tbr

Top Ten Tuesday | Ten Most Recent Additions to My TBR

Emma6 Comments

Welcome one, welcome all, to Top Ten Tuesday! For those who are unaware (or who might need a reminder) Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by book bloggers and list lovers, The Broke and the Bookish, and is now hosted fantastically by Jana from That Artsy Girl! Each week a topic is chosen for bloggers to respond to.

I haven’t participated in a Top Ten Tuesday for a couple of months but I couldn’t pass up on this week’s topic since there are so many anticipated reads that I had recently came across my reading radar. In case it wasn’t already obvious, this week’s topic is The Ten Most Recent Additions to My To-Read List. I usually rank the selections for Top Ten Tuesday but since this week’s topic is about the most recent things added to your TBR I thought we could mix it up from my usual ways and go from the most recent to least recent (of ten) books added to my TBR list. These were all added in this last month so… I need to stop growing my TBR, clearly. Let’s waste no more time and dive straight in…

beholder1. The Beholder by Anna Bright

I’d heard this was a retelling by way of Cinderella meets The Odyssey but a lot of advance readers seem to be disputing that marketing claim. To me, I’m getting similar vibes as The Selection by Kiera Cass – so it’s no surprise to see that Cass has blurbed this book. Regardless of whether the marketing pitch is accurate or not, I’m still intrigued by this one because… ok, fine, I was lured in by the pretty cover and the promise of voyage by sea, ok?! But I mean, come on, look at it.

 

heroes2. Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures by Stephen Fry

The second of the ‘Stephen Fry takes on Greek mythology’ books, this one seems to concentrate on the heroes of the piece, rather than the gods which his previous Mythos focused on. I’m intrigued to read both and I’m sure I’ll pick up a copy of this via audiobook because there’s just quite a comforting thing abut listening to Stephen Fry narrating anything – this is definitely solely a byproduct of his Harry Potter audiobook narration, but I’m looking forward to seeing if that translates well into retelling myths and legends.

 

ladyhotspur3. Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton

I LOVED Tessa Gratton’s The Queens of Innis Lear and I had NO idea she was writing another book based on Shakespearean characters but I’m SO excited to hear she is! I don’t know what to expect from this one though since I think this is set in Innis Lear so I’m curious how that will affect the source material she’s drawing from Henry IV (which is one of my fave Shakespeare plays). I cannot wait for this one, though I’m seeing conflicting things about when it is being published – hopefully sooner rather than later!

 

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24in48 | Sign Up & TBR (January 2019)

Emma3 Comments

24in48_v2-03_full-colorHowdy folks, it’s that time again: Emma foolishly signs up for another readathon! This time my foolishness will only last as long as a weekend, this upcoming weekend in fact, which will play host to the 24 in 48 Readathon. For those unaware of the readathon, you aim to read a total of 24 hours within a 48-hour period. That way, it’s not about reading X amount of books or fulfilling X amount of challenges. Instead, the readathon is mainly about focusing 24 hours worth of your time on reading. (For more info, go to the website!)

I’ll admit upfront: I have some misgivings about the 24 in 48 Readathon. Personally, for me, I don’t think it’s healthy. In the past when I have taken part and really tried to make it to the hallowed 24 hours goal, I’ve ended up having an absolute crap week after the readathon ends because my entire weekend was spent cooped up in the house, neglecting errands and housework and any other activity that wasn’t reading. I end up not eating properly, I end up not sleeping properly, and I end up not having the proper break that a weekend is meant to be. Therefore, I’ve recognised that sacrificing the 2-day break I get from work in order to just read isn’t completely healthy for me (but if it works for you, you do you!) so, this round, I’m not even going to try to get to 24 hours. Instead, I’m going to aim for 14 hours since I would work 7 hours a day and still have time to do other things without either being a detriment to the other. So, there we have it, less a 24 in 48 and more of a 14 in 48 – less impressive, I know, but hey, this is my readathon attempt and I’ll do it how I like!

