Christmas Music Playlist!

Blogmas 2019

Happy day 7 of Blogmas! Today I bring you my current Christmas music playlist!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KjVVHEhZ8sholjkU7qZz8?si=_5xUcSC5QeK3Y-u0HAdu5w

 

It’s a mix of classics and modern stuff and I rather dig it. Starts with my favorite TSO songs, then some Mariah Carey (because), some Pentatonix, some classics, and then it ends with Twisted Sister (who… made a surprisingly decent Christmas album, hwe hwe).

If you like Christmas music, give it a listen!

If you have any musical suggestions, throw them my way! : D

Fantasy Bingo 2019 | Update 1

Copy of Book Tag

Hi! Back in March/April, I mentioned that I had completed Fantasy Bingo 2018, which is a year-long reading challenge hosted by r/Fantasy over on reddit. On April 1st, the new bingo challenge began, and I’ve been reading books towards in since. Last year, I did monthly updates in my wrap up posts but I noticed I didn’t always read towards it every month, so this year I’m going to do more sporadic updates when I actually have new books to add onto the thing.

If you are interested in participating (It runs from April 1st 2019 – March 31st 2020 and you can add books you’ve read between April 1st and now retroactively), check out the full announcement post here for the rules and whatnot. Also, check out the huge post of recommendations if you need ideas to fill topics.

Here is this year’s card:

When I signed up, I decided to attempt Hard Mode when possible, which is when the prompts are further restricted (hard mode prompts can be found in the post I linked) and I also wanna do Hero Mode, which is where I write a review for each book read. Now if you’ve been following my blog lately you’ll notice I haven’t written many reviews in the past couple months. I’ll get there… They’ll show up, hehe. If they’re not written yet, the Hero Mode will be shown as not struck out, but also not bolded.

Keep in mind I might juggle squares around as the months go by, but here is my progress so far:

Fantasy Bingo 2019

Novel featuring a character with a disability: Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) I didn’t expect this book to count for really anything, buuuuut one of the characters ended up being injured, resulting in the loss of one of their senses. I won’t say who or why or what, for spoilers. But it made this book count for this square.

SFF novel by a local to you author: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) According to Goodreads, this author lives about 400 miles from me. Being from the United States, 400 miles is a 7 hour car ride and would definitely be considered ‘local’. I didn’t go out of my way to find a closer author though, so no hard mode for this one.

Novel featuring an AI character: Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) One of the main character’s friends is a robot with a witty AI personality. So, totally counts.

Retelling: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) This is a retelling of a Russian folktale!

SFF novel by an Australian author: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) Pretty sure both authors are Australian, but I know at least Jay Kristoff is.

Final book of a series: League of Dragons by Naomi Novik (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) This is the ninth and final book in Novik’s Temeraire series. It was a long time coming and I’m pining for it now. I miss it.

#OwnVoices: The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) This is a fantasy book based on the events of the Rape of Nanjing. It was really good and rather intense.

Five SFF Short Stories: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings by a buttload of authors (Hard Mode | Hero Mode) To be honest I kinda dreaded this square. I’m not a huge fan of short stories and this collection just reiterated that to me.


And that’s it so far. All future posts will only mention new books added, and if any books have been moved to different squares. Happy reading!

Fantasy Bingo 2019 | 4th and 5th Row Picks

Copy of Book Tag

Hello, welcome to the last picks posts about r/Fantasy’s 2019 Bingo Challenge! I did rows 2 and 3 Saturday, and row 1 last week. If you’re unfamiliar with the bingo challenge, click the link I have above to get all the details! If you’re a fantasy fan, you should check it out!


Fourth Row Across

Any r/fantasy Book Club Book of the Month OR r/fantasy Read-along Book

Any past or still active book clubs count, as well as past or current read-alongs. NOTE: All of the current book club info can also be found on our goodreads page. HARD MODE: Must read a current selection of either a book club or read-along and participate in the discussion.

Right now I’m leaning towards The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty. It’s r/Fantasy’s April book, and it’ll fit in nicely with my OWL prompts. So if I get to this one, it’ll be great.

