books

Books of 2023

New year, new ongoing list of books I read this year. Now my Read the World Project is complete, 2023 is going to be the year of mood reading and probably reading a whole lot of backlist books as I’ve got my TBR to get through. I don’t have big reading goals, just want to read at least 52 books and complete the Magical Readathon: Year in Aeldia which I will make a note of what books I read for it at the bottom of this post. You can find out more about what I’m reading on my Twitter, Goodreads and Storygragh.

Without further ado, here’s what I read in 2023! Any titles with asterisks are rereads and if it has a link, that goes to my review.

January:
– Making a Scene – Constance Wu
– One of Us is Next – Karen M. McManus
– The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
– The Girl in the Tower – Katherine Arden
– The Winter of the Witch – Katherine Arden
– Maybe I Don’t Belong Here: A Memoir of Race, Identity, Breakdown and Recovery – David Harewood
– The Last Tale of the Flower Bride – Roshani Chokshi

February:
– The Wolf and the Woodsman – Ava Reid
– The Bachelorette Party – Carissa Ann Lynch
– Spells for Forgetting – Adrienne Young
– Dangerous Remedy – Kat Dunn
– Monstrous Design – Kat Dunn
– Glorious Poison – Kat Dunn
– The Lie – C.L. Taylor
– This is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

March:
– Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men – Caroline Criado Perez

Currently reading:
– The Republic of Thieves – Scott Lynch
– The Gloaming – Kirsty Logan

Books read: 16
Books reviewed: 10

Magical Readathon: Year in Aeldia
January – start a series: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
February – trees on the cover: The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
March – book over 500 pages: The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
April – Magical Readathon Spring Equinox
May – book finishes on an even number: ???
June – book you already own: ???
July – read when it’s dark: ???
August – Magical Readathon Autumn Equinox
September – dark academia book: Babel by R.F. Kuang
October – chapters are only numbers: ???
November – random number generator: ???
December – fox on the cover/title: Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

My reading in 2022 and bookish goals for 2023

After a not great reading year in 2021, I was back on track in 2022. I made my Read the World Project my focus and I completed it before my self-imposed deadline! That’s novels/poetry/non-fiction/short stories from 205 different countries around the world. I’m so happy that I broadened my reading horizons that way and I really do feel a sense of accomplishment over it.

My goal in 2022 was to read 52 books and review half of them and I smashed that target – I read 79 books and reviewed 42 of them. I always want to have an equal split between male and female authors if possible, with the understanding that it’ll probably be leaning towards women which it was in 2022. “Both” got a decent sized chunk last year as I read The Old Guard comics and reread/caught up on the Saga comics series and both of them are written by both men and women writers and artists. When it comes to what genres I read in 2022, Sci-fi got a bit of a boost thanks to the Saga comics and because I reread the Hunger Games trilogy and then the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Horror definitely made an appearance thanks to the 12 Challenge as I’m normally a complete wuss. I started 2022 with 88 books on my physical/digital TBR and I ended it with 75 books on my TBR! That number has been the goal for my owned TBR for the past two years and I’ve finally done it. (more…)

My TBR as 2023 begins

As a new year begins so does all the grand ideas for goals and challenges – whether they’re to do with big life changes or more simple things like reading. I will be sharing a review of my 2022 reading goals and what my goals are for 2023 next week. In the meantime, as it’s been a while (late 2020 in fact) since I shared my complete TBR, thought I’d kick of 2023 with that. Especially as I’ve yet to pick up a book this year.

This list is divided between the physical books, the audiobooks and ebooks I own. The physical books will probably be the main priority going forward as I really am running out of space but all that talk will come next week.

I’d love to hear if you’d recommend any of these books and which ones should move to the top of my TBR. (more…)

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Favourite Books of 2022

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. It’s the first Tuesday of 2023 so that’s the perfect time to take a look back at what we read in 2022 and share our favourites of the year. These are in no particular order but they are all books that I gave 5 stars this year and really enjoyed for different reasons. If I wrote one, I’ll link to my review of these books.

Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan
I love Mad Max: Fury Road so a book about how that amazing film was made was always going to be on my radar. I really loved this book and read it in two sittings. It’s so interesting and in-depth about filmmaking and how the production of Fury Road was unlike the productions many of the people interviewed had ever been a part of. If you’re interested in filmmaking at all, I’d recommend this book because it’s just fascinating and a really engaging read.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
I love the world in the Gentlemen Bastards series and Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen are the bestest best friends I’ve read in forever. The audiobooks in this series are excellent too

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
The audiobook for this was great and it was fun having an historical and scientific twist on something as fantastical as dragons. I would like to carry on with the series but as I’m putting together my 2023 reading goals, I have a fair few series on the go so not sure when I’d actually get to it.

