Autumn Activities Book Tag

There’s really only a few weeks of autumn left this year, but it’s never too late for a fun tag, in my opinion! The Fall Activities Book Tag (which I have conveniently re-named) was originally created by Ashley from Dreaming Through Literature, and I was tagged by Ariana from The Quirky Book Nerd – be sure to check out her great answers to these prompts, too!

1) Apple picking – a book on your TBR that looks so delicious you can’t wait to take a bite out of it.

There are a lot of books on my TBR at the moment that I’m really excited about, but the one I’m most eager for is undoubtedly Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. Six of Crows was amazing, and I can’t wait to see where the story’s going to go next!

2) Corn maze – a book that’s fun to get lost in.

I could pick any number of books for this prompt (mostly fantasy), but among those is the series I’m currently working my way through: The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski! So much is going on in these books that it’s a little difficult to follow at times, but it’s also incredibly engrossing, and I’m having a tonne of fun reading it. XD

3) Haunted house – a book that scared you silly.

I don’t read a lot of scary books (because I’m a bit of a wimp), but the graphic novel Through the Woods by Emily Carroll has some seriously creepy stories in it – including an actual haunted house! 😉 The art is wonderfully creepy, too, and it makes for a perfect Halloween read.

4) Pumpkin patch – the latest book you purchased.

The last book I picked up (for myself, at least) was the new illustrated edition of Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, which is a thing of beauty. ❤ There don’t seem to be quite as many illustrations as in the first book, but what there is is really lovely.

5) Scenic drive – a book that is beautifully written.

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente is so beautifully written that it’s practically poetry; the way she phrases things is unusual, but in a way that gives her words incredible power. I’ve not read any of Valente’s other works yet, but I’m definitely looking forward to the day when I finally pick some of them up.

6) Pumpkin carving – a book you wouldn’t mind carving up.

For a complete change of tone, I definitely wouldn’t mind chopping up Soulmates by Holly Bourne, and maybe tossing the pieces on a bonfire afterwards. I very rarely read a book and feel like I’ve wasted my time entirely (even with books that I didn’t enjoy), but this one was so bad that it actually made me angry.

7) Hiking – a book that was an enjoyable romp.

The word “romp” makes me think of adventures more than anything, so for this I decided to pick something a bit more lighthearted and fun, so… Railhead by Philip Reeve! This story didn’t stand still even for a moment, and I enjoyed it so much that it was difficult to put it down, even for necessary things like eating and sleeping. 😛 [Review.]

8) Apple cider – a book to curl up under the covers with.

My ultimate comfort read – as I’ve mentioned about a million times before – is Street Magic by Tamora Pierce (or anything by her, really, but Street Magic is my favourite), so that’s the book I turn to if I ever want to huddle up in bed for a whole day… if I’m ill, or just miserable – or cold, as the case may be. 😉 I also listen to the audiobook of it a lot, whenever I’m out and about and sick of music; it’s a wonderful production.

9) Jumping in leaves – a book that reminds you of your childhood.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis are hugely nostalgic for me. I remember first starting to read them when I was staying at my granny’s house for Christmas, and – once the holiday was over and I’d gone home – having to beg my parents for my own copies so that I could carry on reading. 😀

10) Scary movie night – your favourite spooky read.

As I said already, I’m not a huge fan of scary stories, but I did (finally) read Dracula by Bram Stoker earlier this year, and ended up really enjoying it. I wouldn’t say that I found it particularly spooky, but I reckon it still qualifies. 🙂 [Review.]

11) Costume party – a book with an eclectic cast of characters.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers has a wonderfully varied cast of characters, who are really the driving force behind this story. Every member of the Wayfarer‘s crew is fully developed and sympathetic, and has an interesting story to tell… a good thing, since – stuck on a trip through deep space – there’s not much going on plot-wise. [Review.]

