Mogsy’s Bookshelf Roundup: Stacking the Shelves & Recently Read
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every other weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I round up what I’ve read since the last update and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
Received for Review
Thank you to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received. For more details and full descriptions of the books, be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages!
My thanks to Jo Fletcher Books for this one for sending me a finished copy of The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross by Lisa Tuttle! This is the follow-up to The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief which I’d actually tried reading last year but didn’t get far because there was a lot going on at the time, not because I didn’t like the book. I’ll probably give it another shot one of these days, now that I have the sequel handy.
I’m also very excited about The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones, a dystopian described as being in the spirit of Station Eleven. I’m going to be starting this soon, if I haven’t already made a dent in this by the time this post goes live! With thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the review copy.
Call of Fire by Beth Cato is the sequel to last year’s Breath of Earth which I have to admit I have not read (but really want to!) I’m told that I can start here without getting too lost though, so maybe I will do just that. With thanks to Harper Voyager.
Courtesy of Thomas Dunne Books, I also received a finished hardcover of Magicians Impossible by Brad Abraham which I’m really thrilled about, because it sounds like a very fun book! It’s become a must-read for this fall.
Next up comes a couple of ARCs from the kind folks at Subterranean Press: Hellraiser: The Toll by Mark Alan Miller and The Father of Lies by K.J. Parker. For the life of me I couldn’t find much info on either of these yet, but hopefully more will be revealed soon! What I do know is that Mark Alan Miller is the VP of Clive Barker’s production company with a few other Hellraiser franchise-related credits under his belt, and of course any new K.J. Parker is cause for excitement.
On to the digital haul, my thanks to Harper Voyager for providing e-galleys of Markswoman by Rati Mehrotra and The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. Both caught my eye when I tuned in to their Blogger Preview Event last month.
The Fifth Empire of Man by Rob J. Hayes is book two of Best Laid Plans, a grimdark fantasy series about pirates. I’d just recently reviewed the first book so when the author contacted me to see if I would like an eARC of the sequel as well, I immediately said yes. Thanks so much, Rob!
I also couldn’t resist grabbing The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear from NetGalley when I saw it offered by Tor last week. I’ve been looking forward to reading more of Bear’s books, and this start of a new series set in the same world as her Eternal Sky trilogy seemed like it would be a good place to start.
Described as an oral history of the apocalypse for fans of books like World War Z, Sleep Over by H.G. Bells is a novel that’s been on my radar for a while, and my interest hasn’t waned despite the publication delays. I’m just glad to hear that it’s finally coming out in the winter, and I immediately snagged an eARC which was “Read Now” from NetGalley as soon as I saw that it was available. With thanks to Talos.
Thanks also to Tor.com for sending me an e-galley of The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander. Now that is some cover! The description sounds pretty wild too.
It’s been a lighter week for audiobooks, but I did take on a few review copies from Penguin Random House Audio. Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, Star Wars: Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson, and Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray are all books that I’m really looking forward to and are on my audio listening plans for September.
Reviews
A quick summary of the reviews I’ve posted since the last update:
An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors (4.5 of 5 stars)
Golden Age and Other Stories by Naomi Novik (4 of 5 stars)
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor (4 of 5 stars)
Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks (4 of 5 stars)
Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff (4 of 5 stars)
The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis (3.5 of 5 stars)
The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente (3 of 5 stars)
Roundup Highlights:
What I’ve Read Since the Last Update
Here’s what I’ve “unstacked” from the TBR since my last roundup post. This being the first week back to school, my schedule was really hectic and I didn’t get as much reading done as I usually do, but hopefully things will stabilize in good time. I’ve already posted reviews for a couple of these, and the rest are coming soon!
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read! Let me know what you plan on checking out. Until next time, see you next Roundup!
The BiblioSanctum 
Looks like an eeeexcellent haul. I need to get round to An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors.
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Oh, it’s fantastic! I hope you’ll enjoy it 🙂
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I have the Salt Line and am curious about that one too. Warcross I’ll probably read next, can’t wait, and I’m hoping Star Wars Leia will be good too.
