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📍Camilla's Bookshop, Eastbourne

Bookshop of the Day | Camilla's Bookshop in Eastbourne

This paradise for book lovers is full, literally FULL, of second-hand books, spread out across three floors. If you're a sci-fi and fantasy lover like me, head to the top floor. Here there are heaps of books to choose from right as you step off the stairs. There's also a decent comic book selection if you have time to go through the boxes.

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Considering how massive this series is, I'm surprised it was the one I chose coming out of quite a long reading slump.

I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, I think his writing is really accessible, and his world-building is just something else.

I also really admire that Sanderson provides his lectures on writing online for free on his YouTube channel - something he definitely could charge for instead!

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Godkiller holds such a special place in my heart. I started reading the physical book before I took my first solo trip, and finished the audio version while I was away. Whenever I think of Kaner's story I'm just transported back to that time in my life, where I felt the most at peace and confident in myself.

It's also a brilliant start to the trilogy. I'm eagerly awaiting my special edition copy of Faithbreaker, which I think will get to me a little after the official pub date.

This little Skediceth embroidery makes me appreciate how far I'm coming with my embroidery skills now I'm practicing more. Since making this I think I've definitely improved with blending and shape. I have something in mind for Faithbreaker, but I don't know if my skills quite match what I have in mind - we'll have to see!

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The way the sun reflects off this foil cover is just everything 😍

That heart was originally going to be in the shape of a whale for world whale day yesterday, but let me tell you, trying to create a whale out of books when you have a time limit is not an easy task. I barely managed that heart.

Have you read this book by Frances White? I'd love to know what you thought of it!

[pens-pages-places]

2025 TBR List

Til Death Do Us Bard

Piranesi

Beautiful Star

Fathomfolk

Wyrd Sisters

Voyage of the Damned

Moonstone

When the Moon Hatched

The Silence Factory

The Colour of Magic

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Fellowship of the Ring

I'm only giving myself a list of 12 this year, even though I have so many unread books, in hope this will make me actually get through them rather than feel overwhelmed and do something else!

2025 is the year I'm determined to get back into reading properly.

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Til Death Do Us Bard

Piranesi

Beautiful Star - started

Fathomfolk

Wyrd Sisters

Voyage of the Damned

Moonstone - started

When the Moon Hatched

The Silence Factory

The Colour of Magic - started

The Left Hand of Darkness - started

The Fellowship of the Ring

Don't let this progress fool you, it's been a very quiet start to the year and I need enrichment in the form of fantasy worlds.

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Missing days that are warm enough to sit outside and read 🌊 

I’ve been reading City of Last Chances so slowly and I’m not quite sure why! I started it before Christmas and am still muddling through, even though I’m enjoying it. 

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Late to the party here... but!

Book Review for Piranesi | One of the best books I’ve read in years ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Introduction to the plot: Piranesi follows our titular protagonist as he lives in the House, a seemingly endless building filled with statues and tides of water that threaten to overwhelm him unless he keeps track of them. He lives in the House with a man known to him as the Other, who seeks to uncover and possess the secrets of the House. 

At its core Piranesi is a mystery. Why is he in the House? What is the House? Who is the Other? Who is the 16th person in this world? Most importantly, we start asking, who is Piranesi? The charm of Clarke’s writing is that she manages to answer just enough of these questions to leave you feeling satisfied at the end of the book, but leaves enough unanswered that the world feels like it continues on existing after you finish the final page. 

*spoilers below*

I really thought I’d cracked the mystery of Piranesi fairly quickly into the story. I thought that 16 was the reader, and the complicated mystery everyone seemed to talk about when discussing this book was that it became very meta and broke the 4th wall. Completely, laughably wrong. 

Every decision made by Clarke in Piranesi was the right one. The choice to allow Piranesi to keep his kindness and generosity to the end - trying to save the Other and bringing James Ritter back and forth between the House and our world - wasn’t one I thought she’d make, but it was very much appreciated. A gentle protagonist who sees beauty in the very existence of the world rather than what it can offer, or how it can help you rise above others, is a protagonist we don’t see very often!

*end of spoilers*

What did you think of Piranesi?

[pens-pages-places]

2025 TBR List

Til Death Do Us Bard

Piranesi

Beautiful Star

Fathomfolk

Wyrd Sisters

Voyage of the Damned

Moonstone

When the Moon Hatched

The Silence Factory

The Colour of Magic

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Fellowship of the Ring

I'm only giving myself a list of 12 this year, even though I have so many unread books, in hope this will make me actually get through them rather than feel overwhelmed and do something else!

2025 is the year I'm determined to get back into reading properly.

[pens-pages-places]

My favourite quote from my favourite book as my intro to bookblr.

I need to know that people have read Howl's Moving Castle as well as watched the fantastic (but very different) Ghibli movie.

I wish I'd found DWJ earlier as I know I would have loved some of her other books when I was younger. For this book alone she is one of my favourite authors, alongside Ursula Le Guin, Susanna Clark, and Brandon Sanderson.