WIN A BOOK OF YOUR CHOICE//GIVEAWAY// (INTERNATIONAL) BOOK DEPOSITORY

Hello hello, dearest blog viewers.

So currently I am hosting an International Giveaway on my Booktube channel: ReadLikeWildfire. It is a really simple Giveaway and the rules follow as below.

Prize: $15 credit to receive any book or books of your choice on Book Depository.

To be in the draw you must: Subscribe to my book-tube channel Readlikewildfire and leave a comment down below on this video.

International Giveaway and the winner must reside in a location eligible for free shipping with BD.

The winner will be contact by email and will have 48 hours to reply with their address and the book/books of their choice.

The winner will be drawn via random.org on March 31st. 

If you are interested in this Giveaway, then join in and have fun! Hopefully Ely and I will be able to have a Giveaway soon on the blog and it will be fun times all around!

The Versatile Blogger Award

I was nominated for The Versatile Blogger Award by the incredibly lovely Rachel of The Very Hungry Bookworm. Rachel has just started up her blog but I've been lucky enough to be friends with her for four or so years now so I can definitely recommend her blog because she's an absolutely gorgeous human being. Anyway...

The rules for this award are short, sweet, and easy to follow:

• If you are nominated, you've been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award!
• Thank the person who nominated you, just to be nice.
• Link back to their blog. They'd be ever so grateful!
• Select bloggers to award (ones you recently discovered or follow regularly).
• Nominate them for the award (remember to notify them once you do!).
• Lastly, tell the person who nominated you seven things about yourself. Easy as that!

As for my seven facts...

1. I am always introduced to new people (mostly by my dad) as 'The Reader'. 

2. Purple has been my favourite colour since I was about eight. A fact made very evident when you walk into my room.

3. I speak English (obviously), French and I'm learning Danish currently. I also really want to learn German...and Italian, and Spanish and every other European language.

4. In about five months time I'll be living and studying (and blogging) in Denmark. (With some travelling throughout Europe in four months time.)

5. I love clocks. I don't really know why...but I have two or three in my room. I like how they look, but I also have this need to be able to see/know the time at any given, well, time. 

6. I am notoriously bad at starting books but never finishing them. I probably have a good thirty that I put down for whatever reason and haven't picked up. It's something I'm working on.

7. I am a terrible, horrible, incredibly lazy blogger at the moment. Again, it's something I'm working on.

Now for some nominations! I'm nominating the always wonderful Ebony of Daring Damsels, the very lovely Eugenia of Genie In A Book and a new favourite blogger of mine, Lori of Books o' the Wisp. Thanks again for nominating me, Rach!

BOOK SHAME #4

Book Shame is a monthly post here on A Book So Fathomless where I pick out four books from my TBR jar, talk about them and then challenge myself to read them before the next post.

Let’s talk about how I went last month first!

I managed to finish both The Man in the Brown Suit and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – I liked them both. I also started Annette Vallon but I only got 106 pages in – I will be continuing it next month. Finally, Rags and Bones – I picked this up early this month then realized I hadn’t read most of the original tales that these were retelling so I decided to leave it for another time.

As for the ones I picked out for March…

1. All the Wrong Questions by Lemony Snicket

I’m sure you’re all aware of my love for the Series of Unfortunate Events books, so I’m happy that I can finally get around to this new series.

2. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

I’ve owned this one for years now – I think about seven years or so and I still haven’t read it. I know there was a TV series adapted from this that looks amazing, so hopefully I can read this and then watch that.

3. Castle Dor by Daphne Du Maurier

I’ve been meaning to pick up another Daphne Du Maurier book since I finished Jamaica Inn in May (or something) last year but I didn’t know which to pick. To say I’m excited for this would be an understatement.

4. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

I absolutely adore the movie adaptation of this book so I’m both super excited and a little terrified to finally read this.

So I think I’ve got a pretty good selection here for March. These are all books that I’ve genuinely been wanting to pick up for ages but just haven’t yet. Hopefully I can actually get to them all this month!

REVIEW: Eat The Sky, Drink The Ocean

Title: Eat The Sky, Drink The Ocean

Edited: Kirsty Murray, Payal Dharand Anita Roy

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary.

Publication Date: 28 January 2015

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Format: Paperback

Pages: 227

Rating: 4/5

       

Be transported into dystopian cities and other-worldly societies. Be amazed and beguiled by a nursery story with a reverse twist, a futuristic take on TV cooking shows, a playscript with tentacles - and more, much more. Plunge in and enjoy!

A collection of sci-fi and fantasy writing, including six graphic stories, showcasing twenty stellar writers and artists from India and Australia: Isobelle Carmody, Penni Russon, Justine Larbalestier, Margo Lanagan, Lily Mae Martin, Kuzhali Manickavel, Prabha Mallya, Annie Zaidi, Kate Constable, Vandana Singh, Mandy Ord, Priya Kuriyan, Manjula Padmanabhan, Samhita Arni, Alyssa Brugman, Nicki Greenberg and Amruta Patil.

