A very quick post to say, yes, of course I shall participate in the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted each year by Cathy of https://746books.com/. Yes, I’m going to aim for the full 20. I don’t always achieve it, but always get close. And yes, I am going to cheat in how I choose Read More
Tag: TBR
Preparing for 20 Books of Summer
I’m so glad that Cathy is running her ‘20 Books of Summer‘ challenge again for 2021. Although I always sign up for the full 20 with good intentions, I’ve never quite managed it yet. Any challenge that gets me reading from my TBR piles is a good nudge for me not to only read the Read More
20 Books of Summer 20
Yay, on June 1st, 20 Books of Summer as hosted for several years by Cathy at 746 Books, is back for 2020. I’ve signed up for this challenge for four years now, but never reaching the full twenty books, my best has been 15/20. However, it does help clear some books from the TBR. Yes, Read More
Weekend Miscellany
January review A sad day yesterday, but we all have to live with it now, so I shall SUMO – shut up and move on. I’ll start today, by updating you on how I’m doing on #TBR20. The plan was, (with Lizzy and Richard @caravanablog and any others participating), not to read or buy any new books Read More
20 Books of Summer: wrap-up
It’s September, and not only was it back to school yesterday for INSET – more of which to come on Monday (groan!), but it’s the end of the 20 Books Of Summer Challenge hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. My original 20 are pictured on the right – all pre-2018 acquired books from my TBR. Read More
Heresy? !!!
Back in July, I was collating all things Booker at Shiny. One thing I did was to try to obtain a copy of every single Booker Prize winning novel for photos – I scoured the local charity shops and bought cheap copies online, and of course, I already had a goodly number of them on Read More
My Blog’s Name in Books
This meme is doing the rounds again, and I can’t resist joining in the fun. This time, thanks to Fictionophile, there is a variation – the books should be from your TBR! A is for The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark N is for Never Trust a Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson N is for Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman Read More
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I nearly always fail when I set resolutions, so no reading resolutions for 2018. Instead, I shall have reading ‘try harders’. In 2018, I will try harder to read: From my TBR – I own more books than I have time to read before I die! From my TBR – I need to save money. Read More
A Weekend Miscellany
I need to get my reviewing mojo back! In the pile of books sitting beside my laptop are some absolutely brilliant novels I read over the summer, but haven’t felt able to write about – yet! Sometimes I really struggle to get started when drafting a book review. Do you ever get periods like that? Read More
Bloggers & Book Groups – Keeping the Mid & Backlist Alive?
I originally wrote this post in November 2010, and was going to reinsert it back into my blog’s timeline (it was one of my missing posts). However, it occurred to me that the subject I was discussing then, is even more pertinent today, so I’ve brushed it down a little and updated it to get Read More
Weekend ramblings
After three days without an internet router the week before last, I’ve been playing catch-up at reading all your blogs this week and also concentrating on Shiny New Books – our first month in our new format is nearly over. it’s going well too – and we have some wonderful posts coming up for you Read More
Looking forward to 2017
I’m not good at challenges and planning ahead of my reading – see all my project tabs up top and the last time I updated them! Hence my main reading resolution for 2017 has a new mantra: Read where the mood takes me. However, I can qualify that a bit: Having taken over as one of Read More
Weekend Bookishness
Ramble on… Planning my reading year in review I’m starting to think about my end of year posts – they’re going to be fun this year! I think I’ve excelled myself in the amount that I’ve read (135 books and nearly 40000 pages at the last count), and no DNFs either, which I hope, says Read More
The TBR Dare now has its own website
Visit http://tbrdare.com/ I hadn’t realised that Lizzy’s blog was incompatible with Mister Linky – so have taken the step to create a new website for the TBR Dare so we can both post there about it. We’ve added a Twitter feed too @DareTBR. If you’d like to use the first few months of 2017 to Read More
The TBR Dare is back!
Yes! It’s back… Welcome to the new home of The TBR Dare, originally set up by James Chester at James Reads Books, where his beloved dog Dakota was its mascot for 6 years. Now Lizzysiddal of Lizzy’s Literary Life and I are taking it over. We’ll be hoping to sign you up and will be Read More
Weekend Bookishness
It’s been a busy month – and some, so I’m glad that school breaks up at the end of next week (although I have two or three more days work to do on the school magazine after that). However, part of that busy-ness has been the Christmas edition of Shiny New Books. In The Eds Read More
My TBR Rainbow: #10 The Medal Edit
Congratulations to all our Olympians who took part in Rio In celebration, I made a pile of gold, silver and bronze-spined books from my TBR. I chose the three volumes of HP Lovecraft’s weird tales to represent the silver incarnation of Penguin Modern Classics between 2000 and 2007, of which I have many. Interestingly, all the Read More
My TBR Rainbow #9: Pattern
Earlier this year I did a series of posts of books from my TBR piles grouping them into rainbow colours (collated here). Time for another – and something different. Spotting a multi-coloured striped spine across the room, I thought I’d look for more. Gosh it was difficult! There are many bicoloured spines – maybe different colours Read More
My TBR Rainbow
Having lost a lot of posts and comments when I moved webhosts, I’m reblogging them, grouping together sometimes. Thus, seven of my TBR Rainbow posts have been combined and edited into just one below. This series originally ran between mid-March and the end of May. * * * * * This morning while sitting in Read More
I’m taking the TBR Double Dog Dare…
For the past few years I’ve signed up to take part in James’s TBR Dare. Hosted by James of James Reads Books and featuring his beloved pooch Dakota in the graphic, the TBR Dare is very simple – Read only from your TBR from Jan 1 until April 1. You can make your own exceptions Read More
On not finishing books and dentists!
You’d think that by my nearly mid-fifties I’d have grown out of not finishing books, wouldn’t you? Life’s too short, the TBR’s too big and all that. Yet generally I desperately still want to finish reading any book I start. There’s no ‘owing it to the author to give their book a fair read’ duty Read More
Gaskella Archive: State of the TBR – 2011-2014
Back in 2011 running through to 2014, I came up with a fun wheeze – to get readers to help choose which books to keep, which to cull. I’ve compiled the series of posts into one… You know your TBR’s got out of hand when … This year, I resolved to try to get to grips Read More
Book Stats 2013 and Reading Resolutions for 2014
Following hard on the heels of my Books of the Year – it’s time for bookstats. Many of you may know that I keep a spreadsheet of everything I read so I can analyse my reading at the end of each year. Don’t groan – it’s not that bad! I had a really good year Read More
Appearing elsewhere …
Just a short post to say that today I’m appearing elsewhere … My bookcases and I are over at Savidge Reads. Answering Simon’s questionnaire about my bookcases (and let’s face it, my mountainous TBR), was great fun and I am delighted to be taking part in his regular feature. I took a bag of books Read More
Look at what I won!
I have had my moments as a ‘comper’ in the past – entering loads of competitions, and winning a few too. I haven’t done that for years though, and have reverted to not winning things in general – but this week I’ve won twice! Not only did I win a prize (a nice multi-wicked candle) Read More
The TBR Double Dog Dare
For the past two years, James over at Ready when you are CB has hosted the TBR dare, and I signed up for the full dare both times. The TBR Dare became the TBR Double Dare, and this year has become the TBR Double Dog Dare, as James’s dog Dakota is in on the act! Read More
Strange places for books
I think about the over-large extent of my TBR piles all the time. Blog-friend Simon Savidge has been doing that too recently. In his recent post on his TBR he asked “Where is the strangest place that you have ever left piles of books?” Rather than comment, I went to take a photo of my Read More
