July TBR

I know it's already a week and a bit into July, but I decided today in my 'currently running on less than three hours sleep' state (cancelled flights *shakes fist*) that I'd make a little July TBR. I'd like to mention that this is entirely Lori's fault because I saw hers and I wanted one too.

I've got two very big book events on this month so my reading is catered towards though. Firstly, I'm going to YALC on the 17th-19th and then the Make Me Read It Read-a-thon goes from the 20th to 27th. I've already made TBR's for both of those, so today I'm just sharing a few others I'd like to get to.

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I started this about two weeks back and I was really enjoying it, but then I put it down so I could read some YALC books. I'm about 170 pages or so in.

2. The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
I read the first book in the Rizzoli and Isles series, The Surgeon, recently and loved it so I'd really like to read the second book too.

3. Wild Hearts by Jessica Burkhart
I got sent this by Allen and Unwin a few weeks back and then my absolutely gorgeous dad sent it to me all the way from Australia so I could read it. If you're reading this dad, then I love you!

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is a reread for me, but obviously I want to reread it before...

5. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
I know this is out already but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. I adore TKAM the first time I read it so I'm super psyched for this. I probably won't get to it until the end of the month/start of August.

So I don't think I'm being too ambitious here. I think I can honestly get through these five books as well as some from YALC and #MakeMeRead. What are you planning to read this July? Now, it's time for me to try and sleep.

TBR Shame

The other day, one of my bestest friends in the entire universe Rachel posted this amazing post on book shame and why it shouldn’t exist. I wanted to talk about another type of book shame, in particular, TBR shame. I’ve wanted to write a post about this for ages but I could never quite find the right words for it until now.

I don’t think TBR shame/guilt should exist.

It’s actually funny that I’m writing this now because up until about two months ago, I was one of those people who suffered from serious TBR guilt. I had 500 unread books on my shelves at the start of this year. I know what you’re thinking—that’s a ridiculous amount of books, you’ll never read all of those, you should never buy another book, whatever!

The thing is, I don’t fell guilty about owning that many unread books anymore. Yes, I still want to get through the books I own and I’ve been cutting back on my buying habits but I don’t worry anymore. I used to actually feel disappointed with myself for owning that many unread books, but something clicked one day.

I like having unread books on my shelf. The thought of having zero TBR books is actually terrifying to me. I can’t live book to book. I need to read two or three books at the same time, and have something waiting for me that I’m excited to read. I like being able to pick whatever book off my shelf because that’s what I wanted to read right then rather than just the only thing I had on my shelf.

I understand that some people might like living book to book. They might like going out and purchasing a new every time they finish one, but that just isn’t for me.

I think the idea that you have to be guilty or feel ashamed that you have unread books on your shelf is ridiculous. If you want to have twenty or two hundred unread books on your shelf, I think it’s up to you. You’re the one who decides which books you are going to read and when you are going to read them. I don’t think you should ever be ashamed of that.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents, let me know what you think and remember to check out Rachel’s blog, it’s honestly one of my favourites.

#JuneTopicAThon TBR

You might be like 'Ely, haven't you already posted like six TBRs for the month of June?' and you'd be right, but the thing is, dear readers. I really, really like TBRs. I also have a eight hour flight, followed by about six hours stopover plus another twelve hours flight ahead of me tomorrow so I feel like I deserve this.

This particular TBR is for the June TopicAThon which is hosted by the lovely Miriam of Between Lines and Life. The read-a-thon will be running for the 8th of June until the 14th. The hashtag #JuneTopicAThon will be on Twitter etc. I'm not entirely sure how active I'll be on social media, due to that long haul flight but also because jet lag and the fact that I'll be staying with family that week. I'll try my best to do an update at least once a day.

As the name suggests, this read-a-thon involves picking a topic of books and then reading books from that topic in the week. For example, you could pick all fantasy books, or all books by Jane Austen or whatever. I decided to pick literary fiction as my topic. You might know that I read mostly YA, with some classics thrown in, so I thought I'd branch into a genre I don't usually read from this week.

I've picked ten books out, which I know is a lot for one week. Yes, I am a speed reader but ten books is even too much for me. I just wasn't really sure which ones I would end up reading so I wanted to give myself some options. Naturally, these will all be on my e-reader so I can read whatever takes my fancy at the time.

That was a really long introduction, wasn't it? Should we actually talk about the books?

1 - 4. Purple Hibiscus/Half of a Yellow Sun/The Thing Around Your Neck/Americanah all by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I think these are all of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's published novels at the moment. I really like Chimamanda as a person, and I've previously read the first 150 pages of Americanah which I loved (but sadly it had be returned to the library) so I think it's time I read at least one of her novels.

5. How To Be Both by Ali Smith

I haven't read any of Ali Smith's work either, but I've heard some great things about her. How To Be Both is the one I've heard most about so I figured it'd be a good place to start.

6. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

I've seen this one everywhere the last couple of months and I've almost picked it up so many times. I know absolutely nothing about it except that it has a pretty cover!

7. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

I've never read any Jeffrey Eugenides either, but I've been meaning too for ages. I've heard some pretty good things about this one, so I thought I'd give it a go.

8. Re Jane by Patricia Park

This is a modern day retelling of Jane Eyre set in Queens. What's not to love?

9. The House Girl by Tara Conklin

I believe this is 1850's America and it has something to do with a girl trying to leave slavery...maybe? Honestly, it's the cover that reeled me in.

10. The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is one of my favourite authors, and Atonement is one of my favourite books of all time so this needed to happen. The only reason I haven't read this already is because it was ridiculously expensive at Dymocks.

So those are my ten options for the #JuneTopicAThon. I don't know which I'm going to start with, or how many I will get through but check back after the 14th to see my wrap-up! If you're participating, let me know what you're reading.

My YALC TBR

So, in my Top Ten Tuesday post the other day, I mentioned that I had a few TBRs for my upcoming Europe trip to share with you all. Today, we're starting that little miniseries with probably the biggest TBR you've ever seen in your life. I present to you... my YALC TBR. (If you'd like to learn more about YALC, check out the official website here).

(BUT FIRST, little bit of this gorgeous human being drum rolling for you all)

I'm sorry about the oddly stylish pattern here at the bottom. Apparently, I don't have enough books on my TBR.

YEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.

Okay, so obviously I'm not going to list every single book here and why I want to read them or what I think about them individually but I will highlight just a select few. Also, I'm writing this a few weeks in advance so hopefully I've read something off here!

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

One of the few on here that I actually currently own a physical copy of. 

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

I've heard such great things about this series, mainly from Cait and Miranda, but I'm excited.

Crow Moon by Anna McKerrow

Maybe my favourite cover on here. It reminds me a little of The Raven Boys.

Legacy by C.J Daughetry

This is the sequel to Night School which I read...last year, maybe? and reasonably enjoyed. I haven't heard the greatest things about this one, but I'm going to give it a try.

Read Me Like a Book by Liz Kessler

I believe this is a teacher/student romance, but ALSO, LGBTQ+

The Manifesto on How To Be Interesting by Holly Bourne

I borrowed this from the library today (my plan is to read as many of these before I leave Melbourne through my library so I can decide what to buy over there). It's absolutely gorgeous, like really gorgeous because of its red/orange-y pages. Very excited to read this one.

So those are a few of the ones I've picked out. I know this is a crazy TBR guys and I don't honestly expect to read them all. I wanted to give myself options, and I really hate meeting authors without reading at least one of their books first because I like to tell them how much I enjoyed their books and my favourite characters and etc. 

If you're going to YALC, let me know what's on your TBR and who you're most excited to see. For me personally, it's a tie between Patrick Ness, Marie Rutkoski and Alice Oseman. If you're not going, let me know if you've read any of these books and what you thought about them.

The Classics Club TBR

So I’m finally doing it. I’m actually joining the Classics Club. I’ve actually made lists for this quite a few times in the past but then never posted them until today. For those of you who don’t know what the Classics Club is I’m going to link their Rules/FAQ page here for you to check out.

I’ve picked out 100 classic books to read, I started with the ones I owned and then added a few more that I just haven’t picked up yet. I’m setting my completion date to October 9^th, 2016. I picked this date because it’s my birthday, more specifically it’ll be my 21^st birthday and I think that it’s a good age to have read more classics. Without further ado, let’s start.

