “Good. D’ye ken how to be weak? Can ye bow to the gale, can ye bend to the storm?    “

    This is the thirtieth Discworld book overall, the first in the Tiffany Aching sub-series aimed at younger readers. As such it’s shorter than a standard Discworld book, the humour is moderately less bawdy (though there are still some references for Mum and Dad to stifle a smirk over), it follows a child protagonist, and it’s divided helpfully into chapters. But for me, as someone who first read it well into adulthood, it still ticks all my Discworld boxes.

    That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.

    In fact it’s one of my favourite Pratchett books! The Wee Free Men is a delightful, magical adventure told with Pratchett’s signature humour and keen insight. In some ways it’s very silly. Tiffany enters a whimsical world of dreams and, like Alice before her, finds it very annoying indeed. The Feegles—a clan of walking, talking (not to mention stealin’, fightin’ and drinkin’) Scottish stereotypes—constantly make me laugh, especially the scenes with No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock. But the passages where Tiffany reminisces about her late Granny, trying to learn from her example as she comes into her own power as a witch, are some of the most touching moments in any Discworld book. And for longtime fans there are excellent cameos from Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, stars of the original Discworld Witches books.

    “The thing about witchcraft,” said Mistress Weatherwax, “is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.”

    My First Sight told me this book was wonderful. My Second Thoughts have since confirmed it. Crivens, it’s a bonnie wee book!

  • Bookish Ramble: Cards on the Table

    Ally

    Title: Cards on the Table
    (Poirot #13)
    Author: Agatha Christie
    Year: 1936
    Country: UK

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 259
    Read: 1 – 9 February 2026
    Reread

    Mr Shaitana, a renowned collector of morbid curiosities, invites Hercule Poirot to an evening of dinner and bridge. Poirot is joined by three more sleuths: Superintendent Battle, Colonel Race, and mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver. There are four more guests; each one is, according to Shaitana, a murderer—each having successfully evaded detection. The party was intended merely to show off his “collection” of killers, his way of celebrating the Art of Murder. But when Shaitana himself is found dead, stabbed with a stiletto from his own collection, it’s up to Poirot and his fellow sleuths to figure out which of the four suspects is the culprit. Each of them had both motive and opportunity, but which of them actually did it?

    Cards on the Table is Christie at her streamlined best. On the surface all four suspects seem like unlikely killers, yet each one apparently got away with murder once before. Poirot’s approach is to build a psychological profile of each suspect, aided in part by a study of their bridge scores. (Side note: I’ve never played bridge and don’t know the rules, but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the story.) With such a small ensemble of suspects, Christie still manages to spin a gripping story full of red herrings and surprises. And there’s a pleasingly metafictional element in Christie’s self-caricature, Ariadne Oliver, providing intuitive “insights” into who would’ve dunnit if she were writing the book. Overall I’d say this is top tier Christie.

  • Bookish Ramble: Arcadia

    Ally

    Title: Arcadia
    Author: Tom Stoppard
    Year: 1993
    Country: UK

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 128
    Read: 6 – 9 February 2026
    First reading

    Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is a dazzlingly clever play with a deeply emotional core. The setting is one room in a stately home called Sidley Park. Scenes alternate between two time periods: the early 1800s and the present. The modern scenes feature rival academics delving into Sidley Park’s history while, in the ‘period’ scenes, that very history is played out for us—often spotlighting the researchers’ misconceptions.

    The historical scenes follow Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron, as he tutors the precocious young daughter of the house, Thomasina Coverly. Thomasina’s gift for mathematics exceeds that of her tutor, or indeed any of her contemporaries, and she begins to intuit scientific theories far in advance of her era. Septimus must also dodge the wrath of visiting poet Ezra Chater, having been caught in “carnal embrace” with Mrs Chater. Meanwhile Thomasina’s mother, Lady Croom, is in talks with a landscape architect who plans to redesign the Arcadian gardens of Sidley Park in the newfangled Gothic style, complete with hermitage.

