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 Well, halfway through Hour 9, anyway! How is everyone holding up? It’s 9:30 here, so I’m well into the evening, but I’ve finished my third full book now and I’m just set to choose a fourth. So far I’ve read For the King by Catherine Delors, A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris, and now Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn. I also finished the book I was reading previously, Miles in Love by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Julia Quinn was probably my least favorite – but with huge words and not-so-many pages, it went by quickly, and kept me amused.
Here are the stats:
Number of Books 4
Pages Read 1062
Time Spent Reading 7:07
Time Spent Blogging 1:05
I will remind you that of the books I’ve read, the pages were small and the font generally large, so I really don’t read THAT fast in real life. But right now it looks like my four book goal is perfectly achievable, as I’m just choosing that one out of my shrinking stack. Mainly I think it’s time for a change of pace with After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn.
Also, because the Read-a-thon is all about the food, here’s something I wish I was eating right now:
 Fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil on a crispy crust, baked in a wood-fired oven. I’ll be missing Rome’s pizzas for some time to come, and I wish I had one now to keep me going!
How is everyone else doing?
It’s nearly time for the Read-a-thon! I’m all set to start, hopefully shortly after 1. I thought I’d share my not-so-towering book pile with you all. I’ve read 4 books in the previous two Read-a-thons. While I’d like to top that, 4 books right now would be excellent. Here is the pile as it stands now:
My first aim is to finish Miles in Love, my current read. It’s an ebook, but I have 20% left, so I’ll calculate that out of the number of pages remaining. It will be quite a few pages, as the book is LONG. But then I’ll feel accomplished, and fully able to move onto other full books. I think I’ll first check in at that point! I’d like to finish that one and then four more – but we’ll see how the day goes.
See you in a few hours! Good luck to all the other ‘thon-ers – I hope to visit many of you over the next 24 hours in my breaks.
While we’re here, I thought I’d edit this post to add the introduction meme.
1) Where are you reading from today?
York, England. I’ll note this time that I’m American, which seems to be get lost in the shuffle sometimes! But I love York, and I’m all set to read after going for a walk this morning.
2) Three random facts about me…
a) Since moving to England I have discovered that steak & ale pie is the best food ever (especially as I’m shortly eating some)
b) I love flowers and plants but I’m a true black thumb gardener
c) My favorite color is yellow.
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
Eight – not so many as I’ve had in the past, but all books I’m looking forward to reading.
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
See above! I’d also like to spend some time visiting other blogs.
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?
Get comfy, have snacks ready, and set some time aside to participate on Twitter and others’ blogs to fully enjoy the experience.
Whitby Abbey, in Whitby, is probably most famous for its prominent role in Dracula and the 199 steps that lead up to the abbey from the town.
I like this shot for some reason. It gets across the desolation of the abbey, even though you can see the town in the background to the left.
To view more Saturday Snapshots, visit At Home with Books.
 Good afternoon Saloners! This weekend finds me in full force blogging mode, in a way that hasn’t been spotted around here for a while. I’ve managed to write two full weeks’ worth of posts this week, so the pressure is off for the first time in months. I still have four reviews left to write, but given I started the weekend with eleven, I’m counting that as serious progress. As long as I don’t read too much, I can finish off those reviews over the course of the week and be completely caught up by the end of next weekend. Then, obviously, the goal is to stay caught up until the Read-a-thon. Speaking of which, have you signed up yet? Let me know if you’ll also be reading with me!
My week has been very uneventful aside from that; just work, a moderate amount of reading, and some Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood keeping me busy. We’re just over two weeks away from our trip to Rome, so keeping it low key is the plan until then. I’m going to spend a large part of the next two weekends planning out the trip in a bit more detail and it’s hard to express just how much I’m looking forward to it.
 Today I’m reading Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell, the latest in the Saxon Chronicles, which follow Uhtred of Bebbanburg as the discordant countries of Britain become, in part, the kingdom of England. In this particular book, Alfred the Great is on the edge of death, but the battles and intrigue never end for Uhtred, especially because he hasn’t actually regained Bebbanburg from his treacherous relatives yet. I love this series and I was thrilled when I was offered a review copy. As it turns out, Cornwell is also touring parts of England this week. Sadly, he’s not in my neck of the woods, but if you’re in London, Ely, or Winchester, you’re in luck.
As it turned out, I didn’t get to meet Philippa Gregory this week, as tickets had sold out before I knew she was visiting. (Probably a good thing given my opinion of her latest). But my heart is still set on meeting Brandon Sanderson in November, and I’m hoping more authors come to York over the next few months.
This week I’m especially looking forward to starting The Night Circus, a book which has captivated many of my blogging friends, and possibly continuing with more non-fiction. I finally feel as though I have the brain power to learn again, and I’m very much taking advantage of that feeling while it lasts.
