BIG Books on my TBR!

When I was younger I was never intimidated by big books, but I suppose 'big' is very subjective. For me, a really big book is anything that's 600 pages or more, and yet when I was younger reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was nothing, nor were the chunky latter two books in Cornelia Funke's Inkworld trilogy. Lately the biggest book I've read is the conclusion to Marissa Meyer's The Lunar Chronicles, Winter.

For some reason, as I've gotten older, I've begun to find larger books incredibly intimidating and I'm not 100% sure why. I think I've been so eager to read as much as I can in one year because there's always so much I want to read and too little time to read it all in that I've let the big books on my TBR gather dust. Well not anymore! Some books have been on my TBR for far too long, and if I could cross even one of these books off my TBR this year I'd be a very happy bunny.

My lovely friend Natalie @ A Sea Change has sung the praises of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell many times, but I still haven't read my copy despite owning it for a few years now - it has footnotes, for Heaven's sake! I've heard so many readers praise it as a masterpiece, however, so I need to read it soon.

I'm not the biggest fan of Stephen King's writing, especially when he writes about the supernatural - so far Misery is the book of his I've enjoyed most - but I adored the 2017 adaptation of IT so much that I'd really like to give the book a shot. It's just so huge...

This year will mark nine years since I bought my copy of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. Nine years. I love a good ol' revenge story and I've actually tried to read this one a couple of times and haven't been able to get into it. One of these days I need to give it another try and, if it still isn't for me, it's time to send my edition off to a more loving home.

Despite being a proud northerner and a lover of Victorian literature, I'm ashamed to admit I've yet to read any Elizabeth Gaskell. One of these days I'm going to read North and South because I love the 2004 adaptation starring Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe, but Wives and Daughters is the one that's really calling to me because I've heard so many good things about it. I particularly like that it features a friendship between two stepsisters at the centre of it - step-families have something of a bad reputation in fiction!

I fell in love with Italy when my friend Elena and I visited Rome in 2015, and I've since been lucky enough to visit Florence and Bologna, too. Italo Calvino has selected and retold a variety of stories in Italian Folktales - there are just so many crammed into one book that the idea of starting it makes me feel a bit nervous! I think it's a book I might have to work my way through over an extended period of time.

I've said time and time again how much I want to start Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, particularly as I'd like to watch the TV adaptation, but the series is so long and each book is so big that it seems like such a huge commitment. One of these days, though, I'd at least like to cross the first book off my TBR and see what I think of the series.

The shortest book on this list, Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings is still a fairly chunky one at just over 600 pages. I was very kindly sent this one for Christmas by Lorraine @ Insanity Sandwich and was thrilled to receive it as I'm very eager to explore more Asian and African-inspired high fantasy. This is one I'm hoping to cross off my TBR very soon!

Another one I've had on my list for a few years now, as a historical fiction fan I'm ashamed to admit I've yet to read any Sharon Kay Penman. Here Be Dragons is a novelisation of Joan, Lady of Wales (also known by her Welsh name, Siwan) who was the illegitimate daughter of King John and was married to the Welsh Prince Llywelyn the Great (or Llywelyn ap Iorwerth). I've been fascinated by her ever since I learned about her which is particularly frustrating because so little about her is actually known. This is another one I'd like to cross off my list sooner rather than later!

Are you intimidated by big books? Which larger books would you like to cross off your TBR?

Top Ten Tuesday | Oops! I Did(n't read) It Again...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Ten Books We Meant To Read In 2017 But Didn't Get To (and totallyyyy plan to get to in 2018!!)' - books I meant to get to and didn't is the story of my life, particularly in 2017. There are so many books I could have mentioned, but I decided to go with the 2017 releases I hoped to get to, couldn't find the time to and really hope to get to this year. Without further ado, here are my top ten!

The Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck: I love the sound of this one because it's WW2 fiction told from within Germany, which is a perspective we don't get often - the most famous example is The Book Thief. Hopefully I can cross this one off my TBR this year.