With all that being said, let’s talk TBR. As always with my TBRs, I’m unlikely to finish everything on this list but I just like to have a nice stack of books to pick from which should hopefully cover most moods I might reasonably be in over the course of the weekend. Now let’s stop delaying and take a look at the TBR I’ve set myself:

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Enchantée by Gita Trelease
This is the book that I will likely be focusing on during the readathon. I’ve started reading it this week and it has been super fun so far and I have no idea where the story is going to go next so I’m itching to pick it back up and continue reading – there will be plenty of time to do that this weekend.

The Penguin History of the World by J.M. Roberts and Odd Arne Westad
I’ve set myself the goal of finishing this mammoth tone in 2019 so I’m making my way through it slowly. I still have a little bit to read to finish the section I’d like to have completed by the end of January so I’m including it in my TBR so I don’t forget about that!

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
I recently read and adored Chokshi’s latest novel, The Gilded Wolves, so I decided to go back and read her earlier books. Whilst perusing the library catalogue recently I noticed the branch closest to my work had a copy of this in stock and, well, I couldn’t resist deciding to add this to my TBR this weekend so that I had the excuse to go and borrow it sooner rather than later. I know next to nothing about this one so I have no expectations and am ready to be blown away! (Though I’ve heard whispers that this is a Hades and Persephone retelling… *King George voice* IS THAT TRUUUUU-E?)

Dark Satanic Mills by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgewick, John Higgins, and Marc Olivent
Whilst in the library picking up the book I mentioned above, I scoured the graphic novel section in search of some Loki: Agent of Asgard comic books that were allegedly on the shelves. I didn’t track them down (maybe they have disguised themselves as someone else? Would be about typical given their protagonist!) but this odd little book did catch my eye. I know nothing about it and barely even checked out the art style first to see if I enjoyed it so let’s just follow this whim and see where it takes us, shall we?

The Wicked + the Divine, Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles
Whilst scouring through the graphic novel section of the library I also found the second volume of The Wicked + the Divine and remembered that I’d read the first volume some time ago and had been intrigued about picking up the rest of the volumes in the series. I never got around to buying them because I wasn’t quite sure if I liked it and, hey, those bindups are kinda pricey, but I’ll happily take advantage of my library to puzzle out if I do actually want to read the series or not. Hoping to re-read the first volume and then continue onto the second one over the course of the weekend.

Well, there we have it, that was my TBR for this weekend for the 24 in 48 Readathon. Are you taking part? Let me know in the comments if so, especially if you have a TBR because I’d love to be nosy and take a peek at it. Or, if you’re not taking part, still tell me what (if anything) you’re planning on reading this weekend.

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T5W | Top of Your TBR

Emma3 Comments

Welcome one and all to this week’s Top 5 Wednesday post! For those of you who don’t know Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme/challenge which was created by the wonderful Lainey from gingerreadslainey and is now overseen by the equally lovely Sam from Thoughts on Tomes. Every Wednesday, participants devise their Top 5 based on a given topic.

This Wednesday’s topic is Top of Your TBR. I think we can assume this week’s topic is pretty self explanatory: pick the top five top priority books from your TBR. Considering my TBR is in the hundreds, you’d think this would be pretty easy, but I’ve been floundering over picking my next read as of late partly because of the agony of choice and also partly because there are quite a few of my anticipated releases of 2019 that are happening very soon so I don’t want to start too many other books as their release dates are creeping closer and closer. You might notice that theme in this list actually…

5. These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch

Since you’ll be hearing a lot of my anticipated 2019 releases in the rest of this list, I decided to include a title from last year that is absolutely top of my TBR. I didn’t manage to get to These Rebel Waves when there was the initial buzz around this book’s release and, even though I got a pretty edition in a Fairyloot box, it probably still wouldn’t be priority TBR if my housemate Liz hadn’t recently read it and said encouragingly that she thought I’d really like it. That kind of recommendation is enough to make me prioritise this.

