Emma Types Stuff

Practical Magic was probably my biggest book surprise of last year. For one thing, I wasn't wild about the movie the one time I saw it (I am considering a rewatch) and for another, cute-witchy-romantasy isn't my brand of fantasy. But somehow, the book sucked me in with its magical-realism Americana and fairytale twists. I liked it enough that I was willing to pick up the other books in the series... which brings us to The Book of Magic [Alice Hoffman].  The Book of Magic is a direct sequel to the events of Practical Magic, taking place several years later. Elderly Aunt Jet receives her 'death beetle' notice, and brings the family together for her final days. In her last hours she discovers the way to break the family curse, and leaves it for her sister to find - only for it to fall into the wrong hands.  The sisters have managed to live with the family curse - which kills any man they fall in love with - but are both unhappy. Sally's children, now adults, have b

At last, at last. A book that makes me want to run around shaking people by the shoulders, forcing them to buy it immediately. KJ Parker is my discovery of the year. After picking up Prosper's Demon  (a renaissance-inspired fantasy novella about demonic possession) I was blown away by the subtle richness of his writing and the sheer audacity of his storytelling. Get comfortable , the book seems to say as it shows you around its detailed world, but don't get too comfortable.  Inside Man , the sequel, was honestly better. It flipped everything we thought we knew on it's head - never cheaply - and created a Dante-inspired hellscape and a philosophical, depressed demon we desperately wanted to trust.  So then we get to Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, a full novel this time, and the first in a trilogy. We've moved on from Fantasy Renaissance Italy to Fantasy Ancient Rome, which after my summer of Roman reading  suited me just fine.  Orhan is an engineer who builds br

The one natural law of being a book-lover is that you never, ever address just how big your TBR pile is. That, as far as we are all concerned, is a private matter between our bank accounts and God.  Well, no longer! As part of my Read What You Own challenge, I've been picking up books I ordinarily wouldn't have got to for years, if ever. I therefore decided to catalogue the books I own, across all formats.  Let the judgement commence!  This is going to be an ongoing list of what I actually own - not as a guilt-inducing tool, but a reminder of the wealth of options I already have. Notes: A great number of these books were either free or low cost. My usual price range is 99p to £5. This list has also built up over ten or so years, so I'm not spending thousands annually on books!  Around sixty to eighty of these titles came from Storybundles, so were not bought individually but as a group, often with the intention of only reading a handful of the titles.  I have not included

Is there any joy more profound than a series you thought finished getting an unexpected sequel?  OK, yes, it's something of a double-edged sword. What if it's bad? What if it rewrites the ending? What if it completely destroys your affection for the series overall?  Sherlock Holmes's fans are more familiar with this feeling than any, with Conan Doyle famously and reluctantly bring the character back from the dead at public demand. While not quite on the same level of international acclaim, the unexpected announcement of a new book in James Lovegrove's Cthulhu Casebooks  had much the same effect on me as Sherlock's return from the dead did on his adoring fans. I was all a flutter, and rushed to mark the Halloween release date in my calendar while retweeting the announcement with a thrilled 'TAKE MY MONEY!' The Cthulhu Casebooks were an unexpected delight - I had one of the best times I'd had with a Sherlock pastiche in years. The horror was dark but the

I know, I know ... I said that I was avoiding reading challenges for the foreseeable in an attempt to escape my reading slump. But in my defence, this isn't so much a reading challenge as a ' for the love of God, stop buying books ' challenge... Criminolly , the excellent pulp fiction vlogger, has an annual 'read what you own' challenge, which has inspired me to curtail my book spending for a while. I've realised that I'm starting to treat buying an on-sale book like a daily coffee... but instead of a caffeine buzz I get the serotonin from a small purchase, and then an increase in pressure as my TBR pile grows at pace I simply can't keep up with , and fills with books I'm not vastly interested in reading. Add to that my recent twenty-one book spree ... it's time for some restraint. So what does the challenge involve? Simply, stop buying books until you've read a certain amount of your TBR. Criminolly - a faster reader than me - is aiming for

If you have been anywhere near a book app recently, you've probably seen the cover for Hide [Kiersten White]. It's on sale regularly, with the publisher no doubt keen to push it's TikTok influence and turn the author into a bonafide horror brand.  The release of Mister Magic, a similar nostalgia-tinged, media-inspired horror novel, seems to have cemented that burgeoning reputation. Hide was well received and even I - who normally wait for a sale - bought the new release at full price.  Grady Hendrix kickstarted a trend for retro horror, tempting non-Horror readers in with retro covers and playful trope-dismantling. But Hendrix's work appeals to the nostalgia of the 80s, whereas White aims to tempt a solidly Millennial audience.  The books are comfortable in their queerness (a queer romance in both books, and both non-binary and bisexual main characters). The author - a former Mormon with historic roots in the church - clearly uses the books to work through her issues ar

I hate book hauls on YouTube, and tend to only watch a very few made by BookTubers I respect. They tend to be transparent about where the books come from and how much they've spent (and are more excited about the book contents than the prettiness of the design.)  I've never done one because a) I'm not a Bookfluencer, b) no one is sending me review copies/gifts, and c) I buy books regularly but cheaply, mainly in a digital format.  But on Saturday I went to 66Books Ltd , a London book warehouse selling to trade only. Once a month it opens to the public and book lovers arrive from far and wide to get brand new books at a 70% discount. I was assured that if I walked away with less than ten books I'd be the most iron-willed person on earth...  (Spoiler: I bought more than ten books.) So what was it like? And, most importantly, what is in my haul?   The Experience I am noted for my dislike of early mornings, crowds, and uncertainty, so waking up at seven on a Saturday and t

Not so long ago, I wrote about how I got out of a multi-year reading slump. For a while, reading was the easiest thing in the world again. It felt amazing. Writing this blog didn't even put a dent in my energy, rather fed into it.  Imagine my frustration, then, to be struggling again. Where I could get through ten books in a particularly good month, now I'm fighting to get three read. Books that I would normally enjoy leave me cold and books I'm excited for (including a sequel to a beloved trilogy that I never expected to be published) can't entice me to even pick them up. So what happened? It can't just be that I got a PS5.  The answer is obvious to anyone willing to give themselves even the smallest mental kindness: burnout.  2023 has been an annus horriblis for me. My hopes of escaping my oppressively small, falling-apart bedsit were iced by the catastrophic Liz Truss budget. Tendonitis in my hip had me starting the year barely able to walk. A colleague quit i