Tag: discussion

Top 5 Things I Love About a Bookstore

DeAnne1 Comment

We all buy books online quite a lot now, because of convenience or availability, but I still enjoy going to brick and mortar bookstores. Part of this is loyalty, there’s a local one that has been around since I was in high school and I like to support them – but another reason is that sometimes I just need the comfort of a bookstore.

The Smell – Yes, that’s right. Bookstores smell of paper and ink regardless of if they are new or old. I would love candles specifically with this scent because it’s so soothing and a happy place for me.

Books you may not expect – Each bookstore is going to have a different array of books available, especially if they are a used and new bookstore that accepts trades. Finding those rare books that you don’t see in other bookstores, or the hidden treasure of an edition no longer available is an amazing feeling.

The Staff – As I said it’s wonderful when you have a favorite local bookstore, it’s even better when you can build a rapport with them and get to know the staff. They start knowing your taste and trusting your opinions when they ask you how a certain book was.

Trading in – If your favorite bookstore is one that allows you to trade in books for cash or credit, take advantage of it! It’s a great way to ave money and to eliminate books from your shelves that you may no longer want. I’ve saved a ton of money by doing this at my local store.

Instant Gratification – Let’s face it, being able to grab the book and take it home immediately is WAY better than waiting for the book to arrive in the mail!

So those are my favorite things about bookstores – what are some of yours?

Happy reading!

Let’s Chat: How I Read So Many Books

DeAnneLeave a comment

I get the question a lot from people in my life as to how I’m able to read so many books. Last year I read 301 books and that surprised quite a few people in my life, even though they almost always see me with a book or kindle. The question that always follows is ‘how?’ so I’m going to break down some of the things I do to read so much.

So the first thing that really ups my game is the fact that I am able to listen to audio books at work. I’ve mentioned this many times, but it really helps. With a lot of books I’m able to listen at about double speed, though depending on the speed of the narrator’s speech I have been known to up it to 2.5 times speed. If I was not able to listen to audio books my numbers would be no where near what they are.

I also read a number of different formats and things such as graphic novels, poetry collections, manga, etc. will obviously take less time to read than full size novels. I also enjoy novellas and don’t turn my nose up at shorter books, I don’t choose books based on their page count so I often end up with a wide range of lengths and formats.

Another thing I’m able to do is read multiple books at once. I know that a lot of people can’t do this or don’t like to do this. I used to not be able to do it but then I went to college and had a double major, so I was constantly reading multiple things and having to keep them straight (often many different types of literature, not just textbooks) and I think that is what really started my ability to read different things at the same time. I will give one caveat though that they have to be different genres/types of stories.

The only other thing I really do, which I know a lot of other people do as well, is make sure I make time for reading. Like I said, I always have some form of a book with me and even if I can only eek out half an hour on my lunch, I take it.

So those are the main things I do that allow me to read so many books. Sometimes I have years like last year but sometimes I don’t. I’m definitely always trying to read more, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t.

Happy reading!

Clearing the Hoard Challenge: Month 1

DeAnne5 Comments

This challenge was created by Caffeinated Fae in an effort to reduce the number of physically owned but unread books in her collection. Make sure to head over to her post (linked above) to check it out.

I have no where near the stats that she has in her post, I keep meaning to get some together but I have been busy with other things, but I can say that my number of unread books is definitely a couple hundred. Last year I did make good progress in removing some backlist from my shelves, but more progress is needed. I figured each month I could do posts of what I intended or hoped to read and then do an update at the end of the month to see how I did.

So if you read my TBR, you would know the physical books I pulled, but here’s a refresher:

  1. The Cheerleaders
  2. Night Music
  3. Battlefield Ghosts
  4. Dead Voices
  5. Robots Vs. Fairies

I’m not sure now if I’ll get to The Cheerleaders, as my audio book from the library expired. I’m back on the hold list, but I don’t know if I’ll get it back in time. A good number of the backlist books are consumed via audio book just because a lot of my physical reading time is used towards reading review copies. I do still have an audio book for Night Music. The others I am planning on reading physically.

Fingers crossed and happy reading!

