Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday: Things On My Reading Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This is my twenty-eighth Top Ten Tuesday.

I haven't done any of these in ages! But as I mentioned in this video, Top Ten Tuesday is my favourite book blogging meme, and I want to get back into the habit of joining in every week. This theme struck me as being quite similar to Top Ten Words/Topics That Will Make Me Pick Up or Buy A Book and Top Ten Settings I'd Like To See More Of (Or At All), but I have tried hard to think of different things for this list!

Top Ten Things On My Reading Wishlist

1. Loneliness - As much as I love reading about friendships, being a teenager can be a very lonely experience and I like to see more YA novels deal with this.

2. Young carers - I've been doing some work recently that relates to carers and it occurred to me the other day that I've probably never read, or even heard of, a book about a child who has to care for their parent, even though according to the 2011 census, there are 178,000 young carers (under 18s) in England and Wales. I've seen TV shows about this issue, but I can't think of any books. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments.

3. Unusual hobbies - learning about new things is almost the whole point of reading, right? I would love to read more fun novels about characters with unusual hobbies. Totally painless education!

4. Diversity in New Adult books - I would love to see everything Jamie from The Perpetual Page Turner put on her list, but I would be particularly interested in this. I read one New Adult book last year (The Secret of Ella and Micha) but haven't bothered trying any others as they all seem to have the same themes. I'd love to read books about "new adults" where romance isn't the main focus. I'd also like to see more diverse characters as well, in terms of race and sexuality and gender.

5. Open ended romances - a romance can be a powerful and meaningful story even if the characters don't refer to each other as soulmates and declare their eternal love by the end of the book.

6. Volunteering - I can think of a couple of books where the main character does some volunteering but not many. Volunteering is GREAT. There should be more.

7. YA characters that want a science-related job when they grow up - Don't get me wrong, I love reading about teen musicians and actors and artists, but it would be cool if there were more characters that planned on becoming a medical doctor or a engineer or a research chemist, for example.

8. Businesspeople - I'd like to read more fiction about people who start businesses. I don't know that much about business, and as I said in point 3, reading novels about it would be a totally painless form of education!

9. More family drama - families are important and sometimes very difficult to deal with but they get sidelined in a lot of books. I would like to read more books where family is a focus or at least equal in importance to the romance/friendship drama.

10. Couples that stay together throughout the whole novel - no dramatic flounce-led breakups, just ordinary ups and downs for us to enjoy following. Without babies. I have no interest in reading about babies.

Do you have any of these things on your reading wishlist? Have you any book recommendations for me?

Bookish Brits Vlog 7: Books I MUST Read This Year


In this video I show you a load of books that I really really want to read but have left sitting on my TBR for a year or more, in order to shame myself into reading them this year!

I hope you enjoy!

This video was inspired by this post from last January, Top Ten Books I Resolve To Read in 2013.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Monday Amusements 26

My latest mini-TBR. I almost always take these photos in the bathroom, can you tell? What do you think I should read first?

I liked this interview with Ruth Warburton at Chicklish, part of the Project UKYA tour. I finished reading Witch Finder for this month's Bookish Brits Book Club on Saturday, and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to reading the other Witch books now. A Company of Swans is on my TBR, so it's great to see it get an enthusiastic mention!

I bookmarked this list a while ago, but I decided it needed a re-read now that I've started vlogging: 12 Tricks To Looking Awesome On Video.

Psychology in YA - Identity is a great start to the new Psychology in YA series (it better be a series, it's such a good idea!) at Fluttering Butterflies.

Reviews responsible for the sharp increase in the size of my wishlist this fortnight:

Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy, by Carolyn Meyer, at Bookish
Boys Don't Knit, by T.S. Easton, at SisterSpooky
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton, at SisterSpooky
Being Sloane Jacobs, by Lauren Morrill, at Rather Be Reading
Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson, at Lunar Rainbows
Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A.S. King, at Fluttering Butterflies
Ruby Red, by Kerstin Gier, at The Pewter Wolf
Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, at The Bookette

Have you read any great posts that I've missed?

Friday, January 03, 2014

Twelve Posts of Christmas (and New Year): Twelve - My Favourite Posts of 2013


Happy New Year! Today is the tenth day of Christmas, and the third day of 2014! I'm sad that the festive season is nearly over but looking forward to all that I'm going to achieve in this new year.

Today I've decided to take one last look back at 2013 and share my favourite blog posts that I've written (and videos that I've made) this year. I posted 77 times on this fleeting dream this year, which beats all previous records! I've kept up with my Monday Amusements and took part in Top Ten Tuesday as often as I felt able.

My favourite Top Ten Tuesday topic of 2013 was from January, Most Frustrating Characters Ever. It was so much fun to write, and I loved reading other people's lists too.

I wouldn't be the person I am today without libraries, so in February I celebrated National Libraries Day by writing a list of Ten Things I Love About Libraries - a topic I will be revisiting soon for Bookish Brits.

May was one of my most productive months, at least on this blog. I wrote another of my favourite Top Ten Tuesday posts - Books Dealing with Tough Subjects, and then launched Diary of a Crush Week, to celebrate the new paperback release of this series I've loved since my teens. It began with my first Celebrating Series post, and although I didn't get to write any more of them in 2013 I have lots of ideas for series to feature this year.

In June, before packing up all my books for The Great Redecoration, I filmed a bookshelf tour. This was my first YouTube video ever! It's quite dark and shaky, but I've learned a lot about making videos since, thanks to the Bookish Brits project, and when I eventually get around to filming my 'after' bookshelf tour, I'm sure it will be much better!

As the days got shorter, I started to think about getting the most out of the limited daylight, and in September I wrote Reading in the Afternoon, Blogging in the Evening. I have started writing in the morning and afternoon too, so that I can get the most out of my energy first thing, but I still prefer to blog in the evening.

Finally, in December, I started this Twelve Posts of Christmas (and New Year) series. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and will definitely be revisiting it next year. I enjoyed writing them all, but I think my favourite post was number four - Presents I Would Buy for Characters.

If you write your own round-up of your favourite posts, please do link it up below, or if you'd prefer, share the link to a blog post that you're particularly proud of in the comments.

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