Media Tie-In Novel

Books based on existing film, television, or game franchises are used for this square. HARD MODE: NOT a Star Wars novel.

It took me a second, but I remembered I had a StarCraft novel I bought ages ago and never read. Perfect opportunity! Heaven’s Devil by William C Dietz. And writing the author’s name made me realize I’ve read him before and I like him! He wrote some of the Halo books too. Guy gets around, apparently.

Novel Featuring an AI Character

Pretty self-explanatory, but let me know if you have questions about this. HARD MODE: The AI is a main protagonist.

There are a few I could do for this one. Maybe The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, maybe The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

SFF Novel That Has a Title of Four or More Words

Self-explanatory. HARD MODE: Has 7 or more words in the title.

You know, I don’t own a single book that would count towards hard mode. Gosh, haha. I own a lot of 6 word books though. I’m going to keep this open too, since I have so many choices. It’ll give me a bit of wiggle room in my reading this year.

Retelling!

Any retellings would work for this square – fairytale retellings, myth retellings, retellings of previous literature, etc. HARD MODE: The retelling must be of a previous published work, not a fairytale or myth. For example, Jacqueline Carey’s book Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of The Tempest, so that would work, but Madeline Miller’s Circe, a retelling of Circe’s stories from Greek Mythology, would not.

The Bear and the Nightingale, Cinder... there are a lot I could choose for this one. Leaning towards the first one mentioned, though.

Fifth Row Across

SFF Novel by an Australian Author

Australia has a fantastic SFF scene, let’s explore some of the authors there using this square. HARD MODE: Book from an Australian small press OR self-published Australian author.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufmann and Jay Kristoff! I’m already reading this for my OWLs so it’ll work out great

The Final Book of a Series

The last book in a series which actually completes that series (not the latest book out but it’s a middle book). HARD MODE: The last book in the series was published more than a decade ago.

I’m saving this one for Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb, the last book in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, the last book in the Realm of the Elderlings world. It’s gonna be the end of an era.

#OwnVoices

From the creator of the #ownvoices hashtag – “…the protagonist and the author share a marginalized identity.” For more information check out the faq here. HARD MODE: Author and protagonist share 2+ marginalized identities.

Leaning towards The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang for this one. Hard mode, too! Ethnicity and gender!

LitRPG

Definition from Wikipedia: a literary genre combining the conventions of RPGs with science-fiction fantasy novels. LitRPG is a literary genre where games or game-like challenges form an essential part of the story and where visible RPG statistics (for example strength, intelligence, damage) are a significant part of this world. This in contrast to GameLit, which involves game-like worlds but does not typically provide visible statistics. At least some of the characters in a LitRPG novel may understand that they are playing a game or are in a game-like world: they are ‘meta-aware’. HARD MODE: LitRPG written by a female author.

I had never even heard of this genre before, so this will be a library one or an online ebook one, I think. The genre seems pretty niche, so I’m likely going to pick from one of these options.

Five SFF Short Stories

Self explanatory. HARD MODE: Read an entire SFF anthology or collection

One of my local author buddies Sarah @WindsorWrites contributed to one of these! I think I’m gonna read hers. 😀


And that’s it! I’m so excited for this, man.

Fantasy Bingo 2019 | 2nd and 3rd Row Picks

Copy of Book Tag

Hello, Happy Saturday! Today I want to talk about the possible books I could reads for rows 2 and 3 of r/Fantasy’s 2019 Bingo Challenge. If you’re unfamiliar, click on the link for all the details!

Second Row Across

Novel Featuring Vampires

This one is pretty self-explanatory. HARD MODE: At least one main protagonist is a vampire.

This one will be easy: It’s one of my 10 in 2019 books! Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Format: Graphic Novel (at least 1 vol.) OR Audiobook / Audio drama

This is a format, not a genre however, please stick to something within speculative fiction. If you are reading individual comics for this square please read a volume’s worth. You can also use a manga volume for this square (again, please keep it to speculative fiction genres). You may also choose to listen to an audiobook OR an audio drama for this square – any speculative fiction audiobook / audio drama will count (novel length). HARD MODE: Graphic Novel – Start a new to you graphic novel. Audiobook / audio drama – has to be over 25 hours long.