2020 Writing Goals

DeAnne2 Comments

I’ve already posted about my reading goals for the year, as loose as they are, but I haven’t really addressed my writing goals. As we know I failed at Nano this past year, but that happens. My muse has been a little absent as of late.

So what do I plan to do about that in 2020? Well, I’m not entirely sure, but maybe the first place to start is to set aside a certain amount of time per day or week that I am writing.

I have a number of different projects, none of them fully finished, so I think I’ll need to pick only a couple of them to concentrate on because maybe there’s just too much vying for my attention.

I have a number of notebooks with notes and scenes in them but they are scattered, so again I think I need to get them all in one place and get them all organized. This might help my focus once I have everything together.

I’m hoping that getting more organized and focused will help my writing so that I can get back in the groove. Depending on how it goes I may do regular updates, but we will have to wait and see.

Happy writing!

2019 Year End Wrap Up

DeAnneLeave a comment

I was very interested in doing the math and figuring out some of my stats for 2019. Thankfully the reading journal I kept really helped me in figuring out these stats, so let’s get into it.

In 2019 I read a total of 301 books. Now, this was amazing, but I need to add a caveat that a large reason I was able to read this many books is because I’m able to listen to audiobooks at work. If I was not able to do this I would not be able to get any where close to this number.

I do have a break down of how many per month, you can definitely see where I had reading slumps:

January: 50
February: 37
March: 20
April: 25
May: 14
June: 28
July: 42
August: 29
September: 13
October: 14
November: 11
December: 18

This year I also kept track how many books I was bringing in, how many were review books/backlist/etc. and how many I unhauled. This was because I had a goal for myself to read more than I brought in as well as tackle some of my backlist titles.

I added 151 physical books to my library this year. This is a large number, but I’m happy that it is about half when compared to how much I read. Of the books I read, 61 of them were physical books that I was able to move off my TBR and four of those I unhauled (not a ton, but it means I really enjoyed most of them).

I read a total of 49 review books this year, mostly from NetGalley and authors that reached out to me. I’m hoping to up my game even more in 2020.

I did the math and overall I read an average of approximately 166 pages per day. I think this is a great number and would like to keep this level or increase it.

All in all I was really happy with the way 2019 worked out and my fingers are crossed that 2020 is just as good or better.

Happy reading!

January 2020 Reading Plans

DeAnneLeave a comment

It’s 2020 already and I’m hoping to hit the ground running. For the most part I’m planning to tackle more review books that I have since I’m trying to get caught up after my slump, but I’ve also pulled some of my physical books that I would like to get off my TBR this month as well.

The Cheerleaders and Night Music are books I currently have audio books for so those should be easy to knock out. I’m already half way done with Robots Vs. Fairies and the other two books are pretty short. So I’m fairly confident I can knock these ones out – my hope is that this happens and that I’m also able to pull additional books from my shelves. We shall see what happens in that regard.

There’s also always random books that I may pick up on my kindle or via audio books as the mood strikes me. Also, there are monthly challenges I want to participate in that I haven’t been able to check out yet, so this may have additions or changes based on that.

Happy reading!

December 2019: Wrap Up

DeAnne2 Comments

I cannot believe December (and 2019) is already over, it went by so fast! I know a huge part of that was because of all the planning and prep I had to do for my vacation, and then the vacation itself. While I didn’t get back up to my usual reading pace, I do feel like I broke the slump and that I am getting back on track.

In total I read 18 books this month, including one on my kindle, 3 print books that were on my shelves (though one of them was a book I received for review) and 14 other review books which were either in eArc or audiobook format. While I was stoked to tackle so many review books, I was a little bummed that more print books weren’t taken care of.

For books that I acquired in December, there were a total of 11 – which is awesome for December. December and April tend to be my highest months so having less this December was a win. I got two from Book of the Month, three as Christmas gifts and the rest I purchased for myself mostly with gift cards that I received for Christmas. I also picked up the second Crowns of Croswald book from the author’s website as after reading the first one that I received directly from the author for review, I definitely wanted to pick up the next book in the series.

So that’s about it for December! I’ll be doing a full year wrap up in the next couple days to cover how many books total I read (301!) and how many books I added to my library as well as some other stats, but that’s going to take a little time since I have to organize my data.

