Tag: George R R Martin

Top Ten Tuesday – Quotes from A Game of Thrones

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s Top Ten Tuesday freebie post! With complete discretion this week as to the subject matter, I’ve been looking at some of my highest ranking blog posts in order to decide what I think you would like to see.

Some of my most-viewed post types are about my favourite book quotes – those include my top five quotes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series so far and my Quintessential Quotes post featuring quotes from Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives. In addition, one of my top-viewed book reviews is A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

With this as my inspiration, I’ve decided to combine the two together and share my top ten quotes from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, better known as A Game of Thrones! I previously shared a quintessential quotes post based on A Game of Thrones, over four years ago. However, in that post, I only share five of my favourite quotes. Since I have re-read the series, the quotes I chose to feature have both changed and expanded, although there are some quotes that remain firm favourites! 

I have broken the quotes down into which book they come from, so you can go and find them for yourself if you wish!

 

A Game of Thrones

 

“If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.”

 

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”

 

“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind … and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

 

“We all need to be mocked from time to time, Lord Mormont, lest we start to take ourselves too seriously.”

 

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

 

A Clash of Kings

 

“Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”

 

“The wide world is full of people wanting help, Jon. Would that some could find the courage to help themselves.

 

A Storm of Swords

 

“You are grown so very great now, yet the higher a man climbs the farther he has to fall.”

 

A Feast for Crows

 

“He understood the way that you could sometimes fall right into them, as if each page was a hole into another world.”

 

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

 

I hope you have enjoyed today’s quick and easy Top Ten Tuesday post! It’s always exciting to feature one of my favourite books and series of all time!

Have you read A Game of Thrones or any other books/short stories by George R. R. Martin? Maybe you’ve watched the TV series? Let me know in the comments!

 

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Sunday Summary – 20th March 2022

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Hello and welcome to my Sunday Summary update for this week! I hope it’s been a great one for you?

I originally intended to share a book with you at the beginning of this week for Harry Potter and the Philosopher‘s Stone by J. K. Rowling. And I started this post. However, I think I felt a little bit intimidated by the task. This is a fantastic book and series and I got stuck with how to begin. How do you even go about reviewing such a massive series? That’s something I’m going to have to figure out very quickly, because I still plan to share my review with you soon. Apologies it didn’t come when I said it was going to.

I did manage to draft and publish my First Lines Friday post this week. For that post, I set myself the challenge of featuring a book on this month’s TBR and I’m really happy with my choice. I picked up most of the books left on my TBR to gauge the opening lines and see which I thought was best/most interesting. For me, it was a clear winner! If you haven’t checked out that post yet you can do so with the link above, and let me know what you think of the introduction!

 

Books Read

I’m really happy with my reading progress since my last Sunday Summary update post. I had just over 130 pages remaining of Keep You Safe by Rona Halsall, and I said in my post that I was going to make a push this week to read it. The reality is, I started reading this book last Sunday after publishing my post and I finished reading the book at 12:15am that night! I could not put it down – the ending was brilliant and so engaging that going to bed before finishing this book was not an option! It’s an absolutely fantastic psychological thriller and I can’t wait to share my thoughts on the book with you – I cannot recommend it enough!

My next read of this week was a complete 180º – I picked up Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. This is a non-fiction novel written by Facebook‘s chief operating officer. It looks at women in the workplace and discusses female leadership in the corporate world, what limitations women have in advancing their careers (both internal and external factors) and offers advice on what women can do in order to empower themselves.

This was a recommendation by my sister, who in turn had the book recommended to her by one of her more senior work colleagues. Now, I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly career driven person, but I am the kind of person who will take on responsibility and accountability in my job. I want to do the best I can, and likewise if I can make things better for other people I also want to do this. Work isn’t my whole life, but I want to do a good job and make a difference as well. Do you see what I mean?

Lean In was an interesting read because it’s not only focuses on limitations that women experience from other people (both men and women, you may be surprised to hear), but also the limitations they set themselves. It is all too easy to focus on the external factors, and very difficult to be introspective and acknowledge that women sometimes hold themselves back. For not shying away from this truth, I feel like Sheryl took a well-rounded approach to the subject and there are some pieces of advice in the book that I’d like to bear in mind going forward for myself.

Whilst I haven’t physically picked it up yet as of writing this post, I plan to start reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows immediately after this blog post goes live. And I’ll be making progress with this one over the next week. Whilst it’s a bit of a chunky book, I find these so easy to read so I don’t expect it will take me too long!

