Reading Goals

I'm Brigid, 30-something. Meeanjin (Brisbane), Australia. ISFJ. I spend my days surrounded by books - working in a school library by day and by my personal bookshelves at night. I keep buying books even though I own too many unread ones as is. Main blog = terryboot

[readingoals]

May Wrap Up

May was a really solid reading month. Started the month by finishing off an audiobook and re-reading These Old Shades but this time with annotations from Lauren (since this was the book we swapped last Christmas) which was very fun. Got up to date on a series that I'm liking a lot, had a win with another random audiobook. And then read my favourite book of the year (so far, but also I cannot see it being beaten it was so fucking good omg).

Books Read

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin

How to Cheat Your Own Death by Kristen Perrin

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Solace House by Will Maclean

[readingoals]

180 ish pages into Solace House and my god this book is so for me Will Maclean wrote this for me

[readingoals]

Just finished. Incredible, stunning, five stars.

If anyone wants me I'll be listening to The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke by Queen and resisting the urge to start the book over immediately

[readingoals]

180 ish pages into Solace House and my god this book is so for me Will Maclean wrote this for me

[chamomile-teabag]

WHAT ARE YALL READING RN you must tell me

[thethirdromana]

The 100 best novels of all time

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

How many of the Guardian's 100 best novels of all time have you read?

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

Voting ended onMay 19

Bonus: add in the tags which one is your favourite.

[penny-anna]

hokay so i was curious as a point of contrast to the Guardian list how well tumblr would do on a best 100 SFF novels list. so i went looking for one and google directed me to NPR's top 100 novels list and i'm like aight i'll just use that one keep it simple. but as i scrolled down the list i was like wait there's been no Octavia Butler at all?? which i honestly found quite offensive but i was deep into adding books to my list challenge by that point.

also the version of the list i was looking at only had 97 entries on it; i am unsure if that's a counting error bcos some of the entries are series or if it's just missing 3 items off the NPR list but i opted to rectify both issues by adding 3 Octavia Butler books on the end.

so here is my list challenge of the 97 book long NPR top 100 list but I added Octavia Butler:

Nprs Top 100 Fantasy/Sci-Fi to Read

NPR top 100 books except there were only 97 on the list so I added 3 Octavia Butler's on the end. why in the world the original list had...

How many of the NPR: Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books list have you read?

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

Voting ended onMay 23

where a series is listed you can count that as the first book or the whole series at your discretion.

[readingoals]

HRCYED Check In: April

Better late than never I guess lmao. April was a brilliant month for my reading and my HRCYED progress. Another box on the bingo board is complete so now I just need to keep up with the new releases and I will have a bingo which I'm over the moon about.

Books Used + Prompts

Whidbey - New Release (March) + TBR Game

The Appeal - Last 10 Years (2021) + TBR game

Gotham - Last 10 Years (2016) + Series Staircase (4+ Series)

This Is What It Sounds Like - Nonfiction + Make A Quote (Like)

Slade House - Last 10 Years (2015) + Challenge Yourself

A Psalm For the Wild Built - Series Staircase (Duology) + Queer Alphabet (Nonbinary)

Strange Pictures - Translations + Last 10 Years (2022)

[readingoals]

April Wrap Up

April was another great month for my reading! Started out a little slow because Whidbey was a bit tough to get through but finished very strong! A couple of audiobooks, a couple of backlist books, and a couple of newer releases.

Books Read:

Whidbey by T Kira Madden

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Gotham by Nick Earls

This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas

Slade House by David Mitchell

A Psalm For the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Strange Pictures by Uketsu

[darkmacademia]

alignment chart: bookmark edition. tag yourself i’m scrap paper

[readingoals]

Poetry isn't typically my thing and this is a mix of poems and short stories, but I'll admit I mostly picked it up because it came up in a rec list of ergodic literature after I finished reading House of Leaves, and since I needed a book from a South American author to finish off a HRCYED challenge I thought I'd give it a go.

The "gimmick" of Multiple Choice is that the whole book is laid out like a multiple choice test (based on the Chilean Academic Aptitude Test) with sections titled things like "Sentence Completion” and “Reading Comprehension” and includes a page where you can fill in the multiple choice bubbles as if you were taking an exam.

Zambra uses this format to raise questions about the nature of education, especially in regard to Chile's political landscape - how a violent regime like Pinochet’s can use educational systems to reinforce their rhetoric, and the roll educational institutions play in society (you weren’t educated, you were trained).

I found it a fascinating book. At first I was a little unsure what I was meant to be getting out of it, but by the section titled "Sentence Order" I was getting very into it. The questions in this section give you a series of sentences and ask you which order you believe the sentences should be placed in to form a cohesive paragraph, giving you a range of multiple choice answers to choose from (you can see an example here).

For me, this was the strongest section of the book. It made me really consider the process of writing. How an author can choose which way information is given and how altering the order of information might alter a readers understanding of a scene or a character. Even just how switching some sentences around can change how a passage sounds, how it flows. I found it a really engaging and fun thought experiment.

I still wouldn't say I'm much of a poetry person - the sections that featured longer text/short stories definitely worked better for me personally, but I really enjoyed reading this book.

[ofliterarynature]

March's book club!

I thought this was a definite improvement over the author's debut, and while not a personal favorite (I just don't think cozy fantasy is ever really going to do it for me), one of our other members fell in love! So I'd consider it time well spent :)

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

🍓 STRAWBERRY AND SAGE 🌿

QOTD: What colour comes to mind when you think of strawberries?

Why do I always think of pink when they’re red? 😂 anyway, here’s a pink and green stack that probs should have been red and green. But that feels too christmassy anyway. Thanks for the tag, batty

[instagram]

Books pictured:

- The Witch Who Trades With Death by CM Alongi

- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (edges)

- Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (edges)

- What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez (edges)

- A Treachery of Swans by AB Poranek (edges)

- Holding the Reins by Paisley Hope (edges)

- Ghostsmith by Nicki Pau Preto (edges)

- Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (spine this time 😂)

[fundamentalcherrytree]

I went in the rain to the library to get some books. @sleepandblog you might like the sound of the first two in this stack.

Im excited to dive right in and read them. Didn't realize I had a theme with the colors. Hopefully, i like one or two of these books. Finding genres you like is hard. I have been trying for the past year.

[readingoals]

How to Solve Your Own Murder was a charming cosy mystery with a dual timeline that I found really fun!

In the mid 60s Frances, a teenager at a fair with her friends, visits a fortune teller and is delivered a prophecy about her eventual murder. In present day, the murder has come to pass and it's up to Frances' great-niece to solve the case.

With a quaint English village being rocked by scandalous secrets, an intriguing prophecy, and flashbacks to Frances teen years through the form of a diary she kept, this book was right up my alley!

[recreationalbookworm]

[bookishfreedom]

i rly love my apartment

[thebookcollector-deactivated201]

21/2-17 31/100 days of productivity. Today I’m reading The picture of Dorian Grey which I totally love for my English class. I’m also writing an analysis on Oscar Wilde for my English class and it’s very interesting.✨