Category: sunday summary

Sunday Summary – 9th May 2021

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Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Sunday Summary weekly update post. As always, I hope you’ve had a really good week wherever and whatever you’ve been doing!

There’s been a lot going on over here at Reviewsfeed. My blogging schedule has had a bit of a shakeup this week – I posted three times by Wednesday! Normally my posts are a lot more spread out, however, I was taking part in blog tours back to back on Tuesday and Wednesday. Furthermore, I also wanted to share my monthly wrap-up for April before those posts went live. So, my April Monthly Wrap-up was posted on Monday, my blog tour extract post for Glasshouse by Morwenna Blackwood published on Tuesday and my guest post for The Legacy by Alison Knight was shared on Wednesday. Phew!

Given that I’d had a busy beginning of the week I am glad I decided to leave it there until today’s Sunday Summary post.

 

Books Read

It finally feels like I have an update I can give you this week! At last, I have finished Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin! In last week’s Sunday Summary update post I only had a few pages left of the book. Finishing it was absolutely on the cards and I did this at the beginning of the week.

Since finishing Fire and Blood, I have picked up a book called You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. This has been on my TBR for some time, partly because I am interested in the psychology aspect it covers, but also because it’s funny. I’ve made pretty good progress with this book this week as well. As of writing this post, I have read 35% of the book. I’m finding it easy to pick up and put down as the chapters are nicely separated and concise. This one definitely won’t be taking as long as Fire and Blood to finish!

I have also listened to a couple more chapters of A Clash of Kings this week. Nothing much to write home about, but progress is progress. With something as long as this, even chipping away a little bit at a time makes a difference.

 

Books Discovered

Aside from buying my copy of You Are Not So Smart to start reading the book, there have been no other purchases or additions to my TBR this week!

 

Coming Up…

This week I plan to feature a review for a book I read last year based on a recommendation from a work colleague, and I loved it! It’s had quite an effect on me; at times it the easiest, funniest book to read and yet the very next chapter can have some very hard-hitting content that opens your eyes to the truth behind the struggles of the NHS doctor. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay was one of my favourite reads last year and I’m looking forward to sharing my full thoughts with you this week.

Later in the week my regular First Lines Friday feature will be back! I haven’t chosen this week’s featured book as yet but that’s half the fun and I hope you enjoy the post once it’s drafted and shared.

 

That’s it for today’s Sunday Summary post. What are you reading this week?

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Sunday Summary – 2nd May 2021

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s weekly Sunday Summary update post. I hope you’re enjoying the lovely long weekend? I certainly am! It’s just a shame about the weather tomorrow really…

So, what have I been up to this week? At the beginning of the week I shared a post in celebration of four years of blogging. It’s weird to think that I started so long ago because it feels like it was only a few minutes ago at times. I’ve certainly learned a lot along the way and my Four Year Blogiversary post was really drafted to commemorate how far I’ve come since I started.

On Friday I shared a slightly hastily written Shelf Control post. With upcoming uncertainty over the weather and the need to get a few jobs done, I ended up drafting this about 9pm on Friday. I hope that hasn’t compromised the quality but this week’s featured book is a good one and I’d still like you to go over and read it if you haven’t already!

 

Books Read

I didn’t quite get Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin finished this week, however I have made good progress towards that aim (set in last week’s Sunday Summary post)! I’m going to be taking it to bed again tonight and with another day left of the weekend, I have plenty more time to chip into this and hopefully finish the book!

I ended up reading a couple of chapters of this yesterday morning in a slightly different setting. I had taken my car to the garage for a couple of new tires. Whilst waiting for that to be done, I went down to the promenade to sit and have a read with a cup of coffee. It’s not very often I take the time to sit and enjoy such views. Those particular ones aren’t on my doorstep anymore and that made me appreciate going all the more. The one thing I will say is that it was bloody cold though!