As in last week’s Sunday Summary update post, I am pleased to say that I’ve listened to another couple of chapters of A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. This is going to take a very long time to get through at this pace, so I’m going to try and make more of a habit of listening to audiobooks again. I confess I’ve fallen off the wagon a little bit here!

 

Books Discovered

There’s some happy dancing going on here this week, because once again there are no new books on my TBR. And, having read and taken a couple off the list this week, the list is going in the right direction!

For now anyway!

 

Coming Up…

I will share my review of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone this week. I WILL share my review of Harry Potter and the Philosopher‘s Stone next week.

How many times do you think I have to say the sentence in order to commit? I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to get this ready for you as planned this week, so I’m determined to publish this post in the next few days to make up for it.

Friday is my scheduled spot for a Shelf Control post. Last time I did this fortnightly feature I cut five books off my TBR. Whilst I am certainly not planning a ‘massacre’ of that scale again, I do like that this feature gives me the opportunity to review and do this if I feel necessary. It’s also great because I love featuring books that are coming up on my list and I can get excited about them at the same time!

And finally, this time next week I’ll be sharing another Sunday summary post.

Until then, I hope you have a good week, wish you happy reading and I’ll see you in the next post!

 

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Sunday Summary – 13th March 2022

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Hello and welcome to today’s Sunday Summary update! As always I hope you’ve had a good week whatever you have been up to?

My blogging week began on Tuesday with a Top Ten Tuesday post. In that post I featured books with my favourite book trope or theme. My chosen trope, as a big reader of fantasy books, was prophecies. Although this is very common in the genre I found that a lot of the books I’ve read are actually part of a series. So, although it feels like I’ve read a lot of them, I actually struggled to come up with 10 completely separate books/series for this post. I managed it though, and if you haven’t checked out that post already there’s a link here so you can go and take a look.

On Friday I shared a Shelf Control post. In this fortnightly series I take a look at the next book on my TBR and share some details of the book, as well as discuss why I want to read it. I was a bit brutal going through my list this week, because I ended up deleting five books off my TBR before I got to this week’s chosen feature. I’m not complaining, because I already have a lot of books on my list. If I’m not feeling it, there are plenty more out there and there is no sense in keeping them on the list!

 

Books Read

Reading progress has been a touch slower this week. I’ve been doing some other bits and pieces; I’m working on knitting a jumper at the moment and I feel like I’ve been stuck in a very similar spot for a while. So, I’ve been making the effort to try and knit at least three or four rows a day and I’m starting to see some reward from the effort! That might not sound like much, but when you’re knitting with sock weight yarn and you are a plus size girl, that’s a lot of stitches per round (360 – I checked).

I’ve also started some study for work. Along the same lines, I’ve been doing a little bit a day and because of this I’ve got myself through the first couple of chapters already. I’m really happy with my progress, so I’m going to be carrying on in much the same way.

Despite all these little extras I’m doing every day, I still managed to read about 100 pages of Keep You Safe by Rona Halsall. It’s a really interesting book and I’m liking where it’s going so far. The timeline flits between present day and the past, and the two seem to be paced quite well in that they tie together nicely.

I’m still not sure on who I’m rooting for in terms of the protagonist or the supposed antagonist. I say supposed to because I’m not sure I trust the perspective of Natalie, which is another thing I’m enjoying. I’m constantly second guessing her and trying to work out what the truth is. It’s one of those narratives where there are three sides of the story, hers, his and the truth. I can’t wait to carry on reading and unpick the rest of this story. The book is just about 330 pages long and I’m coming up to 200 now. I’m going to make a push and try and finish it next week!

I have also been listening to more of A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin this week, and I’ve got another couple of chapters under my belt.

Having considered my position this week, I’ve decided to DNF One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey. It’s just not doing it for me, and mentally I went into the beginning of this week wanting to try and pick this up again. However, I just can’t bring myself to do it,. It hasn’t drawn me in and I don’t want to spend my time trying to force myself through it. I read to enjoy myself and I’m not really enjoying this book. So, this is officially my first DNF of 2022.

 

Books Discovered

As I stated at the beginning of this post, my TBR has actually gone down this week! I’ve taken five books off the list and I haven’t added anything either, which is a miracle!

 

Coming Up…

This week I would like to share a book review with you. I am trying to make my way through my ongoing list of books to be reviewed and I’d like to chip away at this list. So, with that in mind, this week I am going to be reviewing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s saying something when you are starting to review a series that you’re just about to finish reading, and it’s seven books long!