 

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Winter Biannual Bibliothon 2019 | TBR

Emma3 Comments

Hello everyone! As you can probably tell from the title of this post, this is a TBR post for the upcoming Winter Biannual Bibliothon. As I’m subscribed to one of the readathon’s hosts, LittleBookOwl on YouTube, I always see videos relating to this readathon but I’ve never taken part… until now! I’m finding out about this readathon a little late but still in enough time to get together a TBR and participate, even if it does overlap slightly with Bout of Books. Still, let’s see if we can start off 2019’s reading strong, shall we?

(I need the kick up the bum; I’ve only finished 1 book and it’s already 10th… who am I?)

For those who don’t know the Biannual Bibliothon takes place (yes, you guessed it) twice a year, there’s a summer and a winter edition and this is the Winter edition! It’s taking place between 12th until the 18th January – head over to the readathon Twitter for more info.

As well as fun Instagram and video challenges to keep you busy during the readathon, there’s a set of Reading Challenges to help choose your TBR:

Reading Challenges

1. Read the Group Book: Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean
Providing my order on Amazon comes through in time, I’ll try to get to this one which has been on my radar but not necessarily top of my TBR. I don’t know anything about Japan, to be honest, so maybe reading a Japanese-inspired fantasy could be the first step in broadening my horizons?

2. Read one of the hosts’ 5 star reads: Pivot Point by Kasie West, Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia, Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choy
Ooo the temptation to re-read The Graveyard Book is SO strong! It’s one of my favourite books too and I’m well overdue a re-read. However I am going to resist (barely) and instead choose to read Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choy which is a book I know precisely nothing about. However, it’s available as an audiobook on Scribd and from its Goodreads reviews, I reckon it might be something I enjoy, especially if it is as cynical/bitter as one reviewer said it was!

3. Read a book that got you into reading
Matilda by Roald Dahl. Not only were Roald Dahl’s books some of the first I read, the entire spirit of Matilda champions reading so it’s the PERFECT book to read during a readathon.

4. Read an adult genre
Based on how Christina Lauren’s other books are I’m going to go ahead and assume that Dating You/Hating You is an adult contemporary/romance. It’s also a book I’ve been meaning to read ever since my friend Liz read it and said I’d probably really like the setup of the (inevitable?) couple who are both high-powered agents at competing Hollywood firms that end up merging, meaning they go up against each other for the same job. Sounds fun!

5. Combine your favorite genre with your least favorite format or the opposite
Well, my favourite genre is probably YA fantasy and my least favourite, I guess, would be ebook, so I’m going to pick… hmmm… let’s be prompt and read Enchanteé by Gita Trelease which I was just approved an eARC of and should get to sooner rather than later. It had the magic words in the synopsis “French Revolution” and I was instantly hooked.

6. Read a book with a cover you don’t like
You know, I’m not overly fond of the cover of Emergency Contact, from what I’ve seen of it on Goodreads. The pink and gold thing isn’t really working for me (though I’m sure it could be other people’s jams) so I’ll double-up on challenges with this book, I think.

7. Read a book by an author you’ve never read before
I’ve never read anything by Gita Trelease before… mostly because this is her debut novel but shhhhh, it’s not really cheating to double up on this challenge.

My TBR

Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean (#1)
Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choy (#2, #6)
Matilda by Roald Dahl (#3)
Dating You/Hating You by Christina Lauren (#4)
Enchantée by Gita Trelease (#5, #7)

 

There we have it, there’s what I will be attempting to read during the Winter Biannual Bibliothon. Are you taking part? Share your TBR below! Otherwise, tell me which book you’re planning on picking up next, I’d love to hear about it!

