Skip to content

Book reviews; written in the dark

What’s New
Literature and Language
Book Reviews
Reading projects
My Work
- volitIOn
About
- Connect

Search for:

Search for:

Category: PREM1ER (Goldsboro) Reviews

Nothing Found

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching can help.

Search for:

Type your email…

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org where your purchases support local bookstores. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

📖 Current Reads ✨

6%

5%

📖 May's Book Rec 🦈

Translated Fiction

📖 🚀

✨ My Throne Wishlist ✨

*Every gifted book will be reviewed with a huge shoutout in the review post 😘✨

Enter My Wishlist 📚

📖 Read in May 💐

Translated Fiction

Science Fantasy

Exciting Upcoming Books in June, 2026 💐👇

BUY ME A COFFEE ☕️

nolitethoughts

Book blogger, language enthusiast, wannabe writer, undergrad astronomy student, open for proofs&arcs (physical copies only)

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li has won T

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li has won The 2026 Pulitzer Prize in the category of: Memoir or Autobiography “A writer’s deeply moving and relevatory account of losing her younger son to suicide a little more than six years after her older son died in the same manner, an austere and defiant memoir of acceptance that focuses on facts, language and persistence of life.” The Pulitzer Prices This is one of those books that became a part of my DNA after finishing it. I still remember where I have read it and what I felt through it all.

Life and Books of April 💐 The weather is amazing

Life and Books of April 💐 The weather is amazing here in Scotland, so we tried to appreciate it as much as our work life let us. Books: Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, the second installation of the Murderbot Series. Absolute love, my favourite comfort sci-fi read, and in general to be honest. There is not a single boring page and her humour is spot on. Event Horizon by Balsam Karam, it was kindly sent by @fitzcarraldoeditions . “Seventeen-year-old Milde is from the Outskirts, a place beyond the mountains where the dirt is corpse-rich, where mothers and daughters, banished from society, make their living – without rights, access to care or legal status. But Milde refuses to accept the order of things and, together with two friends, she revolts against the government’s injustice. Arrested, imprisoned and tortured, Milde is eventually presented with a stark choice: a public execution, or participation in an experimental mission that will send her into space, into a black hole known as the Mass. She chooses the Mass, opting to face its fathomless depth and loneliness rather than hurt the morale of her weary community back home.” The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, I have decided to read her bibliography in a chronological order to follow her evolution as a writer. Book haul: The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey, second installation of their new sci-fi series called, The Captive’s War. I still need to read the first one 🙈 @goldsborobooks edition 🤌 I wrote a few blog posts in April; Quarterly Wrap-Up, all the books I have read in July, August and September of 2025, a spoiler free book review of What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton, and I have updated my bookshop.uk books lists. There are upcoming recommendations for new releases this May, the full reading list of 2025 and many more! Hop on to my website to check it out, link in bio, or just write nolitethoughts.co.uk in your browser.

Happy Pub day to What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barto

Happy Pub day to What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton “It is a nice book to read when you feel like you are quite stagnant in your life, or when you feel like that everyone has it figured it out around you and you are just somewhere else. Mentally, Physically, Coordinatically. I’m sure that last word doesn’t exist. It also matches the vibes of a busy area, like a cafe, or a train or a table of a big communal area. I don’t know why but I think this is one of those companion books that you can just take with you and get lost in the middle of the cacophony of people and movements around you. Another recommendation would be for readers that are moving countries, or living in a different country to their own. I could definitely resonate with that part. Oh and if you like romance novels with substance, I mean, heavy on the literary part, I think this book is also a good candidate for that. High brow romance without spice? That sounds exciting to me.” an excerpt from my spoiler-free short review from my website: nolitethoughts.co.uk link in bio, I also write about the emotional gift/message that I got from this novel. Have a look. What Am I, a Deer? is out by @fitzcarraldoeditions

