October Reading Update

So, my October TBR is coming along pretty well.  I am taking part in #Victober this year, as well as my own Halloween Reads challenge.

Victober 

• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
• Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell

Halloween Reads

• Thornyhold - Mary Stewart
• Pet Sematary - Stephen King
• Four Past Midnight - Stephen King

Of these five books, I have so far completed Thornyhold and Jane Eyre - both on the 1st of October - but since then I have not picked up anything else from my set TBR.  I did read Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness (which I bought on the 28th September), and one historical romance on my iPad, but since then I signed up for a trial of Netflix, and I have been hooked! ;-D

This weekend I am planning on starting one of the four short novels from Four Past Midnight, maybe Secret Window, Secret Garden?, anyway, I won't be missing out on any Stephen King because I can now watch Gerald's Game and 1922 movies that they adapted for Netflix.

A proper review video for Jane Eyre, Thornyhold, Time's Convert and whichever Stephen King I finish, will be up later in the month.  Until then, I'm heading back to catch up on some Netflix.

See you later,

 

#victober TBR

Yes, I have decided to toss my tiara into the ring and join #Victober 2018.

My plans were to start slowly and in Jane Eyre I found a book that actually fulfills all five challenges set by the hosts.

• A book by a hosts favourite Victorian author - check ✔︎
• Read a Victorian novel with a proper pronoun in the title (persons name/place name) - check ✔︎
• Read a book published in either the first or last decade of the Victorian era - check ✔︎  Jane Eyre was first published in 1847
• Read a novel written by a woman under a male pseudonym or published anonymously - check ✔︎ 
• Read a novel and watch a screen adaptation - check ✔︎

Victober was created by Katie Lumsden over at BOOKS AND THINGS, and is co-hosted this year by Ange from BEYOND THE PAGES, KATE HOWE, and Lucy from LUCY THE READER, who all have Victober Announcement video's up on YouTube and I have linked them above if you are interested in watching them, or if you would like to participate this year. 

So, as well as reading Jane Eyre, I will also be attempting the book chosen for the readalong which is Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.  Like Jane Eyre, I have been meaning to read this for years to no avail.  Looks like Victober is the kick in the butt I need to finally start these classics.

Finger's crossed that I can complete both books.  I'll be updating my reading progress as the month goes along.  These won't be the only books I'll be reading in October.  I also want to get in some Halloween Reads and a little bit of Kingoween as well.  Looks like I'll have a lot on my plate for next month.

Wish me luck!, and until I see you next time.

August Book Haul, Part 3 - Classics

Yes!  I have finally come to the end of this rather large (and if I'm honest, a pain in the arse) book haul.  Remind me not to do this again any time soon ;-D

As you can see, my collection of classics is growing steadily.  Enough so that I now need a large bookcase to keep them all together - they are scattered around various locations in the house at present - and with 3 very large bookcases crammed into the spare bedroom I feel the time has come to perhaps call a cabinet maker to make some custom shelves that cover a whole wall.  Expensive, I know, but there is so much wasted space in using standard bookcases that I think it will be worth it in the long run... maybe?

Anyway, I have more video's to edit, including a bit of bookmail from this morning, that I want to get up asap.  So I will leave you here, and until I see you guys next time,

August Book Haul, Part One

It's been a few weeks since I've felt like filming, or editing, a video.  However I have bought so many books during August that I really needed to get my butt in gear and film something, so welcome to the first of three book haul videos!

Today's video is just the new books I bought.  These either came from Book Depository, Booktopia, or from my local shopping centre.

Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these, and what you thought of them.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on these classics.  And until next time,

And the books trickle in

This is the week that the books from my PEL binge should arrive - and indeed they have started to trickle in.  I walk down the road to my cute little post office every day to check the mail and yesterday the first of the PEL editions turned up.  Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens both arrived in amazing condition.  

However, the copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy was in less than desirable condition {as you can tell from the webcam shot above}.  The front cover was all bent and smushed and there is obvious crinkling of the pages throughout the book.  Not what I expected when I ordered this

Thankfully today's package made up for that disappointment.  All the books that arrived in the post this morning were in excellent condition Hard Times, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Mill on the Floss and Sons and Lovers - and all had that rubberized texture that I love!  So I will bury my disappointment over the poorer condition of Tess because, truthfully, that could have happened while the books were in transit, and instead bookgasm over my growing PEL collection.

I can't wait to get my new bookcase so I can line up all these amazing spines on the shelf ;-D

Do you collect these gorgeouse PEL editions?  Let me know what your favourite cover design is.  The covers I'd love to get my hands on are Pamela by Samuel Richardson and The Monk by Matthew Lewis... oh, and Bleak House, The Pickwick Papers, Martin Chuzzlewit and The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens.  Hmmm, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot and perhaps The Return of the Native by Hardy.  Okay, basically I want most of them! ;-D  But unfortunately they are Out of Print (OOP) and waaaaay too expensive to purchase second hand (over $200!).  Too rich for my blood.

