First Chapters – Deciding My Holiday TBR

Book spines - The Magicians by Lev Grossman, The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood, Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor, The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, And I Darken by Kiersten White and I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Way back in January, I was shocked to find myself part of a family-holiday-booking process, something I’ve never done before. And as of right now – the very day this blog post goes up, in fact – I will be on my first holiday abroad. Who’d have thought?

So of course my biggest dilemma for the past couple of months has been trying to decide which books to take with me.** I very rarely read the “typical” holiday reads – contemporaries, romances, crime novels etc – and so there wasn’t a particular mood to go for when plucking books off my shelves. So I decided to follow Hannah’s idea (A Cup of Wonderland), and decided my reads based on the first chapters. I vastly underestimated how long it would take me to read the first chapters of 10 books and started cheating a little by not reading the entire first chapter of some (I mean, some book chapters can be a solid 50 pages long! No thanks), but either way I eventually whittled it down to 6 books, which is hugely ambitious considering I’m a slow reader and will only be there 10 days. But better to be prepared, right?

Continue reading First Chapters – Deciding My Holiday TBR

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July book haul – because a long month = a long haul

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As I mentioned in my Wrap Up, July dragged for me. I felt like it went on forever. So when I came to write up this review and saw I had somehow accumulated this many books in July…well, I was quite surprised, because it felt like a lifetime ago.

I’m pretty sure I say that in a lot of hauls though. It just be the common cause of my buying.

Overview

I’ll put it simply. I got nine books in July. Though to be fair, I didn’t buy them all, so…I didn’t spend that much money.

AND in July I read 8 books, so I’ve only added to my TBR by one book. That’s pretty good going, if I do say so myself.

Can you guess any of the books from the picture?

Well, you don’t have to, because I’m about to show them all off screaming LOOK AT ALL THESE PRETTIES. 

Here are the books I got in the month of July!

Continue reading July book haul – because a long month = a long haul