When I decided to put out a newsletter at the end of each month, I completely forgot I was away on holiday at the end of February. What I wasn’t expecting to compound the delay was an altercation with some Belgian pavement to result in multiple fractures in my wrist and a slow wait for surgery to screw it back together again (still waiting at time of writing). So, as I’m typing one-handed, please bear with me and my apologies for any typos or mistakes!
Besides breaking my wrist, Gent (in Belgium) was an absolutely lovely city and I would really like to go back to see more of it. We arrived just in time to see the start of the Women’s Elite for Omloop (a single-day cycling race), which was a great bonus and quite the spectacle. We spent a few hours wandering around S.M.A.K. – the city’s modern art gallery – that I thoroughly enjoyed. Food was brill, cycling infrastructure is off the charts, lots of greenery, history and culture. Thoroughly recommend it, and if you’re in the UK the Eurostar is a good option. It took us about the same time to get from Birmingham to Brussels as it takes to get from Brum to Edinburgh… and Belgium was cheaper to get to.
On to the bookishness!
Reading
February’s reading was a little slower than January, but here’s what it included.
- Someone Else’s Horror Story (Rebecca Crunden)
- The Lessons Never Learned (Rob J Hayes)
- On Demon Wrangling and Interpersonal Relationships Between Weary Immortals (Rebecca Crunden)
- An Adult with an Autism Diagnosis (Gillan Drew)
- Transitions: Our Stories of Being Trans (ed. Juno Roche)
- But Not Too Bold (Hache Pueyo)
Writing
I had five reviews go up on GdM this month:
- The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang
- The Path of Pain and Ruin by Joel Glover
- But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
- The Rig Season 2
- Macbeth (Live from the Donmar Warehouse)
I also published an article over on Medium about Dis-, Mis- and Malicious Information.
Upcoming
Apologies for skipping Recommendations this month but the one-handedness isn’t leaving me a lot of headspace for it.
Instead, I hope to still be able to write reviews and I’m currently reading Future’s Edge by Gareth L Powell. There’s a few others up my sleeve for GdM, so keep an eye out.
I’m also happy to say an essay pitch to Speculative Insight was accepted, which will be publishing 2026, so I will be working on that too.
That’s it for now! I hope you’ve found some enjoyment from my little update. I’m over on Bluesky (@magpiepages.bsky.social) and have dusted off my Ko-fi page as well.
Take care, and see you next month!