Tag: personalities

Sunday Summary – 22nd October 2023

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I’m back with another Sunday Summary update for you all, and I have plenty of reading progress to catch you up on! Have you had as good a week as I have?

Before we get into my reading updates for the week, let’s do our usual quick catch up on what posts I’ve shared in the week. If you’ve missed any, now is your opportunity to catch up.

My first post of the week was a discussion post outlining my favourite and least favourite fantasy tropes. Since I shared a detailed look at my favourites recently, I included them on this post only as a comparison to my least favourite… as some are linked.

On Friday, I detoured from my usual feature posts to share my review of The Puppet Maker. If you are partial to a police procedural or mystery/crime novel, I strongly recommend checking this out!

 

Books Read

 

Warrior Prince

I left off in last week’s Sunday Summary update having read the first 10% of Warrior Prince. A decent start, but it was just that. I’d only picked up the book for the first time that morning! This week, I dived into the book in earnest as it is the next book due a review here on my blog.

I’m a big fan of historical fiction, and I’ve been reading a lot of Viking based fiction set in modern day England. Warrior Prince differs from that format – it is instead set across Nordic and Eastern European backdrops. I’ve enjoyed the change of focus, as it isn’t an element of Viking history that I’ve considered before. Of course I know that they would have set out to other countries other than the UK; in fact, my own little island is one of such places. It’s not something I’ve seen very much of in terms of availability to read though.

The book is full of action, and is an interesting insight into the history of what we now know as Eastern Europe. The scope of locations throughout the narrative are quite varied, going to show that things like borders and restriction of movement were completely different. The one constant since time began is war… and that is something we see a lot of in this book. The conflict and the politics, together with the action, made for an interesting read. If you want to read my full thoughts on the book, you don’t have long to wait!

 

Cinderella’s Crimes

The next book I picked up this week was Cinderella’s Crimes by Kelsey Josund. The tale is a reimagining of the traditional fairytale, only Cinna is not your average step child turned housemaid. She’s a bitter woman. Cold and calculating, she’s devised a way to turn her life around and get what she thinks she deserves – and it begins with a heist.

The plot is very well thought out and paced throughout the book. Not everything is revealed to us readers straight away either, keeping us guessing. Although Cinderella’s Crimes is one of the shorter books I have read this year, it doesn’t lack for detail. As you can only expect with two individuals running parallel heists, there is a lot of action and moving parts to juggle. The said, the plot was very easy to follow and was, overall, engaging.

I’ll be publishing my review of this book at the end of the month, so I hope you can check this out too!

 

Surrounded by Idiots

With just 20% left of Surrounded by Idiots, I left this until last. In fact, as of writing this paragraph, I’m listening to the last 26 minutes of the audio. I’ll have it finished by the end of the night edit: finished whilst editing this post.

The book has been really interesting in both understanding various personality types. More specifically, my personality type has proved interesting, and how I am perceived by others. I’m very strongly yellow, meaning I’m quite a social person and am prone to talk a lot. The funny part is that yellows tend to talk about themselves… which I can’t really argue about in this Sunday Summary now, can I?

This has built upon some knowledge I already had from a work course, and it’s helped me consider with more time and detail how to understand and work with different people.

 

Books Discovered

Dominion

I added one book to my reading list earlier today, having had a chat with Chris this afternoon about current reads. He is currently reading Dominion, and I like the sound of this alternative fiction.

The book explores what British life could be like had the country surrendered to the Germans in WW2. Chris is really enjoying the book, and I like historical fiction, so I definitely want to take a look!

 

Coming Up…

My first post of the week will be shared on Tuesday next week. With a review going live later in the week, I want to keep this post quite light in topic. With this in mind, I plan to share a Top Ten Tuesday post and share my top atmospheric books with you!

On Thursday, I’m taking part in the blog tour for Warrior Prince. If you like the sound of the book above, I’d love for you to take a look at that post when it goes live!

As always, I’ll be back this time next week with a Sunday Summary post. Until then, have a great week; I’ll see you in my Top Ten Tuesday post.

