Tag Archives: Graeme Simsion

February 2017 Wrap-Up!

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February has been an up and down month. There have been stressful things to deal with, and medical appointments and tests to get through. There was also a broken Kindle Voyage (eek!). Things eventually began to be sorted out and towards the end of the month I got a replacement Kindle through the warranty, and we got some unexpected good news in the post. My husband had two weeks off from work and whilst I wasn’t well enough for us to do much, it was lovely to have the time together.

It’s been a fab reading month, I still can’t quite believe how many great books I read in February! Unfortunately, whilst I’ve been reading a lot I’m struggling to write reviews at the moment. This, in part, is because I lost my notes when my Kindle malfunctioned so I will have to write reviews from memory (and my memory is awful), but also because I’m in the middle of altering my medication and it’s a struggle for me to get my words down coherently. I may have to just write some very short, basic reviews in order to catch up as the amount I now have waiting to be written is starting to stress me out.

 

Here are the 26 books I read this month:

Well-Read Women by Samantha Hahn

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

The Secrets of Happiness by Lucy Diamond

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

Rage by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

F*cking Apostrophes by Simon Griffin

Just Kids by Patti Smith

A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah

Watch Me by Angela Clarke

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

The Child Who by Simon Lelic

Final Girls by Riley Sager

The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley

Black Wood by SJI Holliday

The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla

The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

It’s All Absolutely Fine by Ruby Elliot

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

Everything but the Truth by Gillian McAllister

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

 

Here are the blog posts I wrote:

I wrote my regular blog posts – WWW Wednesday, Stacking the Shelves every Saturday and a weekly wrap-up on a Sunday. Other than that I shared my January wrap-up post at the beginning of February. I also wrote about my fabulous birthday book haul too. I didn’t manage to write and post any reviews, which I’m really down about but as I said earlier life is getting in the way at the moment. Hopefully I can catch up soon.

 

 

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The state of my TBR:

In January, I wrote a post about the state of my TBR and made a plan to try and read more of the books I already owned. This has already proved to be rather more difficult than I anticipated… I have read a lot more of my own books, rather than just focusing on new ones, but I’ve also been buying a lot of books. I did join the Mount TBR challenge on Goodreads in February though and have pledged to read at least 100 books that were on my TBR before the end of 2016 and have so far read 26 books that counted for that. This means that half of the books I’ve read this year so far have been my already owned books, and half were new or review books so am pleased with that ratio at the moment.

I’m also in the middle of a sort out of both my kindle books and my print books and am trying to make sure that all the books that are on my TBR are books that I really want to read. Anything that doesn’t appeal anymore is going to be deleted from my Kindle or taken to the charity shop. I’m also becoming much more okay with DNFing books – I’m fast realising that life is too short to push on with books that I’m really not enjoying. The combination of DNFing books and having an ongoing book cull has meant my TBR is currently going in the right direction! I now have 1861 unread books (as of 28 Feb), down from 1885 at the start of the year and hopefully I can keep reading my way through the TBR mountain.

 

 

How was your February? Did you read any good books? Please tell me what your favourite book from February was, and if you have a February wrap-up post on your blog please feel free to share the link below.

 

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Weekly Wrap-Up (5 Feb)

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I don’t have much news from this week, it’s been quite a quiet week really. I’ve been slowly carrying on with my decluttering and have filled another three huge bin bags with either things for the charity shop, or rubbish. I’m still feeling ruthless so will be carrying on with the decluttering for a while yet! I need to get around to clearing some shelf space as currently all the lovely books I got for my birthday are in a box as there is literally no space to put them on any of my bookcases or shelves! Eeeek!

This week I’ve finished reading three books:

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

I had the ebook of this on my TBR for ages but just never got around to it so when I spotted it on an Audible deal recently I snapped it up. I’ve listened to it over the course of a couple of days and it was ok. I think the book has been so hyped for so long that it was going to be a huge ask for it to live up to. It was enjoyable enough but I was a bit disappointed.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

I love love love this book! It was close to 900 pages long and I’ve read it over the last ten days or so – I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it, and now I’ve finished it I really miss it. It made me remember how much I used to adore reading big books and I’m definitely going to make more effort to read longer books. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet.

Well-Read Women by Samantha Hahn

This is a book I got for my birthday and I adore it. It’s such a beautiful book and whilst it’s only 112 pages and is predominantly paintings I’ve added it as a read book here because I literally spent a few hours looking at the paintings and reading the quotes. This is a fabulous book for a book lover – I’m definitely going to be buying copies as gifts in the future.

This week I’ve blogged five times:

Sunday: Weekly Wrap-Up (29 Jan) where I shared all my book, blogging and real life news from the previous week.

Wednesday: WWW Wednesday (1 Feb) where I shared what I was currently reading, what I’d recently read and what I was hoping to read next.

Thursday: January Wrap-Up where I wrapped up the first month of 2017, sharing all the books I’d read, links to all my reviews and blog posts, and how my plan to reduce my TBR was going.