    The modern day scenes centre on the academic rivalry of Hannah Jarvis and Bernard Nightingale. Hannah is trying to uncover the identity of the mysterious Sidley Park hermit, while Bernard aims to prove his pet theory that Lord Byron fled the country after apparently killing Ezra Chater in a duel. As Hannah and Bernard research the Sidley Park archives together, aided by members of the Coverly family, unlikely relationships start to emerge.

    Thomasina: When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?

    My first reading barely scratched the surface of Arcadia. I loved it, but I can sense that I will love it more and understand it better when I reread it. (I had that experience recently with Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.) This is a play bristling with ideas on many subjects: History, mathematics, time, love… It’s about how much of the past is lost to us, just as our age will be to future generations. It’s an existentialist play about certain death, not of just us personally but of the universe itself; the ultimate tragedy of entropy. One day all this will be gone. But, in the end, it says we must enjoy life while we’re in it. The planets won’t keep waltzing forever but, while they are, we too must dance.

  • Bookish Ramble: Planet of Exile

    Ally

    Title: Planet of Exile
    (Hainish #2)
    Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
    Year: 1966
    Country: USA

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 100
    Read: 1 – 5 February 2026
    Reread

    My Hainish series read-through continues with Planet of Exile, first published in 1966—the same year as its predecessor, Rocannon’s World. (You can read my review of Rocannon’s World here.)

    The story takes place on Werel, a planet with a decades-long season cycle. Jakob Agat leads a group of human colonists who, centuries ago, were exiled to Werel by the League of All Worlds. Jakob and his people, despite having never seen their long-forgotten homeworld, remain staunchly separate from the local indigenous tribe, the primitive Tevarans. As a harsh, fifteen-year winter approaches—bringing with it a horde of ruthless nomadic warriors called the Gaal—cooperation between human and Tevaran camps may be their only chance of survival. But things are complicated when Jakob breaks taboo with Rolery, daughter of the Tevaran chief.

    Planet of Exile, while not yet Peak Le Guin, is a marked improvement from Rocannon’s World. Both books attempt to blend sci-fi and fantasy, but the second book succeeds where the first fails. My friend Pat (Book Chat With Pat) shared a quote in our Hainish group chat where Le Guin describes her debut novel with a colour analogy: If sci-fi is blue and fantasy is red, Rocannon’s World is purple. I would argue that Rocannon’s World doesn’t successfully blend its colours; it’s a book of blue and red stripes, awkwardly clashing. Planet of Exile, on the other hand, is properly purple.

    Le Guin’s prose here is more focused and more evocative than in her debut. The cast of characters is also more streamlined—there are just three races to keep track of, and the tension between human and Tevaran tribes is made tangible by the star-crossed romance of Jakob and Rolery. I sincerely enjoyed Planet of Exile. And it’s exciting to see Le Guin’s progression as a writer, especially knowing just how much farther she would go from here.

    The group reading experience, hosted by Gareth (Books Songs and Other Magic) also continues to delight. These past two months we’ve had some fascinating discussions, and I’m eager to continue them as we work through the rest of the Hainish series together.

  • Bookish Ramble: Watership Down

    Ally

    Title: Watership Down
    Author: Richard Adams
    Year: 1972
    Country: UK

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 472
    Read: 19 – 31 January 2026
    First reading

    Fiver, the runt of his litter, has visions. When an ominous man-made object appears in a nearby field, Fiver foresees the destruction of his warren—but the Chief Rabbit refuses to evacuate. Led by Fiver’s brother Hazel, a handful of plucky rabbits flee the warren and set out to make a new home on Watership Down. Along the way they cross hazardous streams, roads, predators, snares, and—worst of all—a ruthless, despotic rabbit called General Woundwort. It will take all of Hazel’s cunning, Fiver’s foresight and Bigwig’s courage to survive.