The main reason I didn’t get finished with this book though is because I had another project so close to completion but I just couldn’t leave it. You may be aware that I’ve become a bit of a knitter over the last year and I recently completed a couple of scarf projects. In order to complete those I actually put on hold a personal project (a jumper). Well, I was so close to finishing it this week that I just couldn’t leave it unfinished! It’s blocking at the moment so a picture will follow later; I just hope it looks good on!

 

Books Discovered

It’s been another good week here and I have no new additions to my TBR. Since I’m getting through mine at a snail‘s pace here at the moment that is definitely a good thing! (I’m hoping to pick up the pace shortly)

 

Coming Up…

My blog schedule is going to be a little bit different over the next week as I have signed up for some blog tours. As is the story this year, I haven’t signed up to review these books because I’m focusing on the ones on my TBR already. However, I am sharing an extract of The Glasshouse by Morwenna Blackwood on Tuesday and a guest post from the author of The Legacy, Alison Knight, on Wednesday. I hope you enjoy these posts; it will certainly be a pleasure for me to be able to feature new books and authors and have a little bit of variety in bookish content!

Before I even get to those, however, I will be sharing my monthly wrap up for April. Given the progress I’ve made I think it’s only going to be a quick one but still, I’ll be publishing that tomorrow evening sometime.

So, with three posts already going live by the end of Wednesday I’ve decided to skip my Friday feature for this week. I will be back with a First Lines Friday very shortly so don’t think these are going anywhere – it’s just a temporary break so I can manage my schedule!

 

That’s all from me in today’s Sunday Summary post. What are you reading?

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Sunday Summary – 25th April 2021

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Hi everyone and welcome to today’s Sunday Summary update post. As always, I hope you’ve had a really good week whatever you have been up to!

I have been back to work this week for the first time in nearly two months and I’ve enjoyed it more than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I love being at home but I like the separation of work and home life. Going back into the office this week has given me the opportunity to catch up with all my colleagues and of course, get on with my work in a better environment.

On the blog, I have shared a couple of posts with you already this week. On Thursday I shared my Audiobook Review of Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch; on Friday I shared another First Lines Friday post. If you haven’t checked out either of those posts already, I have provided a handy link for each so you can go and have a skeet!

 

Books Read

It feels like it’s taking a long time, but I have made more progress with Fire and Blood this week. It is a very long book and I’m not reading anywhere near as much as I have previously. I’ve been taking the time to enjoy other hobbies, such as knitting but also just to sit and watch TV of an evening. It’s not something I do a lot of, but it’s nice to give myself the choice… which before I didn’t. Still, I am well on the way to finishing this shortly. The book has a total of 706 pages, so that means I only have about 150 left. Depending on how I feel I might make a bit more of a push with this this week. It’ll be nice to see the end of it (as much as I am enjoying it, I do want to finish it soon and move onto something else)!

 

Books Discovered

 

In last week’s Sunday Summary update post I told you that I was planning on having a skeet in my local branch of a certain book retailer now that the store was open. I did indeed go and have a look and to my amazement, and I’m sure yours, I walked out empty-handed. I had a good look around but nothing really caught my eye and I didn’t want to spend frivolously for the sake of it. It’s better to save my money for something I really want. 

However, I have received a couple of recommendations this week and so added two books to my TBR. My sister’s boyfriend has recently read Barack Obama‘s autobiography and he said it is really good. I couldn’t tell you the last time I read an autobiography, but if it’s about someone I am interested in then it’s definitely something I want to pick up. A Promised Land will be a good read and the variety of picking up my first autobiography in years appeals to me. 

I also received a second recommendation/suggestion this week. As I mentioned in my First Lines Friday post, I quite often have a chat with my boss about books. We will quite often chat about a wide variety of books and genres too. Whilst the post featured in my First Lines Friday post (inspired by this conversation) is a fantasy book, we also discuss classics or non-fiction for example. He recommended that I pick up The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. I’d mentioned that I hadn’t read any of his books and my boss said he would be really interested in my thoughts on it. He is right in that it is a short book, that could be read in an afternoon and so I might pick this up shortly!

 

Coming Up…

I had my four year ‘blogiversary’ notification this week and to celebrate I would like to share a post about my experience of blogging, the things I’ve learned and some advice I would give to new or would-be bloggers out there.