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Bout of Books 24 | Sign Up & TBR

Emma12 Comments

Hello all and welcome to this, the first of the ‘Emma signs up for a readathon with an overly ambitious TBR she abandons almost immediately’ posts for 2019! This is fun, isn’t it? Exciting. Will it be more of the same in 2019 or will Emma actually follow through on the readathon aspirations she has this year? Who knows… only time will tell.

Quite handily for me, however, the first readathon I’m choosing to participate in this year is the Bout of Books readathon, a firm favourite of mine because of its low-key setup and challenges. In fact, there are no reading challenges or prompts that you have to fulfil with you TBR; rather, the main aim of Bout of Books is simply to read. I can get onboard with this. For those of you who haven’t come across Bout of Books before, here’s the schtick:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 7th and runs through Sunday, January 13th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 24 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.
– From the Bout of Books team

When it comes to Bout of Books, you are encouraged to be as low-key or ambitious as you like, it really is what you make of it. This potentially comes at quite a good time for me as I’ve been struggling these first few days of the month/year with what to read – sometimes, when you have SO MANY options to choose from, you actually end up struggling to decide on one. (Seriously, it’s a legitimate Thing.) At the suggestion of housemate and friend Liz (you may know her by my frequent mentions of Travel In Retrospect, I’m sure) I’m reading a kinda so-bad-it’s-good romance novel and it’s working as something of a palette cleanser. But I’m still eager to start my reading of other things too which is where Bout of Books comes in as it has forced me to confront the issue of my indecisiveness head on and pick a (albeit tentative) TBR for the upcoming week’s readathon.

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Discussion | TBRs – Guidelines or Rules?

Emma3 Comments

Welcome folks, on this rather late evening, to another discussion post. Today, I’ve been (once again) poring over my remaining challenge prompts for an annual reading challenge, the reading prompts I want to cover in an upcoming readathon, and the TBR I set for myself back at the start of December. Trying to juggle all these things whilst also maintaining the motivation to actually read has led me to think… how do you see TBR lists? Do you treat them as rules or, as Captain Barbossa says, “more what you call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules”?

I know fellow readers who love a TBR. Those who relish the challenge. Those who love to stand in front of their bookshelves at the start of a new month and withdraw some books and place them proudly on their nightstand, ready to read throughout the month. Those who go to their local library, scribbled-down TBR list in hand, hunting for their next reads on the shelves and coming proudly home with their haul. Those who love to use challenges and readathons to help construct their monthly (and maybe even weekly) TBR lists. Those who love the satisfaction of being able to tick off/cross out a book from the same list once they’ve turned that last page.

Then, I know other readers – those who find TBRs nothing but restriction. Those who are well and truly mood readers and, when they wake up in a morning, don’t know at all what they’ll end up reading. Those who go into each month without their heads spinning with the particulars of this readathon or that book club reading list. Those who shudder away from making TBR lists because they feel like a teacher assigning you a book at school. And you may very well have wanted to read that particular book, but once someone has told you that you must, you lose all desire to do so because it has now become a chore. Those who may even go so far as to optimistically (/hopefully) construct a TBR list, only to find themselves completely ignoring it after they’ve finished writing it in their reading journal or on their blog.

I think I sit somewhere in the middle – I prefer to think of TBRs as guidelines. Even when I’m feeling at my most completionist, I very rarely set a TBR list and find myself completing every single book on there. I get bored. Or I lose motivation. Or I lost interest. Or I read a really great book that reminds me that I really want to read that other book with a similar theme, even if it wasn’t on the TBR I set mere days before. Even when it comes to short, week-long readathons, when I let myself construct a strict TBR in mind because of the short timeframe of the challenge, I often find myself deviating from my initial ideas, looking for alternatives that might be twisted to fit the challenge requirements.

I’m not posing this as a discussion point because I think either way (or anything in-between the two extremes) is the ‘right way’ to read. I’m just curious, because I see many a monthly TBR, but I don’t actually know everyone’s views on them to begin with. So, I’m asking you now: TBRs, do you treat them like rules or merely (vague) guidelines?