Next week’s Friday feature will be a First Lines Friday post. For this post I am setting myself another challenge, and it’s one that I haven’t done before. For this post, I’m going to be featuring the opening lines of a book on this month’s TBR! My reading progress has been a little bit slow this week, so I’m hoping that preparing this post will psych me up and help me find the motivation to get to some of the later books on my list. We’re already nearly midway through March and I’m still only on my second book on my list!

Last, but not least, I’ll be back the same time next week for another Sunday Summary post!

Until then, I hope you have a good week and I’ll see you in the next one!

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Sunday Summary – 6th March 2022

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Hello and welcome to my Sunday summary post!

It’s been a busy week here on the blog! I originally intended to share one post combining my monthly wrap-up for February and my TBR for March. However, when I started drafting that post I quickly realised that this format wasn’t really working for me. Whilst it does make sense to an extent, the post was becoming really long and I didn’t get the opportunity to include all the content I wanted. So, I decided to split these back out. So, my Monthly Wrap-up for February was posted on Tuesday and my Monthly TBR for March was shared on Thursday.

I also shared a First Lines Friday post to wrap-up the working week. In that post, I challenged myself to feature a book I’ve added to my TBR in the last three months. Let’s face it, I’ve added quite a few books in that time period and so I had plenty of scope to choose from. I’m really pleased with the book I selected and I hope you enjoyed the introduction as much as I did!

 

Books Read

When I left you in last week’s Sunday Summary post I was 60% through Blackwing by Ed McDonald. This was the book I picked up at the end of February, having swapped it from One Flew Over the Cuckoo‘s Nest.

I am glad I made the switch. I absolutely devoured reading Blackwing and the escapism fantasy books offer was exactly what I needed! I read this book in a matter of days and I’ve since decided that I’m going to continue with re-reading the trilogy.

Because I still want to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo‘s Nest, I added this to my March TBR and as of this post I am 40% through the book. I’m now doubly glad I made the switch last month because this book isn’t quite what I expected. In all honesty, I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s perfectly readable but at the same time it’s not grabbing me in the same way either. It’s just something I feel very neutral about.

I decided to pick up a second book this week to give myself a break from it. I have picked up the next book on my TBR, Keep You Safe by Rona Halsall. This is going a lot better! I am enjoying reading this one and I managed to read 75 pages in one sitting yesterday. I expected to go into this book fully rooting for the main character. However, protagonist Natalie is a lot more complex than the synopsis lets on and I’m not sure who I’m rooting for at this point! For anyone like me who loves characters with moral shades of grey, I think it’ll be a good one for you.

I haven’t given up on One Flew Over the Cuckoo‘s Nest just yet. I’m going to continue with this next week and see how I get on. However, if it doesn’t pick up soon then I think this might be my first DNF of the year. We’ll see.

In better news, I started listening to my audiobook of A Storm of Swords again this week! It’s been a few weeks since I last put this on, however I was in the mood and I’ve managed to work my way through a few more chapters! Progress is progress!

 

Books Discovered

No new additions to the TBR for the first time in a few weeks, which is good! I’ve added enough lately, so I’ll have to give it a break if I want to delude myself that I’ll catch up at some point.

Haha, funny right?

 

Coming Up…

Next week I’ll be going back to my regular three post schedule.

It’s been a little while since I shared a Top Ten Tuesday post, and I like the sound of this week’s topic. The topic is Books With Your Favorite Trope/Theme. There are a lot of themes or tropes that could be looked at as a part of this post, so content on the blogosphere is going to be quite varied. My favourite theme for this post is going to be based around my love of fantasy books, and feature books which contain prophecies! It’s a very common thing in fantasy and it’s one of the tropes I don’t hate even though it’s a bit overused.

On Friday it’s the turn of my regular Shelf Control post. I’ll be taking another look at my TBR and sharing with you the next book on my list. I’ll share some details of the book, go into some detail as to why I added it to my list and why I still want to read it now.

Last, but not least, I’ll be back the same time next week for another Sunday Summary update!

Until then, I hope you have a good week and I’ll see you in the next post!

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Sunday Summary – 6th February 2022

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Good evening and welcome to my Sunday Summary post for this week. As always, I hope you’ve had a great one?

Earlier this week I shared a brief wrapup for January and my TBR list for February. I decided to combine these two posts as more often than not, there is a degree of overlap. The start of my reading list for February is related to my reading progress in January. Naturally, it felt like a good fit and it also saved me from writing a separate post!