Readathon #1 - My Late Summer Reads The books I h

Readathon #1 - My Late Summer Reads The books I have read in July, August and September of 2025 Fourteen books, each month a different theme: July - the month of timeless art, August - grief and mental health, September - the month of suspension I’m a mood reader. I don’t really plan out my reading unless it’s an arc or proof copy, so it is interesting to see that I actually end up choosing based on a /vibe/ for a full month. For the full review check out my blog: link in bio or just jump to nolitethoughts.co.uk it should be one of the first blog posts. Here is a little sneak peak regarding the list: Solvej Balle, Bora Chung, Donna Tartt, Yiyun Li, Joe Abercrombie, Uketsu and Chuck Palahniuk, just to mention a few. I haven’t read more than one book per writer so there are fourteen different works belonging to fourteen different authors. Probably August was the most intense and hardest month to read. I have managed to choose books that needed time and mulling over. Needed to re-read and stop sometimes. To write and to wonder about. It made me feel nauseous at times, but it was a month full with books that are going to stay with me for a while and a few probably forever. Check out the books and my website for more 😘

Current Read: What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton

Current Read: What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton I am jumping in. What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton is nothing less than intriguing and ooh-la-la-ing to my reader’s soul. The story revolves around a young woman who lives and works in Frankfurt at a famous gaming company without any particular fondness for video games. We accompany her through her self-invention, obsession, and carousel of a life. She also meets a stranger, a man, who retrieves her lost umbrella. Romance might bops its head up? Who knows? Intriguing. “What does it mean to lose yourself – and is that something you should be aiming for? A young woman with little interest in games takes up a job in Frankfurt at a famous gaming company, naively set on reinvention. On her morning commute, in the familiar clutches of tedium and self-loathing, she encounters a nice-eyed stranger who returns her forgotten umbrella and finds herself catapulted into a dizzying, year-long whirlwind of obsession – not just with this endlessly attractive spectre, but also with the feverish karaoke trips from which she draws the ultimate solace. With astonishing existential acuity, Polly Barton’s formidable debut novel renders the paradoxes of modern life in all its complexity, in deliriously self-conscious prose that is at once propulsive, titillating and bitingly funny. Echoing with the sounds of Whitney Houston and The Cure, reaching for the sublime in dark, sweaty boxes, What Am I, A Deer? is an exhilarating exploration of authenticity, fantasy, romance and intoxication. “ by @fitzcarraldoeditions Out on 9th of April (UK) #bookstoread #fitzcarraldoeditions #literaryfiction

Just some nice reads from February 📖 I just want

Just some nice reads from February 📖 I just want to say, if you haven’t read Project Hail Mary and you are thinking about it: just read it, it’s an awesome book. I was laughing, crying, trying to figure out stuff and genuinely couldn’t put it down. Can’t wait for the movie 🍿 it looks so promising 👏 The Manningtree Witches by A. K. Blakemore is a Libby read I’m a huge fan of Blakemore’s work. Her prose is just so raw and beautiful it’s like listening to melodic heavy metal 🤌😘 Don Quijote is a secondhand shop can’t wait to actually have the guts to sit down and read it 😗✌️ Also, I have a little virtual bookshop on bookshop.org (link in bio) now you can win a £250 gift card with ANY book purchase. Just throwing this out there to float 🙈 Oh, and if for any reason you are felling masochistic and would like to read more of my rambling thoughts check out my website: Nolitethoughts.co.uk (link in bio 👀) (no A.I)

October Random Wrap-up Good Reading month, not as

October Random Wrap-up Good Reading month, not as horror oriented as you would expect, but I’m a mood reader. I read what I feel like reading at the moment. Otherwise, I won’t enjoy the book if I read it with the wrong mood or head space. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - charity shop find, full with my marginalia. I wasn’t expecting to love this book this much. But I did, and I could read it without a problem, which was a point of concern for me at the beginning as English is not my first language. The Bird’s Nest by Shirley Jackson - another charity shop find, and another victim of my underlining and never ending marginalia. There is just something about reading with a pencil/pen in your hand. I think it gives me false confidence. Absolutely loved this book as well, definitely picking up her other works as well. Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher - digital library book, I wanted to read Kingfisher for a while now. I’m not a romance reader, it’s really not my favourite thing to read, if there is any spice I will skip it, but I did like this book. I like the characters and there is humour in it, which is always nice. I have a shop and curated list(s) on bookshop.uk about my favourite spooky reads, have a look if you are interested. Link in bio 👆
Did you read any books this month that truly made you scared? I’m looking for some good supernatural extra spooky book recs! #spookyreads #classiclit #americangothic

A little time travel back to when storm Amy had vi

A little time travel back to when storm Amy had visited us in the highlands. I was reading The Bird’s Nest by Shirley Jackson back then and it was giving a whole new experience to the book. I love Shirley Jackson’s style of writing and her experimental state of being a modern Mary Shelley. Somehow she reminds me of her maybe I’m wrong but they both gave me similar feelings of just the playing and thinking about science… especially the dark side of it. #shirleyjackson #birdsnest #gothicreads #stormamy