July Wrap-Up

July is over, and I’ve read a truly surprising amount! I think I can safely say that I’m now out of my minor reading slump (hopefully for good!). In all, I managed to read 9 novels, and two short stories last month, and although there were a couple of duds in the mix, most of them were really enjoyable! 😀 Here’s what I thought of them:

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr. The follow up to Wicked Lovely, which I enjoyed but didn’t think was particularly wonderful. In fact, I mainly read that book because I thought this one sounded interesting when I stumbled across a second-hand copy at work. 😉 Luckily, my book-sense has yet to lead me astray; Ink Exchange was a big improvement on its predecessor. The story follows Aislinn’s friend Leslie, who is struggling to deal with her often-absent father and her abusive brother, and – the cherry on top – catches the eye of Irial, King of the Dark Court of Faerie. Naturally, the plot of this book was a lot darker and more serious, but I also felt that the main characters were much more relatable and enjoyable to read than Aislinn & Keenan were. The love triangle in this book, too, was a lot more palatable than the one in Wicked Lovely, since (despite the less-than-altruistic reasons for Irial’s interest in Leslie) there seemed to be a lot more genuine affection between the three of them; right up to the end, I had no idea who Leslie would decide to be with (if anyone).The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss. A novella set in the Kingkiller Chronicle universe, which follows Auri about her strange, everyday life. This story seems to have sparked a lot of controversy with Rothfuss’ fans – they either love it or hate it – but I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed it! Not much happens in the story, there’s no dialogue whatsoever, and Auri is the only character who appears, but I loved the atmosphere that Rothfuss was able to create, and the insight into Auri’s mind (and I suspect that she is much cleverer than she appears to be), and how the inanimate objects around Auri really seemed like living, feeling things.A Trick I Learned from Dead Men by Kitty Aldridge. A short-ish novel that follows a young man who’s training as an undertaker while supporting his deaf brother and depressed stepfather. This was my Library Scavenger Hunt pick for July, so I have a mini-review of it up already. 🙂Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles. A romance between a teenager called Brittany who – due to some problems at home – feels the need to always be seen as perfect, and Alex, a classmate of hers from a dangerous part of town, who joined a gang in order to get protection for his family. I downloaded this mostly on a whim, and regretted it a bit afterwards, since I’ve heard very mixed things about the series, but I actually really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s incredibly cheesy in places, and there were bits of Alex and Brittany’s dialogue that came across as laughably unrealistic, and there was a 23-years-later epilogue that really annoyed me (as unnecessary last-minute flash-forwards always do)… but it was also a lot of fun to read, and pretty well-written. I don’t know if I’m likely to pick up the rest of the series, but I don’t regret reading this one, at least.

Before I could finish anything else, Booktubeathon came along! I managed to read a grand total of five books over the course of the readathon (which is pretty good, if I do say so myself, especially considering how busy I was that week), all of which I’ve written mini-reviews for – you can read them by clicking on the covers:

    

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. A fantastic novel about a man who, after finding an injured young woman on the side of the road and deciding to help her, gets dragged into the mysterious world of London Below, where people end up when they fall through the cracks of society. In an effort to reclaim his life, he ends up going on an adventure with Door (the aforementioned young woman), who’s trying to solve the mystery of her family’s murder. I loved absolutely everything about this book: The memorable characters, the beautiful writing, the whole world of London Below (which was incredibly bizarre, but also managed to make an odd sort of sense). The way that the story progressed was quite similar to Stardust, and I therefore found the ending a little predictable, but I was so enchanted that I didn’t even mind.

Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines. The first book in The Field Party series, which is a romance between a football player called West, who’s struggling to deal with his father’s cancer, and a girl called Maggie, who hasn’t spoken since her mother died. I’ve written a full review of this book, where you can read all my (numerous) thoughts about the story and characters, etc. – you can find it here.

#BookTubeAThon 2016: Update 5 & Mini-Review

JUST FINISHED: Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Engaged as a solicitor to Count Dracula, to assist him in acquiring a house in England, Jonathan Harker comes to Transylvania to meet the man himself. Over the course of his stay, however, he finds himself becoming more and more suspicious that the Count is much more than he appears.