My Friday feature this week was a Shelf Control post. The featured book in this week’s post has been on my TBR for quite some time – since 2017. As someone who has been reading more science fiction of late, I’m excited to get around to this particular book. I like the sound of the synopsis (albeit as brief as it is)… and I hope to read it soon!

 

Books Read

 

Reading progress has been very hit and miss over the last couple of weeks. Last week was a complete lull, after the week prior in which I read a hell of a lot.

This week I found a bit more of a healthy balance. My main objective of the week was to finish reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and I’m pleased to say I have! I’ve been enjoying my re-read of this series. I haven’t read these books for about 10 years now, and they’ve aged really well. Despite being older, it doesn’t matter. It hasn’t impacted my enjoyment in the slightest. I am particularly enjoying the later books in the series as the plot becomes more developed and a little bit darker. I can’t wait to read and enjoy the last one… and call this re-read complete!

In addition, I have also started Clockwork Magpies by Emma Whitehall. This was an impulse addition to read last month. I had seen the publisher advertising advance reader copies of the book to bloggers like myself, and I really loved the sound of it. I love fantasy and the steampunk element really appealed! I only picked this up fairly briefly one night this week, but I’m already over 10% through! It’s a bit shorter than the books I’ve been reading of late, so I expect I will get through this one quite quickly in the next week or so.

I have also made more progress with A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. I’ve listened to a good few chapters this week, and most probably do an amount to a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, progress is progress! This is a serious I could read and listen to over and over again. I’m in no rush to get through it.

 

Books Discovered

Once again it has been a quiet week on the TBR front with no new books added to the list!

 

Coming Up…

My first post next week is going to be a Top Ten Tuesday post. This week’s theme is a ‘love freebie’, and I’ve decided that I’m going to be sharing a post with the topic of ‘Books I’d LOVE to re-read’. As I think you will know by now I am not a romance person by any stretch of the imagination. It’s the only way I can get this thing to work, but I will also be good for me because there are a number of books I have featured recently and said, “Hey, I want to read that again.” It will be handy to have it all in one place for reference later.

On Friday I will be sharing a First Lines Friday post. I’m going to keep it wide open this week so I can feature absolutely anything I want!

And last but not least, I’ll be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary update.

What have you been reading this week? Do you have any recommendations for me? As always, I’d love to hear from you!

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Sunday Summary – 30th January 2022

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Good evening and welcome to my Sunday Summary update for this week. As always, I hope you’ve had a great one?

I began this week by sharing a book review with you. I read Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham just over a year ago, so needless to say my review was a little late in coming to you. However, better late than never… and if you are interested in non-fiction then this might be something for you to check out yourself.

This week’s Friday feature was a First Lines Friday post. For this week’s post I set myself the challenge of featuring a book I read before I started my blog back in 2017. I’m really happy with the book I choose to feature; it’s a book series that I would like to go back and read again. I went on to read a further book by this author, but I wasn’t as keen on that one as I was the original series. If you want to find out what I’m talking about, you can check out my Friday feature using the link above.

 

Books Read

Last week my reading progress was on fire, but this week I’ve done almost the complete opposite. I picked up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince very briefly, but I didn’t even get through a full chapter this week. Not very good progress I know, but I’ve been doing other things. I have been playing Animal Crossing and Minecraft, knitting my dad a pair of fingerless gloves (and starting a pair of my mum), as well as spending time with family. It’s actually been nice taking a step back for a little bit. I’ve still done a lot of reading this month and if I learned anything from last year, it’s to do it when I want to but equally not force it if I want to do something else. And this week I’ve done other things. That’s fine; my books aren’t exactly going anywhere!

I will be picking up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince again tonight to make up for some of the lack of reading this week. I am actually in the mood for it too; I like to read as a way of winding down in the evening. I do particularly struggle on Sunday nights, so I think it will be of a benefit to me anyway.

I have managed to listen to more of A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin this week. Although it’s not a huge amount again, I’d actually say it was more than I managed to physically read this week.

 

Books Discovered

It’s been another good week for me here because I haven’t added any more books to the ever-growing list that is my TBR pile. I will count my wins where I get them!

 

Coming Up…

I haven’t really been able to prepare the first of next week’s blog posts in advance, because they depend on part on the reading progress I’ve made to date. At the beginning of next week I’m going to be sharing a wrapup commentary for the month of January, as well as my TBR for February together in one update post. I hope you can join me for that!

