Tag: discussion

Tag Tuesday: This or That Tag

DeAnne2 Comments

I was looking around looking for something to mix up the content on my blog and came across the This or That tag and thought it would be fun. I don’t know who originally created this one unfortunately. Let’s get to it!

Reading on the bed or couch? – Both! It really depends on where in the day I am since I will usually be on the couch during the day.

Male or female MC? – I typically prefer to read from a female point of view because it’s more able to be identified to, but a male MC will not make me dislike or choose not to read the book.

Sweet or salty snacks while reading? – Salty for sure, if I’m snacking I’m definitely going to lean more towards savory.

Trilogies or Quartets? – Any length of series is fine, but getting me to actually finish those series? Probably going to lean more towards a trilogy.

Reading in the AM or PM? – Any time of the day! Often if I’m having trouble sleeping I’ll just end up reading. Plus during the day at work I’m able to listen to audio books.

First or Third Person POV? – That one is just going to depend on the book to be honest. I can get into and enjoy any POV as long as it fits the book and the story that I’m absorbing.

Libraries or bookstores? – Um, why are you trying to cause me pain? Both, of course! If I had to pick one probably bookstore, because that means that something will be mine, but I also love utilizing my library to find out if I like something well enough to go out and own it.

Books that make you laugh or cry? – Either way I’m experiencing emotions so it’s good, but probably something that makes me cry just because that usually means it has more of an impact.

Black or white book covers? – Cover color really doesn’t matter to me, but I’m going to go with black just because it wouldn’t show dirt as easily as white.

Character or plot driven? – Books need both, but I usually lean more towards plot driven. I like books to feel like they are progressing and moving along.

So there you have it! I know most of them I leaned towards both, but sometimes that’s the way it is.

Happy reading!

Top Ten Tuesday: Last 10 Books I’ve Added to My Shelves

DeAnne1 Comment

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ ThatArtsy Reader Girl, I decided I wanted to participate to add a little more content to my blog, so here we go!

This week is all about the last 10 books I’ve added to my shelves. It’s a good thing I keep track of the books I add every month or I’d be hopeless in this. Early in the month I went to my local bookstore and traded in a bunch of unhaul books and books that family members had passed to me. On that excursion I picked up four books.

Then I received my Book of the Month box, which included my selection from the finalists for being a BFF, my monthly book and an add on pick. You just can’t beat their prices when it comes to the subscription cost and cost of add ons.

Finally I’ve ordered on book from Amazon this month, which is another Heather Graham book as I’m trying to pick up the ones that I’m missing from the Krewe of Hunters series. Those are all the physical books that I’ve picked up this month, but to make this an even 10 I’ll include the last two books I’ve picked up on my kindle, both of which I’m really excited to get to.

What are some of the last books you picked up? Happy reading!

Anticipated February 2020 Releases

DeAnneLeave a comment

Everyone looks ahead to see what books they want to check out and add to their TBR. It may not be great for the bank account, but I’m always excited to add to my want to read list. Let’s look at some of the books coming out in February that I want to check out.

Of Curses and Kisses – Ok, this one is no surprise to anyone who knows me, since it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling. When it comes to fairy tale retellings anything Beauty and the Beast is always at the top of my list. Plus, I’ve enjoyed Sandhya Menon’s writing before in When Dimple Met Rishi so I’m eager to try out her writing with more of a fantasy twist.

The Sun Down Motel – While I haven’t read Simone St. James’ other book that I have, The Broken Girls I am eagerly wanting to read both that one and this one. I was able to select it as my book from Book of the Month so I already have it, now I just have to get to it. I knew after I read the blurb that it was definitely something I wanted to check out.

The Unspoken Name – Ok, I’ll admit I haven’t really heard of this one but it snagged my interest when I was browsing a list so I took a look. Based on the description alone I am intrigued and really want to check it out. We’ll see if I like it when I do get it and get to it! It definitely looks like it would be a fun ride with a lot of morally grey areas, plus a fantasy!

The Unwilling – This is a book that I received an eARC of and accepted it purely because of the premise. It sounds like a fantasy with many moving parts and at the center of it a girl that everyone might want to use. This is one I’ll be diving into very soon, so look for a post about it from me!

So that’s it, those are some titles coming in February that I am very excited to get to. I hope that I end up loving all of them when I get to them, but we’ll just have to see. Do any of these pique your interest?

Happy reading!

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!