Yah! I have finally been able to edit this and get it up - and all before the end of the first week of November, woo-hoo! Victober was a mixed bag. I did finish the two titles that made up the four challenges, but the other books I'd hoped to read... well, that didn't go so well.
Sorry this is so short. Hopefully as Christmas gets closer I can find the time to get some more blogging in. Until then, I hope you had a more successful Victober than I did. Let me know what your favourite book was in the comments, and until next time,
Yes, it is I. It is hard to believe that I have been absent from BookTube, and this blog, for about 2 months. I have had a rather difficult time with my health - darn that chronic pain! - and that has affected my ability to a) film videos, and b) to sit down for hours to edit them.
However, I couldn't let Victober pass without at least getting a TBR out there... so, here we go.
I have listed all the links to the hosts, and other various sites/videos, for your Victober pleasure, so I won't rehash all that. But, I will tell you about the books I have decided to read for this Victober. The first is ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴀ ʙᴏᴀᴛ by Jerome K. Jerome. Although I only read this book at the start of the year... oops, last August acutally!, and I still think about some of the passages. The language is beautiful, and the characters are memorable. I love the lazy storyline, it is so simple an idea and executed so well that I'm surprised that I hear so little about this book online. A great way to spend a few hours.
Next up is ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴇɴ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴜᴍᴍᴇʟ, a sequel to his much earlier novel. Not surprising since I loved their first outing up the Thames. This time round, the hypochondriac trio are off to the Black Forest on a cycling tour, with Montmorency in tow. I don't know anything else about it, and I'm going to go into this with no expectations apart from expecting more beautiful prose.
And finally, there is the underrated, and new to me, offering of Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett with ɴᴇᴡ ᴀᴍᴀᴢᴏɴɪᴀ. Published in 1889, it is a contemporary of Three Men in a Boat, and as I perused the synopsis, I immediately stopped as soon as I saw 'dystopian', and I'm going into this with no idea what it is about other than that.
So, those are the three books that I'm going to be reading this October. Fingers crossed it all goes well, and I will be devouring other Victober videos so if you have made one, or have posted something on your blog about it, then leave me a link in the comments.
A big thank you for watching, and until I see you next time,
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.
What the hell is going on with the postal service at the moment? I finally received some mail today that was as much as 6 weeks overdue (Misty's letter) and my order from Awesome Books was 2 weeks late. Even my Funko and Booktopia order (in the flat oversized parcel) were late. Is it the pre-Christmas postal panic? I don't know - and I don't particularly care. I am only worried about my orders getting to me in a reasonable amount of time!
Okay, now that that mini rant is out of my system - I actually didn't indulge in a hissy fit in the video - I will say that for once, all of the used books I ordered from Awesome Books arrived in very good condition. There is always one item that looks like it's been dragged through the bushes backwards, but today, not a problem.
So out of everything that I opened this morning, the biggest surprise came with the green Harper Perennial spine you can see above on the video titlecard, it is sooo floopy and very much smaller than other editions of the book I own. I'm trying so hard not to go into video spoilers, but if you've read the book you'll know how much of a chunker it is. On the plus side, I now no longer have to worry about emailing sellers asking for refunds (and then quibbling about the refund of postage as well) so that's a huge plus.
I was also going to haul the books I discovered at a local thrift shop last week (and I have been posting images on IG) but that would have made this video super long so I might just leave for now.
Anyway, so happy to finally have all my missing orders here, I'm only waiting on two books I won on Twitter comps over the past two weeks. I'm now going to clean up this mess around my desk and try to find a spot for them on my shelves. Wish me luck ;-D
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,
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
