Url Phantomhive

I was hoping to postpone this post a little bit more, but the site has become so unstable that I don't want to risk waiting too long and it being to late.

Booklikes has shown me what fun it is to blog about books and connect with other readers. Lately, it has become increasingly frustrating to do it here on Booklikes with the site crashing all the time, the dashboard that will not load, the database and all the spammers.

So, I have been looking at alternatives, and over the summer I have been working on an alternative blog. I had to start getting used to it, and Wordpress had recently introduced its block editor which particularly took quite some getting used to.

I am still building the blog, and starting to post my reviews there, but I would like to invite everyone (except the spammers of course) to come over and visit Url Phantomhive, my blog which is still under construction. I hope we can stay in touch to discuss books.

Alternatively, if you are on GoodReads, I would also like to connect there if we haven't done so already. Find me in the Outpost or here.

www.urlphantomhive.com

Best wishes to everyone and please let me know where I can find you!

Fake news is nothing new, and not only human suffer from it. This is a collection of animals who have bad reputations, which is often based on untrue or highly exaggerated superstitions. To help overcome the stigmas, an overview of all the bad stuff per animal is given, followed by information to put it all in perspective.

Lovely book with nice and cute drawings that might teach children that there are always two sides to each story.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

There is an entire world of books that are being published in foreign languages. So little of them actually reach us, that it always makes me sad. I grew up speaking Dutch and I still feel a little bit surprised whenever I see a Dutch work in English translation, so I know what it is like.

Simantov was originally published in Israel and written in Hebrew. In my challenge to read more diverse, I was really looking forward to reading this. However, I do not know whether it was the translation so much or the cultural differences but this book lost me.

There is a lot in here. Angels, mythology, a detective story and a squad of paranormal detectives. But is was all crammed together and in the end, I ended up not caring about basically anyone or anything in the book. Maybe it was just not the book for me, or not the book for me at this time, but I was a little bit disappointed with it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I like cats. I do. Of course, I like my own cat best.

I also like humor. I thought.

Either way, this sort of magazine turned out not to be for me. Immediately at the introduction I was thinking, this is not funny, and it didn’t really improve. The humor was not my style, many juvenile jokes, but it didn’t seem to be aimed at children per se.

There were a lot of cat pictures, if that’s something you like. But I think you will also be able to find plenty on the internet.

Not for me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This would have been right in time for the summer Olympics if they hadn't been postponed to 2021, a book looking back at interesting facts about the previous editions. Filled with some history, some remarkable people who competed in the various sports events, and also some discontinued sports this was a very nice read to get in the mood for Tokyo 2020.

While not everything was new to me, I did find out that the international parking sign (white on blue P) was invented for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, and that initially it had been planned as a two-yearly rather than a four-yearly event.

I just found that the book, clearly marketed for the American market, focused a bit too much on American athletes. Especially chapter two, about the Legends, was at least 90% American where I’m sure there are also ‘legends’ from other countries. In the later chapter ‘Forgotten Heroes’ this is slightly less, but remains prominent still.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was a Birthday gift which was somewhat delayed due to Corona, but it was definitely worth the wait! I really enjoyed, as I always do with the comics of Tom Gauld.

They are funny in such a nice way, I cannot help but get a little smile upon my face whenever I think of them, or send them around to friends. This one being focused on science in a broad way, was something that made me like it extra.

Only small downside was that I already knew some of the comics, which can not be helped as I like to browse his social media.

Definitely recommended!

(This is not the edition I read, I read the Little Black Classics edition, but it is hard enough already to find the books currently on BookLikes)

Frankenstein is one of the books that has been on my TBR the longest, but this week's Little Black Classic was a less well known work by Mary Shelley which was not published until long after her death.

One thing that is clear from Matilda, is that Mary Shelley can write well. Unfortunately, the story did not really work for me. Matilda looks back at her - miserable - life on her deathbed, which basically bottles down to her being miserable for all her life but for a few passing moments.

Still, not a lot happens and it mainly her feeling dreadful. Maybe it was not the right book for me at the moment, but I did not like it much nor did I care about Matilda or any of the other characters in the story.

~Little Black Classics #116~

I always like it when people take something they like, in this case food, and look in a lot of different places how other people are dealing with it. In the geeky chef cookbook, accompanying the blog, there is a collection of foods, both savory and sweet that has links with many fandoms.