What are you reading this week? Anything you’d recommend?
Hello everyone and happy Sunday! Before I say anything else, I really want to thank everyone who went and voted for me for Best Historical Fiction Blog for BBAW. It’s such an honour to win again – I won last year and in 2008 – and I’m so pleased. The blogs nominated with me, Passages to the Past and Historical Tapestry, are absolutely spectacular blogs that I read myself, which to be honest makes the award worth even more in my eyes.
 If you’re new and popping by because of BBAW, welcome! As you’ll quickly realize, I don’t just blog about Historical Fiction, but history and the books written about it are a subject dear to my heart, and were always intended to be at the core of this blog. Please stay awhile, let me know you’re here, and I’ll make sure I pop over and visit you.
It’s really been a fantastic week, so I’d like to thank Amy and all of the organizers – they have as usual done an exceptional job.
What I’m struggling with these days is my reading pace – it feels slow as molasses! I’m actually at the pace I thought would be normal when I started working, which is 2-3 books a week instead of the 4-5 I used to read. This is due to a number of factors – extra work, which has continued, a new-found addiction to various nerdy magazines, and spending in general more time out and about now that we’re in York. I can’t complain about any of those things, and I’m obviously enjoying at least two of them, but I find myself confident I’ll read a certain book by a certain time only to find out that it’s actually impossible. I’m not sure how to manage this – I think I may just cut back on review copies completely again, but that won’t clear the backlog.
 Anyway, this week is going to be full of posting, so I hope you’re ready for it! I’ll be sharing reviews of all different kinds of books, from fantasy to YA to (hah) historical fiction, and I also plan to share some of my trip to Bruges with you.
In reading terms, today I’m working on finishing The Emperor of All Maladies, which is fantastic but really hard to read because of the subject matter. I’m also planning on starting Philippa Gregory’s recent works for review the week after – I’ll be starting with The Women of the Cousin’s War. She’s coming to town on Thursday and I’m hoping there will still be tickets left when I enquire on Monday.
I also found out Brandon Sanderson is coming to York in November through Twitter, at which point much fangirl squeeing ensued. I’m not entirely sure how I will get into town and back on my lunch hour, but I’m determined to try. I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally live in a place where author events happen.
I’m also looking forward to the resuming of Downton Abbey tonight on TV!
What do you have planned for the week ahead? I hope you have a fantastic Sunday!
As I say virtually every month, it’s so hard to believe we’re already in September. I’ve just spent a week in the Netherlands and Belgium with a friend from college. I think we both had a great time; for me in particular, Bruges was the highlight. It’s so easy to imagine the way this little town would have looked in the late Middle Ages, even though it’s been modified somewhat in the past few centuries and heavily restored. I’ll be posting a few pictures on Wednesday to give you an idea!
I also wanted to wrap up my August reading. I haven’t reviewed a lot of books that I read in August; as I said, I’ve been moving and travelling a whole lot these past few weeks. But I have more than a month to catch up now, so I’m looking forward to digging back into these reads and sharing them with you.
It’s been all fiction this month I’m afraid. I haven’t had the brain power to focus on the non-fiction I want to read. I hope this will change in September though, as I have a lot of non-fiction just waiting for me to read it. In the meantime, here are the 13 books I read in August:
- The Wild Rose, Jennifer Donnelly
- In a Treacherous Court, Michelle Diener
- The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Laurie R. King
- Young Miles, Lois McMaster Bujold
- The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
- Late Eclipses, Seanan McGuire
- Outside the Ordinary World, Dori Ostermiller
- One Night in London, Caroline Linden
- Cordelia’s Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold
- 22 Britannia Road, Amanda Hodgkinson
- Hostage to Pleasure, Nalini Singh
- This Burns My Heart, Samuel Park
- Solitary Man, Carly Phillips
Pick of the Month
Apologies to the many review books I’ve received, but my favorite books this month simply have to be:
 
Somehow, these books are exactly what I’ve been craving, with incredibly memorable and sympathetic characters, thoughtful yet action-packing storylines, and a universe that expands with every installment. I really couldn’t ask for more. I know I keep talking about these books without reviewing them, but I’ll be doing that this week. Many, many thanks to Fyrefly for bringing them to my attention, once again – there is a reason I’ve been hearing about these books for years.
Runners-up, however, definitely include This Burns My Heart and The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.
Next Month
September promises to be a busy month hereabouts, with BBAW, lots of books to review, and catching up all around the blogosphere. In addition to the books I’ve already finished above, I’ll be reviewing:
- The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee
- The Lady of the Rivers, Philippa Gregory
- The Reinvention of Love, Helen Humphreys
And I also want to share some of my travels with you, as I’m relatively new to seeing the world (despite living in a country different to the one I grew up in) and find the little corners I’ve explored so far to be very exciting. I hope you don’t mind!