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
I’m always slightly hesitant about reading a prequel to a book I loved a lot but I shouldn’t have doubted Angie Thomas. Concrete Rose is a great backstory to Starr’s father and the world he grew up in and then moved away from in order to do the best for his children.

An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
I finished my Read the World Project this year and this was my favourite book I read for that project this year. How determined Kpomassie was to travel from Togo to Greenland, crossing Europe and taking just about every form of transportation, is to be admired, and then how he writes about the culture clashes and the things he learnt from his time in Greenland was so interesting.

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
Portrait of a Thief is full of the heist tropes I love (and has many Fast and Furious references), great characters, and is all about culture, art and belonging. I really liked how it talked about how museums in the West get the art that’s in them and who the art really belongs to.

Slade House by David Mitchell
I’m a wuss but I do like a spooky ghost story and how this one is a series of short stories across the decades about one house was really creepy and clever.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven was so good! A grown-up magical story which includes intersectional feminism and complicated friendship dynamics. Loved every character point of view and there were some twists and turns I did not expect.

Himself by Jess Kidd
Himself was one of the first books I read in 2022 and it’s stuck with me all year. It’s a small-town ghost story/mystery that’s very atmospheric and magical but it also manages to have a pretty wry sense of humour too.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Listening to the audiobook narrated by author Reni Eddo-Lodge made Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race all the more impactful. It put into words some of the things I’d been thinking or heard bits about before and just made the puzzle pieces fit together in my brain.

Have you read any of these books? What were your favourite books you read in 2022?

Book Blogger Hop: Are you lost if you don’t have a book to read?

Book Blogger Hop

The short answer is yes. I always have a book on the go. I might not have picked up and read any of that book in four days but it’s on my bedside table or ready to go in my handbag whenever I might need it. I very rarely read more than one physical book at once (I do tend to read an audiobook and a physical/ebook at the same time as I consume them in different places and ways) but I do have a few books piled up by my bed as my would-like-to-pick-up-soon TBR.

I find I have to start a book, even if it takes me a long time to read it. If I finish a book and don’t pretty much immediately choose what book I’m going to read next, that’s when I can end up in an almost reading slump as there’s too much choice and I don’t know what book to read next.

My Reading in 2021 and my Bookish Goals for 2022

It’s the second week of January so it’s about time I took a look back at what I read in 2021, if I met my reading goals (spoiler alert I did not) and what my bookish plans for 2022 are. Like I said when it came to my film watching last year, I think 2021 is when things started to take a bit of a toll and I was very slumpy when it came to my reading especially. I know I didn’t make the time for reading like I have done previously and instead would scroll through social media or watch TV shows.

My 2021 reading goal was to read 52 books but I missed that by a fair bit and ended up reading 42 books of which four were rereads. 42 books isn’t terrible but for me it’s the least amount of books I’ve read in a year since when I was at university where reading for fun took a back seat. I reviewed 36 of them which is more than half so I am happy about that. Side note: on Goodreads and The StoryGraph (which I’m still learning to use and am happy to friend/follow people on there) it says I read 41 books as Why the Sky Moved Away from the Earth by Christine Gnimagnon Adjahi isn’t in their database and I’ve been having some trouble adding it so that’s why my numbers don’t tally up there. As I haven’t really read a lot and not a lot really stuck out to me I haven’t actually done a top ten books of the year but I’ve got a full list of what I’ve read with links to all my reviews if you’d like to see my thoughts on them.

I didn’t have any challenges or big goals in 2021 besides my Read the World Project and trying to get my TBR down. At the start of 2022 I had 41 countries left for my Read the World Project meaning I read 29 books/countries in 2021 and that made up more than half of my reading last year. I ended 2021 with 88 books on my physical/digital TBR which is the exact number I started 2021 with! I didn’t know that until I was looking at last year’s goals and was very surprise by that stat. So while I’ve read books, acquired books, and donated a whole lot of books when I came to terms with the fact I was never going to read them, my actual TBR number hasn’t changed. Quite impressive really.