Next Friday I will be back with my regular shelf control post. This week’s featured book is one that I have on my shelves upstairs and I have contemplated picking up a couple of times before already. I really like the sound of the premise and although it has loose links to Shakespeare (which I don’t really get on with – frankly I just can’t understand it) I don’t think this will impact my enjoyment of the book at all!

 

That’s all I have for you in today’s Sunday Summary post. What are you reading?

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Sunday Summary – 18th April 2021

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Good evening everyone and welcome to today’s Sunday Summary update post! As always, I hope you’ve had a brilliant week whatever you have been up to?

I’ve enjoyed a week off work this week, which has been nice. I can’t say I’ve spent it all relaxing though – on Tuesday I re-painted my bathroom and on Wednesday and Thursday I was building flatpack furniture for my spare room. That said, both Monday and Friday were nice and chill.

On Monday I shared a post over on my Instagram and Facebook feeds that explains a little bit about why I have been absent from reading this year. You may recall that I have taken up knitting and I’ve been referencing a project I’ve been doing, but elusively. That’s because I’ve been working on a project for my dad as a gift and so I didn’t want him to find out about it before he was gifted the finished item. So, having given him his present on Monday I shared the below photos of the project I’ve been making him (and incidentally someone else too, so I had to keep both a secret!) 

Thankfully now the time pressure is off but I will be continuing to knit in future. This week I have been able to revisit a project I started in November last year – a jumper for me! Whilst knitting may sound boring to some, there is still a lot for me to learn. I am going to be picking up different projects that will enable me to learn all these new techniques (and hopefully improve on my knitting overall!)

On the blog I have shared a couple of posts with you this week. My first post of the week was a fun Spring Cleaning Book Tag. It actually proved a little bit more difficult to write than I thought – it has some really good questions on it that I had to mull over for a few days. If you haven’t checked out that post already please use the link above to have a look and let me know what you think!

Later in the week, I shared last week’s intended Shelf Control post. I hadn’t published that last week as I was late finishing work in preparation for my week off. Not a big deal though as I have had plenty of time to think about the book featured in that post and on Friday I told you why I’m really excited to pick this up!

 

Books Read

With doing a lot of manual jobs around the house this week I’ve mainly excelled in listening to more of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin. I can’t lie, the pronunciation of the name Brienne is still annoying me and makes me cringe everytime I hear it, but I’ve kind of come to accept that it’s going to happen whether I like it or not. It hasn’t stopped me in my reading progress though and as of today’s Sunday Summary update post I am now over halfway through the audiobook. I have around 16 and 3/4 hours left to listen to… not much you know?

I have also picked up and read more Fire and Blood, also by George R. R. Martin, this week. I’m now over halfway through this epic tome as well and I’m really enjoying getting into the history of Westeros and Essos. Naturally, I haven’t gotten through as much of this as I have audiobook progress, based on the fact that I wasn’t sat on my backside for the past week! Still, I’m going to keep making progress with this and I’m hoping to finish this shortly now that there is less time pressure on my knitting projects.

 

Books Discovered

I’m pleased to say that there are no new additions to this section this week. As you can probably tell I have been busy with other things, which is no bad thing. What I can’t promise, however, is that there will be nothing in this section next week. The Isle of Man officially comes out of lockdown tomorrow and a certain local branch of a bookshop chain will be opening. I will be going back to work nearby… I’m just intending to just have a mooch but I make no promises!

 

Coming Up…

I plan to share a book review for moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch midweek. To date I have read (listened to) over half of the series and so I’m keen to start getting my thoughts down on those I have listened to so far before I get too close to the end of the series. I recently reviewed Rivers of London and this review is for sequel to that novel.

Later in the week, I will be finding another feature for this week’s First Lines Friday post. I really enjoy delving through my bookshelves to find interesting books to feature for you here and whilst I haven’t decided what this week’s book is going to be, I have no doubt that it will be a good one! I hope you can join me for that!

