The Sunday Snuggle Week 39 2018

Hello readers!

This week has been quite something, and I didn’t have too much time for reading. Which is okay! I want to get through the books I own, but I have to balance work, my social life, going to the gym, chores etc… so I’m okay with reading less. One or two books per week is still a LOT of reading. (And by that I mean books I finished, since I read a lot of books at the same time, my list of books read this week is still long!)

From Netgalley I was approved for:

 

Can you tell I was in a literary fantasy mood?

Tomorrow starts OWNtober and I still got to finish 2 books before I can get to my OWNtober TBR… please send help.

My October 2018 Spooky TBR

Hello readers!

October is here, and I really enjoy the atmosphere of Halloween coming, and spooky movies and creepy reads. Like last year, I have a few books I’d like to read this month, but, unlike last year, I’m taking part at OWNtober challenge. This means I’m trying to get as many books from my own shelves read as possible this month. But, for the sake of Halloween-themed reads, there are a couple books more I want to get, so this TBR is a bit different from the other one, which doesn’t include these books I don’t own yet, and includes a few more books I haven’t added here because they aren’t Halloween-y. So, while similar, these TBRs aren’t exactly the same.

I know in total they are A LOT (14), but I have a week off and intend on spending it doing lots of reading, and doing at least one Readathon with my boyfriend as well (normally I get 3 books read in one day during Readathons). So I have high hopes!

  

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black, by E. B. Hudspeth

Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

OWNtober 2018 – my TBR, my thoughts and my painfully long list of books I should’ve read by now

Hello readers!

Welcome to my most shameful post to date! Kathy from Books and Munches is hosting OWNtober, in which you attempt bravely to tackle your TBR, but with the books you actually own. Yes, that dusty pile of books that keeps getting higher and somehow you never get to see its bottom anymore and now you’re too stressed to actually know how many books the pile (or, let’s face it, pileS) actually has. I’m officially participating this year!

As official things must be, I announced it also on Twitter:

I'm participating!!

Reading your OWN books during OWNtober 2018 https://t.co/l3FADPLgMt via @wordpressdotcom

— Naty's Bookshelf (@natysbookshelf) September 17, 2018

So, buckle up and let’s start with the first part of this challenge… LISTING ALL THE BOOKS YOU OWN AND HAVEN’T READ YET.

The Sunday Snuggle Week 38 2018

Hello readers!

I decided to join Kathy’s OWNtober! If you don’t know what that is, read her post about it here: Reading your OWN books during OWNtober 2018. I will be posting my list and such either by the end of this week or by next week. I have A LOT of books to go through… siiiiigh. I’m also pairing it up with spooky books I plan to read for Halloween, but I’ll write two different posts so I don’t confuse those, since I want to read non-spooky books as well, but I really love having themed posts for Halloween on October!

You guys voted and found Instagram too much work. You know what? I agree. I will be leaving Bookstagram, and adding the book pictures on my blog and Twitter and such instead. I definitely don’t need the extra stress of updating it constantly…

Fellow book bloggers! Do you think bookish Instagram is a useful social media tool or too much work for naught?

(Pls comment your experience if you want 😊)#bookblogger #BookBloggers #bookstagram #instagram

— Naty's Bookshelf (@natysbookshelf) September 12, 2018

I think by now a bunch of you have heard, but I didn’t see many discussions online yet, so I would like to know what you guys think about it: Artemis, by Andy Weir is getting a movie adaptation. There is no casting announced yet, neither could I find a date for its release, but it will happen!

If you’ve read the book, then you probably noticed that it is written in a thriller, movie-like way already, which makes it easier for adapting into a script and to the screen. There is the awesome background of everything happening in a city on the moon, there is heist, there is lots of adventure and conspiracy. I was let down by the book, especially by Jazz’ character itself. So if that is done better in the movie, I think it will be such an improvement, plus the moon city would be such a cool thing to see on screen! What do you think? Do you think the movie will be better than the book? Did you like Artemis?

Scribd: Is it worth it?

Hello readers!

So I have gotten Scribd for a free month trial after reading about it in Misty’s post Apps I Use For All Things Bookish, and decided to write this post about how it went, what I read and how it compares to Kindle Unlimited and Audible! If you’re anything like me, the words “Netflix for books” is sure to catch your attention. So – is Scribd your long-dreamed-of Netflix for books??