More Dickens and More Nature More nurturing of the

More Dickens and More Nature
More nurturing of the Soul #charlesdickens #greatexpectations #usedbooks #natures_moods #booksarelife

Little bit of love for nature as spooky season rol

Little bit of love for nature as spooky season rolls in #autumnishere #spookyaesthetic #highlandsofscotland #natureisart #mistyfoggymilkymoody

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Charity sho

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Charity shop find, Wordsworth Classics edition - Complete and Unabridged 1992 edition, pretty good condition, awesome copy for some marginalia. 👏 #nolitethoughts #charlesdickens #charityshopfind #greatexpectations

Last Read: 🐕 The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis Favour

Last Read: 🐕 The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis Favourite quote 📑: “Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.” Synopsis📖: “Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbank to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before. The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: Something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it. A richly atmospheric parable of the pleasures and perils of female defiance, The Hounding considers whether in any age it might be safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.” @panmacmillan Genre: #historicalfiction #mystery Verdict in a haiku form: We bark at the Moon,
You Pray to Your God of Ale
They listen in Fear [nolitethoughts] #thehoundingxenobepurvis

2 books that I couldn’t resist. 🦛 The Healing Hi

2 books that I couldn’t resist. 🦛 The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park Written by: Michiko Aoyama, the author of 📚 What You Are Looking For is In The Library which I absolutely adored. Translated by: Takami Nieda “Nestling at the bottom of a five-storey apartment block is the children’s playground, Hinode Park. If you look to the side, standing on stubby legs, is a hippo. Its upturned eyes give it a teary look, yet for decades, its quiet power has sustained the hearts of one community. Meet the neighbours who will reach out to kabahiko:
-Kanato presses his head to the hippo’s cheek, hoping to recover the stellar marks he once scored;
- Sawa, a lonely new mother, strokes its mouth, hopes to connect as she once did when she was an award-winning retail assistant;
- Chiharu, a wedding-planner, hopes to be able to listen for the happiness of others;
- Yuya avoids sports day with a fake injury, only to find he really is in pain.
- despite Kazuhiko’s fading eyes from too much editorial work, he will learn to see life’s everyday wonders.” @doubledayukbooks I’m into 🫆Crime and Thrillers this month so I picked up 🕵️‍♂️The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa Translated by: Jesse Kirkwood “In the middle of the family New Year’s gathering at his home, Grandfather Fuchigami is murdered. But not for the last time.
For his grandson, Hisataro, has fallen into a mysterious time-loop, in which he must relive the same day again and again.
Every morning after his grandfather’s death, Hisataro wakes up with a chance to find the culprit and prevent the murder. But day after day he fails, despite stumbling across clues aplenty in the shape of secret plots, illicit love affairs and jealous rivalries.
With an extremely large inheritance up for grabs, everyone is a suspect – and Hisataro is beginning to wish he could leave this day behind…” @pushkin_press #TheHealingHippoOfHinodePark
#michikoaoyama
#TheManWhoDiedSevenTimes
#YasuhikoNishizawa
#translatedfiction
#japaneseliterature
#cosyjapanesereads

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq Translated by Deepa Bh

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq Translated by Deepa Bhasthi from Kannada to English Winner of the International Booker Prize, 2025 Swipe for synopsis 👉 Book Haiku #3 We carry life Within
Depending on You How we
Carry That life Within [Nolitethoughts] #internationalbookerprize2025 #heartlamp #banumushtaq

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li There ar

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li There are books that I carry within me. For one reason or another. This book is one of them. #ThingsInNatureMerelyGrow

On The Calculation of Volume I. Written: Solvej B

On The Calculation of Volume I. Written: Solvej Balle Translated from Danish to English by Barbara J. Haveland Swipe for the synopsis 👉 My little book review haiku #1 that I wrote after reading: Time stands still Forever
Even though it Goes on for Her
November 18th is… #haiku #internationalbooker2025 #danishbooks #onthecalculationofvolume #translatedfiction #nolitethoughts

