Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a good November. I’m very happy to say that during November, I met my Goodreads goal of reading 100 books this year! I’m now aiming for my stretch goal of beating last year’s total of 110 which is definitely doable. I also read some new favourites, and, finally, the ending to my favourite fantasy series of all time, so I think it’s been a pretty sucessful reading month! Which makes a change from the last several months…

Books read

I read 12 books this month, of which 5 were novellas and 7 were books. On a numbers level only, this is actually the most books / month I’ve read all year. However, January is still winning on the page count level, as I read so many chonky books at the start of the year.

Only 41% of the 12 books I readwere ones I own. I know I have an excuse this month (all the novellas read were for my judging for the British Fantasy Awards) but I still want to focus on getting that % up and reading less from the library/NetGalley until I can work through my owned backlog a bit.

But I am very happy that I managed to read some books that have been on my TBR for far too long (The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling & All Boys Aren’t Blue), along with some 2020 releases I was hugely excited for (Cemetery Boys & Who I Was With Her). But most importantly, I finally made myself be brave and read the ending to my favourite series of all time: The Empire of Gold! I had a great time reading this book, and it remains my favourite series, but there were a lot of things I was quite unhappy with in this ending. My favourite book of the month was Saeed Jones’ memoir How We Fight For Lives, it was absolutely incredible.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Ragged Alice by Gareth L Powell

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones

Euphoria Kids by Alison Evans

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud

Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman

The Empire of Gold by S.A Chakraborty

Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson

Books hauled

I had a larger than anticipated book haul this month, a combination of my work giving us money to support an independent bookshop and me accidentally (lol) requesting a ton of books on NetGalley, so a few NetGalley books were hauled for the first time in several months. I also had a few of my most anticipated pre-orders come through in November which is very exciting!

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang

Dairus the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

The Burning God by R.F Kuang

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle L. Goméz

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman

The Old Lie by Claire G Coleman

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu

December TBR

I know I’ll end up mood reading for all of December, but I’ve tried to vaguely pick a TBR full of books I really wanted to read in 2020 but haven’t yet managed to. A mix of very heartbreaking books, very happy/fun books, and then one about cannibalism…

Cantoras by Carolinia de Robertis

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

After Elias by Eddy Boudel Tan

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake by Claire Christian

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

The Silence of Bones by June Hur

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

Community

I didn’t have as much time to be involved in the book community in November, which makes me very sad because I love reading everyone’s posts. I’m hoping to be around more in December now that one of my judging things is complete, so hopefully I’ll have more posts next month to share with you!

• Hsinju from Hsinju’s Lit Log wrote an absolutely beautiful review of Cantoras by Carolinia de Robertis which has made me bump that book up my TBR in the hopes I’ll read it before the end of the year!
• Nandini from Novels and Nebula’s interviewed the one and only R.F Kuang!! I’m still eagerly awaiting my preorder of The Burning God to arrive but the interview just made me all the more excited for it! It also has me very excited for Kuang’s next project!
• Kait from Kait’s Cozy Reading Corner has a fun (and pretty!) series called Reading the Rainbow where she recommends queer books matched to colours of the rainbow!

I wish everyone the best of Decemeber’s, as we say goodbye to this pretty shitty year. What books are you hoping to read before the year ends? Let me know in the comments below!