This is my birthday weekend and by pure chance my husband has the weekend off so it’s been lovely spending time with him. He spoilt me with lots of new books, which I will either post pics of in a book haul this week or in my Stacking the Shelves post on Saturday. I did know about some of the books but some were surprises so it was a nice mix. He also had a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered, which was lovely.
We celebrated my birthday with a takeaway as I wasn’t well enough to go out but that was still really lovely. I want to see the new Trainspotting film but the cinema is really difficult for me to manage but I’m hoping we can see it in the next week or so as a belated birthday treat.
I’ve been slowly de-cluttering my house again since the beginning of the year, having been inspired by reading Unf*ck Your Life by Rachel Hoffman. Yesterday my husband took ten full bin bags of clothes, shoes, handbags and books to the charity shop for me. It feels really good to have got rid of so much, and I still have more sorting out to do so I expect there to be more for the charity shop soon. I’ve been listening to audiobooks whilst decluttering so I’m still getting lots of reading done.
This week I’ve finished reading five books:
The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
This book is wonderful, I adored every single second I spent reading it. I’ll be writing my review of this soon and hope to have it up on my blog in the next week or so.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I can’t believe I thought this book wouldn’t be for me for such a long time purely because I’m not a gamer. I’m so glad I gave it a chance, it’s such a good read. I especially loved all of the 80s references and was on the edge of my seat as the quest reached it’s final stage! This wasn’t an ARC but I may still review it on my blog if I get time.
I enjoyed this thriller for the most part but it did take a turn that I thought was gimmicky and it took away from my enjoyment a little. I reviewed this book on my blog last week and you can read that here if you’d like to.
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
This book has been on my TBR since it was first published but the length of it it put me off picking it up. I’m so pleased that I finally got to it as it was a brilliant read. I still keep thinking about it and highly recommend it.
This is a brilliantly creepy and sinister read. I almost didn’t pick it up as I’m easily scared but the great writing in this book over-rode my fear factor and I couldn’t put it down. I reviewed it last week so you can read my thoughts here if you’d like to.
This week I’ve blogged six times:
(Click the links next to the day of the week if you’d like to read the posts)
Sunday: Weekly Wrap- Up
Monday: Review of Loving the Life Less Lived by Gail Marie Mitchell
Tuesday: Review of Rattle by Fiona Cummins
Wednesday: WWW Wednesday
Friday: Review of The Girl Before by JP Delaney
Saturday: Stacking the Shelves
This is what I’m currently reading:
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian
I haven’t hauled this book yet as it was one of my birthday gifts but I immediately started reading it so wanted to add it in to this post. I’m only a couple of chapters in so far but I’m enjoying it. I’m a big fan of Chris Bohjalian’s novels so was very excited to receive this surprise gift.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
This book has been on my TBR for ages but I always put off picking it up because it’s huge! This year I’m trying to read as many books off my TBR as I can to reduce it but I wanted to make sure that I factor in reading the books that have been on my TBR for a really long time. I’m very much enjoying this novel, I’m about a third of the way through it and it’s keeping me hooked.
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
I’ve been slow getting to read this book as it’s a print book and I’ve had a bad week so it’s been a struggle to hold print books. I am enjoying this novel though and now I’m feeling a bit better I hope to read this book in full over the next couple of days.
The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley
I’m still very much enjoying this book. It’s taking me a while purely because it’s a big, heavy hardback and it’s a struggle for me to hold it and turn the pages at times. It’s a great biography though and I recommend I highly recommend it.
Update on my TBR…
TBR at the start of January 2017: 1885 (see my State of the TBR post)
TBR in last week’s Weekly Wrap-Up: 1880
Books bought/received for review: 8
Birthday books added 28 Jan: 21
TBR Books culled this week: 4
TBR now stands at: 1899
RatherTooFondofBooks 
Go you on the great declutter! Himself and I have been talking about doing this for AGES. We’ve now been living here for twenty-something years and the whole house is completely silted up with stuff which is driving me crazy. I now know what I need – an audio book facility! You have also had a great reading and blogging week. The Bowie book looks awesome, though I appreciate it must be a struggle to hold and I very much hope this coming week is a better one healthwise. My Sunday Post – http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/2017/01/sunday-post-250-hats-balloons-and-cake.html
I’m really enjoying my declutter – I can only do a bit at a time but I’ve already got rid of so much stuff. I have to strike when the ruthless mood hits! I highly recommend Audible for audio books – I love being able to read whilst getting other things done.