The recipes often look great, but what I particularly liked about this cookbook, except for the research that went into designing foods that have something very meagre descriptions in the works they originate from, was the sheer number of different fandoms that the book touches upon. I think it is simply impossible, if you even slightly identify as geeky, to not find at least some of your favorites here.

I haven’t made any of the recipes myself, although I really want to make those lemon cakes from ASOIAF, the cake from Portal, and the cauldron cakes from HP. Apparently, I’m more of a sweet tooth than I give myself credit from.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I wrote to find the answers,
instead
I found myself.

Dear girl is a collection of short poems on female empowerment by a young new poet. This is her first collection, and as such it is dealing with very urgent and important matters. It is a part of a stream of feminist poetry for girls, which I can only applaud. However, the poems were rather simple at times and I thought they could have been better if they had been a bit more subtle at times. Part of poetry for me is not only the message but also the beautiful phrasing of things, and the latter was a bit missing in some of poems.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thalia is a stage magician with her show as Lady of The Lake. When her livelihood is threatened she will start a cascade of events which will eventually allow her to learn her true self and her true powers.

There was a lot in this novel. Besides Thalia being a stage magician and pretty emancipated around the start of the 20th century, there is a whole magic world related to it. You see, real magic and stage magic combined. Thalia believes she is a simple Solitaire, as opposed to Traders (shapeshifters who for some reasons make up the crème de la crème of New York society) and Sylvestri (nature people who are never really well explained but must have some kind of power also). Add to this the gruesome Manticores, who hunt unexperienced Traders in order to suck their magic out of them, and a murder charge, and it is quite a lot.

However, it was an interesting read and while I had hoped that some parts of the worldbuilding would have been explained a bit better without turning it into an infodump, I liked this version of New York. I was a bit worried in the beginning that by throwing all these things at the reader the story would feel overcrowded, but it didn’t really. Still, I had the feeling it was missing a little something that I can’t really put in words.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This will be my bingo card for the day!

(I don't know who to credit for making the challenge, but I really like the idea)

This was so cute! I enjoyed it a lot!

Canto is a small clockwork slave, who is not even supposed to have a name, let alone friends. When one of these is mortally wounded he embarks on an adventure to find replacement parts, but will also learn more about himself and the world in the process.

Like I said, I enjoyed the story and also thought the drawings were very nice.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Eyre Affair came up during discussion in book club when we were reading Rebecca (which is similar to Jane Eyre, which is in the title of this book. It was promoted as being a book about a literary police force tasked with keeping the stories of the books we know as they have always been.

How could I not be intrigued by this. I mean, I am always up for books about books and time travel, so the combination just sounded great.

However, it was even more than that, because quite unexpectedly there was a whole alternative history that was very interesting as well. And dodos for pets! Need I say more?!

All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised with the Eyre Affair and definitely plan to read the rest of the series!

The Spirit Thief was another random pick from the TBR. And it was a nice surprise.

The magic systems is an interplay between the magicians and the spirits they bond with and obey them. It was quite original. The ploys were not overly intricate, but that can be nice for a change.

It was a very easy read, a bit like a YA but without the seemingly mandatory romance (another plus). I am very curious to see where this series is going next.

I was browsing through my eReader the other day and there are so many authors that I would like to try at least one book of. Everyone will be familiar with the saying So many book, so little time, so obviously, this is a project that will take ages but brought me to Trudi Canavan's Priestess of The White.

Auraya is chosen as one of the five White, priests who are immortal and have a direct link to the gods.

I do not know with this book. I thought it was very long and I got annoyed by how easy Auraya seemed to be able to solve the problems that apparently everyone had been struggling with for ages. Especially what is the job of some of the other Whites. As such, it has some troubles keeping my attention through the whole book.

Not sure yet if I will give the second book a try.

Two stars only, despite the fact that the subject is London and I would really like to go there this summer but with Corona, it is unsure whether this will be possible!

To me, this felt like John Gay wanted to write an epic tale about, walking through London. There is loads of references to Greek Mythology and a lot of places in London are mentioned, but it is all rather random. Besides, the rhyming scheme felt forced, and although I am sure it is not easy to do, it did not feel right.

Not my style.

~Little Black Classics #107~