Hello everyone! It has been a very long two weeks away from regular internet access, and I’m thrilled to say that those two weeks are over. I have felt so out of the loop; I know I lurk far too often on others’ blogs, but I love to read what’s going on even if I can’t think of anything intelligent to respond. Missing out on that has been tough, although you may have spotted me trying to comment on my lunch breaks at work. I have a lot of catching up to do this week, as next week I’m off to Amsterdam and Bruges.
Our move is now pretty much complete; boxes as usual still have to be unpacked and everything put away, but we’ve made some progress and we’ll get there eventually. I’ve now been in my new job for a month and it’s going well. Mostly I love having an hour lunch break – an hour feels so long! I can actually manage to write a review in that amount of time if I already have my thoughts together, as I did twice over the past couple of weeks. I have a feeling that hour is going to be filled with blogging quite frequently even with the internet available at home.
While I was busy not having the ability to blog, I spent a lot of time thinking about my reading and the way it’s going. Namely, that I really have almost no interest in historical fiction at all. It’s strange, because I’ve enjoyed a number of historical fiction novels over the past couple of months, but when I head to a bookstore I have no interest in perusing new ones. Covers that once would have made me drool with anticipation are now avoided. I’ve gone completely away from any fiction that has anything to do with medieval history, for instance; I’d just so much rather read non-fiction that I lose interest very quickly.
I suppose what it comes down to is the same subjects recycled over and over. Tudor fiction, for instance, really has nothing left to offer at this point. Medieval history usually is about the Wars of the Roses, which I do adore, but not in fiction any longer, or Eleanor of Aquitaine, who really I already know enough about at this point. Authors I love write these books, and I’m sure they’re wonderful, and yet I have little to no interest about them.
What does interest me? Different time periods, different locations, imaginative storylines; I read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King last week and it was fantastic. Rules of Civility was similarly amazing. So maybe it’s just that I can’t look in the well-worn grooves of my past favorites for new ones. That wouldn’t surprise me, as I’ve always read widely, and I’ve been reading a majority of historical fiction for a long time now.
I’m definitely swinging back towards speculative fiction. I am absolutely adoring the Vorkosigan saga, which I never expected to like. I cannot wait to tell you about Young Miles, a book which had a surprising number of layers and which I could not put down. It also managed to prove that long books don’t scare me away when I can’t tell how long they actually are (thank you, Kindle), as its apparent 824 pages sped by in a couple of days. I’m now deep in Cordelia’s Honor and wishing I could just read the whole series with no regard to any of the many books I have for review.
I also read The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which you can imagine was incredibly beautiful and another classic I can’t believe I missed. I’ll read them all, someday, but in the meantime I’d best get on with telling you about these.
In any case, I’ll just roll with what’s been catching my interest, and I hope you’ll roll along with me, even if this blog is now far from what its title promises.
Have a great Sunday, and a fantastic week.
So hard to believe tomorrow is already August! I’ve just returned from a week in the States and an overnight flight with no sleep has left me pretty tired, so it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll finish anything else today. July was a really busy month for me, but I still managed to fit in some reading – especially last week – and discovered some fantastic new books.
Fiction
- The Last Letter, Kathleen Shoop
- Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire
- The Book of Lies, Mary Horlock
- History of a Pleasure Seeker, Richard Mason
- Mine to Possess, Nalini Singh
- Catch Me, Lorelie Brown
- The Crying Tree, Naseem Rakha
- Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
- The American Heiress, Daisy Goodwin
- Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
- The Taming of the Rake, Kasey Michaels
- Dreams of Joy, Lisa See
- A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire
Non-fiction
- The Band that Played On, Steve Turner
Non-fiction is looking very sad this month. It’s clear that when stress takes over, I start reading fiction. I’ve definitely found myself drawn more towards fantasy and historical romance this month, even though non-fiction remains as compelling as ever in my head.
Best of the Month
 
I just completely adored these books. Ready Player One is the perfect fiction novel for a gamer; I had an incredible time with it and I can’t wait to share it with you towards the middle of this month. You’ve already read about how much I loved Rules of Civility, which was fantastic literary historical fiction, so its appearance here shouldn’t be a surprise at all!