So, starting from the beginning, here is what the app looks like on my phone:

(yes, I only had 72% of battery at 10:18 AM… but not to worry, I always carry a charger with me)

You have an overview page, where basically shows the books you’ve saved (which works like a wishlist, or a TBR), and you can see recommendations there. You can also go to the other tabs to select recommendations filtered by the format you want: audiobooks, ebooks, magazines…

I do recommend that if you want to try it out, download it on your phone if you can! It’s far more practical to listen to books on the go.

Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Contemporary Fiction

Goodreads / Amazon

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows has definitely made it to my list of favorite contemporaries!

This book tells the story of Nikki, a daughter of Indian immigrants who has very Western thoughts and behavior, which very often clashes with her family’s traditional ways. She works at a bar and, at twenty-something, she doesn’t know yet what to do with her life. She decides to give English story-telling classes for Punjabi widows – which turns into a moment of sharing erotic stories from the widows’ fantasies. This unpredictable turn of events makes Nikki realize there is much memory, fantasy, desire and a strong community sense among those widows.

Review: House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Classic

Goodreads / Amazon

This classic was recommended by a fellow book blogger, and I was curious by it, although not entirely convinced. So I listened to it as an audiobook during my Kindle Unlimited month.

House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, a beautiful girl at the age of 29, who worries about her need to marry soon. To maintain her luxurious lifestyle she must marry rich. She isn’t old money, and is well-aware of the limits of freedom and choice of her sex, so her suit isn’t as easy as she thought.

The Sunday Snuggle W37/2018 #TheSundaySnuggle

Hello readers!

So this week I reached 600 followers on WordPress! These past months it’s been difficult to do the more social part of blogging, namely commenting on other people’s blogs, self-promoting and so on, which I believe strongly affected the rate at which my followers numbers grow: in May I reached 500, and now only in September I get to 600. Do you guys have the same experiences with book blogging? I post with the same frequency as before, so surely my reduced growth comes from my lack of socialization online (which I will improve upon, I promise). After reading this post from Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books (also linked below!), I’m thinking it probably has something to do with the fact that I stopped taking part in memes & tags so much as before. As I schedule my posts WAY in advance (I have drafts for posts all the way to February next year and could easily disappear for a month from WP and only my Sunday Snuggles would be delayed), it’s difficult for me to follow those too closely. There’s no way I can conciliate a healthy lifestyle + a full-time job + reading a lot + blogging without scheduling things in advance. What do you think?

Do you feel like Instagram is a useful book blogging social media, by the way? I have been considering deleting my account, for a few reasons: so much work to get lighting etc, needs to be updated constantly, doesn’t get me significant clicks to my blog, is more “popular” if you have lots of hardcovers and natural light (which I don’t), stagnant number of followers. However: I love photographing books. I started a poll on Twitter about it, to see what other people think about Bookstagram:

Fellow book bloggers! Do you think bookish Instagram is a useful social media tool or too much work for naught?

(Pls comment your experience if you want 😊)#bookblogger #BookBloggers #bookstagram #instagram

— Naty's Bookshelf (@natysbookshelf) September 12, 2018

I received this from Netgalley:

Netgalley & Edelweiss say no!

Hello readers!

I saw a post like this a while ago, and thought it was so interesting. As a reader outside of the UK and the US that reads almost exclusively in English, a lot of books on Netgalley and Edelweiss are limited – in case you don’t know, some of the most requested books on Netgalley aren’t possible to be requested by people outside of the US/UK anymore.

• I couldn’t even request Girls of Paper and Fire on Netgalley, really, so Edelweiss was my only chance, and I was swiftly denied this wonderful book. I mean, I probably will eventually buy it because THAT COVER, but still, very disappointed.
• Tangerine sounds atmospheric, vintage-feeling with a hint of glamor crime novel. It also looks like a perfect summer mystery read. But oh well – I got declined both by Netgalley and Edelweiss, so maybe the universe just doesn’t want me to read it. But I will! …maybe.
• I wanted to read Daughter of the Burning City so badly, but it just didn’t happen. I will get it this year still, because it still sounds amazing and I desperately want to read it!

Review: Pestilence, by Laura Thalassa

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Genres: Post-Apocalyptic, Romance

Goodreads / Amazon

The Four Horsemen will destroy humanity. After five years since they last came, the world has been in a post-apocalyptic state: there is barely any electricity, cars stopped in the middle of the road, planes fell down. Now, one of the Horsemen returns with plans to finish what was started: Pestilence. Bringing death in the form of a plague, he’s as cold as he is painfully beautiful. But Sara Burns won’t let him destroy humanity without a fight – and shoots him dead. Except, he cannot die, and now she is his prisoner.