TAG TIME: Bookshelf Scavenger Hunt

Time to explore my bookcase in search of the following books:

1. Find a book by an author with the letter ‘Z’ in their name.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2 Zs in his name – bonus points?!)

2. Find a classic.

Well, I have a Classics shelf, so that’s easy! The first one I grabbed was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I have not read this one yet. Saving it for autumn.

3. Find a book with a key on it.

I looked and looked but did not find. FAIL!

4. Find something on your shelves that is not a book.

I have a little octopus bath dude sitting on my shelf for some reason!

5. Find your oldest book.

I have a bunch of children’s books that I have owned the longest, but the book that is physically the oldest is The Soul of a Bishop by H G Wells from 1917. I found it for €1 in the local charity shop. I am yet to read it.

6. Find a book with a girl on the cover.

Yeah, this is an easy one, as I have a few. I went for Little Women by Louisa M Alcott. Still haven’t read it – shame on me!

7. Find a book with an animal on the cover.

Choose the first book I could find, which is my new copy of Bambi (Felix Salten).

8. Find a book with a male protagonist.

You can’t get any more protagonisty than Rand Al’Thor in The Wheel of Time Series. Let’s go with The Eye of the World.

9. Find a book with only words on the cover.

Took me a while but I have The Burial at Thebes that only has words on the cover.

10. Find a book with illustrations in it.

Thornhill (Pam Smy). This was such an interesting book, somewhere between novel and graphic novel. A bit like a YA picture book.

11. Find a book with gold lettering.

I actually used quite a few books in this challenge with gold lettering, but did not want to repeat myself. I went for my beautiful copy of Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Definitely a cover buy!

12. Find a diary.

Nope. No diaries. None at all. I used to have Bridget Jones’ Diary, but I am not sure what happened to it. As for now: FAIL!

13. Find a book written by someone with a common name.

I finally settled on Longbourn, as both Jo and Baker are pretty common names. I haven’t read this book yet, but I am looking forward to sometime soon!

14. Find a book with a close-up of something on the cover.

I found Outsider by John Francome, which has a close-up of a horse ribbon.

15. Find the book from the earliest time period.

The books set in the earliest time period I have are the Earth’s Children series by Jean M Auel. Set in prehistory. I re-read The Clan of the Cave Bear this year.

16. Find a hardcover book without a just jacket.

Finally an excuse to show of my gorgeous copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare).

17. Find a teal or turquoise coloured book.

I will go with The Nest, even if the turquoise colour is a bit on the pastel side. I bought this at the airport sometime last year, fully intending to read it. I still haven’t.

18. Find a book with stars on it.

I had a few, but I went for The Muse by Jessie Burton. Another one I have not read yet!

19. Find a non-YA book.

My favourite book of the year so far:

***

SHOW ME YOURS!

 

Advertisement

Liebster Award

Thank you to Emily at her wonderful blog Reaching While Rooted for nominating me for the Liebster Award. Check out Emily’s blog, read her insightful reviews and fun tags and all that jazz. Follow her if you do not do so already!

(Apologies, Emily, that it has taken me an age to get round to answering your questions!)

Rules for Accepting the Award:

1. Write about it on your blog and thank the person who nominated you. Write a bit about their blog.
2. Display the ward on your blog
3. Nominate 5 or 10 blogs which you feel deserve it
4. Let the nominees know you nominated them.

Don’t forget to to create 10 new questions for the nominees to answer. Notify your nominees and provide a link to your post so that they will know what to do. Once you are done, come back here and post the link so I can check your answers!

Emily’s questions and my answers:

1. What inspired you to create a blog.

A friend asked me whether I had read a certain book (I can’t remember which one) to which I replied, “Yes.” Friend: “When?” Me: “Ummmm.” Friend: “What did you think of it?” Me: “I can’t quite remember…”

Basically to avoid the above, I thought it would be fun to document the books I read and what I thought of them.

2. If you could quit your day job, what would you do instead?

Well, I quite my day job four years ago (has it really been four years???!!!! Maybe three and a half…) when I decided I simply wanted to enjoy being a mum to my (now) five-year-old daughter for a while. After childcare costs I really was not earning enough to make it worth it. We are about to open a holiday cottage though, which I will be taking care of. I thought I would spend lots of time reading and I do spend some time doing just that, but my time tends to fill up anyway with all sorts of nonsense. I kind of like it that way. 🙂

3. A portal opens up to another land or time in your room. Where does it go?

Oh dead, I don’t know. Maybe Australia. I spent ten months there about fifteen years ago and fell in love with the country. There are areas I would love to explore a bit more.

4. What is your least favourite genre?

Horror. I get nightmares easily and don’t really like gore.

5. What is your favourite animal?

Horse – no contest!

6. What’s your favourite hobby when you are not reading?

I love writing, even if I am not that great at it. I love horse riding, but have not done it much in recent years. I do love watching a bit of telly of an evening too. Well, that’s about the gist of my terribly exciting life.

7. It’s time for a vacation. Who is your travel partner?

My husband and my daughter of course!

8. Do you have a life philosophy? If so, what is it?

Be yourself and and do listen to others, but don’t let them live your life for you. Be strong and don’t be afraid to say no!