    Watership Down is notorious for its power to traumatise young readers. This is a story about rabbits, but it’s a world away from the cute and cosy tales of Peter Rabbit. It’s part epic quest, part war story… it just happens to star rabbits. Richard Adams keeps the tension consistently high. During the whole thing I felt almost as highly-strung as those nervous bunnies! But the really upsetting, gruesome moments are carefully spaced out. One rabbit’s encounter with a snare is the only bit that truly shocked me—I read those paragraphs through tears. I can easily see how it would be Too Much for a preteen reader.

    The story has a mythological quality, not least because the rabbits have their own folklore and language. Their name for the Sun, their God, is ‘Frith’. (As a fan of the experimental musician Fred Frith, this particularly tickled me!) The rabbits also boost their morale by sharing stories of El-arairah, a legendary trickster rabbit. These touches, along with the use of Lapine language, make the book rather immersive. It’s set on downland not far from my house, but it felt like another world entirely. By the end, those strange Lapine words had become second nature to me, so that I didn’t need any translation for Bigwig’s war cry: “Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!”

    There’s a lot to love about Watership Down. It’s a thrilling story, engagingly told, with memorable characters and strong commentary about mankind’s relationship with the natural world. The structure is very satisfying: Each obstacle teaches the rabbits a valuable lesson (wood floats in water, rope can be chewed through, etc) which helps them defeat the next. My only real complaint is that it’s maybe a little too long. I enjoyed it and admired it, but by the end I was ready for it to be over. I’d still definitely recommend it though… as long as you’re not too squeamish!

  • Bookish Ramble: Excellent Women

    Ally

    Title: Excellent Women
    Author: Barbara Pym
    Year: 1952
    Country: UK

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 304
    Read: 20 – 30 January 2026
    First reading

    Mildred Lathbury is one of life’s “excellent women”, those ladies who devote their lives to Good Works and consequently get taken for granted. They make life run smoothly for the men around them, but never set anyone’s pulse racing. But Mildred’s humdrum life is suddenly complicated by the arrival of her new downstairs neighbours; anthropologist Helena Napier and her charming husband Rocky. The couple’s marriage is on the brink of collapse, and Helena pines instead for her anthropology colleague Everard Bone. Mildred finds herself drawn to the dazzlingly handsome Rocky, but remains wary of his (probably empty) charm—not to mention the impossibility of an affair with a married man.

    I loved Barbara Pym’s debut novel, Some Tame Gazelle, so much that I picked up her second book almost immediately. The two books share much in common; they’re both bittersweet comedies of manners about spinsters who seem more comfortable at a safe distance from romance. One character from the first book even makes a cameo in this one! It definitely scratched my itch for more Pym, but I can’t help feeling I should’ve waited longer to read it. You can have too much of a good thing, and I think I read too much Pym in quick succession. As a result I didn’t enjoy this book nearly as much as it probably deserved. I still want to read more Pym, but first I’ll give myself a chance to start missing her.

  • Bookish Ramble: Moominvalley in November

    Ally

    Title: Moominvalley in November
    (Moomins #9)
    Author: Tove Jansson
    (Translated by Kingsley Hart)
    Year: 1970
    Country: Finland

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 160
    Read: 11 – 19 January 2026
    First reading

    Moominvalley in November is the final book in Tove Jansson’s Moomins series. The Moomin family themselves don’t actually appear, having moved suddenly in the previous book to a remote lighthouse. Instead this book follows a disparate group of visitors who are disappointed to find the Moomin family home abandoned. The visitors (including Moomintroll’s mercurial bestie Snufkin) stay for a while, hoping for the family to return, while gradually learning how to be comfortable with each other… and with themselves.

    Snufkin padded along calmly, the forest closed round him and it began to rain. The rain fell on his green hat and on his raincoat, which was also green, it pittered and pattered everywhere and the forest wrapped him in a gentle and exquisite loneliness.

    The Moomins books always did have a streak of melancholy, but in this one it’s more pronounced than ever; most likely influenced by Tove Jansson’s grief at the loss of her mother. The Moomin family’s absence is keenly felt, especially by the young orphan Toft, a storyteller who yearns to be adopted by Moominmamma. Then there’s Grampa-Grumble, who has decided to make the most of his dementia by deliberately forgetting his family; and Fillyjonk, who struggles with anxiety after a near-death experience.