There are so many different ones I could use for this, so I’m going to keep it open. I probably have 10-15 unread manga/graphic novels at any one time, so really, this could be anything.

SFF Novel by a Local to You Author

I realize not everyone lives in a place conducive to this square so if SFF authors are scarce in your immediate area then you can widen the area a bit even if it’s (for example, for some folks in Europe) a neighboring country. FAQ – What counts as local? Lives nearby, lived a significant portion of their life nearby. Like Anne Rice I’d count both New Orleans and San Francisco, for example. HARD MODE: Find the closest local to you author you can for this square.

I’ve already done a bit of research for this but haven’t found anything yet. I live in Pennsylvania, so if you know of a fantasy/sci-fi author living in my state, do tell me. I know some super local author friends and I might pick up some of their stuff if I can find a full-length novel by any of them.

SFF Novel Featuring an Ocean Setting

I know we had ships before, but this opens up the setting a lot. Got a mermaid or selkie story in mind? Works perfect here! On top of the ocean or under the ocean all works for this square. HARD MODE: Over 50% of the book has to take place in or on an ocean setting.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards The Scar by China Mieville. This will be me third Mieville book, and I’m hoping to like it just as much as the other ones.

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is defined as ” a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology. HARD MODE: Not Neuromancer by William Gibson nor Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

So I know it says Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson doesn’t count for hard mode, but Diamond Age isn’t Snow Crash. So… Diamond Age it is.

Third Row Across

2nd Chance

This is sort of a multi-use square. Tried an author once and you didn’t like the book? Give a 2nd chance and try another book! Tried a format once (like a manga, graphic novel, or audiobook) and it didn’t jive? Try again here! Tried a specific book and didn’t get through it for whatever reason? Try again here! HARD MODE: There is no hard mode for this square as it’s already hard enough. 🙂

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare. I read City of Bones a while ago and was just luke-warm to it. This book is on my 10 in 2019 list too – I had already planned on giving this series another try before this square was announced, so it’s perfect.

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that explores the developing intersection of African Diaspora culture with technology. There is a great discussion about Afrofuturism here if you are looking for more information. Self-explanatory. HARD MODE: The book has less than 1000 ratings on goodreads.

So going off of this article, it looks like I own a book in this genre already, which I did not expect. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemison. So I might read that. I know there are some Octavia E. Butler novels that count too, but those would be library reads. If I end up using the Jemison book for a different square, I’ll find a Butler book in the library.

SFF Novel Published in 2019

Pretty self explanatory – the card says Fantasy but any speculative fiction will work. HARD MODE: It’s also a Debut Novel.

If I don’t find a debut novel that I’m interested in, this square will be The Burning White by Brent Weeks. I am so excited for this book, man.

Middle Grade SFF Novel

So many SFF authors are writing Middle Grade these days, thought this would be fun! Middle Grade works are typically written with an readership of 8-12 year olds in mind. HARD MODE: You can NOT use your ‘reread’ for this square.

For this one, I’m definitely gonna read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I’ve never read it before, and I feel like it’s blasphemy to some people.

A Personal Recommendation from r/Fantasy

You ask the community for recommendations and choose one of those recommendations to read for this square. HARD MODE: Do not use the most frequently recommended book.

So, I asked for some recs already in the big thread of recommendations, and I got a couple potentials. Each book has been recommended one time though, so to fit hard mode, I need to ask again to the point where I get a book double recommended, and then I can go with the single rec’d one. Both of the ones that have been suggested so far sounds pretty good though, so we’ll see. I don’t wanna say what, because reddit is my anonymous hidey hole. So pbtbt.


And that’s it! I’m very excited for this year. I think once I get all these squares quasi-planned, I’ll actually make a list and make a point to do monthly library trips for the ones I need from there. Wish me luck!