By which I mean that he’s a vampire, of course. And that’s not a spoiler; everyone and their mother knows that Dracula is a vampire – the most famous literary vampire ever to have existed. More famous even than Edward Cullen! 😉 Something I didn’t know about this book, however, was just how long it is (I don’t think I’ve ever come across a physical copy of it)… so it took me much longer to read than I was expecting. But I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed it! The characters were well fleshed-out, and I really liked all of them, especially Mina and Lucy; I even think it may have passed the Bechdel test, which is a big surprise coming from a book written in the nineteenth century. 😀

The plot was also really well thought out, and very interesting, with mostly good pacing. There were a couple of places where it dragged a little (particularly while Van Helsing and company were planning how to deal with their vampire problem), but usually I found that the scenes that seemed unnecessary when I was reading them became more integral to the story as it went on. Overall, I had a really great time reading this, and I’m glad that I finally decided to pick it up. 🙂

[An addendum re: the film:
Dracula has been adapted a great many times, but the version I watched was the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi, which was greatly abridged from the book, and in a few startling ways: For instance, the character of Jonathan Harker’s role seems to have been greatly reduced, and the part he played in the book was given instead to Renfield – most of the characters, in fact, are mangled beyond belief… For the most part, the changes seem to make sense, if you consider that all the events of the book couldn’t possibly have fit into an hour-long film, and it does make a cohesive and enjoyable story in itself, but I was expecting the best-known adaptation of Dracula to be a little more faithful to its source material.]

CURRENT READATHON STATUS: Booktubeathon is now over! And I didn’t manage to finish all the challenges, but I did at least get most of them – which is an achievement, considering how busy I’ve been this week! I didn’t actually finish the film of Dracula (which was part of one of the challenges) until just after midnight, but I’m still counting it, as that was mostly the fault of my (incredibly slow) internet connection.

Books Completed: 5
Pages Read: 1440
Challenges Completed: 6

#BookTubeAThon TBR!

It’s Booktubeathon time, people! (Almost.) Are you excited? I’m excited, as you can probably tell from all my rambling. XD And imminent readathons mean it’s time for TBRs!

As always, I’ve tried to line up my TBR to meet the Booktubeathon challenges, but this year I’ve had to add a few restrictions, too, for practical reasons: Since I have a job now, I’ll be working on most weekdays, so I’ve tried to pick a few shorter books, and I’ll also be going on holiday towards the end of the readathon, and am not planning on taking any physical books with me, so most of the books I’ve chosen are also ones that I have on my kindle… Lastly, I’ve been pretty indecisive lately about what I want to read, so I may well change my mind about some of the books on this list – but here is my tentative TBR:

1) Read a book with yellow on the cover.

This will probably be the first book I pick up for the readathon, and if all goes to plan, it will also be the only physical book on my TBR: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, a birthday present from my sister that I’m super-excited for. 😀

2) Read a book only after sunset.

To be honest, I have no idea what I’ll be reading for this challenge, and it will probably just end up being whatever I happen to be reading when I’m on the overnight train to Skye. Thematically, it would be quite nice to combine this with challenges 5 & 6, but you’ll have to read on to see why… 😉

3) Read a book you discovered through booktube.

This challenge is the one I’m most looking forward to, as I’m finally going the be able to read An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir! I’ve been wanting to read this book for such a long time, but it was just too expensive – until a few days ago, when the price suddenly dropped to 99p in the Kindle Summer Sale ❗

4) Read a book by a favourite author.

Again, there were a couple of things that I thought about picking for this challenge, but at long last, I managed to settle on Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson, which is a short story that doesn’t seem to be tied in with any of his other series… Of his other books, I’ve only read the Mistborn trilogy so far, but I adored them, so I’m hoping that this one will be really great, too.

5) Read a book that’s older than you & 6) Read and watch a book-to-movie adaptation.