 

That’s all I have for you in today’s Sunday Summary post. What are you reading?

 

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Sunday Summary – 11th April 2021

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s Sunday Summary update post. As always, I hope you’ve had a really good week and I’m glad you can join me for today’s update. I have been keeping busy over here and I’m looking forward to telling you what I’ve been up to this week!

I started the week by sharing my Monthly Wrap Up post for March. When I drafted last week’s Sunday Summary post I completely omitted to mention that this was coming up. I published this on Monday so if you haven’t checked it out already, please do!

My next post of the week was a book review for The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson. If you haven’t already gathered I am a huge fan of this author and this series. I would love it if you could go and check out that post as well!

On Friday I was supposed to share my next Shelf Control feature post. However, I ended up working late on Friday as I am off work next week. By the time I got round to doing this… well, I wasn’t in the mood. I decided I was better off giving myself the break I needed and the feature post will be shared next week instead.

 

Books Read

This week I have been reading more of Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin. This week’s reading progress hasn’t been comparable to last. I took this to bed one night and have made some okay progress, so won’t won’t knock it. I also plan on taking it to bed tonight to continue. As of the current update I am now nearly 60% of the way through the book. I’m really enjoying having another way of getting into the Game of Thrones series. Being off work next week, I am hoping to be able to spend more time on reading this.

It is probably fair to say that I did better with listening to A Clash of Kings, also by George R. R. Martin. If you needed any testament to the fact that I love this particular author and series, well I don’t think you should by now. This is my first listen to this series – I have always read them previously either in e-reader format or more recently in paperback. I listened to around three hours worth of audiobook this week. That might not sound like too much, but for someone who reads more than listens to books I have no complaints! Again, with being off work next week I imagine I will be able to make more progress on this again.

 

Books Discovered

Aside from reading this week, I have been keeping myself busy with catching up on watching For Life – A TV series based on the real life of Isaac Wright Jr. I started watching this little while ago, but my parents recently surpassed where I have gotten up to and so I wanted to catch up so we can talk about it. So, on the one hand, I have been busy watching this and so not really finding any books. However, after finishing the first series I did have a look to see if I could find a book based on the true story and sadly, I wasn’t able to. So, it’s not for lack of looking that I haven’t added any more books to my TBR this week! I will just have to keep a look out for the upcoming second series of the TV show to indulge in instead!

 

Coming Up…

I read a really fun book tag post recently and I’ve decided that I would like to take part and offer my own answers to the same questions. The book tag post that I saw and read can be found on Kristin Kraves Books. I think this will be a fun post to write and I can’t wait to share my answers with you all!

Later in the week I will be bringing to you the Shelf Control post that was supposed to go live this Friday! As a reminder, this week’s featured book is a science fiction young adult novel – one whose plot is based around class division in an unequal society. I added the book to my list a few years ago now and having just read a sample, I am looking forward to sharing the details with you! I hope you can join me for that post on Friday.

And last, but certainly not least, I will be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary post next Sunday.

That’s all I have for you today folks! I hope you have enjoyed today’s post. What have you been reading?

 

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Sunday Summary – 4th April 2021

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Unlike last week’s Sunday Summary update post, today’s is being posted on time! I hope you have all had a good week and an enjoyable Easter weekend?

I’ve certainly been making the most of the weekend by catching up with some jobs that for various reasons I’ve been putting off. Our local amenity site has been shut due to the current coronavirus lockdown, however, they reopened earlier this week (with restrictions). It meant that I could get out and get the first grass cut done and tidy up my garden.

I also decided to move around some furniture to make way for some new flatpack I bought for the spare room. It probably doesn’t sound too bad when I phrase it that way. I’ll spare you the details of my hour and a bit struggle, but after doing both of these physical jobs I’m certainly feeling it now!

That’s not to say that my week has been all hard work though. I have spent more time recently out in the garden enjoying some sunshine – and getting more reading done than I have done in previous weeks. I spent about four hours out in the garden yesterday in all, but the last hour and twenty minutes or so was spent sat on the decking with a cup of coffee and my current read. Now that finer weather is coming (hopefully more long-term), I’m looking forward to being able to make the most of my outdoor space a bit more this year.