The fabulous thing about anthologies is that there is so much choice and even if you don’t like one story, you still have the ability to like another because the story can be totally different to the predecessor.  Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean was a truly enthralling read and not only has short stories, but graphic stories as well. They are scattered throughout the book and I think that is such a fantastic idea to break words up with pictures, but not make it consume the whole story.

It is clear that the focus of these stories have a running theme of women, which was enlightening and empowering and not in the overbearing way I feel like lots of books deal with feminism these days. That makes it suitable to mainly any audience.

The graphics throughout the graphic stories were beautiful. I honestly couldn’t stop staring at them and that made my reading experience at least ten times better.

I’ll admit, there are some stories that I did not enjoy entirely and that I felt were too childish but the were many other stories that were quite superb and that I absolutely adored and with stories such as these, it is totally worth it.

And gosh, it so exceptionally refreshing to read stories by both Australian and Indian authors working together! Whoever thought of this idea should be rewarded! It was truly an enjoyable read and has opened me up to so many genres and types of writing. It makes me want to go out right now and buy anthologies and graphics novels.

Say Goodbye to my money!

*Allen and Unwin sent this book to me for honest review and this in no way altars my opinion of the book.

WARNING: Excessive fangirling... OH, and a Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover review

Title: Maybe Someday (Maybe #1)

Author: Colleen Hoover

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary.

Publication Date: March 18th 2014

Publisher: Atria Books

Format: Paperback

Pages: 367

Challenges: Around the World, #ProjectTBR

Rating: 5/5

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a passionate tale of friendship, betrayal, and romance.

At twenty-two years old, Sydney has a great life: She's in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her best friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers Hunter's cheating on her--and she is left trying to decide what to do next.

Sydney becomes captivated by Ridge, her mysterious neighbor. She can't take her eyes off him or stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. And there's something about Sydney that Ridge can't ignore, either. When their inevitable encounter happens, they soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one...

Original music created for Maybe Someday by musician Griffin Peterson can be accessed through the website listed in the ebook and paperback.

So people I talked to about this book…Remember how I was all like ‘I don’t know if I’m going to like New Adult, you know’? HA. HAHA. Guys. I can’t even.

For those of you who I didn’t talk about this book with, well, I was a little apprehensive to start it. I feel comfortable in my little YA-sometimes-classics-sphere so branching into a new genre was terrifying for me. But oh my god. Just oh my god.

I don’t know if this review is going to make sense at all so if it doesn’t, I’m really, really sorry but I feel like it’ll speak volumes for this book.

It started off kind of strangely and for the first, maybe, 40 pages or so I wasn’t sure about this. I felt like I’d read the story before – girl breaks up with boyfriend, girl is heartbroken, girl meets new boys, the usual. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, I was completely invested in the story. I’m sorry, what do you mean this book was 367 pages? I’m pretty sure it was only like 50.

Let’s talk about our main character Sydney. At first, I didn’t like her – she was boring and cliché and I just couldn’t have cared less. By the end? I loved her. I don’t know about anyone else, but I thought she was just a really great character. She wasn’t judgmental or whiney or anything else that would make her just like all those others. She was awesome, she had a passion other than boys, she could be witty and sarcastic.

I think my favourite thing was the relationship between her and Ridge, and I don’t mean the feels (although, there were a lot of those.) I liked how the characters grew because of one another and I liked that you could see that in the way they acted. I loved the banter between the two of them but also the deep trust and understanding. They’re basically the definition of my idea of love. No other characters have ever personified that in any book I’ve ever read.

Ridge was perfect. Well, not perfect but seriously amazing. I wish I could talk about why I think he was so brilliant but unfortunately that’s a spoiler. I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone else gush about Ridge, but wow. He’s honestly become one of my new favourite book boyfriends. I mean, he’s up there with James Mycroft and Sirius Black and I’m sure you all know how I feel about those two. Could he maybe move Warner out of the top three? Welllll, don’t tell anyone (especially not Chami) but maybe…someday. I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist!

Before I move onto the biggest part of the book and this review, I just want to quickly talk about Colleen Hoover’s writing. Usually when it comes to contemporaries, I find you get a really mix – you get the good writing and then the OMG-what-have-you-done-to-my-heart? kind of writing. This was definitely the second. I think the reason this story is so beautiful is because the writing is absolutely gorgeous, it’s honest and it’s a little bit heartbreaking but it’s funny too. It’s just a whole lot of feels.

Now let’s move onto the big thing. The music element to the book. I’m going to start of by saying that I love music, really I do but the idea of writing completely baffles me. I know a bit of guitar and piano but I’m definitely more of a listener rather than a maker. It’s always interested me though so the fact that this book is about musicians was very exciting when I started reading. Oh but wait, it got better! First page, before the book even starts, there’s a little note from Colleen Hoover saying that you can actually find the soundtrack on her website. That’s cool right? *insert me buying the album off iTunes and then sobbing at the beauty* Anyway, I love the fact that we don’t only get to see the lyrics within the book, but we also get the chance to listen to the songs but even more than that, we see them being written. Please excuse me while I fangirl over that. If you’re even a little bit interested in music then you absolutely have to read this. (Especially you Ebony, if you’re reading this.)