I’m not sure how August will go, how much time I’ll have, or even if I’ll have an internet connection in our new place just yet. It’s very much wait and see, but I’ll keep you all posted. I’m planning on devoting most of the month’s lunch breaks to blogging, so I hope you won’t notice I’ve gone, and will even spot me on your own blog a few times! I’d love to get more involved in the community again, so I’m hoping once the dust has settled, I’ll be around a lot more. I am planning to read:
- Amsterdam, Geert Mak
- In a Treacherous Court, by Michelle Diener
- An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses by Seanan McGuire
- The Wild Rose, Jennifer Donnelly
- The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
How was your reading month? What are your plans for August?
I’ve heard about the demise of Borders quite often over the past few months, but not normally being in the US hadn’t had a chance to see what was going on for myself yet. Yesterday, though, I arrived, and in I went, because I remember how excited I was when that particular huge Borders opened. It was about as saddening as you’d expect – I felt like a vulture.
What was worse? All of the people saying – loudly – that 10% off wasn’t really a deal, the books were still cheaper on Amazon, and basically complaining about the fact that even while going out of business Borders couldn’t match up. In hearing of employees – who are all losing their jobs. It was awful and brought home to me just how important it is to actually buy books in bookstores, because it seems no one else is going to. I can’t do anything here, but I can at least put my money where my mouth is at home in the UK. I’m also glad that I’ve been doing it.
I have arrived safely at my parents’ house to a number of review copies (although significantly less as I’ve been cutting back), so I’ll be spending the rest of the week and probably most of August trying to catch up. Since I have a whole, glorious week off, I’m also going to try and catch up on writing, with the aim of having a couple of weeks of posts scheduled to try and make up for my next week of 4 hours of commuting and the following week of moving. But we’ll see what happens. I also want to catch up on blog reading – it has been a shamefully long time since I commented on some of your blogs and I have been missing what has been going on!
What are you up to this Sunday?
This week has been a big one for me. Friday, in particular, actually. I feel like each of these deserve a post of their own, but they all happened on the same day, and thus deserve to be mentioned together.
Most relevant to this blog, Friday was my four year blogiversary; I initially started blogging about books before I knew any book bloggers, so it was slow going until summer 2009, when I started to meet other book bloggers through LibraryThing (it’s hard to believe just how many ways LT has enhanced my reading life) and get really into the community. It’s so much easier to get motivated when you know you have people out there looking for you! I love book blogging and while these days it may be a challenge to write a review for every book I read, especially with so much other craziness happening in my life, I am grateful to have my little outlet and a community I can always rely on for a lot more than just book recommendations. In the last four years, I have attained my BA, my MA, my first real job, moved countries, moved around three (soon to be four) times, got married, and experienced countless other smaller achievements and setbacks.
Then, yesterday, we went to see the final Harry Potter film. I’ve been in on the craziness for nearly 12 years and, for me like many others, Harry Potter has been an epic journey that I just didn’t really want to end. I still remember reading the first book for the first time; back then, I was 13 and it was eighth grade, and before the TBR pile I had nothing else new in the house to read for a school assignment. I had already seen other kids reading Harry Potter but I wasn’t particularly interested, and in fact my mom had bought the book because she’d seen it on TV. It was her paperback copy that I proceeded to nearly destroy (we have a hardcover now) as I read it not once, but numerous times over the years as I kept coming back to the series. I remember the excitement of reading it all for the first time and the immediate need I had to keep reading; my parents got me the next two for Christmas and I gobbled them up quickly, too.
Like many others, I went to midnight releases for the next books, notably in the UK for Order of the Phoenix and spectacularly in New York City with two of my close friends for The Deathly Hallows. That was an amazing night, full of other Harry Potter fans in an experience none of us will really have again.
 Kindly ignore my red eyes - I promise they're blue in real life. I proceeded to read the entire book the next day; I’d already reread the previous books in anticipation.
The Harry Potter phenomenon has been such an experience, and while there are aspects of the final film that I wish they hadn’t changed, seeing it on the big screen gives it a new feel for me, and I thought it worked well as a film. I am so glad I took that first step and read the first Harry Potter book all those years ago. Though I’ve been slightly older than Harry and his friends as they grew up, in a sense I experienced many difficult years alongside them. I’m far from the same person I was twelve years ago, and I could never have imagined the directions my life has taken, but Harry and his friends have been right there throughout everything. Now, all I want to do is read the books again. There won’t be any more, but that doesn’t mean I can’t savor the seven that I have, as many times as I wish.
Finally, I left my first job on Friday, and I begin my second on Monday. That first job has offered me so many opportunities and I have grown vastly over my time there, taking on tasks I didn’t even know existed before I started. I’m looking forward to new challenges ahead, moving back to York (yay!), and continuing to see where life takes me.
Thanks for coming along on the ride.
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Fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil on a crispy crust, baked in a wood-fired oven. I’ll be missing Rome’s pizzas for some time to come, and I wish I had one now to keep me going!
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