In terms of blogging, I have shared a couple of posts with you this week. My first post of the week was a really fun one to write! Whilst the topic proved a little more difficult than I expected, I still managed to come up with ten places in books I would love to live. Granted, some of them have the caveat that I wouldn’t like to live there at the time of the events of the book. But still, I have some great featured locations on that list! If you haven’t checked out that post already there is a link above so you can do so.

My second post of the week was a First Lines Friday regular feature post. This week’s feature is a little unusual in that I have chosen it from a genre that I don’t read very often at all. However, I have read the book on a couple of occasions previously and I love the humour. I think a lot of working women can relate to our main character and the scenario in the opening lines may be one you are familiar with in some sense.

 

Books Read

If my progress update on Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin on Goodreads was accurate before I picked it up again, then I have read around 200 pages of this book this week. I haven’t picked it up for several weeks now; it’s huge… and partway through reading this I decided I needed a smaller book to pick up. However, I’m back from my break and it is safe to say that I have thrown myself back in. Fortunately (or sadly, depending on your opinion) I have a reasonable knowledge of the history of the realm from the main series. So, getting back into the tale didn’t take long and I was able to pick up where I left off quite easily.

I’ve enjoyed getting back into George R. R. Martin’s writing style and the detailed narrative. I’m planning on seeing Fire and Blood through to the finish now with no more breaks. I seem to have got my mojo back a bit more with reading and I would like to make a good amount of progress again next week. I don’t want to jinx it, but as long as I pick it up at least a couple of evenings I’ll be happy!

 

Books Discovered

I am glad to say there is nothing to add here this week. I think the world and his brother knows at this point that I have more books on my to be read pile than I know what to do with. Whilst I’m sure that I will never get this list down to 0, like ever, that doesn’t mean I can’t try and attempt to control it.

Who am I kidding?

 

Coming Up…

I have another book review lined up for you for this week and it’s from one of my favourite authors. Those of you who follow my blog may remember that I went through a phase of reading the ‘second series’ of the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson last year. I love them and to date, I have reviewed The Alloy of Law and Shadows of Self. I plan to complete my reviews and share my thoughts on the third book, The Bands of Mourning, this week. If you are as much of a fan of Brandon Sanderson as I am then I hope you can check out my thoughts – and let me know what you think of the book as well!

Later in the week, it is the turn of my Shelf Control feature post. This coming week‘s featured novel is a science fiction young adult book – one whose plot is based around class division in an unequal society. I added the book to my list a few years ago now and having just read a sample, I am looking forward to sharing the details with you! I hope you can join me for that post on Friday.

As always, I’ll be rounding up the week with another Sunday Summary post.

 

For now, that’s all from me in today’s Sunday Summary update. I hope you enjoy the rest of your Easter weekend, have a good week in general and I look forward to seeing you around soon!

 

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Sunday Summary – 28th March 2021

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Good evening everybody, and welcome to today’s Sunday Summary update post. As always, I hope you have had a good week whatever you have been up to! This week has seen some exciting behind-the-scenes changes here at Reviewsfeed. It may not sound like much, but I have made the switch from blogging on a laptop to a mobile device. I fully accept that this may not sound like much of a change to you, but it’s improved my experience of blogging. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved and enjoyed blogging before. However, I will admit writing blog posts was becoming a bit of a chore on my old laptop. It was getting to the point where I would almost dread having to turn it on and waste time trying to get it done; it either wouldn’t boot up properly, or it would be very slow and unresponsive.

Whilst I’m hoping that you as the end reader haven’t noticed a difference, I can personally say that blogging has just become a whole lot easier for me. I’m hoping that comes across over time with more blog posts and fingers crossed, better quality ones to!

I’m happy with what I’ve achieved this week. I have been reading more and I have shared several blog posts this week. Dare I say it, but it felt like the good old days of last year! Yes, I am taking more of a relaxed approach to blogging and having a reduced schedule compared to previous years. That said, circumstances meant that I’ve shared more post this week than normal. And you know what? I’ve enjoyed it!