Random little extra note here, I actually had to put this down with 20 or so pages left because my heart couldn’t take it. Obviously, I had to pick it back up 30 seconds later because RIDGE.

Okay, so to summarise – Maybe Someday is now being referred to as the book of ‘oh my god, no, stop, I just can’t, nope, MY HEART!!!’

Yes, I’m warning you now. And yes, we have a massive graphic budget here on A Book So Fathomless.

Time Management and Reading Problems #Chitchat

Hello. I suck. I know.

Now wasn’t that a great greeting after abandoning the blog for a bit? Honestly, I am super sorry. The only thing that has been really stopping me from posting is the fact that I have to switch accounts and that is a bad excuse as it is. Aside from that, I am having a certain case of “let’s not be a functioning human being.”

That means:

• -      No blog posts
• -      No replying to comments on basically anything
• -      No writing
• -      No posting Booktube videos.
• -      Having bookreading problems.
• -      Hermit life.

But there is one thing I am doing.

Reading.

Fitfully, but now it is getting better.

The bad thing about reading for me is that everything else stops. Everything. I let the book consume everything and that is not the healthiest thing to do because I will not move for hours and I will push everything out the window and gosh I love reading but I wish I could read not like that.

Because when you read like that, you lose control of everything.

So, it is the holidays right now and so I can afford to do that, but that is also the sad thing about it. I have time and when I am not reading I always have to do something else. I have to write, post videos, post blog posts, socialise and maintain so many other hobbies that eventually they don’t really become hobbies. But the thing is, my empty days are always full with things that I need to do. They are never empty days.

University hasn’t started yet.

Work hasn’t started yet.

Where will my time go for those things that normally take the whole day that I do during the holidays?

Anyone else have this problem?

I have way too much on my plate but they are everything that I want to be on my plate. Why can’t I just exchange the plate for a bathtub or an Olympic sized swimming pool even though everyone gets a plate?

So basically what I am saying is how do you all manage your time with blog life, Internet, life and academic work? Do you have a schedule? Do you schedule all your posts weeks before you post them?

Love Chami!

The Dream Book Collection, Or Why I’ll Be Broke for the Rest of My Life

We all have one right? That idea of the perfect book collection, and I don’t mean the fact that we want floor to ceiling bookshelves (because who doesn’t?) or matching hardback covers. I’m talking about the actual books we desperately need to have in our collection. Today I thought I’d share the books that I just need to own, some are particular books or authors while others are just certain genres or ideas.

Firstly, there are a few authors that I have to own all of their books one day. For example, Agatha Christie, Emile Zola, Sylvia Plath, Daphne Du Maurier, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’m sure none of these surprise any of you. These are some of my favourite authors ever so I desperately need their whole collection. There are also a few auto-buy authors for me, but that’s a whole other post.

There’s a never-ending list of books that I want in my possession, but here are just a couple that are on my list of things to buy when I’ve met my ‘Read 10, Buy 1’ challenge/when I actually have money. EVERY MOVE by Ellie Marney, The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick, The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (I’ve read all of these, but GAAAH, I NEED THEM!) Finally, I also really want to get my hands on the sixth book of the A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket – I’ve read this too and I owned it once upon a time but then I let it to the person I used to be friends with and I never got it back.

Genre-wise, I really need to add some more poetry, plays and short stories/essays to my collection. I’ve been picking up a couple of these throughout the past year or so but I just don’t own enough. I really like picking these up second-hand because I don’t like paying $20 for a poetry collection that’s only 50 or so pages long. I need some recommendations for this – I currently own some Sylvia Plath, John Dunne, John Keats, Dylan Thomas and Shakespeare but I don’t know what else is worth picking up. 

Sort of similar to that, I’d really like to own more classics. By this, I mean like proper Greek classics and myths. I totally blame the booktuber Jean BookishThoughts for this (if you haven’t seen her videos then I totally recommend them.)

I’d also like to own more fairytales, fables etc. Specifically, Hans Christian Andersen’s as he’s Danish and that’s kind of my obsession right now. I think the children’s literature course I’m doing will really help with this, and hopefully I can collect a few more children’s classics to my shelves.

Also, I’d like to get more comics and graphic novels – luckily Michelle is helping me spend all of my money out with this.

The last two I’ve got are kind of connected. If you’ve been here a while you probably know about my obsession with Wales and Denmark, so yes I want to buy more books both set in those countries and just about them in general. The last part is travel guides – I really, really love travel and so I want to pick up some travel guides and mark things off as I see them and add things I like and etc. This isn’t related to this post, but I’ve been thinking about doing a ‘Bookish Guide to Europe’ when I go over there later this year – would anyone be interested in that? Or hearing about any non-book related Europe-y things?

Now’s your turn – tell me about your dream book collection! Are you going to be as broke as I am or do you have more self-control?