Fantasy Bingo 2019!

Copy of Book Tag

It is here! The new r/Fantasy Bingo Card has arrived!

Every year, the fantasy subreddit over on reddit holds a year-long challenge where you try to read books to fill in a bingo card that they provide. I just made a post yesterday wrapping up the card I complete from last year, and this year’s card just came out today!

So today’s post will be the card and going over potential books I could read for the first row.

For the full rules and FAQs and whatnot, visit the official r/Fantasy post about it. There also a helpful recommendations post so you can get some ideas for books. There’s also a Hard Mode and a Hero Mode that can be done, which is explained in the link. So if you’re even minutely interested, I suggest checking it out.

The card:

You can get a blank version of the card to insert your books here! And a blank version for hard mode can be found here!

So, Hero Mode – the ‘write a review for every book you read’… I think I might do that. I mean, I do have a book blog, and if you know me at all, you know sometimes I can go months without writing a review. I’m hoping this’ll get me more consistent.

As far as Hard Mode goes, I’m not going to try on purpose, but if a book I choose fills the prompt for Hard Mode, then sweet.

I’m very excited for this card – there are a lot of prompts in here for books that I wouldn’t normally read. It’ll broaden my horizons, and hopefully I’ll find some books that I absolutely love. But because a lot of the prompts are from unfamiliar territory, I’m going to have to break from my own tradition: usually, I try to fulfill a prompt with a book I already own. But a lot of these, I know I have nothing that would work for them. So I’m going to do a bit of research, and I’m going to use my library to get those books. I figure if I like them, then I’ll buy copies. But I don’t want to buy a bunch of books I’m not sure I’m gonna like for the prompts. So library, here I come.


Possible Picks: First Row

Last year, I did five posts of possible picks. This year, I’m doing the first row in this post, and then doubling up for the last four rows, meaning two more posts are heading your way. So, from the prompts written out in the r/Fantasy thread:

Slice of Life / Small Scale Fantasy

The term “slice of life” refers to a storytelling technique that presents a seemingly arbitrary sample of a character’s life, which often lacks a coherent plot, conflict, or ending. The story may have little plot progress and often has no exposition, conflict, or dénouement. A good example of this would be Becky Chambers novel Record of a Spaceborn Few. HARD MODE: Read something other than Record of a Spaceborn Few.

For this, I’m either going to go with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers or The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker, both of which I already own! And though the Becky Chambers book is well, a Becky Chambers book, it’s not the Becky Chambers books mentioned that doesn’t count in Hard Mode… so it counts, hwe hwe.

A SFF Novel Featuring a Character With a Disability

I think this one should be fairly self-explanatory. Anything considered a disability would count whether it’s a physical disability or a mental health disability. HARD MODE: The character has to be a main protagonist, not a side character.

Right now, I’m leaning towards Cinder by Marissa Meyer or Arm of the Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft. The former counts for Hard Mode, the latter would not.

SFF Novella

Works of fiction of between 17,500 and 40,000 words. HARD MODE: Novella is NOT published by Tor.com Publishing.

I don’t own any novellas, I don’t think. So I think I’ll either scoop up a copy of Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire or Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. Who knows!

Self-Published SFF Novel

Only self-published novels will count for this square. If the novel has been picked up by a publisher as long as you read it when it was self-pubbed it will still count. HARD MODE: Self-pubbed and has fewer than 50 ratings on goodreads.

This one, I’m not sure yet either. There are always people posting their novels for purchase as ebook on the r/Fantasy subreddit, so I might grab one of those. I might also ask around – I have a few different friends and I know more than one of them has self-published.

SFF Novel Featuring Twins

Self-explanatory. HARD MODE: At least one of the twins has to be a main protagonist. (extra hard mode just for funsies – the twin thing has to be plot relevant)

The one that sticks out most right now is The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, which I don’t own, so I’d have to get it from the library. But if I happen to come across twins in another book I’m reading, I might use that one instead.