    These are troubled characters—and they don’t always understand, or openly express, their troubles. The whole book (apart from its quietly hopeful ending) is shrouded in sadness, loneliness, and unspoken loss. I can’t guess how younger readers would react to such a book, but my melancholic inner child (and my equally melancholic adult self) found it a moving and absorbing read. I love that Tove Jansson never patronises her readers. She trusts them to understand what remains unspoken.

    I’m sad to have reached the end of the Moomins series, but it certainly ended on a high note—albeit in a minor key. I still plan to circle back and read the very first book, so my personal journey through Moominvalley isn’t quite finished. (And the comic book series is starting to look mighty tempting too!) Ever since I read Comet in Moominland back in April of ’25, I’ve fallen completely in love with the Moomins. I fully expect to reread the whole series in the coming years.

  • Bookish Ramble: Rocannon’s World

    Ally

    Title: Rocannon’s World
    (Hainish #1)
    Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
    Year: 1966
    Country: USA

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 112
    Read: 11 – 18 January 2026
    Reread

    Rocannon’s World is Ursula K. Le Guin’s debut novel and the first in her loosely-connected Hainish series. It follows Gaveral Rocannon, an ethnographer for the League of All Worlds. When anti-League rebels attack and destroy his ship, Rocannon is stranded on the alien planet of Fomalhaut II. The planet is home to multiple intelligent (but technologically primitive) species, each with their own unique social structures and customs. Rocannon, aided by a diverse group of Fomalhaut natives, goes on a dangerous quest to contact the League and end the rebellion.

    Rocannon’s World is ostensibly a sci-fi novel, but the whole thing is steeped in fantasy. Rocannon comes from a hi-tech world of interstellar travel, ansible communication, and weapons of mass destruction; but he’s stuck on a planet of feudal lords and heroic quests. I’m not opposed to such a blend of genres, but I don’t think Le Guin quite pulls it off here. The book establishes many of her enduring themes, but with little of her best work’s profundity or poetic brilliance. It didn’t take her too long to hone her skills, but Rocannon’s World is very much A First Attempt. As an established fan, I enjoyed it the same way I enjoy listening to early demos by my favourite bands: It’s interesting in context, but I wouldn’t recommend it for first-time readers of Le Guin.

    My favourite part of the book is the prologue, which was first published as a separate short story. In fact the story, Semley’s Necklace, was included in Le Guin’s anthology The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, which I read just a few months ago. It was fascinating to read the story both as its own thing and the introduction to a longer work. That gave me some insight into Le Guin’s creative process—glimpsing the seeds from which she grew an entire universe.

    I read Rocannon’s World as part of a group reading project led by my BookTube friend Gareth (Books Songs and Other Magic). We’ll be reading all of Le Guin’s Hainish books during the year, discussing them in the group chat as we go. It’s been a great experience so far—my fellow readers have shared some valuable insights into the book and Le Guin’s career as a whole. Gareth also plans to host live-chat videos about each book, so be sure to tune your ansible devices accordingly!

  • Bookish Ramble: At Swim-Two-Birds

    Ally

    Title: At Swim-Two-Birds
    Author: Flann O’Brien
    Year: 1939
    Country: Ireland

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 228
    Read: 4 – 13 January 2026
    First reading

    At Swim-Two-Birds, the debut novel by Flann O’Brien, is actually three books within a book within a book. (Eat your heart out, Charlie Kaufman!) At the outermost layer it follows the beer-soaked, puke-stained exploits of its nameless narrator, an indolent student. The Student lives in Dublin with his uncle, whom he despises.

    Description of my uncle: Red faced, bead eyed, ball bellied. Fleshy about the shoulders with long swinging arms giving ape-like effect to gait. Large moustache. Holder of Guinness clerkship the third class.