 

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Sunday Summary – 15th October 2023

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It’s a chilly Sunday evening here as I’m writing this Sunday Summary post. We’re finally getting into the season I enjoy… although I’m a little disappointed I’ve had to bring out my electric blanket already. Okay, let’s be honest, no I am not! It’s very toasty…

Before we take a look at the books I have been reading over the course of this week, let’s do our usual recap the other blog posts I have shared with you earlier this week.

The first of those blog posts was a book review for Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. I read and enjoyed the book in Summer last year. Having had mixed results with Neil Gaiman’s writing before, I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down. It is a relatively safe subject though, and it worked out really well. If you want to know my thoughts on the book, then please go and check out my full review.

The second post I shared earlier this week was my First Lines Friday. In that post, I completed the challenge of featuring a book that I intend to pick up later this year. It’s currently pencilled in on next month’s TBR, in case you’re interested. If you are as big a fan of fantasy as I am, I strongly recommend you check out that post and see if you can recognise the introduction!

 

Books Read

 

Surrounded by Idiots

I started this week having already made 40% progress in Surrounded by Idiots the week prior.

I’ve made considerable progress with this audiobook over the course of the week. I have particularly enjoyed listening to it whilst working on a long-standing cross stitch project. I’ve been working on that project on and off for probably over two years now. I like to have something to occupy my hands, but keeping my mind free enough to be able to enjoy audio at the same time.

All of my comments from last week about this book still stand. The topic is keeping my interest and is even teaching me a few things about how I can approach different people. Perhaps I will omit mentioning to some of my work colleagues that I’ve learned how to approach them from a book of this title. Whilst my immediate work colleagues could take the joke, I’m not sure about others!

As of this Sunday Summary post, I have just less than 20% left of the book to complete. On Audible, it’s indicating a listening time of just over an hour and a half; that should be very easy for me to achieve on the basis that I’ve listened to a lot more this week already!

 

The Puppet Maker

The first physical book I picked up this week was read on my Kindle in full. I have picked up The Puppet Maker in order to review the book as part of the upcoming blog tour next Friday.

The Puppet Maker is a police procedural that will appeal to fans of murder, mystery, and a disabled protagonist. Alana finds herself in the midst of multiple complex cases, one involving a small child and a missing mother, an unusual disappearance and then finally, an apparent murder.

I enjoyed this book and the opportunity it gave me to dip my toe back into the police procedural genre. The unique perspective and characters within made the book all the more interesting. Especially after the 50% mark, I couldn’t put the book down! If you want to read my full review, then be sure to check out the blog tour post going live on Friday.

 

Warrior Prince

Lastly, I made a start on Warrior Prince this morning. As of this Sunday Summary update, I am just 10% into this book. I am also reading Warrior Prince for an upcoming blog tour post… although this one is not going live until the week after next.

I can’t really say a whole lot at the moment as I’ve only just started the book. It’s made a good starting impression though, so I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the story over the next few days.

 

Books Discovered

I’ve got a good run going here. Once again, there are no new books on the TBR this week to share with you!

 

Coming Up…

I’ve already mentioned one of the posts that will be going live next week, but let’s take it from the top.

The first post I intend to share next week is a discussion post. It’s well documented on the blog that I’m a big fan and reader of fantasy. In my discussion post, I am going to share some elements of fantasy that I love, and some I don’t necessarily enjoy… at least not all of the time.

On Friday next week, I’ll be taking a break from my usual Friday features in order to bring you that blog tour review of The Puppet Maker by Jenny O’Brien.

As always, I’ll be back here next Sunday with another Sunday Summary update post for you all. I’ll get you up to speed on the reading I’ve picked up over the week and what’s coming up on the blog next!

Until then, happy reading and I’ll see you soon!

 

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Sunday Summary – 8th October 2023

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Hello lovely reading friends – I’m back with this week’s Sunday Summary update!

Thankfully, I have a good deal more reading progress to share with you in today’s Sunday Summary than I have of late. But, we’ll get to that a bit later. Firstly, let’s take a look at the blog posts I’ve shared throughout the week so far.