My first blog post this week was an audiobook review for Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. As you can probably tell from that review (and the fact that I binge-read over half of the series within a matter of months), I enjoyed the book! If you haven’t heard of it or are interested in hearing my views please go and check out that review.

My second blog post of the week saw a continuation of my Shelf Control series. In sharing this week’s featured book I took a couple of books off my TBR pile. Whilst I don’t doubt that I might have enjoyed the books that I removed to some extent, I had my reservations as to whether they would be books that I love. I’m at that point where I have so many books on my list that even anything that strikes me as mediocre or something that I will only enjoy partially can go. If I don’t think I’m going to love it, what’s the point? So, after those two removals, I came to this week’s featured book which is The Secret Library by Oliver Tearle.

I’ve also shared a blog post on Sunday. I phrase it such as I’m sharing today’s Sunday Summary post at one minute past midnight on Monday so as not to conflict with that post. It has been quite a while since I took part in a blog tour and it isn’t all that common for me to share a promotional post. That will be more commonplace this year as I am focusing on reading books that have been on my TBR for some time. I might make the odd exception here and there depending on whether a book is by an author I have featured before. But for the most part, any blog tour posts will be promotional. Sunday’s promotional blog tour post was for a book called Old Cases, New Colours by Madalyn Morgan. In that post, I have shared an extract of the book and if I do say so myself, I enjoyed reading it as I was drafting the post. If you haven’t checked that out already, please do!

Books Read

When it comes to reading I feel more like my old self this week. I’ve been making odd bits of progress here and there with The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, but nothing noteworthy for several weeks. As of last week’s Sunday Summary update I was around halfway through the book and with a promise to take the book to bed with me to read further before bed.

I’m pleased to say that since this last update, I have very nearly finished the book! Yes, I have read nearly half of it over the last week I have just half an hour’s reading time left; you can guarantee that I will be finishing this tonight. I’m quite proud that I’ve done so well this week. It feels like a long time since I’ve made that amount of progress in a short time. Bear in mind that the book weighs in at around 550 pages, so that’s over 250 (by the time I’m finished tonight) in one week alone. Granted, my read of both the Harry Potter books this year probably roughly equates to this in terms of page count, however, The Book Thief is a lot heavier in subject matter.

I have also listened to a few more chapters of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin this week. I have taken to listening to this on an Amazon device in my living room either during lunchtime or after work. One evening, I also listened to a few chapters as well. Whilst it is nowhere near the progress of The Book Thief, I’m of the opinion that every chapter counts and so long as I am enjoying myself and the book in question then who can complain?

 

Books Discovered

Much as in the previous updates in my Sunday Summary posts, I have been keeping myself busy with my current reading and as such, not discovering anything new to add to my TBR. As I mentioned above, I have taken a couple of books off my list this week. I’m not even going to pretend that the decision makes my TBR more manageable – in reality those two books removed are just a drop in a very vast ocean!

 

Coming Up…

I like the sound of this week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme, which is Places in Books I Would Like to Live. Now I know how I love to go on about a Game of Thrones, but you can guarantee that Westeros (or Essos for that matter) is not featuring on that list anytime soon! All joking aside, I think I would like to take part in this week’s post and so you can expect to see this published on my blog in the next couple of days!

This week’s regular Friday feature will be another First Lines Friday post. I enjoyed featuring Nevernight by Jay Kristoff a couple of weeks ago and I’m looking forward to delving through my bookshelves to find an equally exciting introduction to share with you for this week’s instalment.

Then last, but not least, I will be back again next Sunday with another Sunday Summary update – and this one will be shared as expected… on Sunday!

But for now, that’s all from me! Have a great week and I hope to see you around on the blog again soon!

 

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Sunday Summary – 21st March 2021

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Hi guys and welcome to today’s weekly Sunday Summary update post!

