A Day in Bookland

Earlier this month I told myself I wouldn't set any reading goals for the year to come but these aren't really reading goals; more like reading activities I won't be doing. The first six months of 2018 will be me dealing with finals, a new semester and handling in my dissertation. And I don't think I'm ready. Don't get me wrong, I want to finish and be done with academia for the time being but I'm also a bit worried about my mental well-being, not gonna lie. And I've decided that as much as I would love to read for fun to unwind, it's not going to be a priority. At least from January to June. So here are my reading goals for 2018. If you've been reading my blog or following me on social media, you probably know that I haven't been in the greatest reading mood. However, I've realised that what is happening right now it's not an isolated moment. Looking back I've noticed that for the past two years - both in 2017 and 2016 - the

As promised here are all the books I absolutely adored this 2017. I' gonna talk about each of them in the order I read them because I refuse to rank them so there is that.

This post is probably the hardest to do. This list is not about my most hated books and if I look back to all the books I read this year, there are so many more with lower ratings that aren't on this list because this one is about all those books I thought I would love, but ultimately that wasn't the case. I always feel the need to do a little disclaimer: the fact that I didn't love these books is no reason for them to be bad and I've seen many amazing reviews popping up for each of them. Two books in this stack - The Power  and Autumn  - I actually enjoyed reading and I would recommend them but the high expectations I had worked against me and that's why I included in my most disappointed reads of this year. As always, I will say if the premise of the book sounds interesting to you, I'll say give them a go; plenty of readers out there loved these titles. But let's talk the reasons why I included them in this list, shall we?

Books, books, books and always more books. Until now. I hate the word 'ban' so I'm not going to use it but I've decided to not buy a single book until I'm done with finals in February. I've said getting book mail makes me happy. However, it also distracts me from studying.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward { Goodreads } Published by Bloomsbury in 2017 Hardback edition; 304 pages Sing, Unburied, Sing  is a road trip story. The novel starts when Jojo's father, a white man, is released from prison. His mother, Leonie, gets him, his little sister and a friend of hers, and hits the road to the penitentiary to pick him up.

Reading His Dark Materials has taken me 14 years. Yes, you read right. 14 bloody years. I was 12 when I picked up the first book, before the (let me just say it, horrible) movie came out and after that, I never finished the last two books (one of my friends told me she didn't enjoy the ending and that was reason enough to not waste my time). Things changed this summer when I decided it was finally time for me to see what all the fuss was about. I'm glad I read it now, as an adult. I know as a child I would have had a different opinion of it and so many things would have been lost to me. I can see why these books created such controversy (with the Church especially)

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night  by Jen Campbell { Goodreads } Published by Two Roads in 2017 Hardback edition; 212 pages I'm so happy I got to read this. Blending of fact and fiction, this is a fantastical and magical collection yet realist. There is a lot to read between the lines, Campbell doesn't lay it all for the reader because it is up to us to discover all the layers hidden in the stories. Fairy-tales are present throughout the entire collection but I guess that's not really a surprise. I love the way they were used to speak about all humane things, our darkness, our fears but also our hopes. Queerness and deformity are also present. The writing is beautiful and lyrical and worked very well for me.

Nov, 2nd - 23:30 Finally finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell after almost a month since I started reading it. I will confess that it took me a whole lot more time that I was expecting to get through this one but I just kept picking other books up and not reading it. Anyways, I did it. 1006 pages. I wasn't as impressed with it as most people; I certainly believe its length doesn't help sometimes and I was bored quite a bit throughout. As a whole it is a book worth reading but it's very slow and academic. The ending, though, stole a few tears from me - something I wasn't expecting to be completely honest.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy. Illustrated by Carson Ellis { Goodreads } Published by Balzer + Bray in 2011 Hardback edition; 560 pages Wildwood , the first instalment in the Wildwood Chronicles, starts when Mac, Prue’s brother, is kidnapped by crows and taken to Wildwood. Prue is determined to go and rescue him even though her parents always tell her to stay away from the woods. Curtis, a class mate, follows her and both of them find themselves in this magical world, trying to save not only Prue’s baby brother but also the entirety of Wildwood from an evil Queen.

