This Week in Books | 27/09/17

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now: If you saw my Autumn TBR you'll know autumn always puts me in the mood for books set in the 19th century, the gloomier the better, so I'm about to start this 2017 release based on the murder of Charlotte Dymond in Cornwall in 1844. I'm also planning to pick up Gail Carriger's Heartless and Sarah Schmidt's See What I Have Done very soon, and to continue reading Miranda Kaufmann's Black Tudors which I began at the end of last week.

Then: I recently re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion, the book that first introduced me to Austen when I was 18 and subsequently made me hate her, but now that I'm older and my tastes have changed (and my appreciation for Austen has grown) I decided to give it another try and, this time around, I really enjoyed it. I know Natalie @ A Sea Change will be proud. Look out for my review coming soon!

Next: I'm so behind on my NetGalley reads this year and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's third novel, The Beautiful Ones, is one of my most anticipated reads of 2017, so I want to get to it soon and hopefully read and review it before its release. I'm also planning to pick up The Tenant of Wildfell Hall soon to get started on this year's Victober!

What have you been reading recently?

#Victober TBR!

Ange @ Beyond the Pages, Katie @ Books and Things, Kate @ Kate Howe and Lucy @ Lucy the Reader are back for the second year in a row with #Victober - a read-a-thon focused on British and Irish literature written during the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837-1901.

Victorian literature was always my favourite era of literature to study when I was a student, I studied Victorian Popular Fiction and Victorian Gothic in the final year of my undergraduate degree and loved it, but I don't read much of it now that I'm no longer a student. There are so many more contemporary writers, particularly non-British, LGBT+ and poc writers, whom I'd rather devote my reading time to.

Having said that, I do still enjoy classics when I pick them up so I thought I'd join in and try to read a bit of Victorian literature this October alongside all of the other books I want to read this autumn!

There are five challenges:

• Read a Victorian book by a Irish, Scottish or Welsh author
• Read a Victorian book that was recommended to you 
• Read a supernatural Victorian book
• Read a lesser known Victorian book
• Read a Victorian book by a female author

I'm only going to attempt three of them, because I don't want Victorian literature to completely take over my reading month, so the challenges I've crossed through are the ones I won't be tackling.

Read a Victorian book by an Irish, Scottish or Welsh author // I'm going to re-read The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, because I think I need to read it again to appreciate it. It's described as one of the best horror stories ever written but I remember being left a bit disappointed with it, so I'd like to give it another try. Arthur Machen was a Welsh author who focused on supernatural/horror stories, so he's worth checking out if you're into Victorian Gothic.

Read a supernatural Victorian book // Another re-read, this time of one of my favourite pieces of Victorian literature: Carmilla. Carmilla is a vampire story that pre-dates Dracula and I really, really enjoyed it when I had to study it for university. It'd be nice to read it again just for the pure enjoyment of it.

Read a Victorian book by a female author // I love Anne Brontë, but I've never read her masterpiece the whole way through. I've read bits of it here and there and I understand the social importance of it, but I want to read it properly so I can appreciate the often forgotten Brontë's genius. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the book I'd like to focus my attention on for this read-a-thon.

Are you taking part in #Victober? What are some of your favourite Victorian novels?