The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown: I have a big interest in the history of witchcraft and witch trials and love the sound of this novel told from the point of view of Matthew Hopkins' sister. In my opinion Hopkins is one of the most cruel men in history and I'm hoping to read this one soon as I believe it's going to be adapted for TV.

The Good People by Hannah Kent: You probably all know by now how much I loved Kent's debut, Burial Rites, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy of The Good People, but I was never quite in the mood for it in 2017 and I'm very much a mood reader. I really want to try and get to this one this year!

The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig: I loved Heilig's debut, The Girl From Everywhere, but still haven't read the sequel. I think I'll try to get to this one in the summer.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I'm so disappointed for not getting to this one in 2017. I've started this one and I really like what I've read so far, but I was in a bit of a slumpy mood while reading this one and I didn't want my mood to effect my enjoyment. Hopefully I'll get back into this one soon!

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng: Yet another one I started and just wasn't quite in the mood for but I love the sound of it and I'd really like to get to it this year.

A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge: I've yet to read any Frances Hardinge but I couldn't resist picking up a copy of this at the end of last year. I haven't owned this one for as long as some of the others on my list so I'm not beating myself up about it that I didn't get to it last year, but I'd like to get to it this year if I can - I've heard lots of good things about Hardinge's work.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant: My lovely friend Natalie @ A Sea Change bought me this one for Christmas and I'm very excited to read it. I've been in the mood for a bit of horror recently and I've been looking forward to this sequel since I enjoyed Rolling in the Deep.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: Everything I Never Told You was my favourite book that I read in 2016 so I couldn't wait to get my hands on Ng's next novel and, so far, I've heard nothing but amazing things about it. Unfortunately I was never quite in the mood to pick this one up last year but, as with all of these books, I'm hoping I can get to it soon.

Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee: I visited Florence in 2016 and fell in love with it, it's my favourite European city (out of the ones I've seen so far, anyway), so I couldn't resist picking up this novel which is set there and sounds fascinating, especially when I saw Katherine Howe, author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane which I like a lot, singing its praises. This is another one I'd like to get to in the summer.

Which books made your list this week?

My 2018 Reading Resolutions!

Last year I made a fairly substantial list of resolutions and, sadly, three of them I failed: I didn't manage to read a series (although I tried); I didn't read the rest of Shirley Jackson's novels; and I completely failed at not buying any books that weren't published in 2017, although that was always going to be tricky. I did, however, manage to go cruelty-free with my makeup, read more than twelve authors of colour and my work/play balance was much better than it was in 2016.

This year I'm not really giving myself any strict resolutions because they just don't work for me - even going cruelty-free was more of a life choice than anything else - but there are a couple of things I'd like to do that I thought I'd talk about now that 2018 is officially here!

Rather than giving myself resolutions I've decided to make a '30 Before 30' list which, as the name implies, is a list of 30 things I'd like to do before I turn 30 in 2021. Some of them are little things - such as baking a rainbow cake - and some of them are a little more challenging - such as visiting every continent, which is mainly going to come down to whether or not I can afford all those holidays. The answer: probably not, but a girl can dream.

The main bookish challenge I've set myself, though, is to have read 100 authors of colour by the time I reach 30. I recently went through my Goodreads shelves and realised I haven't even read a quarter of that amount which, considering I'm 26, is appalling and really makes me realise just how white my childhood reading was. Thank goodness diversity in children's books is being promoted so much more now.

I've made a list here and, each time I read a new author of colour, I'm going to add them to that list so I can keep track of my progress. This is for individual authors, not for books written by authors of colour, so I need to have read 100 different books by 100 different authors of colour. That's not going to stop me from reading more work from authors of colour I already love, of course!

My only other resolution, which is something I'd like to do this year and beyond, is to stop being intimidated by the bigger books on my shelves. It's so easy to become obsessed with the amount we read and ticking as many books off our TBRs are possible, but I want to really enjoy reading again and I want to go back to being the kind of reader who would see a 700 page book and get excited, not nervous that it would take up too much time and halt my reading progress.