There is still a week and a half left of November but all the books I got this month have arrived and there are no more plans to order more. I'm gonna save you the whole 'I tried my best to buy less but it didn't happen' excuse because this time around I was very much aware of the books I bought. 

Tome Topple readathon has been around for a while but I've never participated before. Until now. I just felt like reading some of the longest books on my TBR and this just gave me the perfect excuse for that. Essentially, the readathon is about reading books that are over 500-pages long. It runs from the 17th to the 30th of November and there are some challenges that people can follow - I'm not following all but I did pick up some books on my shelves that can be used for some of them. 

Follow

The Diary of a Bookseller  by Shaun Bythell { Goodreads } Published by Profile Books in 2017 Hardback edition; 320 pages { BookDepository } The Diary of a Bookseller  came out last September and I just had to have a copy. And so I bought one. The title is pretty much self-explanatory: a diary written by Shaun Bythell, who owns The Bookshop - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop; and who decided to narrate what it is like to work in his bookshop during a whole year. 

Anyone else participating? Which titles are in your TBR? Follow

You know how every single month we, book bloggers, wonder... how on earth did I end up with so many books? Well, I have the answer for my problem. I realised every time I feel down or stressed, I go online to check on books and I always add something to my cart and I always press buy. And here we are: 11 books (the fact that I read 12 books in October makes me feel slightly better).

Oct, 5th - 20:45 Finished the first book of the month: The Glass Town Game, the newest release by Catherynne M. Valente. It's a fantasy novel about the Brontë siblings. Basically, they are sucked into their own game. A bit like Jumanji if you like but the whole book is filled with references to their novels and their characters and it's a fantastic read. I'm also making my way through My Absolute Darling  by Gabriel Tallent and I can tell you now this is gonna be a difficult one for me. It disgustes me most of the time and I've cried several times but at the same time I wanna keep reading because I wanna know where the story is heading.

The Autumn readathon started just as the Dewey's readathon ended. And this post is all about my progress during the week the readathon lasted. I've done things differently in this wrap-up. Instead of updating everytime I finished a book, I did updates for each day and counted how many pages I read.

It is that time of the year again. It is Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon time! I wasn't sure about participating this second time around but I couldn't resist. I always have an incredibly good time, not only sharing my reading during 24 hours straight but also keeping with other people's reading progresses. So, this Saturday (the 21st) you'll find me between the pages of many books. I have already started Uni but I'll take the day off because I truly want to dedicate all my time to read. I went for short novels and a picture book this time as to not burn myself too much during the day: - Franklin's Flying Bookshop  by Jen Campbell. Perfect when one is starting to notice the tiredness. - Tin Man  by Sarah Winman.  - The Tobacconist   by Robert Seethaler. - Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. As always, I'll write another post where I'll be updating my reading and as always, I would love for you to link in the comments where

Hello guys! Long time, no see! I haven't blogged since April or May but I wanted to make a quick comeback during the rest of October because there are a few readathons happening right now which I'll be participating on. This post is all related to Mercedes' readathon which will run from Sunday 22nd to Saturday 28th of October. She announced it when she reached 30K subscribers on her youtube channel - which I recommend you all go and subscribe to because she's one of my favourites.

Another friday, another weekend reads! At the beginning of the week I started reading The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times  by Xan Brooks and in all fairness I'm not sure what to make out of it. It's incredibly dark in its subject matter but the story isn't pulling me in as much as I was expecting but it is at least an interesting novel.

Ties by Domenico Starnone { Goodreads } Published by Europa Editions in 2017 Paperback edition; 150 pages { BookDepository } “In case it’s slipped your mind, Dear Sir, let me remind you: I am your wife. I know that this once pleased you and that now, suddenly, it chafes. I know you pretend that I don’t exist, and that I never existed…” are the words which open Ties , a novel about a fractured marriage told from the perspective of the wife, the husband and the children. I went into it with zero expectations since I received it in my March Moth Box and haven’t heard about it before and I was taken completely by surprise.