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Christmas at Hogwarts | Sign Up & TBR

Emma3 Comments

Hi witches and wizards, welcome to my sign-up and TBR post for yet another iteration of the Magical Readathon! The Magical Readathon is hosted by Gi of the Book Roast and she has been delighting us all with fun readathons since the first OWLs Readathon back in early 2018. This round we’re getting in the seasonal spirit because this one is all about Christmas at Hogwarts! I’m so happy to see another round of the readathon and take part in this one which is happening from 17th until 26th December – I’m sure it will really get me in the wintry spirit!

Gi has come up with a fantastic ‘choose your own adventure’ sort of set of challenges as you’ll see from the image below and the whole aim is to follow along the path, making your choice of festive activity as suits you (and your TBR), before everyone joins in for the Christmas Feast in the Great Hall. Super fun, right? If you want more info on what each of the challenge prompts mean, check out Gi’s readathon announcement and/or TBR video.

Christmas at Hogwarts readathon.jpg

Readathon Challenges & My TBR

Finish your coursework – finish your current read
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig / If We’re Not Married by Thirty by Anna Bell / Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (audiobook) by J.K. Rowling / whatever I’m reading come next Monday when the readathon starts!

Have a snowball fight with the Weasley twins – a book you think will be humorous
The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Visit 3 Broomsticks for mulled pixie wine – a read that should only take you a day/evening
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Attend a Yule Ball – book you’ve been preparing yourself for
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Bring a festive treat to Hedwig at the Owlery – animal on the cover/title/series name
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik (dragon on cover!)

Edit (20/12/18)
I’ve already decided to go off-track after the Three Broomsticks, so here’s my amended TBR:
Exchange presents at your common room – read featuring/about friendship
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Fly around snowy Hogwarts grounds – building on the cover
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Attend the Christmas Feast – watch a Harry Potter movie
Well, that’s pretty much a given over the festive period. If ITV aren’t showing them like they ordinarily do, I can easily bust the ol’ DVD collection out and enjoy one (or seven).

So there we have it magical beings, there’s my TBR for the upcoming Magical Readathon round Christmas at Hogwarts. As always, I’ll likely be updating my progress throughout the readathon with a good old fashioned Twitter thread which I will link here once it’s up and running. Are you participating in this readathon or have you participated in the previous rounds? Or maybe you’re taking part in a different festive-themed readathon? Let me know in the comments and we can cheer each other on!

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December TBR

Emma10 Comments

If you read my post yesterday, you’ve probably gathered that December tends to be a stressful reading month if I let it be because I try so desperately to finish up the remaining challenges in my yearly reading goals. Since I passed my 52 books Goodreads goal some weeks ago, that one’s not an issue, but I’m still yet to finish all the prompts for Around the Year in 52 Books challenge. Though I know I probably won’t finish everything for that challenge, I still would quite like to knock off a few of the remaining prompts if it won’t be too much hassle for me in the remaining days of 2018.

With all that in mind, I’ve put together a rather ambitious December TBR, featuring many books I probably should have read already by now, so let’s no waste no more time and see what they are…

December TBR

1. Temeraire by Naomi Novik (rollover from November) ✓
I tried and failed to read this one a while back. It should be right up my street – dragons, Regency setting, fantasy… everything fits. I think I was just too distracted when I read it so I found the pacing seemed really slow. Hopefully I’ll get along with it better this time around, especially since there are many other books in the series so they could keep me going for quite a while.

2. If We’re Not Married by Thirty by Anna Bell
If I’m honest, this entire book just seems fluffy and tropey but I think it would be nice to occasionally read a few books of that sort, especially as it comes to the end of the year and I just want some entertaining reads mixed in with the slightly heavier stuff. Plus, I got this as an eARC on NetGalley and my review ratio is becoming terrible so I really should try to sort it out – this would be a start.