Hmmm, I sense another post in my future - why aren't all the PEL titles still available?  ;-D

I'm off to reorganize my shelves so I can fit these babies in, but until next time,

 

Pre-birthday splurge

Yeah.  So, this was a thing over the weekend.  Money has been a little tight - still have to pay my electricity and telephone bill this week - but with my birthday coming up I wanted to treat myself to a book or two since my family don't buy me books because they are never sure what I've got, or want to read.  

Enter the smart phone.  I was browsing the Book Depository and Awesome Books websites on Saturday night and after about an hour of idle searching it was a shock to discover that I had 10 books heading my way!  Okay, two were for my mum for Mother's Day, but daammmmn!

Sunday afternoon.  I'm online again and poddling about Awesome Books - again! - adding books to my wishlist (and the cart) when I hit on the 'genius' idea of buying up some more Penguin English Library (PEL) editions to add to my collection.  Yeah, really bright idea.  Bought a further 8 books, and then jumped on AbeBooks to find some OOP PEL editions and ended up spending more money as I found two (and bought a third book anyway)!

So, here is a list of what I bought on this birthday binge of shame...

As you can see, I must have lost my mind for a few hours!  In truth, these are books that I've wanted for a long time - and that I will be reading in the future - so I don't feel too guilty about buying them as a majority of them are used books in great condition.  However, I probably could have timed this splurge better ;-D

In the meantime, I have not been reading as much as I would like.  Everyday chores like laundry, mowing the lawn, gardening, cooking, etc., have been a priority.  Hoping to read Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen this month.  I read Emma last May and loved it, so finger's crossed I have the same reaction to S&S.

Since I've spent way too much recently on books, I'm going to concentrate more on my massive TBR pile (300+ books I think) and get a chunk of that read before I allow myself another book order.  I'll settle for reading 20-30 titles.  It will be a challenge, but with winter only a few weeks away, and the colder nights, I'm hoping to snuggle up with some good books over the coming weeks - there's nothing on TV anyway ;-D

Have you had a huge book splurge?  If you have, let me know how many books you got so I don't feel so bad ;-D

Until next time,

November madness

Foggy start to the day (5:30am)

Already it's been a weird, mad, insane month.  The weather is absurdly hot for November where I live.  It's already been up to 35°c (95°f), which is about 7 degrees above average, and so hot and dry!  At the moment it's overcast, and yet I'm sitting at the computer with the window open and a desk fan on - and yet when I woke up this morning there was fog everywhere!  Hoping for thunderstorms to try and relieve some of this heat.

Then, to add insult to injury (so to speak), I awaited the results of the US Election.  That was the biggest load of crap!  I can't believe that they would elect a completely unqualified individual, who not only had the backing of the KKK (wtf!), but also has a hate-on for minorities, women, immigrants (seriously, doesn't he realize that his ancestors were immigrants once?!), and anyone in the LGBTQ community.  He also sees nothing wrong with assaulting women as he's rich and powerful and that makes it ok.  And this is the president America would rather have than a qualified and educated woman.

On to a different topic as that just makes me mad/sick when I think about it.

Okay, now on the book front it's been a much more exciting month.  I have once again given in to temptation and bought waaaay too many books online.  I've already received a chunk of them, but there are still 16 books I'm waiting for in the mail - sixteen!  How did this happen?  Okay, I know how it happened, but where did my self control go?  Obviously it's been on an extended vacation somewhere... most likely on Harmony playing with the dust bunnies.

So to help me curb my over enthusiasm of late, here is a list of what I've bought (and still waiting for!) so that I can look at it when I feel the urge to splurge...

Evelina, Howards End, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Far From the Madding Crowd, Vanity Fair, Tom Jones, Ethan Frome, Wives and Daughters, Doctor Thorne, The Small House at Allington, The Warden, The Way of All Flesh, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Night Walks, Conspicuous Consumption, Heart of Obsidian, The Arsene Lupin Omnibus, Melmoth the Wanderer, A Natural History of Dragons, The Castle of Otranto, In A Glass Darkly, Christine, The Magicians Guild, Cast in Flight, The Burning Lamp, Archangel's Heart, The Eyes of the Dragon,  The Name of the Wind, Making It Up As I Go Along, Maskerade, Moving Pictures, The Mystery Woman, and finally The Dragon Griaule, not to mention the 10 or so books I've picked up from the local thrift shops!

And that is only back over what I've bought since the 14th of last month!  I've recently had a real thing for Penguin English Library books as you can probably tell from the list above (titles in blue).  Most of them are for next years reading challenge I'll be setting for myself, and I'll be starting to collect a few of the Penguin Great Ideas as well, again for another challenge.

When all my books are in I'll have to put them all on a table somewhere and take a group picture, so to speak, just to show you the actual size of my recent bookmail.  Where the hell am I going to fit all of these books?  Looks like I'll just have to buy another bookcase ;-D

Oops, just glanced out the window and it looks like there is a storm on the way so I'm going to have to quickly post this update and get off the computer.  Like I said earlier, this weather is nuts!

Until next time,