A Game, a Movie, a Book: Themed Days Ideas for What to Do at Home This Vacation

Hello readers!

Welcome to A Game, a Movie, a Book, in which Clio and I collaborate once again because there’s a pandemic, we’re bored and too creative for our own good. So we came up with ideas of what to do during the long Winter days while we’re all encouraged to stay home!

The idea is to spend a full day, or a big chunk of your day, immersed in the theme of your choice, exploring it through different media and different points-of-view. You can choose to do it in a more light and entertaining way (Whodunits! Italian Food! Wine!) or in a more cultural/educational sense (Victorian times! Ancient Rome! Jane Austen!). The beauty of this is that all you need is creativity: you can choose to go all in and wear costumes, prepare special food, perhaps decorate a room, convince your partner/friends/family (do remember to be pandemic-responsible!) or you can simply sit down by yourself and spend the day having nerdy fun.

The premise is simple: choose a game, a movie, a book and spend a day playing, watching and reading! This works especially well if you have someone at home with you, but also works if you live alone, or if you can do this online. We’re focusing here on board games (because it’s Clio’s Board Games, not Clio’s Whatever Games), but you can of course choose a videogame or whatever you like. We have selected three ideas to inspire you, and if you like this post, we can give more ideas on future posts (we know you’re wondering about the Italian Food theme). We’re all stuck at home this Christmas, might as well have fun with it!

Space

Space travel is one of the most exciting things to happen in real life and it captures people’s imaginations for a good reason: it’s beautiful, mysterious and full of possibility. To add a little something extra to a space-themed day, you can check out Pinterest for food ideas, download a star-gazing app (we like this one) and attempt to spot the ISS, do a virtual tour on space museums (like this one), plus choose whether to focus more on science fiction or non-fiction. It’s such a fascinating and versatile theme!

Conspiracy Theories about the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020

Hello readers!

Once you get invested in something so niche like a book prize, it’s inevitable to start using your imagination too much, especially during these times of mental idleness, which is why I’m writing this post! Yay! As a warning, I’m under the delusion that I’m funny, so I apologize for that. Last year, I talked a bit about some strange coincidences on the 2019 longlist (Rachel also wrote an excellent post about that, which went a bit deeper into the comparisons!), so clearly that is something suspicious going on every year. This year I’m bringing to you conspiracy theories!

This is obvious, but just to be sure: I am clearly joking this entire post. I don’t hate any of the books (yet!!), and have enjoyed several of them so far! I admire the WP very much and will continue to read from their recommendations for years to come 🙂 so please don’t get mad!

The books suck this year so the Mantel will win

Obviously. With the exception of my perfect-can-do-no-wrong baby Woman, Girl, Other. Which leads me to the next one…

Since they had no idea how Brexit would go, they made sure that a UK author would win, just in case

Theory concocted by Hannah! Since our bets are on either Evaristo or Mantel, this seems like a rather obvious conclusion. They didn’t even try to be subtle.

Giveaway Announcement: It’s LIVE

Hello readers!

It’s that time of the year – in which I have read a bunch of books, decided to keep some and selected some to give away. As you guys know, I only keep a few books in my shelves, and even those are already probably too many… Most of the books I give away are to libraries and language schools, but these ones I decided to give away to you guys as a thank you. I’m at over 900 followers in WordPress, and that is so cool! I am hoping we can get to 1000 followers here by my birthday (December 21st), maybe?? I know that is not too realistic, but it would be cool.

The prize

• Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton
• The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri,
• A Shiver of Snow and Sky, by Lisa Lueddecke
• Grace & Fury by Tracy Banghart
• The Wicked Deep, by Shea Ernshaw
• Neverworld Wake, by Marisha Pessl
• 1 (one) mix of chai
• Bookmarks
• One handwritten note

As for participating, here are the rules:

1. Sign up on My Bookish Rafflecopter giveaway – you can do it now already!
2. Must reside in Europe OR have an address in Europe to have the prize sent to.
3. Mandatory: follow my blog (via WP or email) & leave a comment on THIS post saying which book you look most forward to!
4. Optional: re-tweet about the giveaway, generally talk about it on Twitter and follow me there too. You can tweet & re-tweet maximum once per day.
5.  It closes on OCTOBER 5TH. I will announce the winner on the Sunday Snuggle following that, October 6th.

A lot of those books were 5 stars for me, so I am happy that other people will read them and might love them too. I’ve read basically all of them, meaning none of them are new, but might show a little bit of wear.

Good luck! 🙂

Review: Bitter Orange, by Claire Fuller

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Historical Fiction, Drama, Mystery

Goodreads / Amazon

This kind of story is such a recipe for success for me – it’s dark and twisty and feels so personal, with how close you get to the characters. It gave me Tender is the Night vibes and also a bit of Tangerine. I think if you enjoyed either book, you’ll like this one too!

It’s a hot summer, and Frances is moving into a grand but decadent house to write a report. This is going to be her home until late August – and then she meets her neighbors. Gorgeous and dark-haired Cara, and Peter, so very handsome. It is 1969, and Frances is excited for her new life after taking care of her mother for 10 years. Cara and Peter are incredibly charming, and she is drawn by their magnetism and their offer of friendship. But there are dark secrets between them and Frances doesn’t know what she got into…

Review: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

From the book’s

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Fiction, Drama

Goodreads / Skoob / Amazon

I saw this book being hyped all over Goodreads and also at the The Washington Post and New York Times, which got me really curious. I am quite into family drama stories, and this one follows the Keating and the Cousins families through five decades of the life of 4 adults and 6 children.