Here’s hoping that January and beyond will see me getting even more on track with my reading (begone slump!) and get me back to my happy place. Fingers crossed for 2020 being a good year.

Happy reading!

Top 5 Books I Read This Year

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Since we’re at the end of the year I figured it was time to pick some favorites. Though I don’t give out a ton of five star ratings, this year I had a fair amount so it was harder to pick only five. Still, I was able to narrow it down to some that I know I would read again and probably love just as much.

Great Goddesses – I read most of Nikita Gill’s works this year and I believe gave five stars to each one, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be this one. I just fell in love with her poetry and honestly it reignited a love of poetry that had fallen away for a number of years.

If I’m Being Honest – I absolutely loved this duo’s debut book Always Never Yours when I read it so I had to pick up this one when it came out. I love their unique spin on “retelling” Shakespeare, where it’s not strictly a retelling, but modern characters relating to Shakespeare and using it as a mirror to their lives. The first one uses Romeo and Juliet for this while this one uses Taming of the Shrew. If you’re looking for a contemporary story that will make you both laugh and cry, you have to check out these books.

The Kiss Quotient – I know everyone went crazy over this book last year, but I was a little late to the party and read it this year. Helen Hoang has easily become one of my autobuy authors with this book and then The Bride Test. I love how fully dimensional so many of her characters are and how thoughtfully she writes a number of subjects. At this point I will read pretty much anything she writes.

Truly Devious – Maureen Johnson has been a little hit and miss for me, but I absolutely loved this story. A cold case murder mystery and an exclusive private school with very quirky characters? Yes please. This is one I would definitely recommend the audiobook for as I was fully immersed in it and felt it was extremely well done. I’m definitely looking forward to continuing on with the story; however, I’m scared to continue before more books are out because I don’t want a cliffhanger to kill me.

Moonlocket – Moonlocket is the sequel to Cogheart which was such a great story in and of itself, but with the second book the characters have so much growth and really gain even more dimension. (Spoiler – I’ve been graciously given an eARC of the third book, so watch my blog for a review of that one as well!) If you enjoy middle grade adventures I definitely recommend picking this series up!

So that’s it – my top five books of 2019! What were some of your favorites?

Happy reading!

2020 Reading Challenges I Want to Participate In

DeAnneLeave a comment

There are so many different reading challenges that it can be hard to decide which ones you want to participate in. Typically I have trouble sticking to them, or I find a ton I want to do and then am too unorganized or too much of a mood reader. This coming year I want to pick a few that I definitely participate in, then fill in where I can or where I feel like it.

Clearing the Hoard – My backlist is pretty enormous and it is something I would like to improve. I’m a little hesitant to make an actual list of all the books I have which are unread because, well, there are a lot, but I think it’s a great idea to tackle all those books which may not be at the top of the TBR.

TBR and Beyond – I’m a member of the TBR and Beyond facebook group, which has monthly and a yearly reading challenge, so I definitely plan on tackling those challenges as well.

20 For 2020 Reading Challenge – This one is based on prompts and it looks like a really good list, so I’m definitely going to try and tackle it. We’ll see how we do!

What reading challenges are you going to participate in next year?

Happy reading!

2020 Book Resolutions

DeAnne2 Comments

We all have those things that we think about when heading into the new year, things or habits that we want to change. I have these for my general life, but also for my reading life. Here are a few of the things I want to improve upon.

My “Currently Reading” pile – I think I may have already brought this up this year, but I have a few books currently sitting on my currently reading pile. I would like to clear this pile and finally finish these books.

My Neverending TBR – Ok, may of us have this problem and it is not unique – but it’s still something I need to work on. I did a great job this year to not bring in more books than I read, but I really need to take care of my backlist and dramatically decrease it.

Stay More On Top of Review Books – I do pretty well with this, but with the epic slump I fell into in the last few months of the year this one kind of slipped. I’m confident I can get it back on track and power through these books.

Continue To Grow This Blog – I’ve done really well in the last few months of posting every day and I would like to keep that up. It’s led to some great growth and really kept me accountable, I’d like to keep that trend going!

So those are the big ones, things that I hope to really ramp up on or continue doing. What are some of your reading resolutions for 2020?

Happy reading!