Then, on Friday I will be sharing a Shelf Control post. This week’s featured book is one I added to my list in September 2017. It’s synopsis is also quite vague, but in a way that draws your attention and makes you wonder about it. You can find out more about the book and my thoughts on it on Friday!

And last but not least, I’ll be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary update.

What have you been reading this week? Do you have any recommendations for me? As always, I’d love to hear from you!

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Sunday Summary – 23rd January 2022

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Good evening and welcome to my Sunday Summary update post to round off this week. As always, I hope you’ve had a great week?

I began this week by sharing a book tag post with you all. The Bookaholics Anonymous Book Tag was really fun to get involved in and to share my answers for. I like these posts because they’re quite casual, but also give you the chance to learn a little bit about me. If you haven’t checked out that post yet you can do so using the link above, and if you’d like to take part I’d love for you to link to me so I can see your answers!

My Friday feature post this week was a Shelf Control post. This week’s featured book is one from a genre I don’t read much of. That said, this author is also a bit of a go-to for me and I won’t hesitate to read any of his books even if they’re not normally my cup of tea. He’s a household name and I’m sure if you haven’t read the book yourself, you’ve probably watched a film based on it!

 

Books Read

I don’t know what happened this week, but the amount of reading I’ve done compared to recent weeks is off the charts!

As of last week’s Sunday Summary post I was just over 200 pages into Dune by Frank Herbert, which equates to 38%. I finished the book on Wednesday! I must’ve just hit a point in the narrative where it clicked for me. It was perhaps a little bit slow to start, or at least, there was a lot of groundwork needed before the action began. My progress up until this week was getting through that, but once the action started I was in and hooked! I enjoyed reading this book – it’s been on my shelf for five years nearly and I can finally tick it off the list!

In addition, I have been reading a further two books side-by-side this week. I started with reading The Original Folk and Fairytales of the Brother’s Grimm,  translated by Jack Zipes. This is a collection of the original versions of folk and fairytales collated by the brothers and published in 1812. Even from the few I’ve read so far, the tales have changed dramatically since they were originally published. The majority of these tales were previously passed down orally, which is apparent from the way they’ve been documented. Originally, the brothers aimed to maintain as much fidelity to the oral tales as possible. They lack polish, some of them are incomplete or have alternative endings and there are some significant changes from the fairytales we know today. I like how the book includes well-known fairytales, such as Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, but equally, there are so many other stories that we don’t know. As of this update post, I’m 79 pages into this book.

I’m finding that it’s a book to pick up in short bursts, however. With that in mind, I have also started reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling. It’s nice to have a blend of short stories that I can pick up and put down very easily, and also a longer story that is easy to take in. This particular book is a re-read so I’m fully familiar with the story, but I’m still enjoying all the same! That is obvious by my progress; I’m 124 pages into this book already.

I have listened to a very small amount of A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin this week. It’s almost not worth mentioning because it’s probably only a couple of chapters, but it’s better than nothing right?!

 

Books Discovered

 

I’ve made two additions to my TBR list this week.

The first book I’ve added is The First Binding by R. R. Virdi. It is due to be published in August this year and I like the sound of the narrative based on the synopsis. To me, the narrative sounds like it could be very reminiscent of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles books. We shall see on that front, but I’m always open to new authors and this sounds like it could be a great fantasy series!

The second addition to my TBR is Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert, the sequel to Dune. There are quite a few books in the series and it’s one that I would like to continue with and chip away at over time.

 

Coming Up…

I have prepared a book review to share with you next week. I’ve been looking back through my list of books read and decided that I’m going to share a review of Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham. I don’t read much in the way of non-fiction, but I really liked how this book balanced the entertainment of reading element, but also managed to inform and educate me as a reader. I went into this book with very little knowledge of the disaster, but that didn’t matter. If you want to check out that post, that will be going live on Tuesday.

My regular Friday feature is a First Lines Friday post this week. For this post, I’m setting myself the challenge of featuring a book I read as a teenager in my pre-blog days. I’ve read so many great ones and there are several that I would like to go back to again. I feel like this post is probably going to encourage me to do this even more! You’ll have to check out my post on Friday to see which book I’ve chosen to feature.

And last but not least, I’ll be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary update.

What have you been reading this week? Do you have any recommendations for me?

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Sunday Summary – 16th January 2022

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Good evening and welcome to this week’s Sunday Summary update post. As always, I hope you’ve had a fantastic week whatever you have been up to?

I have been keeping busy this week. I’ve been doing quite well in working towards getting blog posts written a little bit more in advance compared to last year. I have managed to get myself organised nicely so this will be continuing going forward. It’s a little bit more work in the short term, but in the long term, I will be drafting posts in the same kind of frequency, just a week in advance!

