Astraios

So you suffer, lost in an infinite twilight, one foot in day and the other in night.

338 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants

Reading...

This Princess Kills Monsters: The Misadventures of a Fairy-Tale Stepsister

Murdle: Volume 2, 100 Elementary to Impossible Mysteries to Solve Using Logic, Skill, and the Power of Deduction

A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)

Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry

Astraios finished reading and wrote a review...

Astraios

Sep 11, 2025

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 5.0

🫀

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In 2011, a year after this precious gem was published, I enrolled to the INALCO university, where Mathias Énard also graduated. By then, Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d'éléphants had won the Goncourt Highscool Awards, and all those little happy accidents put the book on my path.

Since then, I have devoured Michelangelo's inner turmoil, pious and scared of the pope yet angry and proud, his wonders at the Ottoman Empires' culture and poets and art and beauty, every year without fault.

When the english version finally came out, with this gorgeous painting commissioned for the cover I got tattooed, I was overjoyed to have a new opportunity to discover this story for the first time.

Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants is about atmosphere, a whimsical walk in 16th century. It speaks about the distance of strangers, the pain and hopes of something more, love and religion. Knowing that part of this story comes from letter between Michelangelo and his brother makes it all the more dear to me, to know there was somewhere, sometime, a man with such artistry in his veins and such despair.

Astraios commented on a post

rmknitss

Thoughts from 27% (page 83)

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Astraios

Pre-reading postponed

I had pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition, which came with a misprint where the word Hell is just a white blank right in the middle of the sprayed edge. It's not a life shattering defect, but it's a 40$(cad) edition so I'm waiting for a replacement. Meaning it's just sitting in front of me and I. Can't. Read. It. Yet.

Astraios started reading...

Once Was Willem

M.R. Carey

From the bestselling M. R. Carey comes an utterly unique and enchantingly dark epic fantasy fable like no other. This is the tale of Once Was Willem, who - eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England - rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham. Pennick for all its beauty was ever a place with a dark reputation. The forests of the Chase were said to be home to nixies and boggarts, and there was a common belief, passed down through many generations, that the castle housed an unquiet ghost of terrible and malign power. These rumours I can attest were all true; indeed they fell short of the truth by a long way . . .

Astraios paused reading...

A Tongue so Sweet and Deadly: Compelling Fates Saga

Sophia St. Germain

Half-Fae Elessia could have had everything. Literally. Since her magic allows her to compel anyone to do her bidding by merely looking into their eyes, the world was at her feet. But after a tragic accident, she is thrown into the Fae king’s dungeons and forced to swear a blood oath to him, binding her to his service. Five years later, she’s living amongst humans in Ellow and has created a life for herself—as much as she can with the king’s promise to call in his debt looming over her. When he finally comes to collect, she is made to infiltrate the human elections to determine whether the current regent is involved in the strange things happening in the land of Fae. With the promise of freedom from the king’s claws, Elessia is determined to see it through. Liberty is within reach as long as she can keep the lethal Fae guard watching over her from eliminating her before she unearths the information the king seeks. But as she grows closer to the brooding human regent and secrets begin to unravel, Elessia realizes greater forces may be at play. And she might stand before the choice between her own freedom and that of a nation.

Astraios commented on a post

Astraios

I said I was done with series

I said I wanted ones and dones for a while to finally have closures, not years long commitment and money debt for my children. So I pre-ordered The Second Death of Locke knowing full well it's a .Book One. because 'She will be his blade on the battlefield, his healer and protector. Grey would do anything for Kier - be anything for him - if he would only ask.'

You can throw rocks at me I deserve them.

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Astraios

I said I was done with series

You can throw rocks at me I deserve them.

Post from the Hekate forum

Astraios

Edited

Pre-order arrived !

Sometimes my library sends me my preo-orders the day they came out, sometimes it shows up randomly a week in advance. So I now have Hekate sitting prettily on my shelves, being lovely and making me realise it's POETRY which I'm not so sure about. Definitely on me and will give it my best try but my face yesterday was very confused.

Astraios commented on a post

posumundi

Underwhelmed by the Book

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Astraios

Thoughts from 13%

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Astraios finished reading and wrote a review...

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Astraios

Sep 07, 2025

3.0

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 1.5Plot: 2.5

🏜️

🌊

💀

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Astraios

Thoughts from 6%

After my last read I was in a bit of a reading slump. Then I realised this masterpiece was already available to finally give me a GREAT read for the year.

Astraios started reading...

A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)

Robert Jackson Bennett

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire's reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air-somehow abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard. To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol. Before long, Ana's discovered that they're not investigating a disappearance, but a murder-and that the killing was just the first chess move by a thief who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana's moves as though they can see the future. Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's most brilliant minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction will be terrible indeed--and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn. Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his brilliant superior has met an enemy she can't defeat.

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Astraios

Maybe a tad excited

Of course I had to pre-order this.

Post from the This Princess Kills Monsters: The Misadventures of a Fairy-Tale Stepsister forum

Astraios

Thoughts from 11% (audiobook)

It's the first time I'm doing an audiobook, so I'm being very lenient with the story since I struggle sometimes to keep focus and will realize after five minutes I wasn't listening, but the narrator is definitely a huge plus. Her narration is almost sending images my way, I'm enjoying her company on my walks.

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