Reading Reality, LLC

11/23/2025

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 11-23-25

This was a TERRIFIC reading week - even though it was very little like the reading week I expected. C'est la reading vie. In upcoming big news, the 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon begins Wednesday. I'm already putting the final touches on the 'Holiday Book Bingo Board' I'm posting this year. But that's not....

11/23/2025

Stacking the Shelves for November 22, 2025

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.



This meme is hosted every Saturday by yours truly, - The covers shown here are merely a TEASER! Link to full post in bio to see the pretty covers of ALL the books in this week's stack!

11/22/2025

Stacking the Shelves (680)

A couple of these covers transcend merely pretty into absolutely beautiful. I'm thinking of The Astral Library and The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop and realizing that at least part of the reason I think they're pretty because they feature books so prominently, in one way or another. I guess you...

11/22/2025

The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan

The Witch's Orchard was simply a WOW of a book. It grabbed me from the opening page, and didn't shake me out until the end, kicking and screaming a bit because I NEEDED to know whodunnit but wasn't ready to let go. (I had the same experience with and there are enough similarities that if you liked that you'll like this and vice versa.)

I haven't read something that does such an incredible job of invoking both the myths and the reality of life in since 's and 's and just damn this was good.

The story rides on the character of PI , who grew up someplace just like Quartz Creek, wishes she didn't have the memories she's hiding, knowing just what's hiding behind closed doors, knowing she's going to p**s people right off the deep end, and still searching anyway because the missing girls and the brother hunting for them ALL deserve closure the town isn't going to give them. But Annie will in spite of the cost.

Awesome , , that ends in one hell of a twist. A great read - with the LIGHTS ON!

11/21/2025

A+ : The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan

My Review: Annie Gore has been a lot of things in her life, a private investigator, an Air Force special operations investigator, a muscle car mechanic, a poverty draftee into the military - and a child of the Appalachian hollers who is still running from a past she can’t forget. Max Andrews needs...

11/21/2025

Days at the Torunka Cafe by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa

Probably the right metaphor is that I love books, and books about books, and books about the magic of reading, and bookstores, so I loved . The problem is that I don't even like coffee. So it wasn't fair of me to expect the to be as much like the as I hoped it was.

is a bit more typical of this genre, in that it is three loosely linked stories about relationships wrapped around a place where the protagonists all know each other - even if they don't necessarily know that at the beginning.

Stories like are often a bit bittersweet, and this one has its moments, but they are generally delightful slice-of-life stories with a happy or at least happy-ish ending, and on that count this first book in a new series delivered.

I still like books better than coffee. Your reading and listening mileage probably varies.

11/20/2025

: Days at the Torunka Cafe by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa

My Review: I picked this up, and started it in audio, because I adored the author’s two books featuring the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop) and was looking forward to more of the same. But the Morisaki Bookshop turned out to have some secret...

11/20/2025

Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz

This was just so GOOD! It was also more than a little bit but that contributed very much to the good. Because the tagline on the cover is oh-so-right, "Every thorn has its roses." and Violet Thistlewaite has LOTS of them. (Also every silver lining has its cloud, and that's true too in this delightfully thorny story).

It starts out with Violet Thistlewaite, formerly known as Guy Shadowfade's pet Thornwitch, wanting to pay the town of Dragon's Rest back for at least some of the damage she did back when she was trying to please her adopted daddy and not seeing the forest for the trees - or at least not letting herself see the rot for the fungus. Thornwitch was the one bringing the fungus, Guy already had the rot market sewn up.

But now that she knows the truth, she wants to be better for the people Guy once subjugated. Except for one grumpy apothecary. She'd be thrilled to be bad for him. If only that wouldn't reveal her secrets - including the ones she doesn't even know she's keeping.

This was a charmer every step of the way. Anyone who fell hard for and/or is going to be pricked and delighted by Violet Thistlewaite and her thorns!

11/19/2025

A+ : Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz .bsky.social

My Review: Violet Thistlewaite is not a villain anymore, but there’s something inside her that still wants to be one. Or that just finds villainy easier. Or at least finds doing evil things with her prodigious magical power easier. Whichever it is, Violet is all in on being ‘good’. The village...

11/19/2025

How a Game Lives by Jacob Geller

We (that's not the royal we, Galen and I did this one together) decided to review this - or as it turns out talk back to it - because we've both been playing video games long enough that we both get asked terrible questions about whether we're too old to still be playing games. (Short answer, we're not and no one EVER is. So there!)

But this is a question that's very real for us, the question about what makes a game live in our minds, our hearts, our memory, and why some games have that special secret sauce and others don't. Which ones are fun to play, which ones make good television, which are just more and which are just 'meh'.

Which meant that we were both interested in reading - and viewing because are marvelous - the thoughts of someone who does a, well, an enthusiastic but more professional job of digging into games and analyzing the everything of them, not just as games but as STORIES and ART and just how much games are in conversation with both as well as society in general and culture writ both large and small.

We both had a great time, reading the book, talking back to it inside our heads, and looking forward to more. Discovering that there's another book coming was the perfect ending, because this is a conversation that never ends and thank goodness for that!

11/18/2025

Grade A : How a Game Lives by Jacob Geller .com .co.uk

https://www.readingreality.net/2025/11/grade-a-jointbookreview-how-a-game-lives-by-jacob-geller/

Marlene's Review: There's power in stories, though. That's all history is: the best tales. The ones that last. Might as well be mine. - Varric Tethras in Dragon Age: Inquisition I’ve always loved this quote because it manages to combine how I feel about games, how I feel about their characters, wh...

11/18/2025

Menu of Happiness by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

The cat's name is Drowsy, because he usually is. Either looking like he's drowsy or actually asleep. What he's not is allowed inside the Kamogawa Diner, because there's food being prepared and served there and the chef won't have it no matter how cute the cat looks!

The story is also, well, not cute exactly but then not a single story exactly either. While Drowsy is drowsing outside, inside the restaurant Nagare and Koishi Kamogawa are living up to their business motto, "We Find Your Food" - and they do.

The loosely connected stories in this and every book in the series tell the stories of people who are looking for closure, or taking a trip down memory lane, or hoping to commune one last time with someone from their past - at least in spirit - so that they can get on with things after a necessary look back. The stories are heartwarming and heartbreaking, sad and fluffy, bittersweet and savory, by delicious turns.

And every single one is a treat - especially when a bit of sad but fluffy resolution is just what you're in the mood for!