As always, I hope you have had a good week. Personally, I have had a pretty good end to the week at least. Having mentioned only a few weeks ago that the island didn’t have a covid ‘bubble’ facility for different households, rules that came into effect yesterday now allow me to legally go and visit my parents! I have also had my first covid vaccine this week. I’m really looking forward to the end of all this I have to say! The sooner we all get the vaccine the better. Anyway, enough of the doom and gloom going on in the world right now and my little victories against it and onto more bookish themes.

I am pleased to share that I drafted and published both of the posts I had planned for this week. It may not sound like much, however, I did let myself get a bit slack with this. That being said I am making more of an effort to stick to my posting schedule in recent weeks!

My first post of the week we shared on Tuesday. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post was all about my spring TBR, and the books that I am likely to be choosing to read over the next couple of months. My second post of the week brought back a series that I haven’t shared for several months now! It’s a series that allows the featured book to speak for itself – if you want the chance to sample a book before committing, or would like to read a paragraph without any prejudice as to the title, author or genre then my First Lines Friday post is for you!

 

Books Read

I must confess that this week’s progress is a little on the light side. I have read around 10% of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak this week. It’s not much, I know. Well, 50 pages probably sounds like a lot to some but to a regular reader like me, it’s not a massive amount. I will however be taking this to bed tonight and so I will be making more progress shortly!

Even my audiobook progress dropped off this week. Instead I found myself listening to more music and ironically, the Game of Thrones soundtrack whilst I was working some days. At most I have probably listened to a chapter or two of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, but that’s it!

 

Books Discovered

One section I am grateful to have little to report on is this one. Once again I haven’t discovered any new books or added anything to my TBR pile this week!

 

Coming Up…

I plan to begin the week with a book review. Since I didn’t post one last week and I am eager to share my thoughts on what I’ve been reading – after all, that is what I set up this blog for in the first place! This particular review is an audiobook review for Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. To give you an idea of how much I came to enjoy this book, I went on to binge read (listen to) just over half of the series in a three month period last year. If you like urban fantasy, magic and a little bit of criminal investigation then this is review that I strongly recommend you check out!

I am keen to keep up with the revival of my Shelf Control feature post. With that in mind, I will be taking a look at the next book on my TBR pile and sharing the details, as well as the reasons why I really love the sound of this book and want to read it!

Next Sunday I will be posting my weekly Sunday summary update post later than usual. Instead, I will be publishing it on Monday as I am taking part in a blog tour next Sunday. It feels like a good while since I last took part in one – which I suppose it has been considering I used to take part in them all the time. This particular blog tour isn’t even a book review; normally if I feature a book I like to review it. However with my priority on reading books from my TBR and in general taking a more flexible approach, I’m instead sharing an extract for a historical thriller novel – Old Cases, New Colours by Madalyn Morgan.

 

But for now, that’s all from me in today’s Sunday Summary update post! Have a good week and I’ll see you in the next one!

 

 

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Sunday Summary – 7th March 2021

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Hello everyone and welcome to another weekly update Sunday Summary post! It has been… a week. If you read my post on Friday you will know that the Isle of Man is now back in lockdown again and frankly I’m thoroughly sick of it at this point. But, what can we do!? We are very lucky really so I shouldn’t complain, but I’m going to anyway!

I had planned on sharing my monthly wrap-up post earlier this week, but with the upcoming news that we were going to go into lockdown, this didn’t happen. In the end, I shared this post on Friday. I can’t say I felt particularly motivated to spend my evenings sat at a laptop when I’ve spent my entire day at home sat on another laptop for work. But, oh well, late is better than never right?

I have also started the review post I was going to share for Head On by John Scalzi, however, I got halfway through that last night and ran out of time. I promise I will get that shed early next week.

 

Books Read

I haven’t really picked up much in the way of physical reading this week. In fact the only night I picked up my kindle was last night, Saturday. I had a brief read of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and I enjoyed picking this up again as I haven’t for a brief stint.