One of the things on my To Do list during Himself’s upcoming spring break…
Happy Birthday, and yes, it is great to declutter the house. I’ve had to do it because I’ve moved from houses to apartments. No room for clutter. Lol
Thank you. We don’t have a lot of storage in our house either so I try to have a declutter every once in a while.
Good morning =Günaydın 🙂
english = Turkish
Happy Birthday Hayley and books really are the best presents to receive! I hope you are well enough to get to watch the movie soon x
Thank you 🙂 x
Happy birthday! The Keeper of Lost Things is so pretty. I’ll watch out for you’re review.
Thank you! 🙂 The Keeper of Lost Things was wonderful. I’m struggling to write my review as I loved it so much but I hope to have a review up in the next week or so.
Happy birthday!!! 🙂
I’m looking forward to read your review for The Keeper of Lost Things.
The Luminaries has also been on my tbr list for ages. I hope to read it this year, but I still don’t know when that’ll be.
The Roanoke Girls looks so good. I had my eyes on that novel since it was first announced on Twitter, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get an ARC.
I’ll go and see what books you got. 🙂
Thank you 🙂 The Luminaries is well worth picking up – I’m almost halfway through it now and it’s got me completely engrossed.
Happy Birthday Hayley. Books are the best gift to receive. Luminaries is a great read although the size of the book is huge. Just have to manage to balance it while reading 🙂
Get well soon.
Thank you 🙂 I ended up buying the ebook of The Luminaries and swapping to that as my print book was just too heavy to hold. I’m really enjoying the novel so much.
Getting an e-book totally slipped my mind….I carried around the hard copy while reading it! How dumb am I?
On the plus side, it’ll have built up your arm muscles whilst carrying it around and holding it to read! 😉 I was just finding it too heavy and awkward but I was enjoying the story so much so decided that the ebook would be the way to go.
Happy birthday! Sounds as though you had a lovely time, and that’s great. You’re in the middle of such interesting books, too, and so varied. I hope you’ll enjoy them all. And about clutter? I always think it’s good to de-clutter when you can…
Thank you 🙂
Isn’t it a great feeling to clear things out of the house and let someone else have them? Happy Birthday!
Thank you 🙂 Yes, it’s such a great feeling sorting out the clutter and giving things away. My husband took ten huge bin bags of clothes, shoes, books etc to the charity shop for me at the weekend and I feel so much better for it.
Happy birthday! I am glad your husband could spend the day with you and did nice things for you. Hope you make it to the movies this week.
Thank you 🙂
Happy birthday Hayley ! I hope you’ll be able to finish The Roanoke Girls! I look forward to your review on that one!
Thank you 🙂
Happy birthday!! 🎉🥂 Glad to hear about your bookish presents 🎁
Thank you 🙂
Happy Birthday Hayley, can’t believe after your Christmas book haul that your husband had any ideas left 😁 He clearly did well another 21! Happy Reading xx
Thank you! 🙂 I know… he keeps looking around at the state of my bookcases but I’ve said he can’t complain when he’s bought me so many of them recently! x
Happy birthday! This is a great post. I really want to read THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS and READY PLAYER ONE.
Thank you 🙂 Both of those books are brilliant and I highly recommend them.
Happy birthday and sounds like you’ve had a great weekend! I thought The Girl Before looked interesting…
Thank you 🙂
A couple of familiar books there.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I hope you’ve had a nice weekend, despite not being well and being busy with decluttering. I did a bit when I moved but I seem to have accumulated a lot of junk in my study which I really must do something about!
Have a lovely week!
Thank you 🙂 I tend to do a big declutter a couple of times a year as I’m naturally quite untidy so it’s good to have a proper clear out every so often and get back on track.
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Happy Birthday Hayley, books are just the greatest gift. I’m sorry you couldn’t go out (I know how that feels) but I’m glad you had a lovely time and got to enjoy it with your husband. xx
Thank you 🙂 xx
It’s my birthday today & I have book tokens! Thanks for some ideas!
Hope I haven’t missed your birthday, dear Hayley. Many happy returns for whenever it was/is! xXx
Wishing you a belated happy birthday! I hope you had a lovely day and that you found some wonderful books to spend your book tokens on. My birthday was on Saturday, thank you for the good wishes. 🙂 xxx
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