reading

Reading Round-Up: March 2020

2 Comments

I know it’s not just me: March 2020 has gone on for approximately 19 years. With the whole world in a state of uncertainty as the Covid-19 pandemic takes hold and more and more of us are thrown into lockdown, it’s not surprise it’s felt like the longest month since time began.

I talked enough in my last post about how fried my brain is at the moment, how hard it is to concentrate. So I was pleasantly surprised when it came to totting up the total number of books I read this month, and how well my Goodreads challenge is coming along. I’m up to 32 books finished this year, now, 14 of which were in March.

IMG_0821

I’m honestly not sure how I managed it. Scrolling back through the list, it seems to be that I didn’t read many physical books this month; most of them were electronic copies. That goes a long way to explaining it, to be honest – I’ve been picking up my phone while Ted plays or watches mindless kids’ film after mindless kids’ film, and it seems like those snatched moments have added up and added up. Even if Ted’s distracted, I can’t sit down with an actual book-with-pages; he happily ignores me looking at my phone, but try to hide behind a book and he pops up like a jack-in-the-box, demanding attention.

I haven’t been rereading as much as I thought I would, either. Last month, I finally got myself into gear and sorted out my lost library card, and fixed the problem with my online library account (they’d managed to spell my email address wrong while signing me up). Me and Ted were greatly enjoying our trips to the library… and then our local council was one of the first services to go into lockdown in our area, including the library. However, thanks to our marvellous library being registered with BorrowBox, and apparently not many people realising this, I suddenly had a whole library’s worth of eBooks and audiobooks at my fingertips, with hardly anything on loan to other people. Bliss! So when it got to the end of the pay month and I was a bit short on cash to buy more books, instead of going back to my old favourites yet again, I could launch myself into my reading list with gusto.

So, without further ado… what have I been reading this long, long month?

Continue reading →

2019: Reading Review

1 Comment

All right, I get that this is very late, considering it’s mid-March, and with all the drama going on in the world at the moment 2019 seems like a long-gone twinkle in the far distance. But I don’t feel like I can start properly rambling on about what I’m reading this year without having a little retrospective of how last year went.

IMG_0197

I may have mentioned that I ‘smashed’ my 2019 Goodreads challenge: my goal being to read 52 new books, and ending up with a grand total of 64. I say ‘smashed’ with a dramatic little inverted comma finger-gesture because I’m learning that 2020 is probably going to be far more worthy of that title, seeing as it’s March and I’m already 24 books in. However: 2019 was still a triumph and I’m pretty proud of myself.

By the way, I’ve not counted rereads in my actual challenge – even though I’ve just discovered that technically, you can – and to be honest, it would feel a bit cheaty if I did, seeing as even if I’ve got three new books on the go, I’m always rereading something too. But I feel it is worth mentioning that in 2019, a fair few books came out that were either finishing or continuing a series, and in those cases I always reread the preceding stories first.

Let’s have some stats! I like stats.

IMG_0200

Not a bad year for reading, really! Now for what those 22,631 pages actually consisted of…

Continue reading →

I Am A Bad Blogger

1 Comment

Funny, isn’t it? The last post I wrote on this blog was yet another relaunch. In August.

In fact, the post before that might have been another one, several months previously.

We’ll just have to hope for better things from this one, then, won’t we?

Hi. I’m back again. I haven’t changed.

87302278_10162937156535585_4540360974011465728_o

See? Well, I suppose I’ve re-purpled my hair. But that’s about it.

Welcome to 2020! Only three months in, pah, that’s nothing. At least this year you were spared a navel-gazing retrospective of 2019 and a pious pledge to do better in 2020. Oh, I made them, don’t worry; I just kept them to Instagram instead.

I was kind of hoping to just let this blog quietly die. But recently, the yearly fee for my domain name quietly left my bank account, and I thought I’d tootle on over here and see if the blog was worth saving.

And I noticed something strange.

Continue reading →

Goodreads Challenge 2019: March

1 Comment

Bit late again with this one, but I’ve been all over the place with gigs, courses, zooming around the country on a train. You know, standard. Anyway, better late than never!

Thank goodness, March was a little better than February for my two reading challenges. Well, when you look at it on Goodreads it is, at any rate.

Battle the Bookshelf is driving me mad. I’m starting to see why a lot of these books were left to die in a dusty corner; there’s a fair few I keep picking up, reading three pages, growling, and putting them back again. I can see that before too long, my Goodreads challenge is going to end up suffering while I put things off for longer and longer. I know I originally pledged that I wouldn’t buy anything else while I was doing the challenge, bar absolute favourite authors releasing new books, but I might have to be a bit more lenient with myself. Just for the sake of my brain.

Saying that, this month not everything I read came from the Battle the Bookshelf list, though I didn’t technically break any of my rules. I have a few unread books on my Kindle that have been picked up on random deals and free days and the like, that I’m not including in the list because some of them, particularly the free ones, are downright awful. I’m allowed to read those, but I’m not counting them in the list.

Hey, let’s get into what I actually read last month…

Continue reading →

Goodreads Challenge 2019: February

1 Comment

Eep. February was… not the best month for the old reading challenge.

Oh, I’m still bang on track, thankfully. But halfway through February I decided to start my ‘Battle the Bookshelf‘ challenge, which means NO NEW BOOKS. I challenged myself to go completely Waterstones cold turkey until I’ve got through the thirty-odd books that have been gathering dust in my spare room for the past year.