I like to read an equal amount of books from male and female writers with the presumption that if it’s going to skew one way it’d be towards women and that’s what happened in 2021. I didn’t have a target in mind for how many authors of colour I wanted to read but it ended up being an exact 50/50 split between white authors and authors of colour. Honestly, I probably couldn’t have done that if I’d have tried. The only authors I read multiple books from were Garth Nix and Leigh Bardugo so if we’re going with authors in general, not by their books, I read more different authors of colour in 2021 than different white authors. I hope that makes sense.

Now for my 2022 reading goals.

The main thing is finishing my Read the World Project. I’ve already said I’m extending my deadline until I turn 31 which is at the end of September so that’s pretty much nine months to read 40 (I’ve already read one book this year) books before then. Honestly, I do think it’s doable. I just need to put time aside for reading. A lot of the books I’ve got for this project are on the shorter side at 300 pages or less so I know if I didn’t get distracted, I could probably read a couple of them a week. There are 14 countries I still need to find a book for but I think that’s doable and, in the meantime, I have 26 books/countries to keep me busy.

I will set my Goodreads goal at 52 yet again (maybe this time I’ll hit it) and will aim to review half of all I read. As I review all my Read the World books that should definitely be done. I’ll again suggest getting my TBR down to 75 but we’ll see how that goes. Last year I started getting the book-only Illumicrate subscription from about February I think and to be honest I’ve skipped one month and only read one of the books I’ve been sent. So, in the 10 books I’ve acquired through that, I’ve still got 9 on my TBR. While it’s nice to get a brand-new hardback book that often has a fair bit of hype around it I don’t see the point of me continuing to pay for the subscription if I don’t read the books promptly, especially when they are not my priority at the minute. So this is a sort of note to myself to not have my subscription automatically renewed in a few months and to maybe try and read at least a couple of the books I’ve received via Illumicrate before 2022 is over.

The final challenge I’ve got is the 12 Challenge that was on Instagram/Twitter – 12 months to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. These are the books that was recommended to me for this challenge:
– A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos
– A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
– Slade House by David Mitchell
– Himself by Jess Kidd
– Nina is Not Okay by Shapi Khorsandi
– John Dies at the End by David Wong
– The Cabinent by Un Su Kim
– They Both Die in the End by Adam Silvera
– Darius the Great is Not OK by Adib Khorram
– City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai by Paul French
– She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
– Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
Seven of them are available via my library and two of them I already own so I may have to buy copies of three of them in the year at some point.

Those are my reading goals for 2022. Generally, they’re pretty simple ones and it’s the 12 Challenge that will be pushing me out of my comfort zone a bit. I want to focus up on my reading and try and spend at least 30 minutes a day reading – something that is pretty easy to do if I just put my phone down. Do you have any reading goals for 2022? I’d love to hear them.

Books of 2021

It’s about time I finally started this post. Here are all the books I read this year. My main reading goal for this year is to focus on my Read the World Project and hopefully finish it but not sure how that’s going to go as I have a bit of reading slump going on. You can find out more about what I’m reading on my Twitter and Goodreads.

Without further ado, here’s what I read in 2021! Any titles with asterisks are rereads and if it has a link, that goes to my review.

January:
– The Equestrienne – Uršuľa Kovalyk
– The End of the Dark Era – Tseveendorjin Oidov

February:
– To Best the Boys – Mary Weber
– In Praise of Love and Children – Beryl Gilroy
– Selfie and Other Stories – Nora Nadjarian

March:
– The Ladies are Upstairs – Merle Collins
– Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
– Siege and Storm – Leigh Bardugo
– Ruin and Rising – Leigh Bardugo
– We Are the Ocean – Epeli Hauʻofa

April:
– Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo*
– In The Name Of The Father (& of the Son) – Immanuel Mifsud
– Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo
– The Good Life Elsewhere – Vladimir Lorchenkov

May:
– The Tale of Aypi – Ak Welsapar
– The Silent Steppe: The Story of a Kazakh Nomad under Stalin – Mukhamet Shayakhmetov
– Mother’s Beloved: Stories from Laos – Outhine Bounyavong

June:
– The Unwomanly Face of War – Svetlana Alexievich
– Nature Island Verses – Alick Lazare
– Baho! – Roland Rugero

July:
– The Mysterious Balloon Man – Albert Salvadó
– Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter – Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
– Told by Starlight in Chad – Joseph Brahim Seid

