book list – My Book Joy

15 Books of Summer 2023!

Posted on May 23, 2023 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! I’m super excited that this year I remembered to plan for the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by 746 Books *BEFORE* it actually starts on June 1st! Although that said — I probably won’t be reading much for the first few days due to prior plans, but still, at least I’ll know what I’ve got. 😂

The Challenge

The general idea is to choose 10, 15 or 20 books to read and review between June 1 and September 1.

Last year, I chose 15 book prompts instead of specific books, which allowed me some flexibility in what books I actually chose. I’m going to do the same this year because I really enjoyed that and I think it worked out pretty well. I’m still going to stick with 15 even though I’m sure that will end up being low, because this way I don’t build it into something that will pressure and stress me. Reading is FUN! 😁

If you want to join too, you can check out the signup post here at 745 Books or click the image below to get to the same page.

The list

My list of categories and an idea or two for books to fulfill it are below. The book choices may change a bit, but the categories shouldn’t! For my rules on this challenge, I’m also counting books that I DNF as long as I still write a review. The overall goal for me is to clear out shelf space, and if I try a book and don’t like it, that’s an answer too!

#1-3: What is this book again? x3 — A book that’s been on my shelves so long I forget what it’s about
- Inland by Tea Obreeht
- The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama
- Snow by Orhan Pamuk
#4-5: A book I bought and haven’t read x2
- Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros
#6: An Aardvark Book Club book
- Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong
- The Perfect Ones by Nicole Hackett
#7: A Book of the Month Club book
- As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
#8: A book over 500 pages
- Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
#9: A World of Warcraft book (because I’ve been craving it!)
- War of the Ancients Archive by Richard A Knaak
#10: One of the furthest back added books on my TBR (in 10 oldest, ideally)
- The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
#11: One of the most recently added books on my TBR (at time of writing)
- Chasing Chaos by Jessica Alexander
#12: A book published during this challenge (June 1 – Sep 1)
- If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So
#13: A memoir
- How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
#14: A book by an author I’ve enjoyed before
- A Trial of Sorcerers by Elise Kova
#15: A book I really wanted to read, and yet still haven’t
- The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

Yo, I’ll be honest, writing out this list has gotten me super excited for some of these books and now I don’t want to wait until June 1st to start them. It’s entirely possible I’ll just read some of these now and finish them before this challenge even starts. xD Oh well, I have plenty of options!

If you’re signed up for the challenge too, add a link to your post in the comments so I can check out what books you’ve included for ideas of my own! 😊

Chatty

My new reading goal, fueled by determined frustration!

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Jennifer

Alright y’all, I’ve abruptly gotten fed up with myself. I have all these books that I’ve been various degrees of excited about (from not at all to extremely) that are just taking up room on my shelves and NOT BEING READ! AUGH! It’s really starting to get to me — maybe as an early spring-cleaning frenzy is taking hold of me.

So my new abrupt reading goal for the foreseeable future is to read a bunch of books that I’ve actually spent money on. Then I can decide if I want to keep them, or get them off my shelves and make room for others! Gah! I’m running out of room, and if these are duds then I need them OUT!

So here begins my sudden change in TBR plans. 🙂 Although to be fair, my TBR this month is one I literally described as “slightly aimless” and I’ve completed 3 of the 4 books on that original list — AND the fourth book from that list is also on this one. xD

Book of the Month books that are gathering dust

Aardvark Book Club books that I had never heard of

Other books that I bought just to look at apparently

I’m ready to read with the fury and speed of a thousand suns!!!!

Book Talk

Top Ten Tuesday: Book people I’d be okay with meeting 3/7/23

Posted on March 7, 2023March 6, 2023 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish question idea that was originally created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, from way back in June 2010! Since January 2018, Top Ten Tuesday has been hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Thanks for taking it over! The idea is to make a list of ten books or bookish things on different topics each week. Check out her site for details on how to join and what the upcoming prompts are. 😊 You can also see all the posts from other bloggers linked on each weekly post on their main site.

This week’s prompt is about characters or otherwise book-related people we want to meet in real life (if possible!) and to be honest that’s kind of a tough one for me. Usually the characters in books I read are extremely larger than life and intimidating (ie universe-ending magic users and shit) or otherwise are generally normal people but whom I might not particularly crave meeting. 🤷‍♀️

So I’ve got a mix of authors of nonfiction novels that I think it would be neat to talk with, and a few books with characters I’d be willing to meet I suppose.

The Books

The Reasons

Meet the authors

The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie

I’d ask about: principles of Buddhism, his relationship to Buddhism, the process of narrating from a cat, how he determines what the Dalai Lama would do and say, the sources and/or accuracy of his depictions of the setting

The Puma Years by Laura Coleman

I’d ask about: if she’s had anything else grow inside of her like she did the jungle worm in her leg, what places she’d recommend for volunteering (if other than the one she was at), if this is still the most life-defining thing she’s done or if anything else has joined (or surpassed) the list

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Chatty

March 2023 TBR: slightly aimless

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Most of my planned reading this month is pretty unstructured, and is largely dictated by what I’m finishing from last month and books I’ve bought on a whim. Buying books itself is honestly really rare for me, as I’m usually plenty able to get what I want and need from the library, but I’ve wanted to support some of my local stores so I’ve been going and choosing one book each month from a local place. Even though I have no more shelf space…. oops.

Anyway, this month is kind of formless! I have mostly books that are in progress already below, and otherwise I have no idea what I’ll end up reading in March.

In progress!

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni is an LGBTQ+ romance with an Armenian protagonist, and I love me a story that can teach me something about a culture I’m not very familiar with. Plus, love! Self-discovery! All about it. 🙂

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski is a peter-pan inspired story that takes it to the real world. It’s solidly okay, but I put it down a week or so ago and haven’t been really inspired to read it again so I guess it hasn’t totally sucked me in. Still, I do want to finish it and see the resolution.