And that’s it for now! Picks for rows 2 and 3 will be out soon. If you plan on participating, let me know! I’m hoping a lot of the books I’m reading for the OWLs readathon can double up for this. That’d be convenient. Happy reading!

2019 Anticipated Releases: January – June

Anticipated Releases

Hello! Welcome to another ‘anticipated releases’ post. I post two per year – January through June and July through December. Guess what month it is.

I’ve already posted some anticipated books in a top 5 wednesday post that spanned the whole year, so I’m not going to repeat any, but keep in mind I also wanna read those.

Since I haven’t actually read any of these yet, I’m just going to put the synopses and tentative release dates, because that’s really all I got for ya. Pbtbt.

Enjoy.


The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

Release date: February 5th

Goodreads synopsis: An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the “collected schizophrenias” but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community’s own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang’s analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. An essay collection of undeniable power, The Collected Schizophrenias dispels misconceptions and provides insight into a condition long misunderstood.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

King of Scars (Nikolai Duology, #1)

Release date: January 29th

Goodreads synopsis: Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.

The Women’s War by Jenna Glass

The Women's War (Women's War, #1)

Release date: March 5th

Goodreads synopsis: When a nobleman’s first duty is to produce a male heir, women are treated like possessions and bargaining chips. But as the aftereffects of a world-altering spell ripple out physically and culturally, women at last have a bargaining chip of their own. And two women in particular find themselves at the crossroads of change.

Alys is the widowed mother of two teenage children, and the disinherited daughter of a king. Her existence has been carefully proscribed, but now she discovers a fierce talent not only for politics but also for magic—once deemed solely the domain of men. Meanwhile, in a neighboring kingdom, young Ellin finds herself unexpectedly on the throne after the sudden death of her grandfather the king and everyone else who stood ahead of her in the line of succession. Conventional wisdom holds that she will marry quickly, then quietly surrender the throne to her new husband…. Only, Ellin has other ideas.

The tensions building in the two kingdoms grow abruptly worse when a caravan of exiled women and their escort of disgraced soldiers stumbles upon a new source of magic in what was once uninhabitable desert. This new and revolutionary magic—which only women can wield—threatens to tear down what is left of the patriarchy. And the men who currently hold power will do anything to fight back.

If, Then by Kate Hope Day

If, Then

Release date: March 12th

Goodreads synopsis: In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. Ginny, a devoted surgeon whose work often takes precedence over her family, has a baffling vision of a beautiful co-worker in Ginny’s own bed and begins to doubt the solidity of her marriage. Ginny’s husband, Mark, a wildlife scientist, sees a vision that suggests impending devastation and grows increasingly paranoid, threatening the safety of his wife and son. Samara, a young woman desperately mourning the recent death of her mother and questioning why her father seems to be coping with such ease, witnesses an apparition of her mother healthy and vibrant and wonders about the secrets her parents may have kept from her. Cass, a brilliant scholar struggling with the demands of new motherhood, catches a glimpse of herself pregnant again, just as she’s on the brink of returning to the project that could define her career.

At first the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing—and, in some cases, frightening. When a natural disaster threatens Clearing, it becomes obvious that the visions were not what they first seemed and that the town will never be the same.

Startling, deeply imagined, and compulsively readable, Kate Hope Day’s debut novel is about the choices we make that shape our lives and determine our destinies—the moments that alter us so profoundly that it feels as if we’ve entered another reality.

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson

The Bird King

Release date: March 12th

Goodreads synopsis: Hassan has a secret–he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls?

As Fatima and Hassan traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate.

Emily Eternal by M. G. Wheaton

Emily Eternal

Release date: April 9th

Goodreads synopsis: She’s an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.

So, her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome. But before her solution can be tested, her lab is brutally attacked, and Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions – college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra.

As the sun’s death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. But before long it becomes clear that it’s not only the species at stake, but also that which makes us most human.

Inspection by Josh Malerman

Inspection

Release date: April 23rd

Goodreads synopsis: J is a student at a school deep in a forest far away from the rest of the world.

