Rainy Day Reads

Usually I get my books from the library, but every once in a while something will possess me and I will spend tons of money on books. This was one of those times and the result is a lovely mix of fiction and non-fiction of books I can’t wait to read.   Fist up we have “Cinder” by Marissa Meyer. I’ve already read this and I really liked it.  I gave it 3 stars which might seem a bit middling, and I definitely did have some issues with it, but overall I liked it and continued the series, which I ended up really loving. You can see my review of “Cinder” here :  Then I got “Private Peaceful” by Michael Morpurgo. This book is a story about the First World War, and since one of my all-time favorite books takes place during that time (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) I figured I should broaden my reading horizon on that subject. Apparently this book is about a boy who is too young to fight, but he follows his brother to the battlefields and reminisces about his ch...

So in order to get cracking on my newfound reading resolutions I went to the library today and picked up a bunch of books. To be completely honest I had some of these books lying around from my last trip to the library, but I figured I would just make one big haul.   I’ve divided the books into 3 groups; Diversity Bingo, Around the Year in 52 books and others.  Let’s start with the books I’ve managed to get for Diversity Bingo:  First up we have “NIght” by Elie Wiesel. This will go towards the challenge of a book with a Jewish Main Character. It’s part of an autobiographical novel trilogy about the author’s experiences during WWII. I have high expectations for this one, since some of my favorite books are set during wartime and I have heard good things about this book.  Then we have “P.S. I Still Love You” by Jenny Han. This will be my book with a person of color on the cover. This is the second book in the “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”...

It’s a good job libraries are free, because otherwise I would be broke! I went for a little browse around my library because I had a few books to return. And it’s a rare day that I manage to leave the library without (a few) new books in hand.  This time I browsed with no particular plan in mind and I came across a couple of books that took my fancy.  First I found “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve heard Regan at PeruseProject rave about this series and this author and I have been meaning to get around to reading a book by him. So when I came across this one I decided to pick it up. It’s about world ruled by a supreme lord and two unlikely companions planning the ultimate revolt. That’s really as much as I can get from any synopsis, but a classic fantasy story like this should be interesting and it comes highly recommended, so I will give it a go.  Next I came across Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake”. Again the synopsis is extremely vague, ...

Spoiler: I may have gone overboard…. I went to the library a few days ago and decided to really browse the shelves and pick up a good selection. And I feel like I succeeded… I picked up both fiction and non-fiction to give myself a wide selection to choose from.  Let’s start with non-fiction.  I picked up a couple of books on ways to go more green. “1001 Ways You Can Save the Planet” by Joanna Yarrow and “Green Makeover” by Maria Cuculiza. I have actually read “Green Makeover” before a number of years ago, but I just remember thinking it all seemed a bit of a hassle and I was too lazy to really implement any of the ideas given in this book. But as I have aged I have become more invested in living a less wasteful life and more dedicated to the environment and sustainability. I am still lazy, but I hope to find a few ways to clean up my act in these two books.  Then I picked up “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer because I’ve h...

Seeing as I am on a book buying ban, I am making great use of my local library, and I thought “Why not do a haul?” So here are the books I currently have from the library.   First up we have “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. This is part of my “Reading the Classics” project and I have just finished it. I actually really enjoyed it and I think it is one of the few classics (so far) that I feel still have relevance today. Plotwise it’s not perhaps the best book I’ve read, simply because I don’t enjoy violence and made-up slang, but it really makes you think about free will, inherent “badness” and government control.   Then I have “Across the Universe” by Beth Revis. This is a YA book set in space. Amy is frozen cryogenically along with her parents and a number of people who are sent off to colonize a new planet. The journey will take 300 years, and the spaceship is inhabited by other people who keep it running. Somehow Amy is woken up before the spaceship l...

I have been on a book buying ban, for what feels like ages. And there is no end in sight! But fortunately I was lucky enough to receive a gift certificate for an online bookshop, and I made full use of it recently, so I figured I would share my purchases here.  I ordered these books a very long while ago but for some reason they took months to get to me. But they are finally here and I am so happy about them all, and can’t wait to get started on them.  The first book I bought is “The Raven King” by Maggie Stiefvater. This is the long-awaited conclusion to “The Raven Cycle” about the Raven boys and Blue and their hunt for a mythical king that can grant wished to the one who wakes him from his enchanted sleep. I feel like everyone has already read this book, as it has been out for a while, but I have been avoiding reviews, so I don’t know how it holds up to the rest of the books. But I’m excited to see.  The next book is the first in a duology. It’s...

So I know I said a few posts ago that I wasn’t being books these days. But then my favorite online book shop had a sale…and I caved! I bought 8 books, but they all had 20% off, so I couldn’t not buy them, right? First I got the two first books in the Harry Potter series. I bought these, because I have them in Danish, and I really wanted the complete set in English. I don’t know if you can call it a “set” as such, as they are in three different editions….But I actually really like this edition, so I don’t mind the mis-matching set too much. Then I got “Between Shades of Gray” by Ruta Sepetys. I have heard nothing but good things about this book. It is set during WWII, and deals with the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia on the order of Stalin. I just read the synopsis and the main character is a young girl who encodes her drawings to give her imprisoned father a chance to find them again. Now I want to read it even more! I also got “365 Ways to Change t...

I have pretty much equal love for libraries and bookstores. I even considered becoming a librarian for a short amount of time, but I ended up choosing a different path.   Libraries and bookstores both have their pros and cons. In libraries you can browse and pick between endless amounts of books and you don’t have to worry about your budget. However, you do have to worry about getting all the books read before they are due back on the library shelves, and if you are looking for specific books they might no be available from the library. Similarly you often have to wait quite a while for new releases to become available.  In bookstores you can also browse through a good selection and pick whatever suits your fancy. However, here you do have to worry about your budget (I assume you are not a millionaire with endless funds to spend on books). And sometimes you will be disappointed by the book and feel like you have wasted your money. I know I do sometimes, when a book...