The post I shared at the beginning of this week was a book review for Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It’s one of those books that you start to review and honestly question whether you can do it justice! I enjoyed this book and I hope that comes across in my review; if there is anyone who dismisses reading classics because they read them at school or they think they’re boring and stuffy then I’d ask you to please give them a chance. Of all the books I’ve read, I would say Brave New World is a great one to try. It is easy to follow and it’s a relatively short read as well!

My Friday feature post this week was a First Lines Friday post. In that post, I set myself the challenge of featuring a non-fiction novel. This week’s excerpt is deliberately short because the scene depicted gets a little bit graphic after the opening paragraph. In the interest of not upsetting anyone I’ve excluded it, but the first paragraph gives you an idea of the content of the book. I am personally excited to read this one!

 

Books Read

As of last week‘s Sunday Summary update I was 62 pages into Dune by Frank Herbert. Dune has been my main area of progress this week, with a further 140 pages read.

I’m really enjoying the storyline, however in terms of what is going on and the writing style I find it quite dense. It’s the sort of book that is good to read, but is best picked up little and often. I usually find I get about 30 odd pages through before I have to put it down again to digest what I’ve read. It doesn’t detract from the story or anything at all; I am really enjoying it. I just can’t read it in large quantities! Having said that, the last time I picked up the book I think I managed to get around 40 or 50 pages through before I had to put it down. Maybe I’m getting used to it, or maybe it was just an exceptionally good part. I am looking forward to picking this up tonight once this post has gone live and continuing this over the next week!

As well as reading Dune, I’ve also been continuing to listen to A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin this week. I’ll hold my hands up and say that I haven’t listen to as much of this audiobook this week as I wanted to, or should have. That’s okay though! The important thing is to read and listen at a pace I’m happy with and what I have listened to has been really good.

 

Books Discovered

For the first time in a few weeks I can happily say that I haven’t added anything else to my reading list this week!

 

Coming Up…

Early next week I am sharing a book tag on my blog. It’s one that I saw completed by another blogger and I thought it would be fun to take part in! It’s been a little while since I’ve done anything like that. I really enjoy reading these posts because you get to learn a little bit about the person behind the blog. But also, they’re fun to write. This particular tag is called The Bookaholics Anonymous Book Tag and I hope you can check that out in the coming days.

My regular feature on Friday is going to be a Shelf Control post. This week’s featured book is a good one and slightly different from the usual content of my blog. There’s only one author I would read without hesitation who frequents the horror genre – Stephen King. I’m excited to be featuring one of his books later this week – but you’ll have to check my post out on Friday if you want to find out which book I’m talking about!

And as always, I’ll be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary post.

Until then, I hope you have a great week! Are you currently reading or listening to any interesting books?

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Sunday Summary – 9th January 2022

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Good evening everyone and welcome to my weekly Sunday Summary update. It’s been a busy week since my last post! Not only have I been working towards my goal of preparing blog posts a little bit earlier, but I’ve also been reading a lot more than I have been for several months.

At the beginning of this week, I shared my Monthly TBR post. Yes, I’m back to sharing reading lists, but with a little more flexibility than before. Instead of giving myself a completely fixed list for the month, I’ve decided on a compromise and I’m only setting myself a couple of books on each TBR. That allows me some time and space to pick up any other book(s) I want to read once those are done. This way I think I get the best of both worlds. I get the structure of having a couple of fixed ones, but also the flexibility to be able to pick up anything on a whim!

Later in the week, I shared a Shelf Control post with you. This week’s featured book is one that I’m excited to pick up. From what my mum has told me this is the start of the series that my grandad used to enjoy reading. I’m looking forward to picking it up and seeing if we have a commonality in enjoying this particular series. And it sounds good and I trust his judgement so I’m sure I will!

 

Books Read

As of last week‘s Sunday Summary update post I was 75% through reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I had every confidence that I was going to be telling you I had finished this book this week and I’m pleased to tell you that is the case! I finished this reasonably quickly after sharing my last update with you! The narrative has a lot of different elements and I loved how it brought them together. It was a real mix of genres and I enjoyed how they were blended together.

Next, I decided to pick up The Feedback Loop by Harmon Cooper. This particular book is only a couple of hundred pages long and I wanted to capitalise on my newfound motivation. I’m glad I made this decision because I managed to finish The Feedback Loop within a couple of evenings. It was really easy to read, full of action and there’s plenty of plotline to keep the reader invested for those couple of hundred pages. From my experience of the first book I’m not sure I’ll go on to read the rest of the series, but it was a perfectly adequate standalone novel to pick up for a quick read!