Friday: My Birthday Book Haul where I shared my huge haul of books that I was lucky enough to receive for my birthday last weekend.

Saturday: Stacking the Shelves where I wrote about the books I bought myself or received for review over the last seven days.

 

This is what I’m currently reading:

Books for Living by Will Schwalbe

I completely and utterly fell in love with Will Schwalbe’s previous book so I’ve been really keen to read this one. So far the book is wonderful but unfortunately my copy is from NetGalley and the formatting is making it very hard for me to read. I’m considering putting it to one side for now and buying my own copy to read. 

The Good Immigrant ed. by Nikesh Shukla 

This is a book that I’ve been wanting to read for ages so when I spotted it for the bargain price of £2.99 on Kindle this week I snapped it up. I’ve read the first four essays so far and it’s a very thought-provoking read. I want to read this slowly and give myself time to really think about what’s being said so I’m reading an essay or two each day. I definitely recommend it though. 

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

When I started reading this it seemed very different from Station Eleven (which I read a few years ago and completely adored) but as I get further into it and more and more layers are peeled back it’s really clear how the author got from here to there. I’m really enjoying this book.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

This book, like the two below, is a really enjoyable novel but my reading of it is being hampered by my struggles with holding a physical book at the moment. The novel itself is really engaging though and I would recommend it.

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

This is a really heavy , stiff paperback book to hold so I’m struggling to hold it open to read. I’m enjoying the story but may have to give up on this one until I can get hold of an ebook version.

The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley

I’m still enjoying this book but the format is slowing my reading down. My husband is thinking of getting the audio book version as I’ve been recommending the book to him ever since I started reading it so I may well end up listening to it with him.

 

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: 1889

Books bought/received for review: 12

TBR Books culled this week: 0

TBR now stands at: 1904

I really hope to at least get my TBR back under 1900 this month – ideally by reading lots of my own books and not accumulating more, but I do need to do a cull at some point too to make room for my birthday books.

 

SundayBlogShare

I’m linking this post up to Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer’s Sunday Blog Share.  It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

 

How has your week been? What have you been reading? Please share in the comments below. If you write a wrap-up on your blog please feel free to share the link. 🙂

Stacking the Shelves (21 Jan)

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(Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews, which is all about sharing the books that you’ve acquired in the past week – ebooks or physical books, and books you’ve bought or borrowed or received an ARC of.)

 

The plans I made two weeks ago in my State of my TBR post to try and focus more on the books I already own isn’t going too well. This week I have more new books on my TBR. The only good news is that I’m reading a lot at the moment so my TBR isn’t increasing too much.

This week I’ve bought four new books:

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman 

This book has been on my wishlist for ages so when I noticed the hardback drop in price in a recent sale I grabbed it! I’m so looking forward to finally getting to read this book.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion 

I bought this in a recent Audible deal of the day. I really enjoy listening to audiobooks, especially when I’m not able to hold a print book or my kindle for very long due to pain. I know I must be the last person to get to reading this book but better late than never, and I am looking forward to listening to it now I finally have a copy!

The Elephant in the Room by Jon Ronson 

This is a Kindle Single so a very short book. It’s about the Republican campaign so a very timely read and so one I want to get to very, very soon.

The Six-Foot Bonsai by Stacy Gleiss

A fellow blogger commented on my WWW Wednesday post this week to say that this is what she was currently reading and it sounded so fascinating that I immediately looked it up on Amazon. As it was available on Kindle Unlimited I decided to download it straight away and give it a go.

Books I received for review:

Books for Living by Will Schwalbe 

Will Schwalbe’s book The End of Your Life Bookclub is one of my favourite books and I added it to a list I made about books that help you through grief (you can read that blog post here: Books to help you through grieving). I adore that book and so when I found out that he had another book about books coming out soon I couldn’t resist requesting a review copy. This won’t be on my TBR for very long, I can’t wait to read it.

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

I heard about this book recently and thought it sounded really interesting. I’m very much looking forward to reading this.

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui

Last year was the year I finally gave graphic novels and memoirs a try and I couldn’t believe I’d avoided them for so long. I really enjoyed the ones I read – one even made my Top non-fiction reads of 2016, which you can read about here: My Top Ten Non-Fiction Reads 2016 and two others made the honourable mentions section of my best fiction reads, which you can read about here: Top Ten Fiction Reads 2016. In 2017 I’d like to continue to pick up some graphic novels or memoirs so when I saw this one on NetGalley I immediately requested it.

The Affair by Amanda Brooke

I was sent an invitation to read this book via NetGalley and decided to give it a go. I don’t know if it’ll be my kind of read or not but I’m always happy to try something different when it comes to books.

 

So, that’s all of my new books from the past week. Have you bought any new books recently? Tell me all in the comments below, or if you have a stacking the shelves post on your blog feel free to post the link below too.:)

My weekly wrap up post will be on my blog tomorrow so please look out for that.