The Great Autumn Book Haul of 2017.
The Great Autumn Book Haul of 2017
Greetings, friends... long time no see!You may have noticed that it's been rather quiet around these parts, which is mainly attributed to me starting uni. I'm having a great time, learning a lot, but still slightly struggling with that work/life/uni/blog balance. This is a process though, a journey, and with a couple of events coming up and post ideas up my sleeve, hopefully I'll be more active on here soon.Part of doing a Creative Writing degree involves -- surprise surprise -- a lot of reading. Some for my course, but mostly recreational to get the creative juices flowing. As a result, I have been buying a lot more books than usual in the past month or so. In fact, I have purchased 11 books in the past 7 weeks alone. Holy moly! But I love that I now have an excuse to make more time for reading -- and I'd love to share with you some of the absolute gems I've been accumulating.
ZADIE SMITH
Zadie Smith books and essay collection
On Beauty is on my reading list for uni, and whilst I'm trying to stick to borrowing books from my reading list from the library to save on moolah, I felt like this one I needed to own for myself. I fell in love with Zadie since reading Swing Time, and since then, I just wanted to get me fill as much as possible. So, I naturally ended up buying two more books of hers -- White Teeth and her book of essays, Changing My Mind -- for some recreational reading later down the line.
NON-FICTION
Lauren Graham and Megan Jayne Crabbe's non-fiction memoirs
I've been loving a good memoir the last year or so. Everyone has a story to tell, and with humans being nosey by nature, it's no wonder we're all obsessed with reading about other people's lives.I've actually already listened to Lauren Graham's memoir, Talking As Fast As I Can, on audiobook when it came out last year, but when the new paperback came out with a bonus chapter, I knew I had to get my hands on it. Plus, the downside of listening to the audiobook meant that I couldn't see the pictures featured within the text, which I can now gaze upon freely whenever I wish.I'm actually making my way through Body Positive Power as we speak, and I know I'll want to write up a separate post about it when I'm done. Because, boy, I'm only approaching the halfway mark, but I can already feel my mindset shifting when it comes to my body, and towards diet culture in particular. I've been following Megan, aka Bodyposipanda, on Instagram for a while, and reading about her past struggles, along with the history of diet culture, has been truly eye-opening.
POETRY
Rupi Kuar's newest collection of poetry The Sun and Her Flowers
If you haven't heard of Rupi, you must have been living under a rock for the past 18 months or so. I read Milk and Honey earlier this year and was absolutely floored -- and I'm not even a huge fan of free verse poetry. The lovely Grace announced that Rupi's newest release was discounted on A Great Read and it felt rude not to indulge. I've been dipping in and out of it since it arrived in the post, and I am not disappointed thus far. Again, I might dedicate another post for The Sun and Her Flowers to discuss Rupi Kuar's work in general, and how it's kind of shifted my perspective on poetry.
YOUNG ADULT
Last months when I finally met up with aforementioned lovely Grace IRL, we had a lovely bookshop date at the Waterstones in Covent Garden. And, being the terrible book-buying influence that she is, she convinced me to splurge on these YA gems that I have had my eye on for ages. Plus, since I'm doing a Children's and Young Adult Literature module for uni next semester, I thought investing in some YA would be more than appropriate.I'm currently almost finishing the beautifully illustrated A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan (seriously, that cover art is amazeballs), and then shall be swiftly moving onto A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard so that I can finally listen to the relating episode on the Banging Book Club. That podcast is my new obsession, but there's so few episodes I can listen to as I haven't read many of the books, and I am the slowest reader in the world.
And last but not least, I finally have my hands on The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James. I have heard SO MUCH hype surrounding this book, and the premise sounds amazing. I'm not really one for stories set in space -- the films Interstellar, Gravity and The Martian all gave me mild panic attacks from te built-up space tension -- however this one seems a little different. And since it's gotten such rave reviews on Goodreads, I'm sure I'll be in for a great ride, hopefully sans panic attack (space makes v. anxious, if you couldn't tell).I should be good on the book-buying front for now, but I can't say that I haven't been tempted to add more titles to my collection... for now though, I'll stick to adding them to my Amazon wishlist and hounding my nearest and dearest for ALL THE BOOKS comes Christmas time.
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Tell me something good that you've read recently?