And then last, but not least, I have made a start reading Dune by Frank Herbert. Given that there’s been a film released recently I’ve seen a lot of people getting copies of this book or even reading it as well. I had actually intended to read this earlier, but last year was a bit of a strange one for me and I didn’t have motivation to pick it up in earnest. However, that is not the case now! I’m currently 62 pages in so I’ve made a solid start. I’ve gotten further than I ever have before into giving this ago and I can’t wait to see how the plot unfolds. It seems like it’s an interesting science-fiction that’s going to have an underpinning element of politics between the characters. I i’ve really enjoyed these kind of elements in previous books (Game of Thrones being the obvious example) and so I can’t wait to see how this works within a science fiction!

Speaking of A Game of Thrones, I have also been listening to my audiobook, A Storm of Swords, as well. One of my plans to help get through this particular audiobook was to listen to it (at least) during my morning and evening commute to work. I didn’t quite do that every day, however I did it for most and I also managed to sneak in an extra hour or two here and there throughout the week. I’m pleased with how far I am through at the moment and I think I’m on track to be close to finishing this by the end of the month.

 

Books Discovered

I added a good few books to my TBR recently. In last week’s Sunday Summary update I shared a fair old list. Whilst I would love to say that I haven’t added any more because frankly I already have enough, I’d be lying. I decided to go for a look in our local Waterstones on Friday (as I had some vouchers that were obviously burning a hole in my pocket), and well, you probably know what’s coming. I bought myself a couple. Shock!

Now technically, only one of the books I bought is a new addition to my TBR. After the release of Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, I promptly added this to my list to be read. I have really come to love he’s never night series and I knew straightaway that I wanted to pick this up. Having seen a gorgeous hardcover copy in Waterstones, I had to. I just had to!

The second book I purchased is Starsight by Brandon Sanderson. It’s the second book of the Skyward series; I already have the first book upstairs. Brandon Sanderson is a go-to author for me. I absolutely love his works and the variety between them and so this was a no-brainer to pick up. I was, however, surprised to see that although I had a copy of Skyward upstairs already, I hadn’t added this first book to my TBR. A slight oversight on my part, but now both Skyward and Starsight are safely on the list to be read.

At some point.

 

Coming Up…

Early next week I will be sharing a book review with you all! It has been about a month since my last one and so I felt it time to start sharing them again. If I’m going to be reading more than before I’m going to have to step up the number of reviews I’m sharing. I also have a bit of a backlog, so you can expect to see more of these soon. For this week’s feature, I am sharing my thoughts on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I really enjoyed reading this classic novel and given that it’s a reasonably short one I think it’s a great one for anyone to pick up.

Later in the week I’ll be back with a First Lines Friday feature. Whilst I haven’t christened the particular book I’m going to be featuring yet (and I will be deciding and preparing this post imminently) I have decided that I’m going to set myself a challenge of featuring a non-fiction book. I hope you can join me on Friday to check out what this week’s featured book is!

And as always, I’ll be rounding off the week with another Sunday Summary update and sharing with you all my reading news.

 

Until then, I hope you have a great week! Are you currently reading or listening to any interesting books?

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Sunday Summary – 2nd January 2022

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Good evening everyone and welcome to my first Sunday Summary post of 2022. I have a lot of optimism and motivation for the year! It has been a couple of weeks since my last Sunday Summary post, and so I have a few updates for you!

After my last Sunday Summary post on the 19th December 2021, I announced that I was going to be taking a short break for the festive period. I had family over visiting and it was lovely to just chill out and enjoy spending a wonderful Christmas with everyone!

That’s not to say that nothing was going on in the background, however. After Christmas I started drafting some blog posts ready for the New Year. In particular, I drafted and shared an End of Year Review post for 2021 and shared that on Friday. In that post I looked back at my goals and resolutions for 2021 and discussed how I feel I got on with them. Ultimately, I achieved what I wanted to, which was to take a step back and give myself break whilst still enjoying my hobby. I’m happy that I managed to do this and I still read a decent number of books, so I’ll take that as a win!

