My surprise

It's finally time to reveal my surprise. I have been in talk with some friends about starting a YouTube channel, and that has now become a thing. Here is my first video: Top 10 covers. Naturally my parts will be about books, and will be up on Thursdays.

I have also learnt the last couple of days that The Selection is being optioned for a film, and Throne of Glass as a TV show, so that's really exciting. I hope these become a thing very soon, especially Throne of Glass.

The danger of real books

I am, and always be, a huge fan of a real book, one with pages and everything. I had a Kindle, I sold it because I could just never get into books; I have an Audible account which I will probably just use for Harry Potter, as once again, I really struggle with listening to audiobooks, and who doesn't know the plot of Harry Potter backwards by now? Plus, Stephen Fry - need I say more?

There are, however, some occasions where carrying a real book around with you ends up destroying your mind. I'm not talking about having to actually carry books around with you, I don't mind that, I tend to carry two everywhere just in case I finish one.

I now refer you to an event that happened on Monday. I was walking to work, and it was a typical British day; one second the skies were blue, the next the heavens opened. Thankfully, living in the UK makes you carry an umbrella everywhere with you, no matter the weather when you leave the house, so I thought all would be fine and dandy. That was not the case. By the time I got to work, the bag was absolutely soaked, and as I discovered, not waterproof. What, I ask you, is the point of a backpack that does not protect your stuff from rain in a country that rains constantly?? So I teach into the bag, dreading the worst, and pull out a soggy mess of pages. The book itself was intact, but the corners got absolutely drenched and the cover started peeling. To make things worse, this was Seraphina; a book I bought a couple of weeks ago with my birthday money.

I guess the moral of this story is to ALWAYS make sure your bag is waterproof before carrying a book in it, or I guess, take a Kindle. My iPad is fine, but my poor book will never be the same again, if it is even readable. I guess you'll find the answer to that in my wrap up.

I know I'm leaving you all hanging with my news, and by the time I announce it you will probably have lost interest, but I hope I will be able to tell you all by the end of the week.

Bookish terms

So I was talking to my fiancé earlier about how slumpy I am feeling, and he looked at me like I'd gone insane, which got me thinking: how many times a day do you start talking about your OTP, or how you need to get control over your TBR, and your friends all have no idea what you're talking about?

I confess, a few years ago, back when I was just a reader, none of these terms really existed to me. I lived in a pretty much constant state of books, school and MSN, so I didn't have the time for Youtube (and it never occurred to me that something as awesome as Booktube would exist), and I had yet to discover Goodreads, so back in 2011 I began to discover the bookish side of the internet, and my brain started to explode. Every other thing people were saying had to be explained, as I had no idea what half of the terms meant. Before the internet, a ship was something you sailed across the sea in; a tbr was something a lot smaller because we weren't spending precious reading time on the computer, and canon was just a type of camera.

These days I am thankfully almost fluent in book, and am doing my best to try and teach those around me how to speak bookish. Some people learn quicker than others, but now the majority of people seem to actually understand what I'm saying when I am fangirling about how Harry and Ginny are my OTP (I actually cried more at the drama in their relationship in HBP than I did at the really sad part).


I will be having a surprise announcement on here hopefully tomorrow, or at least in the next couple of days, so keep your eyes peeled it you want to know more!

Ink & Bone review

Title: Ink & Bone
Series: The Great Library
Author: Rachel Caine
Rating: 4*
Goodreads description: Knowledge is power. Power corrupts.

In a world where the ancient Great Library of Alexandria was never destroyed, knowledge now rules the world: freely available, but strictly controlled. Owning private books is a crime.

Jess Brightwell is the son of a black market smuggler, sent to the Library to compete for a position as a scholar... but even as he forms friendships and finds his true gifts, he begins to unearth the dark secrets of the greatest, most revered institution in the world.

Those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life - and soon both heretics and boooks will burn...

My thoughts

I really enjoyed this book, I flew through it as quickly as I could, and it didn't seem like any time at all had passed. I started it on a bus, and got slightly confused when I found out I'd reached my destination.

This is basically a book about how amazing books are, and how much they need protection. The storyline itself was a little confusing at points, and could have done with more world building. I know there's a war going on between the English and Welsh, but I have no idea why - for once I'm sure the bad feelings between the two countries have nothing to do with rugby, but you never know. I also found some parts about how the books are kept confusing as well. I'm still not overly sure what the blanks actually were, I guess kind of like a Kindle but I dunno.

The characters were all pretty interesting. The main character, Jess, may have a girls name, but was pretty badass at points, at others, however, he just rolled over and took all the bad stuff that was going on. I liked the romance, especial one that wasn't actually stated outright but was hinted towards, sometimes quite heavily. The sass in that one had me laughing out loud at points, they had such great banter, and I do love a bit of banter.