It all starts with the christening party of one of the children, Franny, Beverly and Fix Keating’s second child. Bert Cousins, trying to escape his pregnant wife and three small children at home on a Saturday, shows up at the party uninvited and with a bottle of gin as a gift. He and Beverly tipsily kiss during the party, and that changes everyone’s lives, settling in motion the dissolving of marriages and entangling of families, which will bring decades of resentment, frustration and unlikely bonds.

Goodreads Challenge! + Updates

Hello book lovers! How are you?

I’m on vacation for the next week and half still, and it’s been a bit crazy with travelling to see my family and keeping up with my reading and so on.  It’s so, so hot in Brazil right now, it’s impossible to be outside for too long before 17h. Really!

I’ve scheduled lots of posts the past few weeks and did lots of reading, as you guys saw, I’m trying to post more reviews of the books I read, not only the very best ones (as I normally do). I got so many books for Christmas and birthday and also I’m trying to curb my TBR so that I read only the stuff that really interests me and also get more spontaneous with my reading, so I’m using any time I can this vacation to get reading done!

Double Review: Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

Dear readers,

today my boyfriend and I will be reviewing Sense and Sensibility! Woohoo! He’s a bookworm too, as you guys might know by now, and we both like Jane Austen (I think… or so he tells me), so I thought it’d be fun to do a double review!

Naty’s Rating: ★★★★

Genres: Classics, Romance

Goodreads / Amazon

1 Year of Blogging + Giveaway Winner

You guys! It’s been a full year of blogging! Thank you for reading my posts, keeping me motivated and for being such awesome readers and friends. I obviously wouldn’t be still blogging if it wasn’t for the great community here, which mas this fun and exciting. I love discussing books with you guys and the excitement of recommending books or starting up a discussion. You are so great!

And the winners from the Giveaway are…

Rachel @ Pace, Amore, Libri, you’ll receive The Dry, Magpie Murders, The Muse, Young Jane Young, and Illuminae

Joanna @ Over The Rainbow Book Blog, you’ll receive Dimple, My Not So Perfect Life, Three Dark Thrones and One Dark Crown

Congratulations, girls!!! Please contact me privately to give me your addresses, can be a message on Goodreads, on Twitter, on Instagram… just let me know, then I will send the package soon 🙂

500 WordPress Followers Giveaway!

Hello bookworms!

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know, and if not, here you go:

Yayyy!! Did I hear… there's a thank-you giveaway coming??? pic.twitter.com/c3mgdzGsnW

— Naty's Bookshelf (@natysbookshelf) March 22, 2018

Yes, you read it right!! I made it to 500 followers on WordPress, around 600 on Twitter and a bit over 200 on Instagram! I’m so happy about this, as this blog’s 1st birthday is still 1 month and a half away, so I think this is quite an accomplishment and I’m very thankful that you guys read my posts and cheer me on, this community is AWESOME!

As a thank-you, I am holding my first giveaway ever! Here is how it will go:

1. Open internationally
2. This first giveaway will be done with USED books from my own shelf, that way I can give away a few books at once instead of just one! They are also all in English.
3. I am NOT one of those pristine book owners, whose books look immaculate and new and have angelic light shining delicately over it. Almost all of them have broken spines. They’re not in OH MY GOD AWFUL CONDITIONS FALLING APART CALL THE COPS THERE’S BEEN BOOK ABUSE, but some of those more than one person has read, and of course it looks used.
4. Results will come out on this blog’s birthday, May 8! I knoooow it’s a long time away, but I will be on vacation for 2 weeks in late April, so it’s difficult for me to finish the giveaway before that.

How to participate:

1. Click this link and follow the instructions to enter until May 7!: Rafflecopter giveaway
2. Mix and match! You have 6 spaces in total (because of the box size). The books below are the ones available for the giveaway. Choose the books you want and leave your choices in the comments, summing up their space values until you have a maximum of 6.
3. First winner gets their mix-and-match choice! Second winner gets the other books! YES YOU HEARD IT RIGHT. TWO WINNERS. TWO BOXES OF BOOKS. (and maybe goodies??? Shhhhhhhhh it’s a secret!)

Books available:

1. Young Jane Young, Gabrielle Zevin. 1 space.
2. Illuminae (The Illuminae Files 01), by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. 2 spaces.
3. The Dry, by Jane Harper. 1 space.
4. The Muse, by Jessie Burton. 1 space.
5. Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz. 1 space.
6. My (Not So) Perfect Life, by Sophie Kinsella. 1 space
7. Three Dark Crows + One Dark Throne (must go together!), by Kendare Blake. 2 spaces.
8. When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon. 1 space.

Example on how to choose: Illuminae, The Dry, Magpie Murders and When Dimple = 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5! You can still choose a book worth 1 space! (The Muse, for example).

GOOD LUCK!!

How My Book Ban Went + Book Haul (hahaha)

Hello, bookworms!

So I went on a book ban. My boyfriend challenged me to go not buy books for a month, and despite the misleading title (hehe), I made it!!

It was not too easy, really, especially on the first week it was borderline impossible not to buy a lot of books. I must have added like 50 books to my TBR in the meantime (probably more), and while I really wanted to get a few of those quite badly and there are one or two I actually still want to read this year, it was a good decision!

I went through the books I already had and made a big dent on my physical TBR, so I’m very proud of myself!