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The HLS Guide to Library School
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Parasite by Jim Mortimore
My pandemic-era project to read all the Virgin Doctor Who novels continues. I’ve got through 43 of them by now and I confess they do tend to blur together. The relentless grit doesn’t help, but then I’m an unrepentant frock so I know I’m firmly in the wrong camp with these novels. The injections of comedy (Sky Pirates! later this year) or camp (Damaged Goods) are all too rare.
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Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities by Nick Walker
One of the best books I’ve read about neurodivergence and models of disability. I can’t recommend this enough.
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Warlock by Andrew Cartmel
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The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Carry On Films by Steven Gerrard
This book evolved from a doctoral thesis. It provides a lot of really relevant historical context for the much-loved/reviled Carry On films, but IMHO fails to engage with them with any depth. I’ve written more about my take on the films in Carry On Being Problematic.
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Set Piece by Kate Orman
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Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett
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Black Empire by George S. Schuyler
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Infinite Requiem by Daniel Blythe
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Style: An Anti-Textbook by Richard A. Lanham
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Manners from Heaven by Quentin Crisp
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Sensory: Life on the Spectrum edited by Bex Ollerton
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The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
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La Memoraĵoj de Julia Agripina by Anna Löwenstein
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Sanctuary by David A. McIntee
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The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
I spent a delightful amount of the summer reading The Hobbit and the whole of The Lord of the Rings with a friend. This was the book my parents gave me when I was about ten — how could I not fall in love with that cover? It wasn’t until I was a teenager and the LotR movies started coming out that I got around to the books. I remember them being long, difficult reads at the time, though I found them a lot easier with adult eyes.
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La Faraono I by Bolesław Prus
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Human Nature by Paul Cornell
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The Forgery of the Old Testament by Joseph McCabe
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The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
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Commong Faults in Writing English by Alexander Henry
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Maŝinmondo by Sándor Szathmári
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Original Sin by Andy Lane
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The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
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Sky Pirates! by Dave Stone
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Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
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The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
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$ git sync murder by Michael Warren Lucas
The sequel to Lucas’ $ git commit murder about a murder at a BSD convention. These novels are a real treat, and not just for the fact that Lucas is the only person to write fiction about Unix and sysadmins with any real knowledge. This is exactly what self-publishing is good for — getting great stories into the hands of niche audiences. No publisher would ever touch this because the setting is too technical for a mainstream audience, which means a lot of potential stories go untold.
I also love Lucas’ reluctant detective, who is sweaty, awkward, and uncomfortable wherever he goes.
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Children of the Sun by Heru Ptah
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42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams edited by Kevin Jon Davies
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Zamper by Gareth Roberts
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Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
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Carry On Loving by Norman Giller
How did I not know there were novels from the Carry On franchise?? And they’re not novelisations either, they’re full-on sequels to the films. I have to say, this one wasn’t half bad. If you liked the movies, you’ll like these too.
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Seven Days in New Crete by Robert Graves
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Toy Soldiers by Paul Leonard
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The Mysteries by John Kascht and Bill Watterson
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Head Games by Steve Lyons
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An Afternoon with Rock Hudson by Mercedes Deambrosis
A wicked delight. This was everything I could have hoped for. Dedalus Press hasn’t published a bad book yet so it’s well worth surfing their catalogue to see if anything catches your eye. You’re sure to find a few outrageous gems.
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Dekkinga Fuĝas: Nekredebla Rakonto el la Milita Tempo by Tjeerd Adema
This was a quaint little comedy/crime novel about a man who accidentally kills his cousin, goes on the run, and adopts a dead man’s identity. The humour works sufficiently well but the plot felt a bit rambling. I saw the final twist coming a mile away. The novel shied away from anything really clever and failed to cash in on some obvious opportunities.
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Faster Than Light by John Lucas
A light-hearted sci-fi romp. The author has a clear love of science-fiction comedy classics like The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Red Dwarf, and Dark Star, and who can blame him? I thought it was a little light on characterisation, which is maybe not a surprise given that this was published in 2002 and the wave of more character-driven genre storytelling hadn’t happened yet, but it’s nevertheless a fun read.