books

Summer Books To Read: #20BooksOfSummer

11th June 2018 by Gemma Leave a Comment

20 Summer Books to Read

We’ll ignore the fact that I have been an absent blogger (I’m kind of back, and that’s all that matters, right?) and head straight to this fantastic idea by Cathy at 746books.com.

In essence, from the 4th of June ’til the 3rd of September, I will be reading 20 books of my own choosing. That’s 13 weeks, 21 days, and 20 books.

Like Cathy, I may swap one book on the list for another, because life is too short to spend one’s time reading book/s one doesn’t feel like reading at a particular moment.

I’ve mostly chosen books I already have on my shelves, including my e-shelf. The only exception would be the books for the book club I attend monthly which we don’t get to decide on until the month before.

So without further digressing, here’s my #20BooksOfSummer —

In The Country, Mia Alves
America Is Not The Heart, Elaine Castillo
Reaper At The Gates, Sabaa Tahir
The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
The Bees, Laline Paull
Godsgrave, Jay Kristoff
~~Legendary, Stephanie Garber~~
Emma, Jane Austen
The Improbability Of Love, Hannah Rothschild
One Of Us Is Lying, Karen McManus
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A Room With A View, E. M. Forster
The Surface Breaks, Louise O’Neill
How To Stop Time, Matt Haig
Exit West, Mohsin Hamid
Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney
A Crown Of Wishes, Roshi Chokshi
The Light We Lost, Jill Santopolo (July Book Club read)
August Book Club read
September Book Club read

I am undeniably in a YA mood as evidenced by more than a quarter of the books listed. And if you consider the books by Paull, Austen, and Forster as YA, then that’s almost half of the list! We’ll see where the mood takes me at the end of the season, eh?

And yes, I have already started — a week has gone by already, after all!

How about you? Do you have your own #20BooksofSummer?

Yesterday by Felicia Yap: Crime and Science Fiction in One Book

10th August 2017 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Yesterday by Felicia Yap

Summer 2016: I hear about a book written by a female author from Southeast Asia with a very interesting concept:

There are two types of people in the world: those who can only remember yesterday (Monos), and those who can also recall the day before (Duos). You have just one lifeline to the past: your diary. Each night, you write down the things that matter. Each morning, your diary tells you where you were, who you loved and what you did.

Today, the police are at your door. They say that the body of your husband’s mistress has been found in the River Cam. They think your husband killed her two days ago.

Can you trust the police? Can you trust your husband? Can you trust yourself?

Felicia Yap grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and studied biochemistry at Imperial College London, then earned a doctorate in history at Cambridge University. …

TBR List Check-Up: Books I Planned To Read From the First Half of 2017

4th July 2017 by Gemma 1 Comment

My TBR Books from the First Half of 2017

Last week’s Top Ten Tuesday (which is sadly on holiday — how will we survive?!) was about the best books you’ve read during the first half of 2017. Unfortunately, I am unable to recall off the top of my head anything that absolutely stands out (I’m blaming depression and anxiety for this). I had to check my Goodreads shelves, and I don’t have enough to make a full list of ten books!

However, I have enough on my TBR (that’s To Be Read for you non-bookish people) list of books that have been published since January 2017 here in the UK that I have been planning to read but still haven’t gotten to. (Is this a familiar story or what?) …

TBR List Check-Up: Book Series I’ve Been Meaning To Read

20th June 2017 by Gemma 5 Comments

Book Series to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. More information, plus future topics can be found on this page. This week was ‘Top Ten Series I’ve Been Meaning To Start But Haven’t’.

I used to really love book series — some of my all-time favourite books are the Harry Potter books and The Lord of the Rings. The reader gets to keep coming back to that wonderful ‘verse and learn more about the magic rules/systems and the interesting characters inhabiting it. Unfortunately, some series don’t seem to have been originally planned to be such: the first book contains most of the details and the heaviest plot, and you can see the author trying to stretch it out in the following books but absolutely failing.

Here’s hoping the following books aren’t at all like that! …

9 Reasons to Read The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

2nd March 2017 by Gemma 4 Comments

9 reasons to read the ninth rain

High fantasy (or epic fantasy) and science fiction — these two genres are not well-populated by female authors. Or it seems like it because I’m sure it’s not for lack of trying!

Most of the fantasy I read nowadays fall under the young adult/new adult bracket, and I find most of them lack the complexity of a typical high fantasy/science fiction novel. I can barely name authors that are not of the Robin Hobb/Ursula Le Guin/Tamora Pierce/Margaret Atwood variety — Becky Chambers is the only one that comes to my mind. I am probably speaking from the point of ignorance as I don’t delve that much into the genre, but I’m sure it is also not incorrect to say it is very hard to break through and be a household name in the genre if you’re female.

So when I saw The Ninth Rain at the Headline Bloggers’ Night I immediately grabbed and latched onto a copy of it! …