August:
– The Madwoman of Serrano – Dina Salústio
– On Friday Night – Luz Argentina Chiriboga
– Sabriel – Garth Nix*

September:
– The Devil Makes Three – Tori Bovalino
– Hawkeye: Freefall – Matthew Rosenberg and Otto Schmidt
– Beka Lamb – Zee Edgell
– Memoirs of a Reluctant Traveller – Sudesh Mishra
– The Girl Who Fell to Earth: A Memoir – Sophia Al-Maria
– King of Scars – Leigh Bardugo
– Lirael – Garth Nix*

October:
– Abhorsen – Garth Nix*
– Why the Sky Moved Away from the Earth – Christine Gnimagnon Adjahi

November:
– You Can’t Be Serious – Kal Penn
– Coming Up Hot: Eight New Poets from the Caribbean – Multiple authors
– Shepherd of Solitude – Amjad Nasser

December:
– Rule of Wolves – Leigh Bardugo
– Cadence of the Moon – Oscar Núñez Olivas
– The Purple Violet of Oshaantu – Neshani Andreas
– The City Where Dreams Come True – Gulsifat Shahidi

Currently reading:
???

Books read: 42/52
Books reviewed: 36/26

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Ten Books I’ve Recently Taken Off my TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a “Spring Cleaning Freebie”. Some of the suggestions for that vague theme were books you’re planning to get rid of for whatever reason, book’s you’d like to clean off your TBR by either reading them or deciding you’re not interested, books that feel fresh and clean to you after winter is over.

As I recently went through my books (again) and was very harsh with myself over what books I actually still want to read and what ones I want to keep because I liked them a lot – I cut down my seven boxes of books, graphic novels, comics and uni textbooks to just three boxes. I was very impressed with myself. Here are ten of those many books that I decided that I’m no longer interested in reading and have taken them off my TBR, ready to take to a charity shop when they open again.

Sekret by Lindsy Smith
I tried this, only read a chapter or two, couldn’t get into it so put it down and just don’t want to give it another go.

Nevernight by Jay Krstoff
This is another book that I DNF’d a long time ago and have finally decided that I’m not interested in it.

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
I bought a collection of classics maybe eight years ago and this was one of them. I think I read two or three of them but I was finally honest with myself that I’m not going to read any of the others, including this one.

Fractured and Shattered by Teri Terry
I read Slated way back in 2016. I enjoyed it then so I bought the next two books in the trilogy but then never continued on with the series. It’s been so long since I read Slated that I’d have to reread that in order to read the rest of the trilogy and I’m just no longer interested in it.

Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
I had a phase when I was a teenager of collecting and reading autobiographies. This Michael J. Fox one is one I bought then, and I just never read it.

Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva
I can’t remember the reason why I bought this book; I must’ve liked the sound of it when I bought it but now I’m no longer interested.

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
I love the original Bourne movie trilogy, so I thought I’d try the book. Think I bought it when I was in university so that’s almost ten years ago and I’ve never even picked it up, so it was time to give up on that idea.

Tuck by Stephen R. Lawhead
This is the last book in a Robin Hood retelling trilogy where I read the first two, Hood and Scarlet, but never got around to finishing the series. This is another case where it’s been so long since I’ve read them that I’d have to reread the first two, and I don’t have copies of the first two books anymore so that’s just not going to happen.

Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon
Another sort of spy/crime thriller that I bought for some reason and have then never really wanted to read.

Are there any books you plan to spring clean off your TBR?

My reading in 2020 and my bookish goals for 2021

It’s the start of a new year so it’s time to look back at what I read last year, if I met my goals and what my reading aspirations are for 2021. My reading in 2020 started off well and even though for me personally all the terrible things happened in March (my gran, dad and uncle all died in the space of three weeks – none of them covid-related) I actually kept my reading up and had a steady amount of reviews. I think films and books definitely were a big distraction for me in the Spring. It’s towards the end of the year, November/December, time that I got into a big reading slump and just didn’t really want to read anything and struggled with the books I did pick up.

Still, my aim in 2020 was to read 60 books and I read 59. I’m a bit bummed that I just missed that total, especially as I had just over 100 pages of a book to read. That book is The Good Girls by Sara Shepard which I was enjoying but then a character has decided to hide a body when really they probably should’ve called the police (or even just left it there) and it all just seems like it’s just too unbelievable now. Anyway! 59 books is the least amount of books I’ve read in a year for a while now but it’s not surprising when I didn’t really touch a book over the past few months. I reviewed 42 of them while my aim was 30 so that’s good. I’ve got a full list of what I read in 2020 and I’ve already shared my ten favourite books of the year.

