The Liebster Award | 2

Georgiana @ ReadersHighTea tagged me in the Liebster Award ages ago and I’ve finally got around to doing it! Thank you, Georgiana! This is the second time I’ve done this award tag – you can find my first answers here.

What is the Liebster Award?

“The Liebster Award is an award that exists only on the internet and is given to bloggers by other bloggers. The earliest case of the award goes as far back as 2011. Liebster in German means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.” — GlobalAussie

Stacking the Shelves: July

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, Stacking the Shelves is a regular feature where I share everything I’ve added to my TBR list in the past month. Each month I look at the books I’ve discovered and tell you what they’re about, where I found them, why I want to read them, what their shelf status is, how high of a priority they are, and finally what my rating prediction is.

I didn’t add any books to my TBR in June which is why there was no Stacking the Shelves post last month. Despite hardly reading anything in July, I still added two books to my ‘want to read’ list.

Book Review: The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao

Gwendolyn and Estella have always been close, each other’s source of comfort in an industriously wealthy Chinese-Indonesian family with more secrets than they can keep track of. But when Estella poisons their entire family, sole survivor Gwendolyn is left to trawl through her fractured memories to try and uncover their past and make sense of a sister she thought she knew.

When your sister murders three hundred people, you can’t help but wonder why – especially if you were one of the intended victims.

July’s Monthly Round-Up

I started last month’s round-up post with ‘I’m over my reading slump!’ and I’m gonna go ahead and retract that. I’m not really reading right now, and I guess I’m sort of on a semi-unofficial-hiatus from blogging too. I’m just taking some time to do some other things. I wanted to at least do my monthly round-up post though, since I do actually have some things to share. For now, I’m just going to be posting when I have something to post about, rather than trying to stick to any kind of schedule. Here’s what I read in July (though very firmly in the first half, I don’t think I’ve picked up a book since 21 July…)

Friday’s Further Reading | 6

Welcome back to Friday’s Further Reading! 

If you missed previous posts, you can check them out here. Friday’s Further Reading is chance for me to share some interesting reads I’ve come across in the past few weeks. These could be short stories, poems, posts from other bloggers, or news articles; bookish and otherwise. 

I’ve been really wrapped up in other things this month and I haven’t really been keeping track of the various things I’ve come across, but one thing I do want to share with you is a website called Window Swap, where you can tune in to a video of the view from a random person’s window. People have submitted videos from all over the world and it’s amazing to watch. It’s lovely ambient noise for reading too (my weak attempt at trying to make this bookish somehow…)

My favourite that I’ve come across so far is this view in Doha, Qatar, of a cat watching the birds whilst the sun goes down.

Happy reading – and watching!

K-Pop Readathon: Round-Up

I can’t believe it’s only been a month since I posted my TBR for this readathon. I’ve been on a journey, guys. Last month I was firmly on the BTS bandwagon and open to listening to other groups. Now I have three different K-Pop playlists on Spotify with over 20 hours of music across them. I fell HARD into a K-Pop hole and honestly, it’s the only thing keeping me sane during this pandemic.

Whilst my Spotify is thriving, my reading is still a little slow. I just about managed to finish the six prompts for Team BTS, and I almost stuck to my TBR!

Here’s a reminder of the prompts:

Book Review: Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Six students at an elite university decide to play a game of dares with increasingly outrageous challenges and consequences. There’s £10,000 and personal pride on the line, and the relationships between the players begin to fray, eventually reaching breaking point with tragic consequences.

Perhaps biting your tongue was the only thing that kept the worst parts of you hidden from the world.

Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag 2020

It’s that time of year again! I always start to see the Mid Year Freak Out Book Tag floating around early June, which always seems a little premature to me – there’s a whole month of the first half of the year left?! What if you read a masterpiece mid-June?! But we’re firmly in the second half of the year now so I’m ready to add mine to the pile.

Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

When Circe is born to the god Helios, there is something different about her; she lacks the inescapably allure of her nymph siblings and cousins, and is shunned by most of her family. Discovering that her power lies in the herbs and flowers of her homeland, she seeks solace in her witchcraft. But the gods are wary of her new skills, and when she transforms a fellow nymph into a seething monster, Zeus banishes Circe to a life of solitude on an island far from anyone else. Here Circe develops her powers and comes into contact with a host of characters, gods and mortals a like.

… in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

June’s Monthly Round-Up

I finally feel like I’m coming out of my post-Magical Readathon slump, even though I didn’t really pick up a book until about 20 June. I do feel like I’m getting back into my groove now though (just in time for the August Magical Readathon to come around and kick my ass all over again) so hopefully I’ll have a few more books on my July round-up next month. Still, four books in 10 days isn’t bad at all. Here’s what I managed to finish in June.