9. You find a time machine and travel ten years back in time. What advice or life affirmation would you give yourself?

See question 8. It took me long enough.

10. What is one thing you love about yourself?

Oh, yeah, sure, go in with the hard question last! I love that I have learned to simply love myself. That single thing has changed so much. When you love yourself and allow yourself to make mistakes, you can be a far better support to others. No, I am not perfect, but neither as anyone else and actually, I am pretty all right 🙂 Deep, right!

***

The blogs I want to nominate are:

Marta at The Cursed Books
Kat at Crazy Life with Doc and Bam
Megan at The Cozied Reader
Regina at Bookish In Bed
Abbey at Three Cats and a Girl

And these are your questions:

1. What is your one favourite book (no whole series, a single book!)?
2. What is the first book you remember loving as a child?
3. Do you have any pets? If so, do share!
4. Pink, purple or blue?
5. Favourite ever book cover?
6. Is there a popular book you did not like?
7. What is it you like most about blogging?
8. Do you use Goodreads, and if so, how many books are on your Goodreads TBR?
9. Fairies or unicorns?
10. Lord of the Rings or Jane Austen?

I know these questions are quite random, but I would love to see your answers, so let me know when you have gotten round to doing this one!

End of the Year Book Tag

I have seen this one on a number of blogs and Booktube Channels and figured it was about time I did it!

1. Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish?

Only the books I am currently reading, which are Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas and Where The Stars Rise, which is a collection of Asian scifi and fantasy stories.

  

2. Do you have an autumnal book to transition into the end of the year?

Jane Eyre was supposed to do this for me, but coincided with my (much-mentioned) reading slump. I feel Throne of Glass is doing a better job at the moment.

3. Is there a new release you are still waiting for?

No, I don’t think so.

4. What are three books you want to read by the end of the year?

At the rate I am going, three books is a hard push! Ha! But, three books I would like to get through are A Winter Flame (Milly Johnson), Flame in the Mist (Renee Ahdieh) and Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie).

5. Is there a book you think can still shock you and become your favourite book of the year?

I doubt it very much, but I guess you never know!

6. Have you already started making reading plans for 2018?

I know I have a few ARCs to read over January and February, but apart from that I plan to keep it casual for a while. I am not committing! 😉

***

Please consider yourself tagged if you fancy doing this tag! 🙂

 

 

Sunshine Blogger Award

Thank you, Danielle from Life of a Literary Nerd, for nominating me to do the Sunshine Blogger Award (ages ago)! Go check out her awesome blog!

What is the Sunshine Blogger Award?

The Sunshine Blogger Award is given to those who are creative, positive and inspiring, while spreading sunshine to the blogging community.

How does it work?

• Thank the person(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog
• Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you
• Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions
• List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or on your blog

The Questions!

1. What is the last book you added to your TBR?

The Architect of Song by A G Howard. It sounded interesting!

2. If you could get an ARC of any book that comes out later this year what would it be?

Shamefully I cannot think of anything!

3. What is your favorite place to read?

In bed.

4. What author do you want to read more of?

Agatha Christie – I read a couple of her books and really enjoyed them. Would love to read some more.

5. What author can you not get into?

Thomas Hardy – I tried a few times, but no, not for me.

6. What book do you think everyone needs to read?

Bambi, by Felix Salten. People often don’t seem to know that it was a book rather in the Watership Down vein before it ever was a Disney movie. The book is heart wrenching, and so much more real and dark than the movie. It’s utterly amazing.

7. If you could turn any book into a movie/tv show what would it be?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – I would love to see that! Someone must have bought the rights to that one already, right?

8. What is your book dream vacation spot?

As in a place in a book I’d like to visit? Hobbiton maybe?

9. What is your favorite genre to read?

Probably fantasy, though animal perspective is also a big favourite.

10. What is the last song you listened to? (Bonus if you can relate it to a book)

Not My Baby, by Alvvays. Not at all book related, but been listening to their album Antisocialites almost non-stop for the last month!

11. Who are your top 5 characters (books, TV, movies, anything)?

Talk about hard questions!

In no particular order:

Vasya (The Bear and the Nightingale – book)

Jesse and Celine (Before Sunrise – movie)

Professor McGonagall (Harry Potter- books/movies)

Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice – book)

My nominations and questions:

(apologies if you have already did this on your blog!)

Abbey @ Three Cats and a Girl

Nova @ Confessions of a Literary Addict

Claire @ bookscoffeeandrepeat

Kris @ Boston Book Reader

Kathy @ Books & Munches

Taylor @ Taylor Reads Books

Regina @ Bookish In Bed

Ash @ For The Love of Books

Savannah @ The Book Prophet

Lindsey @ Paradis Books

Alex @ coffeeloving bookoholic

Your questions are:

1. What is the first book you remember loving as a child?
2. What is the last book you fell in love with?
3. Which book have you re-read the most times?
4. Which book do you love, but will you never re-read?
5. Which two authors do you wish would co-write a novel?
6. What book title best describes you (the title, not the contents)?
7. What is your favourite book to movie adaptation?
8. What is the worst book to movie adaptation?
9. What genre do you read only rarely?
10. What genre do you wish to read more of?
11. Which book makes you smile?