There are quite a few books on my shelves that have been waiting to be read for a while now and I keep putting them off for shorter books, but not this year! I'm going to be talking about some of those books in another post on Friday, so come back then if you'd like to know more about them, and if I can cross even one of those off my TBR this year I'll be a happy camper.

And if I don't read any big books or I don't read as many authors of colour as I'd like to (though I hope I will!) I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Reading's supposed to be fun and reading challenges are supposed to be fun, too.

Have you made any bookish (or non-bookish!) resolutions for 2018? What are your reading plans for the year? Let me know down below!

Winter Reading Recommendations for Historical Fiction Lovers!

Happy New Year!

I don't know about you, but I love reading books set in cold, barren landscapes during the winter months - particularly after Christmas. In the run-up to Christmas (if it's a holiday you celebrate) it's so easy to take refuge from the miserable weather when you have time off work to watch your favourite festive films, eat lots of food that's incredibly bad for you and maybe curl up with a hot chocolate, a warm blanket and a holiday-themed romance.

Then the thrill of Christmas and New Year pass into long, dreary January and it's time to go back to work against a backdrop of adverts for work-out DVDs and the latest diet. Apologies to anyone with a January birthday, but January is probably my least favourite month of the year because the world becomes Narnia - always winter, never Christmas - without all the talking animals to make it exciting.

One thing the cold, Christmas-less months of January and February are great for is reading wintery books. I'm sure you all know by now how much I love historical fiction, and the kind of historical fiction that unravels amidst a bleak, snowy landscape is the kind of fiction I love to read at this time of year. There's nothing more atmospheric than reading a book set in winter when the weather outside is frightful.

So if you're in the mood for a wintery book, some historical fiction or you have no idea which book you should pick up first this year, below are three books I would highly recommend reading before spring arrives!

I've mentioned Burial Rites a lot on my blog and that's because I found it so powerful. In this debut novel Hannah Kent explores the final days of the last woman to be executed in Iceland, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, who was beheaded on the 12th January, 1830. Kent captures who Agnes might have been wonderfully, but the most memorable character is the bleak, isolated Icelandic landscape itself. I went to Reykjavik in December and visited the National Museum of Iceland where I happened upon the block and axe head that were used to execute Agnes. I left that museum feeling quite hollow.

I always find it difficult to explain the plot of The Tenderness of Wolves. The simple explanation is that a woman in 19th century Canada goes searching for her son when it appears he could be guilty of the murder of one of their neighbours. In reality, though, the novel is about the entire community and weaves several different story threads into one overarching plot; when I finished this book I didn't think I'd enjoyed it that much, but it's a novel that I'm still thinking about even though I read it two years ago. The setting makes it the perfect book to read during the coldest months of the year - especially if you have a cosy fireplace to snuggle up in front of.

All the Truth That's in Me is similar to the previous two in that it's also set in the 19th century, this time in the United States, and it also includes a crime. In Burial Rites we have the story of the criminal, in The Tenderness of Wolves we have the story of the outsiders, and finally in All the Truth That's in Me we have the story of the victim. Judith becomes something of a pariah in her community when she returns home after being held hostage for four years, a time in which her best friend was murdered and she was left without her tongue. What follows is Judith trying to tell her story, trying to learn how to speak again, and trying to learn how to fit back into her community. The story is told in second person as Judith addresses Lucas, the boy she loves, throughout and I fell in love with the way it was told. Like the previous books this is a slow, quiet story, and I loved it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

Have you read any of these? What kind of books do you turn to in the winter?

This Week in Books | 03/01/18

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

Now: I tried reading Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons a few years ago and couldn't get into it, but recently I've started listening to the audiobook in my car to and from work and I'm enjoying it so much more this time around. I don't know if it's because my tastes have changed or simply because I enjoy the book more when it sounds like Lady Trent herself is talking to me but I'm not complaining!

