I’ve been reading more lately mostly because I’ve been in and out of clinics and ER over the past few months (foot procedure and post-procedure-related stuff). This necessitated a lot of reading and only the Murderbot novellas would do, apparently. But I also managed to finish reading (finally) Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces after over a year. It’s not that it wasn’t a brilliant book, because it was and how could I resist a surreal, absurdist whodunnit on a train with a mongoose couple?! It was mostly because I knew I needed the headspace to fully concentrate and immerse myself in it. It was a maddening and pretty unhinged book but also I think craft-wise it’s Oyeyemi’s best. I loved the surreal and metafictional absurdist elements of it and feel she’s matured into her craft. I’m looking forward to reading the next Oyeyemi book that I have not read yet (Parasol Against the Axe) ahead of her 2025 release.
Here’s a list of books I’ve recently completed reading.
- Peaces – Helen Oyeyemi
- Fugitive Telemetry – Martha Wells
- Exit Strategy – Martha Wells
- Rogue Protocol – Martha Wells
- Artificial Condition – Martha Wells
And here’s a limited list of what I am reading and rereading lately (excluding novels, monographs and collections for work). After I finished reading Peaces last night, I returned to my reread of The Shadow Rising, but also picked up The Night Country which has been languishing on my bedside TBR stacks for some months now. After weeks of reading on my phone, it’s a pleasure to flip through physical pages again.
- The Shadow Rising (WOT #4) — Robert Jordan (reread)
- The Night Country — Melissa Albert
- Network Effect — Martha Wells
- Ancillary Justice — Ann Leckie (reread)
I did buy a few ebooks in the past few weeks since I can’t walk much because of my extremely slow-healing foot and certainly can’t go to bookstores. At the rate I’m going my Kobo TBR is as frightening as my physical TBR! If you know you know.
- Exit Strategy — Martha Wells
- Network Effect — Martha Wells
- Fugitive Telemetry— Martha Wells
- System Collapse — Martha Wells
- Harrow the Ninth — Tamsyn Muir
- The Mimicking of Known Successes — Malka Older
- The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles — Malka Older
- The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses — Malka Older
And that’s it for this month’s roundup. I intend to read much more in the second half of the year so these posts are excellent accountability measures.
Published in Petaling, Selangor, Malaysia (29 June 2025)