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 Happy Sunday evening, Saloners! I spent half of yesterday and this morning participating in this fall’s Read-a-thon, which I’m happy to say was very much a success for me. I finished 5 full books and a sixth I was already reading, for a total of 1597 pages read in 11 hours and 24 minutes (approximately). I stopped at 11:30 this morning, mainly because I’d finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower and it was good, so I decided I’d best let it settle in my head and go about the ordinary course of my day. I was already pleased that I’d surpassed my goals and I decided that seven outstanding reviews was plenty to weigh me down. It was fun, and while I really participated very little in the blogging side of things – I definitely felt more like reading than doing mini challenges, especially as it seemed a lot of the prizes were US-only – but it worked really well for me anyway.
In other news, I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year for the second time (the first was in 2009 and I did succeed), but since I haven’t written much besides this blog and stuff for work, I thought I’d best get warmed up this week. I also changed my mind and decided to do a “practice” book, saving the good ideas for just afterwards, next month. It’s been too long since I wrote fiction and while I know editing is possible, I think I just want to make sure I’m as in the writing groove as possible before I give it an official, real try.
With this in mind, I discovered a site called 750words.com. Basically, it encourages you to write 750 words every day, as a good starting point for clearing your mind and getting used to writing again. I think it’s a version of morning writing, but it’s private and stores all of your musings on the website. Probably not the place I’ll write my novel, but excellent for a brain-dump before anything else happens. I did my first 750 words today and it was fantastic, so I’ll be continuing with that until Nov 1st and, hopefully, afterwards too.
As a result of all this writing activity, I’m expecting to read a lot less. I stopped accepting review copies temporarily, and I’m going to focus this week on catching up with my reviews and possibly scheduling in some fun posts to fill in the gaps while I’m busy writing – more photos and definitely a trip recap of my latest holiday to Rome.
Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo? Let me know so I can follow your progress!
Late as usual, I meant to write this post last weekend, but we had house guests and unfortunately I had no time for blogging at all, something that seems to happen a bit too often these days for various reasons. It’s especially annoying when I actually feel more keen on blogging than I have in months; I’m not entirely sure why, but it’s a very good feeling.
This weekend, I’m focusing on accomplishing everything I need to take a week off starting on Wednesday for my trip to see this in real life:
As you can probably imagine, I am very excited to visit Rome! Food, history, romance, I can’t wait. I look forward to sharing my own pictures with you when I return. We’ll be celebrating our second wedding anniversary while there, so it will be an extra special holiday.
Anyway, on to September! I finished 16 books in the end over a nice variety of genres, and I even managed to get some non-fiction read. I’m very pleased about that.
Fiction
- You Are My Only, Beth Kephart
- Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem, Lois McMaster Bujold
- Next to Love, Ellen Feldman
- Becoming Marie Antoinette, Juliet Grey
- The Maid, Kimberly Cutter
- Maine, J. Courtney Sullivan
- The Reinvention of Love, Helen Humphreys
- Unveiled, Courtney Milan
- One Salt Sea, Seanan McGuire
- Death of Kings, Bernard Cornwell
Non-fiction
Books of the Month
 
Honestly, those choices were actually surprisingly easy ones. The Emperor of All Maladies was a fantastic, stand-out book, even as it made me worry. And Next to Love has really stuck with me, so it deserves a mention here too.
October has been with us for more than a week now, so I already know quite a bit of what will be appearing. I’m shockingly on top of things, in that I only have a few books to get reviewed from those above, so the ones without links will soon appear here. I’ve already read a couple of fantastic romance novels, for those who read this blog and enjoy them as well, and I’m currently working on The Glitter and the Gold, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan’s life in her own words.
As I may have mentioned to some of you, I’m pondering trying to actually write a historical novel myself (especially with all this newfound verve for writing I’ve acquired since I changed jobs), and I think she would make an excellent first subject. Stories about American heiresses who married English lords are very popular these days – except that Consuelo was unhappy, and fought for the right to her happiness against societal dictates. She was an utterly fascinating woman.
For the rest of October, I’ve already begun selecting books I might try to read for the Read-a-thon – it’ll be a tight squeeze to actually fit it in with the amount of catching up I’ll be doing after my trip, but I’m determined to participate. I’m also hoping that I can read:
- The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
- Storm Front, Jim Butcher
- The Plantagenets, Derek Wilson
- The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
And we’ll see where whim takes me aside from those!
What do you have planned for October?
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.
Good morning Saloners! For once, this Sunday finds me on the computer and ready to do some blogging fairly early in the morning. What I should be doing is cleaning, but we all know what will really happen today.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am moving relatively soon, and as such my husband and I went hunting in the lovely city of York yesterday for a new place to live. There were actually a surprising number of very nice places to rent, probably a reflection of the fact that no one (including us) can get a flat sold to a first-time buyer in this market. We may end up with an entire house to ourselves thanks to the low prices. We should be able to decide by next weekend after some viewings, which will be exciting, as I am very ready to get settled somewhere new, and I love York; I did my MA there two years ago and have been ready to go back more or less ever since!
Last weekend, I went into London to meet up with Ana, Ana, and Jodie, which was amazing in many aspects, primarily just to meet them all. I acquired three new books, Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire which was solely thanks to the first Ana (and which I’ve already read), Tam Lin by Pamela Dean which was heavily encouraged by the other Ana, and Fury of the Phoenix by Cindy Pon which Jodie gave to me. After haunting the bookshops of London, we went to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, where I had never been.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but the show was amazing and I would highly recommend it to everyone, if it isn’t sold out. It was so intimate that I think everyone in the theatre felt a connection to the actors, and it didn’t matter that some of the words may have required clarification in reading form. It was so easy to understand on stage and so universal. I’d never seen Shakespeare live before and I am currently kicking myself for not going earlier.
As for the rest of this weekend, I’m off for more Nalini Singh, and in the meantime I hope to get some book reviews finished so the blog stays nice and updated this week.
I hope you’re all having a great weekend!
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