Overall I found this book really good. The only reason I didn't get 5 stars from me was the fact that I did spend some of the time not really knowing what was going on. I will definitely buy the next book in the series. It might not have ended up on a cliffhanger, but I still want more from this world. Hopefully the end will be a little less sad on the next one.

Autumn reading

So it's getting to be that time of year again; the nights are getting earlier, the weather is definitely getting colder (not that it's difficult, it's been cold the majority of the summer) and the time for cuddling up on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate, a duvet, and a good book is upon us.

There are currently 51 books on my TBR, and I want to try and get at least half of the books that are currently on my list read, especially as lots of them have been on my list for months. I'm not going to kid myself and say I want an empty TBR by the end of the year, because we might as just admit that's never going to happen unless I suddenly lose every penny I earn, so I think just whittling down the books that have been on there for ages seems like a good target.

I'm also going to try and finish of a few series bu the end of the year, I have so many open series that are just begging me to finish, but I either haven't read them or haven't even gotten around to buying them yet, so there are so many open storylines I have floating around in my head, and I really need to know how some of them will end.

Keeping track of my tbr

One question I find people always ask me, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is how I manage to keep track on all the books when I buy so many and it used to be quite a big problem (I had Throne of Glass for about a year before I read it as it was hidden at the back of my bookcase) but I now have a technique that works quite nicely.
First thing I do is pretty obvious, I have a separate bookcase for my tbr books, which probably says a lot about how many I have, having a tbr case instead of tbr shelf. I keep them all in alphabetic order and once I've read them I move them over to my proper bookshelf, or now the back of my sofa until I can afford another bookcase. These I also have separated in piles to make it slightly easier to get on my shelf when I get a new one. That or I'm just a bit too anal.
Second thing is the one that gets me quite a few funny looks when it mentioned it. My mum got me a Book Thief notebook for Christmas, so what better use for it than to write down all my books? I sit at my tbr at the beginning of every month, and write down all the books on it, obviously leaving space for any more I will buy during the month. I then write at the bottom of the page how many books I have at the beginning of the month, and how many at the end. If I have less at the end of the month I get to buy books the next month. I then get somebody to choose a number, and that will be the book I read, then when I'm done with it I cross the book off.
How about you all? Ever have trouble keeping up with the never-ending pile, or do you have a method to stop it getting out of hand?

Bad timing slump!

Currently I am reading Queen of Shadows, but all I want to do right now is sleep and watch Netflix. I have been waiting for this book for forever, and now my brain just does not want to work. I really need to finish the book, but then I really don't want to force myself through it in case I then don't enjoy it as much as I reckon I probably will when I do read it. I've had it for about 3 days and I'm only on page 212.
Thankfully usually my slumps are pretty short, and it can usually force myself through them, I think this one is mainly a combination of my new work schedule messing up my sleeping pattern (waking up at 6.30 on your day off is not cool) and a readathon I did last month burnt me out a bit; the last alf of August I think I read about 3 books.
I really hope this slump ends soon, because the releases out this month are some I have been most excited for this month, and I don't want anything to get in the way of me getting through them all as quickly as I can.
I think there's only one solution, I need to down about a million espressos and dream of a power cut, then nothing will be getting in my way!

Waterstones broke my heart

I've been waiting around in town all day for my copy of Queen of Shadows, to be told that because it was a bank holiday yesterday the delivery won't be coming in until either too late today to buy it, or until tomorrow. Nobody in real life knows my pain, but honestly I feel like I could cry for about a year. It's horrible when you're excited about something, but when you have that excitement built up and you finally get the chance to do the thing and it gets taken away it's completely soul destroying. The worst part is that the guy at the counter didn't seem to realise that he'd basically ripped out my heart and thrown it at me, he just told me he'd text me when it came in.

It's finally September

So you know what that means??
Queen Of Shadows is FINALLY out!!!!!! Waterstones opens in about 25 minutes, so I am currently in the middle of getting dressed to go get it, but I thought I would stop and share with you guys that the time is finally here!! I am so, so excited to read what happens next with Celaena's life!!
Also this month I am hugely excited for Library Of Souls, the third book in the Miss Peregrine's trilogy. My fiancé bought me Hollow City and preordered Library Of Souls, so I now have to sit and wait for that to come out.
I feel here I need a minute of silence, to mourn the fact that we should be excited for The Raven King, and now we have to wait for FEBRUARY!!! Not even a cover reveal yet! Although I have to say, I am so torn with what I want to happen with this series. If you haven't read it yet, do it now! You won't regret it.