Tuesday, 28 April 2026

Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Is Your Favourite Sports Team?

 

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a meme-thingy where people answer a different question each Tuesday

- it's currently run/hosted by Roberta @ Offbeat YA,  Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, and Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell.

I plan on dipping in-and-out of it if and when I feel like it - I figured it was a low-pressure way of posting a little more regularly here on Dora Reads (...and hopefully I'll be right about that!)


Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Is Your Favourite Sports Team?


Sunday, 5 April 2026

Nerd Church - The Neon Tragedy of Certain Dark Things (...and Romeo and Juliet)

 

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Don't deceive yourself...this is not a love story. 
- Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 


He jests at scars that never felt a wound 
- Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare



 

Title: The Neon Tragedy of Certain Dark Things (...and Romeo and Juliet). There's swirling black smoke in the background, and a neon green effect on the main title - it's super artsy imho






Certain Dark Things is a vampire novel.

…It’s also entirely unique.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the author, describes the book as 'neon noir' - which is as good a label as any for this inventive, interesting, and compelling, mash-up of styles and genres.


Tuesday, 17 March 2026

3 From My TBR: Final Girls

 

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Title: 3 From My TBR: Final Girls



Since my To-Be-Read (TBR) list is continually growing, from time to time I like to throw together a list focussing on some of the (often diverse) titles on there.

I may never get to all of the 1k+ books on there, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve some attention!

As this is a TBR, I haven't read any of these, so have no idea whether or not they're any good!



This time, I've picked out 3 books from my TBR featuring 'final girls.'

Sunday, 8 March 2026

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: On Updating Old Blogposts, and The Beauty of Blogging


Warning: Brief refs to Depression and trauma


I've been going through a lot of my old blogposts lately.

It's both an attempt to defeat the forces of entropy... 

...and to possibly get back onto Google Adsense (it's a whole thing, I talked about it a few months back, so check that post out here if you're interested.)



And... it's been interesting.

Like, genuinely interesting - way more than I thought it would be.

Basically, I was not aware of the sheer volume of stuff I have written over the course of the last 11 years - it's a lot. (Lol.)



Title: On Updating Old Blogposts, and The Beauty of Blogging



And a lot of the things that I've written are a lot better than I remember.

(...which is probably once again proof that I'm my own worst critic 😅)

Sunday, 8 February 2026

Nerd Church - The Iconic Darkness of Andrew Scott's Moriarty

 


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Warning: this post contains brief discussions of mental health issues, and brief references to murder



Title: The Iconic Darkness of Andrew Scott's Moriarty. Background: Victorian-style fancy wallpaper


I can think of very few performances as utterly iconic as Andrew Scott's Jim Moriarty.


Long before he was Fleabag's Sexy Priest, Andrew Scott was BBC Sherlock's Sexy Criminal Genius. 

(Sexy being his baseline - it must be a difficult burden to bear; imagine being sexy while you pay your electric bills, or putting the bins out sexily...)

Sunday, 25 January 2026

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: The Writerly Urge To Face-Plant the Laptop

 

It's not that easy, being a writer.

Sometimes, you just want to face-plant your goddamn laptop.



Title: The Writerly Urge To Face-Plant the Laptop. Background: notepaper



I've had a frustrating couple of weeks, writer-ness-wise.


  • A piece of poetry I'd submitted to a magazine got rejected (again.)

  • I got declined for rejoining the Google AdSense programme (again.)

  • And I made only pennies on Medium (...again.)


Sunday, 11 January 2026

Nerd Church - The Salt Path ...A True Story?


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Warning: this post discusses terminal illness and Ableism



Title: The Salt Path ...A True Story?



I watched a normal-looking woman on The One Show sofa, sitting next to the actor Jason Isaacs, and talking about her memoir being turned into a movie (starring, oddly enough, Jason Isaacs.)

(The One Show - for those of you who aren't British - is a Big Deal™.)

Something about her - the woman, Raynor Winn - seemed... off. 

But then, I try not to judge too much based on brief interviews - I don't know these people, y'know?

Sometimes people seem off - not least when they're not TV people, and suddenly find themselves talking to the nation in the prime-time flagship slot (Lord knows, that would def. make me seem off!)