J is one of only twenty-six students, all of whom think of the school’s enigmatic founder as their father. J’s peers are the only family he has ever had. The students are being trained to be prodigies of art, science, and athletics, and their life at the school is all they know—and all they are allowed to know.

But J suspects that there is something out there, beyond the pines, that the founder does not want him to see, and he’s beginning to ask questions. What is the real purpose of this place? Why can the students never leave? And what secrets is their father hiding from them?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, in a school very much like J’s, a girl named K is asking the same questions. J has never seen a girl, and K has never seen a boy. As K and J work to investigate the secrets of their two strange schools, they come to discover something even more mysterious: each other.


And that’s it! There are others on my radar as well, but these are the topsies. Happy reading!

2019 Reading Goals

2018 Reading Resolutions.png

Welcome to the future! Time for goals! This also happens to be today’s Top 5 Wednesday topic, so if you’d like to participate in that, you can do so here! I have… way more than five. We’re just gonna roll with it.

Book and blog related:

  • Read 50 books

I say fifty, but that’s really just a minimum. Ideally I’d like to read 80 or 100, but I’ll definitely be satisfied with 50 as well. Goodreads’ color this year is a dark purple and it’s nice and weird. If you’d like to add me on goodreads, do it!

I’ve made one of these lists every year since 2016 – I’ve never finished it. I WANNA. AUGH.

  • Keep book purchases around 4-5 books per month

I figure if I do this and then read 80, then I’ll knock my TBR down. I set my goal to 50, but I feel like 80 is attainable.

  • Go on a 2 to 3 month buying ban

I’ve done this the last two years in a row, for more like 4 or so months, successfully, and it has really helped with the physical TBR count. I want to do it again this year, but do it in the late winter or spring, instead of doing it in fall, because all the good books come out in fall 😛

  • Reduce physical TBR to 250 books. It currently sits at 283.

I hit my 270 goal… and then I added in all the books from my haul and popped it back up, ahahahaha. As stated above, this one really depends on me keeping my buying in check. Purging will also help out here, as will the buying ban!

There are three months left in this – right now I’m reaaaaally close to a bingo. So, I think this one will end well.

  • Post monthly book hauls

I did seasonal book hauls last year, and I feel like I got them lined up wrong. So this month it’ll go back to monthly, but hopefully will only contain 4-5 books each time.

  • Maintain a S-W-S posting schedule

I did this goal last year as well and succeeded in it. There will be slight changes, like during November if I do Nanowrimo or in December during Blogmas, but overall it should be roughly this pattern.

  • Keep track of statistics

In wrap ups and stuff, I really like seeing stats that people will talk about – page count, genre count, author stuff, etc. I wanna keep track of it, too.

Personal related:

  • Make no personal resolutions except this resolution

For some reason, I do really well on reading goals, but listing things as personal goals ends up as self-sabotage. So, this year I’m not setting any. Sure, I have things I wanna do, but if I don’t make it ‘official’, the likelihood of me actually accomplishing it is, well, higher. Haha.


There’s also the general goal of ‘stay alive’ but y’know, that’s kind of a given. Wish me luck! Happy reading!

10 in 2019

Copy of Coffee Time

Hello! Today’s post will be about the top ten books I want to read in 2019. I do a post on this topic every year, but I’ve never actually completed the list. Funny, you’d think since they’re the ‘top’ books I wanna read, that they would be the first ten books I’d read. It never turns out that way, though.

So, I want to take a closer look at why I’m putting something on the list, and I want to look at past lists and determine why those books were never read.


A closer look

Looking at 2018‘s and 2017‘s lists, there are a lot of duplicates. Books I didn’t get to one year went onto the next year’s list. Were they still my top of the top books I wanted to read? At the time, I thought so. But now, I’m thinking they were moved over out of guilt, out of saying that they were the top and then feeling bad that I didn’t actually read them. It’s not that I don’t want to read them anymore – I still do – but I don’t know if I want to read them the most anymore.

