I’m feeling a bit of a reading slump come on. In the last week, I just haven’t felt like reading much. In order to combat this, I’ve decided to read some of my 5 Star Predictions. I’m hopeful that I will just enjoy a bunch of excellent reads and truly combat the dreaded slump!
I have chosen five books that I think are going to be 5 star reads and I’m planning to read them. Hopefully I find a new favourite or two!
This week’s blog is all about my predictions and why I chose them. I’m no Walter Mercado or Mystic Meg but I’m feeling really positive about them all.
Here I talk about why I chose each of my predictions
My 5 Star Predictions are:
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Medusa by Jessie Burton
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Goldilocks by Laura Lam
The Castaways by Lucy Clarke
If you’ve read any of these, I’d love to know how you got on!
My mum always told me to have my own opinions and not to follow the trends…so I took that mentality to Goodreads and read my highest and lowest rated books (from my TBR that I already own). I had some pretty unexpected results!
This week’s vlog is all about the highest and lowest rated books from my TBR
Books read in this vlog :
🔫 The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman. This was the highest rated book on my TBR. The second instalment of The Thursday Murder Club. I preordered this book shortly after reading The Thursday Murder Club, even before a blurb or title was available.
🍇 Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth. This was the lowest rated book on my TBR. A novel about a woman in her mid 30s who was sort of falling apart and then her whirlwind of a mother moved in with her. I’d been wanting to read this for quite a while.
This was a very fun little experience and I can see me repeating it again sometime.
Welcome to my Reading Scottish Wrap Up for April! As you may know, last year I decided to make a conscious effort to read more Scottish fiction. Scotland has produced so many amazing authors and I’m on a quest to make sure that I read some of these novels every month.
Having a wee photo shoot with my books. As one does
It’s been a most excellent reading month for me and Scottish fiction and I’m really excited to share my reads with you!
Scottish reads for April include:
Hyde- Craig Russell
Deep Wheel Orcadia- Harry Josephine Giles
A History Maker-Alasdair Gray
Young Mungo- Douglas Stuart
As always, if you’ve read and enjoyed any Scottish fiction please let me know. I love getting recommendations!
Fingers crossed for another excellent month of Scottish reads in May!
Back in January I set myself some reading goals which included reading 22 specific books during 2022. Since we’re now into the second quarter of the year, I thought I’d take a look at my progress so far. My progress was not good. Clearly I forgot which books I had intended to read as I’d only read two…whoops!
My lofty goals, sadly ignored
So I decided to read 4 books from my list of 22 in order to catch up. This week I read the following books;
📚Widowland by C.J. Carey
🔮The Moon, The Stars, and Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan
🐉Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
And
🏝The Island by C.L. Taylor
If you fancy hearing how I got one with these books, I’ve vlogged about them below
My boyfriend recently bought me some new book shelves. Like the modern millennial version of Beauty and the Beast when Beast gives Belle a library. I was delighted! So we built the bookshelves and I managed to put books on the shelves so that they weren’t just piled onto every surface in our home. Unfortunately it turns out that my book collection was a bit too large to put everything neatly onto the shelves.
I recently received 6 absolutely stunning Wordsworth Classic editions of the Sherlock Holmes books and I have nowhere to put them. All of my bookshelves are now full! So I have decided to go on a 1 year Book Buying Ban.
At the time of deciding to embark on this ban, which is less a ban and more an extreme limitation in book purchasing, I owned 124 unread books. 124! No wonder I couldn’t fit all of my books onto the shelves with this hefty TBR collection. I have decided to really focus on reading books that I own.
Of course there are exceptions which are: I can buy the book for my two bookclubs (if I can’t get a library copy in time for the discussion) and I can continue to purchase the monthly Agatha Christie book as I really want to build up my Agatha Christie collection. My Agatha Christie books have their own dedicated bookshelf so there is space for new additions.
I’m not trying to punish myself, I just want to make some space and leave no book behind. However I don’t want to feel like I can’t buy anything at all…so for every 10 books that I read from my TBR, I will allow myself to buy 1 book. Kind of like a coffee shop reward scheme
I even made a wee reward card!
The goal is to be able to fit all of my books onto my shelves. It’s an admirable goal.
I totally acknowledge my privilege in being able to be in a position where I am able to declare that I’m not buying any books because I’ve bought too many. Books are the only thing I splurge on but I know that I am fortunate in being able to have bought all of these books in the first place.
Hello and welcome to my Wrap Up for March. This was a super busy month for me but I somehow managed to get through 21 books and I’m pretty shocked by this!
Hello and welcome to my Reading Scottish Wrap Up for March. It’s been another good month of reading and I got through 4 books by Scottish authors- including a long awaited recommended read and two previously enjoyed authors
Rizzio- Denise Mina The Young Team- Graeme Armstrong Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz- Ely Percy Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Weird Sisters- Olga Wojtas*
*gifted
I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these! Or if you’ve enjoyed any other Scottish fiction 💕
Last week I decided to start my bookclub book a little early. This was due to my bookclub book being a memoir, Educated by Tara Westover. I expected that this book might be a little upsetting so I decided to sandwich it between some books that felt likely to spark joy. I have a large collection of books that sound like they might be heartwarming and last week they got a chance to shine.
This week I read:
Empress and Aniya- Candice Carty-Williams
Call Me Maybe – Cara Bastone
Educated – Tara Westover
You Should See Me in a Crown – Leah Johnson
I really think that this is the perfect way for me to read books that are potentially sad or distressing. I need to read books that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I recently went to Glasgow for a wee trip. My friends and I got tickets to see My Dad Wrote a Porno back in 2019 and after many reschedules, the day finally came to see the show! So I hopped down to Glasgow (by ‘hopped’ I mean, ‘took a 3.5 hour bus trip) and managed to give myself a whole day to go book shopping! I fully intended to buy many books and I did! I ended up bringing back 16 books and I’m so excited about every one!
My vlog where I share my new books
I lived in Glasgow for 10 years but I left so many years ago that I wasn’t sure if any of my favourite book shops were still open. I asked friends for recommendations of where to buy books and the overwhelming majority suggested Category Is Books and Outwith Books, so I had to pay a visit to each of those places.
I went to the following bookshops in Glasgow:
South Side
Category Is Books
34 Allison St, Glasgow G42 8NN
Outwith Books
14 Albert Rd, Glasgow G42 8DN
West End
Oxfam Books
330 Byres Rd, Glasgow G12 8AP
City Centre
Waterstones
153-157 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3EW
WHSmith
Buchanan Bus Station
I think that it will be a while before I do anymore book shopping, other than bookclub books, as I’ve got no space left on my bookshelves and I’ve no idea where to put these new purchases. I regret nothing!
Despite February being the tiniest month, I read way more than I did in January. I read 15 fiction books and 1 non-fiction which was pretty surprising to me as I hadn’t been keeping count. Below is the link to my wrap up video which also includes my March TBR. I’ve also popped below a list of the books that I read and their reviews
5 💫 The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath (this was a reread)
Kapowski Reads 