1. Adams, Richard – Watership Down
2. Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
3. Atwood, Margaret – A Handmaid’s Tale
4. Atwood, Margaret – Blind Assassin
5. Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
6. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth – Lady Audley’s Secret
7. Bronte, Anne – Agnes Gray
8. Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre (reread)
9. Bronte, Charlotte – Villette (reread)
10. Bronte, Charlotte - Shirley
11. Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
12. Burnett, Frances Hodgson – The Secret Garden
13. Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood
14. Chandler, Raymond – The Lady in the Lake
15. Collins, Wilkie – The Woman in White
16. Dickens, Charles – David Copperfield
17. Dickens, Charles – The Pickwick Papers
18. Dostoevsky, Fyodor - Notes from the Underground
19. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan – The Complete Sherlock Holmes
20. Du Maurier, Daphne – Mary Anne
21. Du Maurier, Daphne – Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
22. Du Maurier, Daphne – I’ll Never Be Young Again
23. Du Maurier, Daphne – Rebecca (reread)
24. Eliot, George – Middlemarch
25. Fitzgerald, F. Scott – Tender is the Night
26. Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Beautiful and Damned
27. Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
28. Foer, Jonathon Safran – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
29. Ford, Madox Ford – Parade’s End
30. Frank, Anne – The Diary of a Young Girl (reread)
31. Gaskell, Elizabeth – Cranford
32. Gaskell, Elizabeth – The Life of Charlotte Bronte
33. Gaskell, Elizabeth – Wives and Daughters
34. Gibbons, Stella – My American
35. Hardy, Thomas – Far From the Madding Crowd
36. Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the D’Urbervilles
37. Hartley, L.P. – The Go-Between
38. Heller, Joseph – Catch-22
39. Hemingway, Ernest – The Essential Hemingway
40. Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
41. Huxley, Aldous – Antic Hay
42. Huxley, Aldous – Crome Yellow
43. Huxley, Aldous – Brave New World (reread)
44. James, Henry – The Golden Bowl
45. Joyce, James – The Dubliners
46. Keats, John – The Complete Poems
47. Kerouac, Jack – On the Road
48. Lawrence, D.H. – Sons and Lovers
49. Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird (reread)
50. Llewellyn, Richard – How Green Was My Valley
51. Malory, Sir Thomas – Le Morte d’Arthur
52. Marshall, Alan – I Can Jump Puddles
53. Mitchell, Margaret – Gone with the Wind
54. Mitford, Nancy – The Pursuit of Love
55. Mitford, Nancy – Love in a Cold Climate
56. Mitford, Nancy – Madam de Pompadour
57. Mitford, Jessica – Hons and Rebels
58. Montgomery, L.M. – Anne of Green Gables
59. Nabokov, Vladimir – Pale Fire
60. Nesbit, E – The Railway Children (reread)
61. Nesbit, E – Five Children and It
62. Orczy, Baroness Emmuska – The Scarlet Pimpernell
63. Orwell, George – 1984
64. Orwell, George – The Road to Wigan Pier
65. Orwell, George – Down and Out in Paris and London
66. Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar (reread)
67. Plath, Sylvia – The Journals of Sylvia Plath
68. Rand, Ayn – Atlas Shrugged
69. Salinger, J.D. – Franny and Zooey
70. Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
71. Shakespeare, William – The Tempest
72. Shakespeare, William – A Midsummer’s Night Dream
73. Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein (reread)
74. Shelley, Mary – The Last Man
75. Shelley, Mary – Mathilda
76. Shelley, Mary – Transformation
77. Shelley, Mary - Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca
78. Shelley, Mary – The Journals of Mary Shelley
79. Shelley, Percy – Collected Poems
80. Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
81. Smith, Dodie – I Capture the Castle
82. Stienbeck, John – East of Eden
83. Stoker, Bram – Dracula
84. Strachey, Julia – Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
85. Thomas, Dylan – Collected Works
86. Tolkien, J.R.R. – The Lord of the Rings
87. Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina
88. Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
89. Turner, Ethel Sybil – Seven Little Australians
90. White, T.H. – The Once and Future King
91. Wollstonecraft, Mary – Maria, or the Wrongs of a Woman
92. Woolf, Virginia – Orlando
93. Woolf, Virginia – Mrs Dalloway
94. Wyndham, John – The Day of the Triffids
95. Yeats, W.B. – Collected Poems
96. Yeats, W.B. – Irish Fairy Tales
97. Zola, Emile – Germinal
98. Zola, Emile – Nana
99. Zola, Emile – The Dream
100. Zola, Emile – Therese Raquin

So those are my 100 classics to read before my 21^st birthday. This list isn’t set in stone, I’m sure I’ll add more to this list and there will be ones I take off in that time but these are the ones I’m currently thinking of. I’ll updating this list as I read the above books and I’ll be posting my thoughts on each book as I finish them.

Are any of you participating in Classics club?

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon TBR

I know this is cutting this a little fine on the account that the read-a-thon starts in less than three and a half hours, but yes — I am participating in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon tonight and this is my TBR!

Firstly, I'd like to read Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. No, I haven't read it before. I'm pretty sure I can actually speed through this one so it's going to be the first one I start with.

Secondly, I'd like to continue/finish The Mirror Crack'd Side to Side by Agatha Christie. I'm already 77 pages into this so hopefully I can knock it over in an hour or two.

Thirdly, I want to read more of Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas. I've been on page 250 of this since it came out in September last year and I'd actually like to finish it before this September. I'd honestly be happy to just read another 100 pages of this.

Finally, the same thing with The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I've been slowly making my way through this and I'd like to just get another 100 pages read.

I don't have any plans while the read-a-thon is on. I did all of my assignments today so that I didn't have to worry about any of those and I could just spend all day reading. Also, I won't be staying up all night since the read-a-thon starts at 11pm for me and I do really need some sleep!

Who else is participating?

December TBR

I don’t usually do TBR’s anymore, but I thought since it’s the last month of the year that I would actually do one. My goal this month is to finish off some books I’ve already started rather than starting any new ones. Anyway, here are some of the books I want to finish off.

In addition to those, I’ve got a couple of books that I’d like to start/finish this month.

I’m also participating in Books of Amber's debutathon this month, so I’ve got three books I want to read for that which are.

I know that’s a lot of books, but here they are anyway. I don’t expect to be able to read them all, but these are my goals. What are you reading this month?

Thanks for reading!