Now onto my reading goals. I didn’t sign up for any challenges and instead kept it simple. I did put £1 in a jar for every book I read, but then the world shutdown so I wasn’t going anywhere or spending cash so that didn’t really happen after March. I continued with my Read the World Project and 36 of the books I read were for that, so over half which is good, but I definitely have some catching up to do if I want to meet my original aim of the challenge. I said I’d try again to get my TBR down to 50 books, but I really didn’t try that hard. I did have a big clear out and donated about 20 unread books from my shelves, but I’d also been acquiring a lot of books (mostly for the Read the World Project) so while I started the year with 85 books on my TBR, I’ve ended 2020 with 88 books on my TBR. I don’t think that’s too terrible!

I always try to keep an equal split of male/female authors – or if I do read more then have it be women and I succeeded in that with over 60% of the books I read being by women, and almost 12% were written by both men and women. I said I wanted to have at least 30% of the books I read to be by people of colour and I smashed that target! Over half of the books I read were people of colour and I think the Read the World Project definitely helped with that as I read more books by African and Caribbean authors in 2020.

Now for my 2021 reading goals.

With everything that happened last year, and still is happening this year, I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. I will be continuing with my Read the World Project and making that a priority. The goal of this project was to read a book from every country in the world before I turned 30 – that happens at the end of September this year and I have 70 books/countries to read and only have 16 books/countries on my TBR. If I’m being honest, I think there’s no way I’m going to read 70 books between now and September and there’s the fact I still need to find/acquire books for over 50 countries still. I think my new goal will be to complete the Read the World Project while I’m still 30 so that does give me an extra 12 months and I hope that’s doable. If you have any suggestions for international authors/books please do let me know. I’m keeping track of all the countries I’ve read so far here.

I’m going to set my Goodreads goal at 52 books, and I’ll aim to review at least half of them. I continue to want to read diversely, and it’d be nice to get my TBR down but I think at the moment with my Read the World Project it’s not realistic to set my TBR goal as 50 books, so instead I’ll put it at 75 – we shall see what happens.

Those are my reading goals for 2021. Very nice and simple ones that will hopefully mean I’m not getting stressed by reading and I hope to get out of my reading slump soon. Do you have any reading goals for 2021? I’d love to hear them.

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Favourite Books of 2020

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. It’s that time of year again, 2020 – which often seemed to last forever – is coming to an end. I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump over the past month or so but I have read almost 60 books this year and some of them were pretty great.

Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble by Graham Hunter
This may be my favourite books of the year. It was such a fun trip down memory lane, reliving all the highs of Spain’s Euros and World Cup, there were anecdotes and facts and while some things I knew or remembered from watching the matches, there was a lot I didn’t.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
I didn’t write a review for Clap When You Land but I did do an Instagram post on it because it really knocked me for six. This is the first book I’d ever read in verse and it was fantastic.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
This was a sad and frustrating graphic memoir but one that I think was really interesting and important.

Hawkeye: Kate Bishop Vol. 1: Anchor Points by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, Michael Walsh and Jordie Bellaire
I read all three volumes of Hawkeye: Kate Bishop this year so this really counts as the whole series. It’s fun seeing Kate try and become a private investigator and all her new friends were nice additions.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
I’m a wuss so I very rarely read or watch horror stories, but I ended up liking Dread Nation far more than I thought I would. It’s action-packed and how it twists history.

Love in No Man’s Land by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga
This is one of my Read the World Project reads of the year. I thought it was a very descriptive and beautiful story about people who are so different to myself.

The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard
This was a very quick read about a prank got wrong and murder and girls standing up for one another. I’m still reading the sequel, The Good Girls, and I’m looking forward to how it all turns out.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
This is a book I had for ages and I’m equal parts pleased I finally got around to reading it and annoyed it took me so long because I really did love it. I listened to the audiobook and it was fantastic, and I plan to read the rest of the series that way.

The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
I think this was the saddest book I read this year and it really hit me in the emotions like a gut punch.

West Coast Avengers Vol. 1: Best Coast by Kelly Thompson, Stefano Caselli and Triona Farrell
I read both volumes of this in 2020 and it’s such a fun series with larger-than-life characters and great relationships between them all.

What are some of your favourite books you’ve read this year?