I thought I’d combine these two challenges with a classic, since I’ve been meaning to read more of them this year, and there are a lot of adaptations to choose from, so I decided to go trawling through the unread classics on my kindle and my shiny new Netflix account to see if I could find a match. There were three, but I’m currently leaning towards Dracula by Bram Stoker, as it’s quite a bit shorter than the other two…

7) Read seven books.

So, as it stands, I have a total of four books that I’m planning to read, but if I want to complete all the challenges, I’m going to need to pick out three more! 😀 What those three end up being will probably largely depend on my mood at the time, but there are a couple that are looking quite likely. Namely: Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines, which I just downloaded a couple of days ago, The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman, the sequel to The Invisible Library, which I read a few months ago, and was really pleasantly surprised by… What I’ll pick for the last book, I haven’t the foggiest.

The Classics Book Tag!

This tag was created by Vienna at It’s a Book World, and you can find the original post here. I wasn’t tagged by anyone (I just wanted to do this for fun~ 🙂 ), but I first came across it on the youtube channel perpetualpages. Now onto the tag!

1) What’s an over-hyped classic that you didn’t like?

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. I wouldn’t say that it was over-hyped, exactly, so much as just not really to my taste. It made its point very well, and it was certainly interesting, I just didn’t enjoy it all that much.

2) What’s your favourite time period to read about?

Probably Regency England, as that was the time period Jane Austen wrote about, but to be honest I don’t really have a favourite time period. With me, it’s always more about the story than the setting.

3) What’s your favourite fairytale?

Growing up, I was particularly attached to the The Swan Princess (a cartoon adaptation of Swan Lake, which was itself adapted from a Russian folk-tale, though it seems uncertain which one or ones), as well as the Disney version of Robin Hood (I didn’t read all that much when I was little). These days, I’m probably most fond of The Goose Girl and Beauty and the Beast…

4) What classic are you most embarrassed not to have read yet?

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, without a doubt. I’ve been meaning to read it for such a long time, and so many people have told me that it’s their favourite classic…

5) What are the top five classics that you would like to read soon?

    

6) What’s your favourite modern book (or series) that’s based on a classic?

(Having not read very many of these, I’ll be going back to fairytales for this question!) Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles are the first thing to come to mind, since they’re fantastic. The first three books in the series are based on, respectively, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel.

Philip Pullman’s I was a Rat! is another great take on Cinderella, as is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levigne, and Shannon Hale has also written a great series called The Books of Bayern, the first of which is based on the Brothers Grimm tale, The Goose Girl.

7) What’s your favourite film or TV adaptation of a classic?

Ehle & Firth as Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy.

There a several that I really love, but the one I always come back to is the 1995 BBC mini-series of Pride & Prejudice, starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

A couple of honourable mentions: The 2004 adaptation of North & South, with Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage, and the 1979 take on the Flambards series, with Christine McKenna.

8) What’s your least favourite film or TV adaptation?

Usually if I don’t like an adaptation, then I’ll stop watching it, so there aren’t really any that I can really say I hated, but what I saw of the 1975 version of North & South  (with Patrick Stewart) was so bad it was funny, and I also wasn’t a huge fan of the 2005 movie of Pride & Prejudice (with Keira Knightly & Matthew Macfadyen) – the imagery was beautiful, but the story was far too rushed…

9) What editions do you/would you like to collect?

The Folio Society publishes beautiful editions of most classics, but they tend to be rather pricey, so…

… I usually buy the (also very lovely) Vintage Classics editions instead.

10) What’s an under-hyped classic that you’d recommend to everyone?

Most of my all-time favourites are very well-known (Pride & Prejudice, Emma, North & South, etc.), but one that I don’t often hear people talking about is Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time, which tells the story of a girl called Penelope who finds herself slipping back and forth between 1934 and the 16th century, where Mary, Queen of Scots is imprisoned in Chartley Castle. It’s a really wonderful book, and its a shame that not that many people seem to have read it…