And looking more closely still, there are five books I didn’t get to in my 10 in 2018 list. I finished three others, and two of them I’m currently reading. Out of the five I didn’t get to, four of them were on my 17 in 2017 list. They’ve been on the list for two years, and I still haven’t picked them up. I feel like the message is loud and clear: apparently they’re not the top books I want to read. The other unread book was acquired at Christmas last year, so it has only been on the list once. But if I go from my apparent pattern here, it likely won’t get read next year either if I re-add it.

So this year, I’m going to pick ten different titles. Do I still wanna read these unread books? Yes. But I feel like adding them to this year’s list will be self-sabotage. So this year’s list will consist of the following:


10 in 2019

  1. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
  2. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
  3. The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
  4. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  5. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
  6. Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik
  7. You by Caroline Kepnes
  8. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
  9. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
  10. The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

All of these books I physically own already, hopefully it’ll be an easy ten-book drop from my physical TBR. Wish me luck! If you’ve read any of the above, let me know!

Top 5 Anticipated 2019 Releases

Blogmas 2018

Happy Hump Day! Today’s post will be 2019 releases I am most looking forward to. I plan to do a more fleshed out version of this post in January… but looking at my list now, I have exactly five titles, so I figured why not. If I come up with more later I’ll make another. If not, whatevs.

If you’d like to participate in T5W, you can do so here!


Fence volume 2 by C. S. Pacat

Fence Vol. 2

Expected release: Jan 15th

Goodreads Synopsis of vol 1: Nicholas, the illegitimate son of a retired fencing champion, is a scrappy fencing wunderkind, and dreams of getting the chance and the training to actually compete. After getting accepted to the prodigious Kings Row private school, Nicholas is thrust into a cut-throat world, and finds himself facing not only his golden-boy half-brother, but the unbeatable, mysterious Seiji Katayama…

Through clashes, rivalries, and romance between teammates, Nicholas and the boys of Kings Row will discover there’s much more to fencing than just foils and lunges.

Gates of Stone by Angus Macallan

Gates of Stone (Lord of the Islands, #1)

Expected release: Feb 19th

Goodreads Synopsis: AN EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER WHO WILL NOT BE DENIED
Just before her sixteenth birthday, Princess Katerina is refused her rightful place as heir to the Empire of the Ice-Bear–solely because of her sex. Determined to regain her inheritance, she murders the foreign lord she’s been ordered to marry and embarks on a perilous voyage to the lush, tropical islands of the Laut Besar in search of the vast wealth and power she needs to claim the Empire for herself.

A PRINCE FORCED TO TAKE A STAND
On a small island kingdom, Prince Arjun’s idyllic life is shattered when a malignant sorcerer invades, slaughters his people and steals the sacred sword of Jun’s ancestors. With his royal father dead and his palace in ruins, Jun reluctantly tracks the sorcerer and the magical blade far across the pirate-infested waters of the Laut Besar.

A SORCERER SEEKING TO DESTROY THE WORLD
Long ago the powerful relics known as the Seven Keys were used to safely lock away the terrifying evils of the Seven Hells. With Jun’s ancient sword in his grasp, the sorcerer Mangku has claimed the first Key, and begun his mission to unleash catastrophe upon the land.

As the destinies of these three entwine in the lawless islands of the Laut Besar, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. For if the sorcerer cannot be stopped, the world itself will be unmade.

Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear

Ancestral Night (White Space, #1)

Expected release: March

Goodreads Synopsis: Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants.

She thinks she knows who she is.

She is wrong.

A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of powerful ancient technology. Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.

When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology—and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war. Her quest will take her careening from the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge.

To save everything that matters, she will need to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time—and her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade

Expected release: March 19th

Goodreads Synopsis: They said the war would turn us into light.
I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world.

The Light Brigade: it’s what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back…different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

The Burning White by Brent Weeks

The Burning White (Lightbringer #5)

Expected release: September

Goodreads Synopsis of book 1: Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. Yet Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live.

When Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.


And that’s it! I feel like I should do a post on whether I actually end up reading anticipated releases. Sure I’m excited for a bunch, but I feel like my ratio of books wanted and books read is super skewed. Hm hm.

Happy reading!