I also drafted and another post which I shared with you yesterday. In that post I talked about my New Year Goals/Resolutions for 2022. The main highlight from that post is that I’m back in the game. I got the break I needed and I’m motivated to start setting myself some challenges again. I’m doing so in moderation because I know that I don’t want to burn out again. Not only that, but I have expanded on other hobbies and interests and I will be continuing with those as well. My aim for 2022 is to achieve balance. If you want to read more you can do so using the link provided above to yesterday‘s post!

 

Books Read

Despite it being two weeks since my last update, I’ll confess that all of my recent reading progress has taken place in the last week. As of my last Sunday Summary update I was around 25% of the way through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. In the last few days I’ve been making a solid effort with this and I’m now 75% of the way through the book. If you needed proof that I am back and raring to go then take this as a sign! I love all the different facets to the story and the most recent plot developments are really intriguing. At this rate, I’m hoping to be telling you next week that I’ve finished this. It’s a shame I’ll have finished it a couple of weeks late to return this to my sister’s boyfriend Chris, but never mind!

In my last Sunday Summary post I was nearly finished with Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell; I only had around 30 minutes of audio left. I’m pleased to say that I finished listening to this one whilst commuting home from work one day this week. To be honest I didn’t think I wasn’t going to achieve this. It was only a little bit left and I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. Sebastien de Castell is a new author to me and I really enjoyed this book! I am definitely continuing with this series (I’ve already purchased the audiobooks ready to go). I also discovered this week is that I’ve had my eye on another series written by him (Spellslinger), but I hadn’t realised that it was the same author. If I go on to love the rest of these books as I have the first then it’s safe to say I’ll be delving into the second series!

For now though, I’ve started listening to another audiobook. It’s a solid favourite and I can’t wait to get back into this series. I have already read the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series (a.k.a. A Game of Thrones) at least twice but I’m also now listening to the books. They are very long but audiobooks are an easy way to digest them. I’ve already listened to the first two in the series and so I have moved on to A Storm of Swords. This audiobook is over 47 hours long, so I have my work cut out for me to listen to it. My goal however is to make a habit of listening to it regularly. If I can achieve that then I think I can complete this by the end of January. Wish me luck!

 

Books Discovered

I have been very good and not added many books to my TBR for a good few weeks. But, you know, Christmas has been and gone and so that streak ends here.

I was very lucky to receive copies of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, The Appeal by Janice Hallett and The Promise by Damon Galgut for Christmas. I’m collecting clothbound classics and so the copy of Oliver Twist was very well received for that reason! I’m also really happy to have received the other two books. I hadn’t really read much about them up until I received them, however both books sound really interesting! They were also given to me by someone who has a similar reading taste, so I have every confidence that I’m going to enjoy them!

If that wasn’t enough, I’ve added a couple books to my TBR that I’ve come across as part of completing my CPD for work. I don’t tend to read much in the way of self-help, but I think I could benefit from these two books. The books I have added are Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The crux of both titles is to help the reader develop ways in which to effectively communicate with others, particularly where differences of opinion occur. I’ll hold my hands up and say that I’m not the most diplomatic of people, so I am sure I have plenty to learn from these books!

And then last, but certainly not least, I watched The Imitation Game on New Year’s Eve. It was a fantastic film and all of the actors were brilliant! I don’t watch films very often but I really enjoyed this one. And obviously, we get to the end and I find out it’s based on a book called Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. So of course, that’s now on the list as well!

It’s a good job I’ve found my reading motivation, right?!

 

Coming Up…

I already have a blog post scheduled for you that is going live tomorrow. If you’ve already read my New Year Goals/Resolutions for 2022 post then you will know that I am setting a monthly TBR for myself again. I’m doing so with a bit of a twist; I’m only setting a couple of books for the month and allowing myself time and space to pick up mood reads as and when those are done. I have shared my fixed list, as well as a couple of provisional titles that I might pick up. But, they may well change once I’ve read the fixed list. If you want to find out what I’m going to be reading in January then check out tomorrow’s post!

I will shortly be drafting the second post of the week, which is a Shelf Control post that will be going live on Friday. I’m working towards drafting my blog posts (with the exception of the Sunday Summary) at least a week in advance and I’m getting there. The book I will be featuring in Friday’s Shelf Control post is an interesting one, because if I remember correctly, my mum says that this is a series that my grandad enjoyed reading. The synopsis of this first book sounds really good, so even without that knowledge I would still be picking this up anyway. If I’ve piqued your interest then make sure to check out my blog on Friday!

And as always, last but not least, I’ll be back with you this time next week for another Sunday Summary update.

Until then, I hope you have a great week full of fantastic books and all the other fun stuff. What are you reading? Have you set yourself a reading goal for 2022?

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