Yes, I know. Terrible excuse for a voracious reader.

And although I started well, powering through my first neglected book in a matter of hours (ish), since then I’ve kind of… slowed down. It didn’t help that there was a whole glut of news about the new His Dark Materials series on the BBC (it’s going to be SO MUCH BETTER than that terrible Golden Compass film and I can’t wait) and the new Philip Pullman book coming out this year (I can’t wait even more) (oh heck, I’d better be off my book ban by then). So instead of ploughing on with my TBR list, I’ve been rereading Northern Lights. I couldn’t help myself; I needed to get back into Lyra’s world. Daemons and Dust and bears, oh my.

FYI, my daemon would be a small black and white kitten called Balénessa who sits on my shoulder and chews my ear.

Right, there’s not much to add to the list from last month, but let’s have a cheesy breakdown anyway!

Screenshot_20190304_114420

Continue reading →

Time to Battle the Bookshelf

4 Comments

I’ve decided to set myself a new challenge. A new reading challenge, to be precise.

I’m already doing the Goodreads Challenge, and doing it well, why am I throwing some more drama into the mix?! – is what I should be saying to myself. Instead, I’m clapping my hands with glee at the thought of a new trial of my dedication and reading abilities.

Those feelings will probably go away pretty swiftly once I realise what I’ve let myself in for.

So what is this new challenge?

I’m calling it – Battle the Bookshelf.

20190217_114303_0000

Continue reading →

Goodreads Challenge 2019: January

2 Comments

Well, I suppose I can say the year has started well…

I made the resolution to read 52 books this year, one for each week. And I’m very pleased to say I’m already ahead of schedule! Yes, somehow despite getting The Bean Jar published on Amazon (why yes, you should indeed go and check it out) and tying myself into absolute knots over it, I’ve managed to get a decent chunk of reading in, too.

I’ve so far read seven books this year, and reread two. Let’s have a cheesy breakdown…

Continue reading →

Goodreads Challenge: 2018’s Best And Worse

1 Comment

Last year, I declared myself done with new year’s resolutions. I’m not the kind of person who vows to exercise more, or eat better, or go on any kind of spiritual journey.

Just like life, all I want to do is read.

So I set myself up with a Goodreads challenge, with a modest goal of reading fifty new books in 2018. I knew full well I read far more than that in a year… but the problem was, I’m a chronic rereader. Case in point: I can probably do a one-woman performance of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, at least the first half of it. I find something that I love and I read it over and over and over again. I also wanted to read a bit more non-fiction; it felt a bit like my brain was being neglected and was slowly but surely turning into a puddle of mush sloshing around inside my skull.

A puddle of mush that could recite the opening paragraphs of I Capture the Castle, at any rate.

I’m pleased to announce that I did complete my challenge; in fact, I surpassed it, with 54 new books read in total. Oh, there was a lot of rereading too, something I might actually try and track this year. The vow to read a bit more non-fiction fell a bit by the wayside: out of 54 books, only 8 were non-fiction. Though, I suppose, that’s probably a step up from the year before.

Let’s have some numbers, while I’m at it. In those 54 books, there were 19.542 pages; the shortest was only 84 pages long (probably a bit of a cheat, that one) and the longest clocked in at 850 pages. I gave an average rating of 4.1 stars, but that doesn’t mean a great deal – even books I didn’t really like, I still ended up giving three stars (I’m a sucker for finding at least SOME good points). Only 8 books came from the library, 24 were on Kindle, and 24 were my own physical books (some I bought myself, some were gifts, and some had been languishing on my shelves for months). Ooh, I do enjoy a good stat. I could go on – if I’d done this at the end of the year, like proper bloggers do, I could have done a full statistical analysis…

Anyway.

Let’s have a look at my highs and lows of 2018!

Continue reading →

Happy World Book Day!

Leave a comment

Today is World Book Day – time to celebrate books and reading and the joy they bring.

I’m sure to many parents this is just another groan in the school calendar – another costume to create, or dig out an old one and tenuously link it to a book. I’m not there yet – Ted’s not even at nursery yet, so no costume needed (though you just know I’d turn him into a teeny tiny Teddy Lupin, multicoloured hair and all). But if it ever stops snowing, I’m taking him to World Book Day events at our local library and bookshop anyway.

That’s a point: there’s bound to be plenty of parents out there who have constructed painstakingly detailed costumes only to be faced with a snow day. Does this mean we can have another World Book Day to celebrate their efforts? I’m up for it.

It’s so important to instill a love of reading. So, so important. To just hit the tip of the iceberg of benefits, it makes you live longer.

(graphic from the National Literacy Trust)

If there’s one thing I hate to hear, it’s “books are boring”. See also: “I’d rather watch the film”. Ugh. It makes me cringe and rage in equal measure.

Simply put, books have shaped my life, and have played a huge part in defining who I am today.

Continue reading →

Goodreads Challenge 2018

1 Comment

Oh, I know I’m terrible for this. Every year I talk about blasted new year’s resolutions, and every year I ignore them until approximately November, shrug, and mark up another year of failure.

But here I go again!

This time, I’m not doing traditional new year’s resolutions. Instead, I’m finally going to put my Goodreads account to use and I’m doing a reading challenge!

Fifty new books in a year is achievable, right?

Continue reading →