Just Because

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a book that’s been on my shelf for a long time and I’m finally getting around to reading it. Prompted by the Kindle Reading Challenge, sure, but I’m glad to have some motivation to force me into this one. 🙂

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab is a book I’ve avoided for two reasons: I didn’t like Schwab’s other books I attempted, and I don’t generally enjoy France as a setting. However, this is the book I got at the bookstore yesterday and I had a method: I got a fancy special edition so if I do like it I can enjoy a really nice version, and if I DON’T like it, I might have a better chance at selling it. At the very least if I end up keeping it anyway, I can have a pretty item to decorate my shelf. 😅

So it’s a pretty short list for this month, but chances are high I won’t even finish some of these because that’s just how it goes. xD

Chatty

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Love in the Title!

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! It has BEEN A WHILE since I did one of these! And even longer since I did them consistently! But I felt like a list today, and what easier time then to do it with a love / Valentine’s Day theme? Things I love!

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish question idea that was originally created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, from way back in June 2010! Since January 2018, Top Ten Tuesday has been hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Thanks for taking it over! The idea is to make a list of ten books or bookish things on different topics each week. Check out her site for details on how to join and what the upcoming prompts are. 😊 You can also see all the posts from other bloggers linked on each weekly post on their main site.

This week’s prompt as I kind of hinted at above is a freebie on the theme of love or focused on Valentine’s Day. Originally, I had gone through and looked at all the books I’ve read on or around Valentine’s Day each year to see if there was ever a pattern I wasn’t aware of. There wasn’t. xD I just read whatever I’m reading, and it wasn’t really what I wanted to do for the bulk of this post. However, I will include a simple list of those titles after the main post here!

I ended up going for something much simpler: books I’ve read with the word love in the title. xD Here we go!

The Books

The reasons

Anna K: A Love Story by Jenny Lee

I had to read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy my senior year of high school and while parts of it were cool, parts of it (*ahem* LENIN) suuuper dragged. So I was HYPED when this YA re-imagining of the book came out, and was curious / wary of how it would end. In short: loved this book, have the duology, and will probably re-read it soon now that I’m thinking about it.

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Chatty

November 2022 TBR: the end is near…

Posted on November 7, 2022 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! It’s November, and that means 2022 is almost over. Luckily I think I’m in a pretty good spot with my various reading challenges I’m working on this year. The main one I’m focusing on is nonfiction, which is great because I still have a pile of them that I’m ready to read an excited about! There are a few other miscellaneous titles on my list too, as always. And also as always, I’m sure I will add a bunch, and end up not reading a bunch of the planned ones. xD

Since this is also already a week into the month, you can bet that I’ve finished several books already so I’ll just, uh, tactfully ignore those I guess? 😅

MORE BOOK CLUBS!!

Yes, two of these were planned for last month. But hey, I went away for a while and didn’t get around to reading much. I bet they’ll still be good a month later. 🙂

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Book Talk

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Read In Other Countries

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Jennifer

This week’s prompt is books read on vacation, and over the years I’ve made travel and “vacation” a priority in my life as much as I could. Below is a list of what I’ve been reading on the trains and planes and parks in between exploring. Plus one bonus from my home country, as opposed to one of those I’ve only visited (or briefly lived in).

The Books

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Book Talk

October 2022 TBR: not spooky themed!

Posted on October 2, 2022 by Jennifer

Hey y’all! I’ve got my TBR rip raring and ready to go for October, and it actually has no planned spookiness or anything “Halloween” themed. I guess there might be some that could fit it, but that wasn’t the intention, you know? Anyway. Here’s my non-spooky TBR with my attempts at making them spooky-fied. xD

Book club choices

Oh, you know, actually… okay, maybe there’s some spookishery going on here. But I swear, it was unplanned spookishery! *ahem* moving on…

Sign Here I grabbed from Book of the Month because, despite how leery I was of all the hype I’d seen around it, it does actually sound like a book I’d like. It’s about a demon trying to get a whole family to trade their souls to him, so uh… I guess demons and Hell are pretty Halloweeny.

The Night Ship came from Aardvark Book Club, which just launched! This one is a dual-timeline story about two kids who end up on an island off Western Australia and they’re looking at old shipwrecks and monsters and maybe ghosts which actually kind of sounds like it fits October reading too.

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Book Talk

Top Ten Tuesday: Lovely Wordy Covers 😍

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Jennifer

This week’s prompt is typographic covers. Covers where words are the winner, and that’s all there needs to be. Covers where the title is the focus, and maybe it’s done creatively or just smashed in huge letters so you can’t miss it. I ADORE this topic because I think making an attractive, interesting cover without any usual visuals is an impressive skill, and can be done so well. I found a bunch below!! 😀

The books

The covers are more giant than usual this week since the focus is entirely on the cover!

That’s it for this week! Have you read any of the above books? Link to your posts this week in the comments as well 🙂

Book Talk

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved So Much I Bought a Physical Copy (or two…)

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Jennifer

Today’s prompt is books that I bought because I loved them so much (prompt recommended by Alecia @ The Staircase Reader). This is one that I can only join because of recent changes in my life, namely having space to HAVE a library of my own of shelves and shelves of books. It’s such a luxury, and it’s basically all I need to be happy in my home.

The books that have moved me most enough to buy a copy tend to be nonfiction or graphic novels (or sometimes both!). This is partly because nonfiction tends to have a lot of information that I like to quickly thumb through and refer to or dip back into on re-reads, and graphic novels or heavily illustrated books are nicer to have a physical copy of to enjoy the art. With that in mind… here’s my list!