READING LISTS: Siblings in Fiction

I read to books last week and coincidentally both had sibling relationships at their centre, and they were positive relationships. They supported each other, protected each other and made each other laugh. They were brother and sister, or sister and sister, or brother and brother, but they were also friends. That’s not to say their relationships were perfect. Siblings can be your closest allies and an acute pain in the bum. The problem is they know how to push your buttons, they know things your parents don’t about you and that gives them leverage, and they don’t always agree with you. As one of three children, I can confirm all this is true, but that’s what’s great about siblings. Even when they annoy you and tease you, they’ll still stick up for you when it counts.

READING LISTS: International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day so I thought what better way to bookishly commemorate the day than by sharing some of my favourite women writers and their works. There are quite a few of them, and I could probably waffle on about Jane Austen for as long as anyone would listen, it could be days, so I’m going to limit myself to five authors that I love, and five authors that I’d like to read. Spoiler alert though: Jane Austen will feature and their will be some gushing involved. Sorry.

MISC: Reading List Round-up 2017 & 2018 Reading List

The last couple of years I’ve set myself a reading list to tick off. The goal is to read some books on my TBR that are dusted in cobwebs, or pick up a book that I normally wouldn’t. The problem is that I rarely stick to it. So many books get published each year that catch my eye. Books get given to me, or I buy them spontaneously (it’s about the only spontaneous thing I do) and even though I have the best intentions, sometimes telling yourself ‘I have to read this book’ can put you off.

READING LISTS: Halloween Picks (If you don’t like a fright)

Halloween is the day when all the ghouls come out to play. I know, I know, but for some of us who couldn’t say ‘boo’ to a ghost, it means dodging all the horror films that your friends want to watch during a movie marathon and miserably failing. If horror films scare you like they scare me, than you’ve probably had to sit for two hours staring at your lap and occasionally peeked at the screen to see if it was over.

I’m not a complete monster, I do give sweets to trick-o-treaters, but my preferred film on Halloween is The Rocky Horror Picture Show and if I’m going to read, I lean towards the Gothic rather than the scary. Halloween is also puts me in a fantasy mood too, so I love delving into a magical story at the end of October.

So if you don’t revel in fright night, here are some books that will keep you entertained and your heart rate (mostly) steady.

READING LISTS: Books That Have Sentimental Value

If you’re anything like me then you probably have an unhealthy attachment to most books. You can’t bear to get rid of them, even though their piled up under your bed, in your cupboard, one literary Jenga game waiting to tumble down and knock you senseless. You would probably still love them even then. But, like with most of the objects we collect, there are certain books that mean something more to me. It might be to do with the writing, the way a book makes me feel, or it might be because it was a gift, or I read it at a certain time. So, what with the dreaded move which involved a look of book lifting and rearranging, I thought now would be the perfect time to revisit some of the books that have a special meaning to me. 

READING LISTS: Mental Health in Books

Mental Health Awareness month was back in May, and in honour of that month I decided to read Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. Over the past year of blogging, I’ve realised I can be a little less varied than I’d like to be in my reading, and now that I’m reaching the end of my dissertation, I feel like I can finally start to branch out. My mental health is something that I often take for granted, it’s not something I have to think about much, and that can mean that I forget not everyone is the same. These are six books I’ve read that have changed my perception of mental health.

READING LISTS: 10 Books I’d Like to Re-read

If you know my, you’ll know I very rarely re-read anything. I have a trusty copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky that I open every now and again when I’m looking for comfort and Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer when I need a boost, but other than that once I pick up a book I very rarely read it again. I’m not sure it its because I feel so far behind a lot of the time, I don’t always read books when they come out, or whether it’s just that once I’ve closed the cover I don’t feel the need to pick it up again, but re-reading is one of those things I very rarely do, like going to the gym and eating low-fat yogurt.

So, I had a think about the books I would re-read if I ever got round to it and surprisingly there were more YA books than I expected.

READING LISTS: 10 Non-Fiction Books To Read

Fiction has always been my forte. I like being pulled out of the world and into another, but the truth is non-ficion can do that too. There are hundreds of topics on which I know nothing about, countries I’ve never visited, experiences I’ve never had, and all those discoveries can be found in non-fiction too. I recently read Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy and Amy Poehler’s Yes Please and they pulled me across the Atlantic, I was tucked up under the blankets with Lawson, joining in her racoon rodeo and on the set of SNL with Poehler. Non-fiction can tell you a story, and tell you more about yourself. So, inspired by reading these two fantastic books I’ve picked out 10 more non-fiction books that I would like to read.

READING LISTS: New Year, New Reads

Happy New Year my lovely, lovely book enthusiasts! I hope 2017 is shaping up to be your best year yet! By the end of this month the blog will be officially one-year old. It’s the longest I’ve ever kept a blog running and I think that, despite how cliche it might sound, it’s because I’ve found something that gets me giddy with excitement: books!

So, a new year call for a new reading list.I did better than I thought with my list for 2016 and managed to read 11 out of the 19 books I chose. I knew I’d get distracted by all the other lovely books out there! I finished 2016 with 45 books under my belt but I’m hoping to make it to 50 this year. I’ve already started reading D.H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover so I should have one book ticked off the list in no time! I didn’t realise when I was writing it out that the books I had chosen were almost all writen by women writers- it just goes to show how many great female voices there are out there!

If you didn’t know already, I’ve been contributing to the wonderul Imaginary Book Club over the last few months and I’ll be sharing my reading goals for 2017 over on the website very soon!

What are you planning to read in 2017?

READING LISTS: The TBR Pile

My To Be Read pile has spiralled out of control. Over the past few months its evolved into a tower. You could probably use it to build the foundations of a small house.There’s something infinitely exciting about buying a new book and the eperiences you’ll have reading it. Since starting the blog I’ve definitely become more addicted to that feeling, and even though I try to curb my spending by using the glorious, glorious library sometimes I slip up (a lot). So, my aim for the final two months of the year is to make my way through this pile and make it smaller. If I can get it into single figures I will be immensely happy.

I should probably start with the short story collections first- Multitudes by Lucy Caldwell, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing by Thomas Morris and Spoiled Brats by Simon Rich- because I haven’t read any short stories in a while and they really do help to spur on my own short story collection. But I might have to sneak Jane Eyre in somewhere because I’ve been saving it as a winter read.

Does anyone else have a mountainous TBR pile?