    The Student spends most of his time either drinking and bantering with friends, or lazing in his bedroom. But he’s also working on a book; a surreal work of modernist metafiction in which an author, Dermot Trellis, loses control of his characters. Trellis’s characters, plundered from disparate sources—Irish folklore, Western novels, Dublin pubs—spring to life spontaneously in his reality as he writes them. These characters start to disobey Trellis, living their own lives whenever he’s asleep. Eventually they conspire to rewrite Trellis’s manuscript, torturing him with his own creation.

    I found this an extremely challenging read. Last year I enjoyed Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, itself a bizarre and disorienting book, but At Swim-Two-Birds is even weirder. Luckily I buddy-read it with my friend Mark, who was able to explain some of the more “aggressively Irish” aspects. I found the sections about the folk hero Finn MacCool especially hard-going, full of aggravating repetition and droning lists of made-up birds. Maybe it’s funnier if you were brought up with those folk tales, but for me it was a slog!

    However I did appreciate the book for its surrealism, its bawdy humour, and the sheer inventiveness of the metafictional story. In places it struck me as an unlikely hybrid of Duck Amuck and James Joyce. (Or at least my impression of James Joyce, who I must admit I’ve yet to read. Dubliners is going straight on my wishlist after this.)

    At Swim-Two-Birds is an enigmatic book; the meaning of the story doesn’t make itself immediately apparent. The different layers of fictional reality start to influence each other, gradually revealing some truths about the Student’s life… if you read between the lines. This is where buddy-reading really came into its own. Discussing the book with Mark helped us both get a handle on it, and our chats were sometimes more fun than the actual book—certainly the Finn MacCool bits!

    In fact, we plan to have a video chat about our ‘Flannuary’ experience later this month on Mark’s YouTube channel. We hope to see you there, perhaps with pint in hand. A pint of plain is your only man!

  • Bookish Ramble: Some Tame Gazelle

    Ally

    Title: Some Tame Gazelle
    Author: Barbara Pym
    Year: 1950
    Country: UK

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 252
    Read: 30 December 2025 – 9 January 2026
    First reading

    “Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:
    Something to love, oh, something to love!”
    ~ Thomas Haynes Bayly

    Some Tame Gazelle is a comedy about two fiftysomething spinsters, the not-especially-venerable Bede sisters, Belinda and Harriet. For the last thirty years Belinda, the older and dowdier of the two, has been carrying a torch for Henry Hoccleve, the village’s married Archdeacon. Meanwhile Harriet, the more glamorous and outspoken sister, repeatedly rejects the advances of the melancholy Italian Count Riccardo Bianco, preferring instead to dote on a series of young curates. But when new guests come to stay with the Archdeacon, will they upset Belinda and Harriet’s comfortable life together?

    We really ought to love one another, she thought warmly, it was a pity it was often so difficult.

    This was my first time reading Barbara Pym and it certainly won’t be my last! Some Tame Gazelle is so good, I find it hard to believe it was her debut novel. I’m a big fan of bittersweet comedies and funny dramas, so it really hit the spot for me. Pym’s wry observations of village life made me chuckle and smile with recognition. (I grew up in a small Oxfordshire village myself, so it feels very much like my childhood home, albeit a few decades before my time.) There are several running gags that get funnier each time—especially “the Apes of Brazil.” But Pym balances this humour beautifully with pathos. My heart ached for poor Belinda, with her constant self-doubt and her comfortably hopeless crush on Henry.

    Belinda gave a contented sigh. It had been such a lovely evening. Just one evening like that every thirty years or so. It might not seem much to other people, but it was really all one needed to be happy.

    Nothing much actually happens plot-wise. Like a sitcom, the status quo is temporarily upended, then restored. The Bede sisters reject some unexpected suitors, then continue to focus their affections on people who either can’t or won’t love them back. The characters don’t grow or change; they confirm exactly who they always were. In the end, Some Tame Gazelle is a story about how having “something to love, oh, something to love!” is so much easier and more comfortable than allowing yourself to be loved.