Then: My first read of 2018 was this little novella by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Prime Meridian, which is officially being published in the summer but I was lucky enough to get a copy of in December because I backed the campaign to get it published. As always I loved Moreno-Garcia's storytelling - look out for my review!

Next: Owen Davies' Grimoires: A History of Magic Books was a birthday present from one of my closest friends who knows how much I love the history of witchcraft. It's been calling to me recently, I'm really in the mood for some non-fiction, so I think I'm going to start it soon.

What are you reading?

Top Ten Tuesday | New Year, New Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

Happy New Year!

This week's theme is 'Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2017' and I'm going to interpret this as authors I read for the first time in 2017, not necessarily authors I first heard about or came across in 2017. On with my list!

Alison Plowden: I read Plowden's Women All On Fire: The Women of the English Civil War in 2017 and have since picked up copies of Henrietta Maria: Charles I's Indomitable Queen and The Stuart Princesses. I'm a huge history nerd, particularly of women's history, and the Stuart era is an era I'm starting to develop much more of an interest in. I think Plowden's work is going to help me learn so much more about this period of history.

Mary Robinette Kowal: I didn't love Shades of Milk and Honey, but I enjoyed it enough to want to seek out more of Kowal's work in future.

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀: Stay With Me was one of my favourite reads of 2017 and I can't wait to get my hands on whatever Adébáyọ̀ releases next!

Julie Berry: All the Truth That's in Me was another of my favourite reads of last year, I loved the way it was written, and I'm interested in reading more of Berry's work.

Camilla Grudova: The Doll's Alphabet is probably the weirdest short story collection I've ever read, full of grotesque, unpleasant stories that were so well written I'll definitely picking up whatever Grudova releases next.

Riley Sager: I don't read many thrillers so, when I do, I tend to enjoy them a lot which is exactly what happened with Final Girls. I'm looking forward to the release of The Last Time I Lied this summer!

Mackenzi Lee: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue was so much fun, I loved Monty and Percy so much, and I can't wait to read The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy and Bygone Badass Broads later this year.

Madeline Miller: I finally read The Song of Achilles in 2017 and it easily became one of my favourite books of all time. I'm so excited for the release of Circe this year.

N. K. Jemisin: I've been slowly getting back into high fantasy over the past year or so and have been especially keen to read high fantasy books written by BAME authors. I picked up a copy of The Fifth Season after seeing so many good reviews and now understand why it has so many good reviews. Jemisin's writing and world-building is exquisite and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.

Kirsty Logan: A Portable Shelter was one of the best short story collections I read in 2017 so I'm hoping to read Logan's other collection, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, very soon.

Who did you talk about this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | Anticipated 2018 Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is all about our most anticipated releases for 2018, so below are the 2018 releases that I'm really looking forward to!

January

The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor: I'm looking forward to seeing how Okorafor is going to conclude Binti's story.

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani: This sounds so dark but so good, and is giving me The Hand That Rocks the Cradle vibes (a really good film if you haven't seen it). Set in Paris, a woman goes back to work after the birth of her second child with tragic consequences when the nanny she and her husband hire murders their children.

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas: Set in an America where abortion is illegal and in-vitro fertilization is banned, this novel sounds like it explores motherhood and a woman's right to her own body in a really interesting way and I'm looking forward to reading it.

The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar: I keep hearing about this one and I do love my historical fiction, so I have to check it out.

February

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara: This is LGBT+ historical fiction featuring pirates and girls kissing. Why wouldn't I want to read it?

All Out ed. by Saundra Mitchell: An anthology of LGBT+ historical fiction. Gimme.

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson: More historical fiction! The only novel I've read based on Icelandic history is Hannah Kent's fantastic Burial Rites, but this novel also sounds fascinating and is also based on true events about a woman who, along with her husband and their three children, are among a large number of Icelandic people who are captured and sold into slavery in Algiers.