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt - short review ✨One

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt - short review ✨One of those books that are more like an experience to read rather than just a fun book to get into. 🧠 It elevates you as a person and gives you great empathetic skills by the time you finish it as it is a slow burner enough to really feel and get you into the subconscious of the main character. 🎨Plus you get to learn about art and paintings and a little bit into the world of preservation of great antiques. 💭Shows you that there are no black and white decisions in life, just decisions. 💌And offers you your personalised message to take away from the experience. It is not a short read but definitely worth your time and attention. 🎥Now all is left is, should I watch the movie or not? #donnatarttthegoldfinch #bookstagramuk #donnatartt #thegoldfinchbook #booksworthreading

Something new ✨ Save it for future reference if y

Something new ✨ Save it for future reference if you see something you like 🫶 10 books I’m excited about in 2025 from June to be exact 👏 Part 1 - check the comments for Part 2 I have 2 book lists on bookshop.org; one is the UK version the other one is the US. —->> both links are available in my bio ⬆️🔗 I add to it pretty much DAILY so might be worth it to save it for the future ✨ The 10 books are: The Second Chance Convenience Store 🛍️🛒by Kim Ho-Yeon and translated from Korean by Janet Hong. Short blurb: Second chances in life, beautiful relationship between a homeless man who is doing a good deed and a retired teacher, now store owner. Sense of community and a drop of suspense. The Passengers on the Hankyu Line 🚝🚂 by Hiro Arikawa and translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell short blurb: The author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles, a heart-warming scenic train route on the Hankyu Line between Kyoto and Osaka. We get to know the passengers and their life stories. Automatic Noodle 🍜 🤖by Annalee Newitz
short blurb: A group of de-commissioned service bots after the war, decide to open their own restaurants and make some tasty noodles. Burnt Sparrow - We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca 🩸🏡
Burnt Sparrow is a Trilogy and We Are Always Tender With Our Dead is the first volume. || An isolated small New England town called Burnt Sparrow gets shaken on Christmas morning when a brutal massacre takes place. All The Way to The River 🏞️❤️‍🔥 by Elizabeth Gilbert short blurb: The author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic, now comes with a memoir of sorts where she takes us on a journey of her teenage years. Especially with one person whose friendship, love and addiction altered her life. #sliceoflife #cosyjapanesefiction #koreanfiction #horrorbooks #elizabethgilbert #nonfictionbooks Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org where your purchases support local bookstores. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

I’m so excited for this book 😱🌚🩸🧛‍♀️ Bury Our Bon

I’m so excited for this book 😱🌚🩸🧛‍♀️ Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by @veschwab 3 women set in 3 different countries but hunger, love and rage links them together. María’s story is set in 1532 in Santa Domingo de La Calzada. Charlotte’s is 1827, London and Alice’s in 2019, Boston. It’s queer, it’s powerful, dark, hungry and raw and it’s mystical. It feels like a story that sweeps you in and scoops you up and then chews you a little bit before it transforms you in the middle of the night. Can’t wait 🧛‍♀️ This beautiful edition with the gorgeous tote bag are from @gayprideshopuk 🫶 #queer #queerlit #veschwab #buryourbonesinthemidnightsoil #horror #lesbianvampires #gothic #fantasybooklover #bookstores #signedbook

Another manga series that I’ve started: Haikyuu!!

Another manga series that I’ve started: Haikyuu!! Genre: sport, volleyball 🏐 to be exact Love to watch it, nervous to play it 🙃 After starting the manga I will jump to the anime as well. The pacing : fast, it’s sport full with action sequences so The characters: fun, interesting and full with quirks and characteristic flaws 😮‍💨✨ I have read volume I - II so far just started the third one. If you love sports and slice of life, friendship type of anime or manga you will like this one. Also, swipe for more random pictures 🤷‍♀️ Any cool manga I should check out in 2025? #manga #haikyuu #sliceoflife #sportmanga #comics #はいきゅー‼ #マンガ #volleyball #shortreview

Follow on Instagram

NOLITETHOUGHTS

My page is mainly aimed at reviewing International fiction, speculative and science fiction. Showcasing amazing authors and presses, that are doing an outstanding job of bringing literature from everywhere around the world, and helping to re-wire our brains to see, think and feel things from an additional angle.

Mastodon Verification

Quick Links

Home
About
Connect
Privacy Policy
Review Policy

Instagram
Tumblr
TikTok
Mastodon

Copyright © 2026 NOLITETHOUGHTS | Signify Dark by WEN Themes

Scroll Up