12 Books to Read in 2022! | 12 Days of Blogmas

Many people in the book world do these lists – but a lot of people do the amount of books that the year ends in, so this year it would be “22 books to read in 2022!”

I have a couple of questions about this. First of all, where does it stop? Are we going to be in 2079 writing posts about “79 books to read in 2079”? Secondly, how do you cope with the guilt when you don’t hit your own self-inflicted goal?

December Wrap-Up and January TBR | 12 Days of Blogmas

It’s the end of another month! And not only that, but the final month of the year…

December was a pretty good reading month for me, even though I did most of my reading during term time! I really began to fall back in love with reading after a slight slump in November, mostly due to mental health issues, but it sucked at the time. Still, it’s given me lots to look forward to.

Books I Would Like to Read in August!

I stopped doing TBRs a while ago, simply because I wasn’t reading the books I listed! Now, I write down 3 books I would like to get to each month in my reading journal, and most months I get to at least 2!

However, I thought I’d share some of the books I would like to read this August. As a teacher, August is my summer holiday, and even though I have things to do and a book to edit (!!), I’m hoping to have a couple of hours a day to read.

Books I Want to Read This Summer!

It really does feel like summer is checking in here in the UK! It has been hot, and it’s got me thinking, of course, about what I want to read this summer. Let’s take a look at my TBR…

I am planning on doing a “summer of series” this year, which I’ll talk about later on, but I’m only sketching that out to be the six week summer holiday (as I’m a teacher!), so all of these books are the standalones I want to dive into. This TBR is therefore pretty short, because I have many other books to read…

#CramAThon TBR

I decided last minute (like, literally 10 minutes ago) to participate in the #CramAThon which starts TODAY! There are 5 challenges to complete, so I’ve made myself a little TBR managing to fit in two of my current reads, and I thought I’d share them with you here!

TBR | O.W.Ls Magical Readathon 2020!

Hello all! It’s that time of year again – for the month of April, I, and many Witches and Wizards, will be taking my OWLs (or Ordinary Wizarding Levels for those Muggles out there). To learn more about it, head to this link. This readathon is run by the lovely BookRoast!

The OWLs work by the fact that you pick your career, and do the OWLs that are associated with it. This year, we also have the opportunity to do extra training! Me, being the extra person I am and also having 2 weeks of Easter holidays to fill, I have books for all 12 prompts.

Top Ten Books on my Spring TBR

What’s this?! A Sprinkled With Words blog post?! I know, count it as a March miracle.

Anyway, today I’m participating in Top Ten Tuesday which is a meme started by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is top ten books on your spring tbr [to be read] and believe me, I have a bunch! All of these books apart from #8 are already on my shelves!

Why I Stopped Setting TBRs

Truly, I am terrible at sticking to a schedule.

I make my to-do lists daily and on my phone because I regularly delete and add things. I double-book myself on the regular. I actually list lateness as one of my characteristics.

So it surprises me that, for many months, I have been setting TBRs. Especially considering that, apart from readathons, I don’t think I’ve ever completed them.

I stopped setting TBRs for a similar reason I stopped setting myself reading challenges – because I stopped caring what other people think about my reading.

I was introduced to setting TBRs by the online book blogging community, and whilst I don’t necessarily think they’re a bad thing, I never used to set them before. That makes me feel like I only set them because everyone else did.

The good side of TBRs is that I’m likely to read more, but the downside is that they really stress me out. And another good side is that I read books that have been on my bookshelf for absolutely ages, but I am such a big mood reader that I pick up these books and end up not enjoying them as much as I may because I’m not in the right head space for them.

Setting TBRs does make me excited because it’s another chance to get through the sheer amount of books on my bookshelf, but I’m glad I’ve stopped setting them. For me, it’s much more fun being able to pick a book off my shelf when I fancy it rather than working my way through a pile of books that I wanted to read at the start of the month, but 25 days later are not looking like my cup of tea right now.

I’d love to know what you think about setting TBRs – if they’re something that you regularly make yourself, or if you, like me, have given up on making them!

Until next time,

Turning the Page #5 | a lotta monsters

Turning the Page is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. In it, I talk about what I read during the week with a Tweet-sized review, and what I’m planning on reading next week, as well as what you might’ve missed on the blog. You’re very welcome to join in if you’d like! Just make sure to link back.

This week I read…

I read two books this week, and thoroughly enjoyed both of them.

1. Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi – this is the first in a new mythology series, and the first from “Rick Riordan Presents”. I loved the character of Aru, the whole plot, and the mythology, which is based on Indian mythology and contains, of course, plenty of monsters and gods! Can’t wait for book 2!
2. Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia – this was such a good read! All about the internet, content creating, friendships, and anxiety and depression. I really loved the entire thing, and it was also great because it has comic illustrations throughout, which is something I would love to see more of in novels!

Next week I want to read…

I have a couple in mind…

1. Friendship Fails of Emma Nash by Chloe Seager – I’m 67% through this book right now (thanks kindle!) and hopefully I’ll finish it tomorrow. I’m LOVING it so far!
2. The Glass Magician by Charlie M Holmberg – I read book 1 of this series in, like, 2015, and always wanted to finish the trilogy but never did! I recently bought the last two on kindle so would love to finish the trilogy.
3. The Master Magician by Charle M Holmberg – book 3 in The Paper Magician series.

On the blog…

Two posts went up this week, in case you missed them!

1. I wrote about my favourite reads of the summer….
2. And reviewed a book I read on holiday – Save the Date by Morgan Matson

How was your week in lit?

Happy reading! Hx

Portugal 2018 | holiday tbr!

I’m heading to Portugal for 2 weeks (starting today – as you read this, I’m actually there!) and of course I’ve brought a whole bunch of books with me… which I’d love to share with you!

1. Hero at the Fall by Alwyn Hamilton – this is the third and final book in the Rebel of the Sands trilogy and I’m so excited & nervous to see how it’s going to end! Hoping that all of my favourite characters pull through…
2. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani – when I was packing I saw this on the shelf and I just desperately want to reread it… this book took my heart when I first read it ages ago.
3. Howard’s End by EM Forster – I’ve read two EM Forster books now, and thoroughly enjoyed both of them.
4. Eureka! by Peter Jones – this is a non-fic book in little sections about Ancient Greece. It’s just some extra reading for my dissertation!
5. Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu – this is an arc I picked up at yalc (read my yalc post here!) and I’m sooo excited to whizz through it!
6. Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes? by Holly Bourne – I’m so excited to read this book, it’s by a favourite author of mine.
7. Save the Date by Morgan Matson – I loved The Unexpected Everything, and this seems like another cutesy summery read!
8. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli – omg I’m so excited for this one. I really related to Leah in Simon vs (fat? questioning? wobbly in herself? yes pls) so I hope that I get along with her this time!
9. A Clash of Kings (Game of Thrones #2) by George RR Martin – I read GOT 1 last year on holiday so brought the second one along this time. Maybe this’ll become a new tradition?!

9 books for 15(ish) days might seem excessive to some, but I’m thinking that there are some I’ll read in a sitting and some that’ll take a few days, so hopefully I’ll be able to get to all of these as, ICYMI, I’m super duper excited for all of them!

How many books would you take on a holiday?!