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Seriously can’t wait to read Leia! I’m torn as to which Star Wars book I’ll listen to first, actually, because I’m pretty excited about Phasma too 🙂
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Wow! That’s a lot of great books you got here! I hope you enjoy them all!
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Thanks! Happy reading 🙂
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You too!
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Why do I get the feeling that H.G. Bells is a pen name??? 😛
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I think you might be right, I’ve actually seen the original cover (before the pushed the book’s release back and made some changes) that showed another name, H.G. Bleackley – which could also be another pen name, for all I know 🙂
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I am interested in the Hellraiser book. I hope it deals with Pinhead.
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That would be fun! I’ve never actually read any Hellraiser fiction/comics…
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Me neither. I’ve just watched all the movies, even the wicked stupid ones 🙂
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I’ve seen the Salt Line on a few blogs…nice cover!
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It’s a very eye-catching cover! I’m actually reading it now, just started yesterday 🙂
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OOoh nice new reads! Those are some new to me ones here! Hope you enjoy them all!
My STS will be up tomorrow, so be sure to stop by then if you can!
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
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Thanks! I hope you enjoy your new books too 🙂
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I keep seeing The Salt Line in various book hauls, which is weird cause I’ve never heard of it until now! But I’m intrigued…im reading Magicians Impossible right now and having a lot of fun😁
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Can’t wait to dive into Magicians Impossible! I’m actually reading The Salt Line now, it’s quite interesting so far 🙂
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I’ve also got ARCs of The City of Brass, Markswoman, and The Stone in the Skull. And I’m envious that you got The Only Harmless Great Thing! I’ve loved the author’s short stories, so I can’t wait for the novella.
I’m also excited to see what you think about Warcross and Nyxia. I’ve also read Nyxia and my review’s coming up later in the month.
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The Only Harmless Great Thing sounds so crazy! I’ve never read the author, so this should be fun 🙂
And I enjoyed Warcross, though it was very predictable/cliched. Still, it was entertaining! Unfortunately, I couldn’t really say the same about Nyxia, which was just not my kind of book.
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Nyxia wasn’t my sort of book either. The plot never really worked for me, and I felt like there were a bunch of world building holes.
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I agree. I guess I also expected it more of an adventure story about space travel and going to a new planet. Instead, it was like Red Rising on a space ship. I waited forever for them to get to the planet and when they did, ugh, instead of finally going down to see the place, we got even more competition!
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That was exactly my feeling.
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Markswoman, Brass and the one by Bear all looks good
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Agreed, I’m very excited for all of those!
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I am very intrigued by the new Bear’s book but I don’t know if I’ll understand it since I have not read the first trilogy set in the same world yet so I resisted my urge to request it (so far haha).
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Good news! (But…maybe bad for your TBR? LOL!) I haven’t read the first trilogy either, but I have it on good authority that you don’t need to have read it to understand this one 🙂
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oh nice! many lookgreat! happy reading!
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Thanks, you too!
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I have a few of these waiting to be read too and looking forward to them. Hadn’t heard of the new Cashore but I’ll definitely keep my eyes out for that one.
My reading has been bad the past few weeks – things just outside my control but it does make me feel bad.
Lynn 😀
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Don’t feel bad, we all have those weeks. I had a pretty rough week as well in terms of scheduling. I did most of my “reading” through audiobooks 🙂
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Wow. The covers for Markswoman and City of Brass are gorgeous. And then the blurbs caught my attention, too. 🙂 I hope you get to read those, and I’ll be interested in reading your thoughts on Kristin Cashore’s new book, too. I pre-ordered Jane Unlimited a while ago, but last week I got a notice from Amazon that my copy won’t arrive until late October (?!?!).
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I’ve never heard of The Salt Line. I definitely need to investigate that one.
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You’re about as hard on my TBR as Tammy is. I have The Salt Line waiting to get read as well as The Witch at Wayside Cross. I’m super excited to get a copy of Magician’s Impossible and I’m starting to see Markswoman everywhere! Great bunch of books and looks like you’re getting a lot of reading done too.
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I’m assuming the elephant in The Only Harmless Great Thing is Topsy which makes me think of this Bob’s Burgers song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypqSHg1YvZA – which makes it almost impossible for me to take the book seriously which… doesn’t seem fair, exactly 😀
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LOL! 😀
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