My first post of the week was my Monthly Wrap-Up for September. I had a reasonable month in terms of the books I picked up, although overall reading progress was down. If you’re interested in that recap and taking a look at the books I read last month, I’ve provided a link to that post.

On Friday I shared my Monthly TBR with you. In my September wrap-up, I considered setting myself fewer books to read a month. But of course, I’m not doing that. At least, not straight away. I’ve decided to try and incorporate more audiobooks into my reading list as a way to manage the page count I set myself. Well, that’s the plan for this month anyway. We’ll see how it goes! As always, if you’re interested in checking out my reading list and haven’t done, so yet, there’s a link above.

 

Books Read

 

Priest of Bones

In last week’s Sunday Summary, I was just three chapters into Priest of Bones by Peter McLean. I had picked up the book last Saturday and made this cursory start. This was the book I focused my attention on this week.

The vast majority of reading progress was in the latter half of this week. In fact, I finished this book around midday today before going to my mum and dad’s. At the time I wanted to share my weekly update on Instagram, I didn’t know whether I would still be reading Priest of Bones or picking up the next book on my list, The Puppet Maker. With where I ended up, I actually decided on posting both of these photos, as I will be picking up The Puppet Maker tonight.

Priest of Bones was a decent read, but personally, I didn’t think it lived up to expectation. There is a lot of action in the book, and there are elements of political conflict too.

I can’t really put my finger on why this wasn’t a four-star read. I generally only rate books in whole stars, but some books like Priest of Bones sit in the middle. I’d give this a 3.5 stars really. I think the book had some potential that wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. On the other hand, I did enjoy the character arcs and revelations as they worked their way into the narrative.

I liked the book, and I had a good time with it. At the same time, I don’t think I’ll carry on with the series though.

 

Surrounded by Idiots

In addition to Priest of Bones, I have listened to about 40% of Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson this week.

I recently attended a communication course at work that is based around the DiSC model. I appreciate this sort of thing isn’t for everybody, but I personally enjoyed the course. It gave some fairly useful tips on how to identify where conflict may arise as a result of personality types, and how we can work wiith that.

To build on that course, I decided to pick up Surrounded by Idiots. I had an idea that the book was based around a similar theme based on the cover, and I was right! Where is that course was mainly based around communication, the book deals with more behavioural elements, which of course communication comes into.

The book has proved a nice and easy listen so far. I’m building upon some foundation knowledge I already have, and the book is proving to be nicely sectioned to deal with certain types of personalities under a general theme. For example, one of the chapters I’m listening to at the moment is about the weaknesses of each personality type. This chapter is then broken down with an effective subheading for each type, and the book then gives detail about each one. This is a consistent approach throughout the book, and it’s one that works really well for me.

I’ve listened to this book whilst doing cleaning around the house, and even at lunchtime at work. I wanted to pick up audiobooks again in order to maximise the time I can spend reading. I can’t spend every minute of every day with my butt plonked on the sofa (as much as I would like to), and this book format is great for those times where I’m up and about!

 

Books Discovered

No news is good news once again this week!

 

Coming Up…

Next week, I have some exciting posts lined up for you.

Usually I share my first post on a Tuesday. However, as I’m planning to try and cut the grass in record time on Monday night (I’ll be competing with daylight after work), I’m giving myself a little bit more breathing space and publishing this post on Wednesday. I want to take my time and write it properly, because it is going to be a book review. The book in question is Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman.

On Friday, I plan to share my next First Lines Friday post. For this post, I am going to set myself a challenge. This is something I do periodically when I want to try and feature something different. For this week’s post, I am going to feature a book I intend to read by the end of the year (as a means of getting myself hyped about picking it up!)

On Sunday, well, you know what’s coming next. I’ll be back with another Sunday Summary post to catch up with all my latest reading updates.

I hope you can join me for each of those as and when they go live. In the meantime, I hope you have a fabulous week. I’m off to start The Puppet Maker; I’ll see you in the next post!

 

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