3. The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
I LOVED the first book in this series, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, and I have no doubt that this sequel, focusing on Monty’s sister Felicity, is going to be AMAZING too. Although I bought the hardcover of this, I’ve heard fantastic things about the audiobook so I’ll likely read this one on audio, as I did with the first book. I can’t wait to get reading about Felicity’s own adventures.

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (AtY 2)
This book has been on my TBR list for YEARS at this point and I still don’t know anymore about it than when I first added it to that list. It’s one of those books that people tell me “you have to read” and Liz has read it and said it was ok and a pretty good audiobook so that’s likely the format in which I will give this a go. It also helps that it fits for the reading challenge prompt “book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list”.

5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (AtY 5)
This is yet another of those “must read” books that is being praised the world over. You’d have to be blind not to have noticed this book – it’s been EVERYWHERE and the topic is so relevant and what with the film being released (although clearly not to as wide a release as it should have been), it’s been difficult to avoid reading this one. Yet, somehow, I have. Is it time to correct that? Given it also fits for the prompt “read a book about/inspired by real events”, it seems like now could be a good time.

6. Melmoth by Sarah Perry (AtY 7)
I adored Sarah Perry’s previous book The Essex Serpent and I’m really hoping this one will be in a similar vein. The cover is equally gorgeous and that shouldn’t stand in its favour but it really does. This one seems a lot creepier and more Gothic but I kind of love that so I’m purposely trying not to read any reviews of this book so I can go into it relatively uninformed. Plus it fits for the prompt to “read a Gothic novel” so happy days.

7. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (AtY 9)
Again, you’d have to be blind not to have noticed this one doing the rounds in the book community (can you sense a theme here on this TBR?), but somehow I’ve still not managed to get around to this one myself. Considering how short it is – it’s more of a novella really – and that it’s available on audiobook, I really should get to this one this month, I don’t have any excuses left. Handily, it also fulfils the “book with a body part in the title” reading prompt.

8. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (AtY 12)
You’d have to be blind not to… you know where this one is going, don’t you? Seriously though: as a YA fantasy reader, I’m not sure how I haven’t got to this one yet. There has been massive hype surrounding it and I’ve pretty much heard amazing things about the book from most people who have read it. I’ll be surprised if I manage to get to the end of 2018 having not picked this one up, but I still haven’t read the likes of The Raven King despite saying similar things about that one for months so… who knows. I’m told that this novel is also heavily based on West African mythology so it can fit for the reading prompt to read “a book set in Africa or South America”, right?

9. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig (AtY 27) ✓
I adored Matt Haig’s other non-fiction work, Reasons to Stay Alive, so I was thrilled when this one was released. Apparently not thrilled enough to get right to it though. I did read the first few pages of this some months back but I was in a weirdly emotional place and it hit me a little bit too much so I had to set it aside for then. I think I’m ready to properly pick it back up though, and it helps that it kind of fulfils the prompt to read something “about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc)”. I’d say struggling with anxiety and panic attacks is pretty damn hard.

10. The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig (AtY 28)
I read the first book in this duology The Girl From Everywhere and really loved it so I’ve been meaning to pick up this sequel ever since then. Heidi Heilig has become someone I really enjoy following on Twitter so every time I see her name pop up there I get a reminder that I want to get to this book sooner rather than later. Assuming it follows much of the pattern of the first book, this sequel will also work perfectly for the “4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water” prompt.

11. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (AtY 32)
I started this book whilst I was waiting in a very long queue for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin in Disney World last world. It was one of the few books I had downloaded in the Kindle app on my phone and I thought ‘why not?’. As you can imagine, once I got closer to the front of the queue I was distracted by other things (namely shooting bad aliens with a blaster gun to help Buzz defeat Zorg) so this book fell to the wayside… which is a shame because the concept of an AU steampunk World War I is really intriguing and promised to be one hell of a fun ride. Hopefully I’ll get back to it this month, especially since it can count for the “alternate history book” reading challenge.

12. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (AtY 44)
I’m trying to make it a ritual that I read this every Christmas, so I need to actually put it on my monthly TBR so I don’t forget and end up having to speed read it in its entirety at 10pm on Christmas Eve. Whilst that would be perfect timing for the narrative of the story itself, I’d like to start it a little earlier this year and enjoy reliving the story again. It also definitely counts as reading a “ghost story” so that’s yet another potential crossing-off of a reading challenge prompt.

What books are you hoping to read in December? Let me know what you’re reading at the moment in the comments below and let’s chat books!

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Tome Topple 7 | Sign Up & TBR

Emma6 Comments

Welcome one and all to, you guessed it from the title, a sign-up post for Tome Topple. The seventh round of Tome Topple is taking place from the stroke of midnight on 16th November and runs through until 11:59 pm on 29th November.

For those who don’t know, Tome Topple is fortnight-long readathon in which the goal is to focus on reading “tomes”, i.e. books of 500 pages (or so) in length. It was created by Sam from Thoughts on Tomes and she now has a whole gang of co-hosts to help run the readathon and keep us all enthused and reading. For extra info, check out the readathon’s Twitter account or the Goodreads group.

If you’ve been a reader of the blog for a while, you may have seen that I’ve participated in previous Tome Topple rounds, to varying degrees of “success”, but I’ve always gave it my best shot. This round will prove to be no exception since I’ll be away from home for a few days at the start of the readathon so I’m not sure how my reading will be affected by that. This does mean I’ll be sitting on a couple of train journeys though so maybe the travel will turn out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise for Tome Topple? We shall see!

As ever, there are the reading challenges to help shape your TBR. I’m not sure whether I’ll focus on these but in the interests of having a bit of structure to the whole thing, I’ve picked out a couple of them to try to fulfil with my reading.

Reading Challenges

  1. Read more than 1 tome
  2. Read a graphic novel (still over 500 pages!) – I won’t be doing this one, I never do!
  3. Read a tome that is part of a series
  4. Buddy read a tome
  5. Read an adult novel

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Challenges: 1/4/5
This one was on my Disney holiday TBR but Disney World proved to be far too distracting and I ended up only just almost finishing one book which was decidedly not this one. Therefore, it was on my mind to pick it up anyway, and now that Tome Topple is here and this book definitely counts as a tome, it seems almost fortuitous. I’ve heard that this is a book you really need to focus on so it would probably be a good idea to only be reading one book at a time when I read this – I tend to try to do that during Tome Topple so this is the perfect time to give it a go.

The Dark Days Pact by Alison Goodman

Challenges: 1/3
I absolutely loved the first book in the series, The Dark Days Club, because it’s basically a Jane Austen-esque Regency society story but with added demons. The heroine, Lady Helen, is basically a demon hunter and that’s all kinds of MY JAM so I adore this series. The author, Alison Goodman, was also super lovely on Twitter when I gushed about the book so I’m automatically even more endeared to this series. I really need to pick up this second book as its sequel aka the third in the trilogy (?), comes out in November.

So, that’s it, that’s my Tome Topple TBR. I’m trying to keep it relatively simple and manageable (for once). Are you taking part in the readathon? What are you planning to read? Let me know and we can cheer each other on!

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Try a Chapter | Choosing My Disney Holiday TBR

Emma9 Comments

You might have seen my previous go at Try a Chapter for my Barcelona holiday back at the start of September, and it worked so well helping me choose which books to take with me on holiday… whether I read all of them is another issue but shhhhh. And, much like with my previous holiday TBR, I’m not sure how much reading time I’ll actually get on account of the fact I’ll probably be too distracted by the magical world of Disney but I’m willing to try anyway.

There’s a good chance that I’ll be quite tired – ok, mainly my feet will be tired – at the end of most days of this holiday, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to take a few moments to read, so let us see which books I’m fancying reading, shall we? These are what I have to choose from:

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