June is over and good riddance! I should acknowledge that although the beginning was stressful with my last two finals and sad because Sense8 got cancelled, the end of the month was way better. After a lot of fight from the fandom we got the amazing news yesterday that Netflix is gonna give us an ending for the show, after saying the cancellation was irrevocable. I still believe this show deserves way more seasons because everything about it is amazing but I'm happy that we can - at least for now - get the ending we deserve so that the story gets closure. And who knows, if we bring in enough numbers we might get a third season.

Hi guys! I'm sorry for being a bit absent on the blog and on instagram these past few days despite having all the free time in the world because I'm on holidays. The thing is that my laptop is almost dead; it takes forever to turn on and after that it goes down 10 minutes later and it's very frustrating so I haven't been using it because I can't be bothered and so I haven't written any single post or edit any pictures. And here comes the second problem, my camera is doing weird stuff. It won't focus and most of the pictures come with a blurry feel to them so I'm incredibly frustrated because replacing both a laptop and a camera is not cheap.

Summer is officially here. I say officially because in Spain we've been dealing with a horrible heat-wave since the beginning of last week and I cannot fathom how people love summer. I hate it, with a passion. And I cannot wait for autumn and winter if I'm honest.

I'm free. My finals are over. And I have all the time in the world to read. However, I'm spending most of that free time sleeping because, you know, why not? I'm hoping to be back blogging and bookstagramming full time from now on although my motivation to do so is not the greatest, especially when it comes to bookstagramming. I'm not happy with the updates Instagram has been doing for the past months and seeing my engagement decrese all the time is not helping at all. Why continue spending a lot of time taking pictures and editing them when they won't even show up on people's feed? If you have an answer, please, let me know.

May comes at an end today and I couldn't be happier. It started fine because you know, Sense8 came back and season 2 was spectacular but it also broke my heart and I'm hoping we get a third season because otherwise I'll be pissed! Besides that, as a whole, May hasn't been a good month for me. Nothing bad happened but I haven't been in the right mental space. I'm used to May being revision month but this year, I don't know why, I haven't had the motivation I had other semesters. I'm always stressed out but this time around I've also been apathetic and sad. And finals aren't over yet. However, I'm gonna try my best and just beat my own brain.

May is almost at an end and that means book haul time. To be fair, I have not spent much on books this month, and although my wishlist is growing longer for the minute, I'm keeping my promise of buying less. So far it's been working and my urge to buy books has decreased despite my wishlist  growing, as I said. So I have 4 books to show you today. One of them was a pre-order I did in February and the other is a book I bought in April but arrived at the beginning of May and the other two are from the May Moth Box so technically these last two are the only ones I really bought in May. I'm proud of myself so fingers crossed I can stick with this new way of aquiring books for years to come - unless of course it's my birthday or Christmas.

Got my second Moth Box in the mail! I was so happy when I got a notification to go and pick it up at the Post Office. It kinda lightened my mood since I started finals yesterday and I can't seem to catch a break when it comes to the stress department. Anyways, let's talk about the two beautiful books that came in the box.

I know it's almost a week ago that Eurovision took place but Veronika @ The Regal Critiques tagged me to do this and I wanted to do it haha. She, and Clare & Ann from Dual Reads came up with this tag idea. Without further ado, let's get on with the questions :)

I apologise for not uploading anything in the blog this week but my stress is off the roofs recently because finals start in two weeks and revising is killing me and everything frustrates me and I don't have the energy to sit down and write a proper blogpost because I feel really guilty. That's why I haven't actually do any blog hopping either. However, I didn't wanna leave the blog unattended for the next month and a half so I'm just gonna write weekend reads posts until my finals are over and my brain is free.