Where I have been lacking in physical reading, I have been making up for it via audiobooks. They are very come and go for me; I won’t listen to them for ages or in any great quantity, but when I pick them up again I go hard at it. As of last week’s Sunday Summary update, I had just started the toll by Neal Shusterman and as of this post, I only have a few hours left of the audiobook! To give you some context, that means I’ve listened to about 10 hours this week alone! I knew I had listened to it quite a lot, but even that figure astounds me!

 

Books Discovered

Whilst I am on an audiobook binge, I had a look at audible today as I’ve had an email about a sale they have on. I’ve been building up a few credits and I thought I’d have a look to see if anything caught my eye. You could say that!

I ended up using almost all of my credits towards the sale, with just one being used to buy the first book of a series as Books Two and Three were on sale (because that makes sense)…

So now I have audiobook copies of Heresy, Prophecy and Sacrilege by S. J. Parris, Traitor’s Blade and Knights Shadow by Sebastien Del Castell and A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie and last but not least, The Plague Charmer by Karen Maitland.

I told you-when I hit the audiobooks I hit them hard! Especially now I’m going to be home for the next two weeks (minimum!) I can see myself finishing my current audiobook and moving on to more.

 

Coming Up

As I said earlier in this post, I didn’t get around to finishing drafting my audiobook review of Head On by John Scalzi. I hope to have this finished in the next couple of days. I will have to see how I get on as I’m still going to be having the battle of motivation to spend my evening is exactly as I have spent my whole day. I’ve actually done something slightly different with this post and I have done it on one-off occasions before… I’m drafting this verbally on my phone. It is a little bit of variety, it’s actually quicker than typing (even taking into account having to fix all the typos and grammar) and it reduces the amount of time I’m actually sat physically on my laptop as I only use this to edit and publish the post once it’s written. If all else fails I will try and do this next week in an attempt to keep the content coming to you guys! I have been quite unreliable over the last few weeks in getting things published when I say I’m going to.

Later in the week, I’m going to go back to an easy regular post that I shared fortnightly last year – Shelf Control. I haven’t taken a look at some of the older items on my TV are for a good few months now. Given that my goal is to get through more of these this year, it makes sense to start looking at the books on the list and to get myself excited for getting round to them!

So, that’s all from me in today’s Sunday Summary post! Have a good week and I’ll see you around!

 

 

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Sunday Summary – 28th February 2021

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s catch up Sunday Summary! I hope you have all had a good week as I have?

You may have noticed I was a little late sharing the posts I had planned this week. I shared my first post of the week on Friday. There’s no excuse really, as I already had most of my Harry Potter Book tag drafted last week. I just ended up doing other things, watching TV, knitting etc. My next post went live on Saturday, which was a review for Auxiliary: London 2039. I read this book towards the end of last year on request and I shared my thoughts on this fun cyberpunk thriller novel this week. If you haven’t taken a moment to read that, please do so using this link here.

 

Books Read

This week’s Sunday Summary section would be better titled ‘Books Listened To’, as I’ve not picked up a book this week. I have, however, listened to several hours of audiobooks… over 7 hours to be precise! As of last week’s update, I still had several hours of A Game of Thrones to make progress on. I finished that on the 25th and promptly moved on to The Toll by Neal Shusterman. I’ve listened to about two hours worth of that book so far and I can’t wait to see how events start to unfold given the conclusion to Thunderhead. I think that will start to happen soon, so I’ll be listening to more of this over the coming days

 

Books Discovered

Nothing to add here again this week, which honestly is not a bad thing!

 

Coming Up…

Tomorrow it’s officially March, and that’s kinda scary! Where has the time gone? I don’t know, but a new month means it’s time for my second monthly wrap-up post. I’ll be taking a look back at the books I read, the posts I shared and anything of note that I want to share with you about last month’s progress!

Later in the week, I’m going to share another review on the backlog pile at present. This week’s selected book is one I listened to via Audible last year. Head On by John Scalzi is the second book I have listened to by that author – I really enjoyed listening to Lock In and after that, I wanted to carry on the series. You can find out the details and my full thoughts on this listen in the coming days.

 

Until then friends, stay safe and well and I hope to see you around!

 

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