March

The Radical Element ed. by Jessica Spotswood: I'm fairly certain this is an anthology of marginalised heroines, so I'm all over this one.

The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton: I ended up DNFing Walton's debut, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, it just wasn't my cup of tea, but this book has witches in it and as soon as a book has witches in it I want it badly.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: That cover is gorgeous and this book sounds so fun; I love a good 'magic is banned' fantasy story. I'm pretty sure this is African-inspired fantasy and I want to read African and Asian-inspired fantasy after years of being familiar with fantasy settings inspired by Europe.

April

Leah On the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli: I loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and then I loved The Upside of Unrequited even more, so naturally I can't wait to get my hands on Albertalli's third novel.

Macbeth by Jo Nesbø: I haven't been blown away by the Hogarth Shakespeare series, but Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play and I will devour any retelling I can. I haven't read any Nesbø before so this'll be interesting!

Not So Stories ed. by David Thomas Moore: Many of us grew up with Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories but, to a modern reader, they can be a little uncomfortable as Kipling was such a staunch supporter of the British Empire. This anthology is giving Kipling's stories to BAME authors to rewrite and celebrate the cultures from which they came. It sounds brilliant.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland: Women of colour fighting zombies in post-Civil War America. YES PLEASE.

On a Cold Dark Sea by Elizabeth Blackwell: This tells the story of three women who survive the Titanic, and reunite twenty years later after a sudden death. I'm very intrigued by this one.

Circe by Madeline Miller: Madeline Miller is probably best known for The Song of Achilles, which I read last earlier this year and fell in love with, and in her new novel she's returning to Ancient Greek myth to retell the story of Circe. I love stories about witches, as you all know, and Circe is one of the oldest witches around so I can't wait to see what Miller does with her. I'm really, really looking forward to this one - in fact this one might just be my most anticipated read of 2018.

Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist: I must thank Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight for bringing my attention this book. It's giving me Blood Red Road vibes so, naturally, I want to read the hell out of it. Also I genuinely have a soft spot for characters called Daisy and Ben, so this one's right up my alley.

Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence: I haven't actually finished Red Sister yet, but I love stories set in nunneries and I want to read more high fantasy so I'll be grabbing a copy of this if I do enjoy Red Sister!

May

Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore: A historical murder mystery that delves into America's dark history of its boarding schools set up to 'civilise' the First Nations children. I love historical murder mysteries and I'm fascinated by First Nations history, so this book sounds right up my street.

The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill: This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid set off the Irish coast and I'm very excited for it. I've yet to read any of O'Neill's work but I've heard such amazing things about it, and I'm hoping she gives this tale a fantastically feminist slant.

MEM by Bethany C. Morrow: This sounds amazing! It's giving me The Island vibes, another movie I'd recommend if you haven't seen it, and Unnamed Press is a publisher I'm keeping my eye on - they seem to publish really individual books.

The Magpie Tree by Katherine Stansfield: The blurb mentions witches and Cornwall, two of my favourite things, and I'm interested in reading more of Stansfield's work. Like Red Sister, I haven't finished Falling Creatures yet but so far I think I'm going to enjoy it enough to want to read more.

June

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers: I will read all of Chambers' sci-fi until the end of time. I love the universe she introduced us to in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and I will read anything and everything I can set in that universe.

July

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager: I enjoyed Sager's Final Girls earlier this year, so I'm interested in checking out their next book!

August

Toil & Trouble: 16 Tales of Women & Witchcraft ed. by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe: A whole anthology about witches is right up my alley - I'm really looking forward to this one!

October

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee: I loved The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, so naturally I can't wait to read about the adventures of Monty's sister, Felicity.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James: I've slotted this one into October because it doesn't have an official release date so I'm hoping it doesn't get pushed back to 2019 because it sounds amazing! It's the first book in a high fantasy trilogy which is being described as African Game of Thrones. As I mentioned before, I'm desperate to read African and Asian-inspired high fantasy so I'm very eager to read this one.

Which books made your list this week?