This weekend I'm gonna try and finish both Dreams of Gods and Monsters and Am I Normal Yet? although I might not finish either of those not only because I seriously need to spend hours and hours revising (how people manage that?? need tips to help me concentrate, please!) and also Sense8 season 2 comes out TODAY! and that's a priority. Like, I can't even deal and the trailers look fantastic and my babies and - can you tell I'm obsessed with that show?

You know how every single month I'm like "I need to buy less books" and it never happens? Well, here's the proof. I try my best but internet deals are the devil. Here are the books I aquired in April. My mum gifted me Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego  by Mariana Enriquez - which has been translated into English - for El Día del Libro (World Book Day). All books will be link down below as always.

And another month goes by. To be fair, this time it didn't fly around for me; it was quite a slow month in general and I spent half of it reading - I can't even believe I have managed to read all of these books -  and half of it studying for University. I'm all caught up with all my courses and I'm ready to start revising for finals which will be at the end of May/beginning of June. I'm still in awe that for once in my life, I've being productive as hell if I say so myself. Hurray! Basically I wrote down all I had to do and I organised it throughout the first three weeks of April. At the same time I told myself I had to read for fun at least 30 minutes every single day in order to avoid being slumpy due to stress. It worked.

Today is THE DAY. Today readers all around the world come together to read. Here in Madrid is very gloomy and it's raining slightly and a bit cold so when the clock turns 2pm I'll have my blanket, a cup of hot chocolate and my pile of books ready to readathon. For the first time, I'll have the house all to myself. My parents and sister are going away for the bank holiday. The reason I'm staying is to study for finals which are in May but I've been quite productive throughout the whole of April and I'm taking today off just because.

It's that time of the year again: The Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon where readers all around the world come together to read for 24 hours. It might sound a bit mad yes, but believe me, it is fun. We all share the stack of books we're planning on reading and then our progress as the hours go by and above all, we cheer on each other to read. Isn't that great? It is for me. I don't have anyone outside my bookish internet corner to get excited about books and reading so you can imagine how happy this event makes me. The readathon takes place this Saturday and for me it starts at 2pm, that might change depending on your time zone - you can check their web to find out your time to start.

I'm back with another mini book reviews post. Today is all about short stories and poetry.

And it's Friday again! Today, I have a lot of Uni work to do in the morning and then I have classes from 7pm to 10pm so I don't think after that I'll do much at all... On Saturday I have a hen party and I'm kinda excited because I've never been to one before so I hope we can all have an awesome time. And considering we'll be partying the whole night I will probably sleep all Sunday. However, the cosy reading night is also happening from 7 to 10 pm (8 to 11 in my timezone) so I might join in.

I got this idea from a video from Mercedes at MercysBookishMusings. And she got it from Lauren at Lauren And The Books (I will link both their videos at the end of this post). Essentially, both of them picked up books from their TBR piles that were featured in 'Best Books of 2016' videos from other booktubers. Mercedes' video changed the original idea slightly because she picked up books she thought she would rate 5 stars. And I'm doing the same. I don't want to jinx myself by saying the books I picked will be 5 star reads but I'm hoping they are really good considering they've been praised everywhere. Anyways, without further ado...

Today I'm talking about two rather disappointing books I've read recently. One of the them was a DNF.

And it's the weekend already. I reckon I won't get much reading done since I'm finally catching up on most of my university work and I wanna keep this pace so I'm fully prepared for finals. However, it is always nice to know I have two chunky books to keep me entertained when I can't be bother to study anymore . 

Hag-Seed  by Margaret Atwood { Goodreads } Published by Hogarth in 2016 Hardback edition; 293 pages { BookDepository } Hag-Seed is a re-telling of Shakespeare's play The Tempest . This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series and my first time reading Margaret Atwood - spoiler alert: won't be my last. In this re-telling we meet Felix, an Artist Director at a theatre, before being removed from his position by Tony, his right-hand man, while he was working on adapting The Tempest . After this betrayal Felix disappears and forgets about the world until a new job offer - teaching theatre in a prison - presents the possibility of revenge and the opportunity to finally direct his version of The Tempest (let's count how many times Noelia types The Tempest in this review, shall we?)