November TBR: Clear Your Shit Readathon!

Hi everyone,

I’m going to be very loosely participating in the Clear Your Shit readathon over the next two months. This is a RPG style readathon where stories/quests will be announced on Twitter every week with prompts, with the aim of clearing books that are already on your TBR. I probably won’t be closely following specific prompts, but am instead just pushing myself these next two months to clear some of the many, many, many books on my physical TBR. So here’s some of the books I’m hoping to read in November!

Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

The Empire of Gold by S.A Chakraborty

Euphoria Kids by Alison Evans

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

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

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

I hope everyone has a good November! What books are you hoping to read? Let me know in the comments!

September wrap up

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a good September! This month it was my birthday, and as lockdown is still going strong in Melbourne, I basically sat inside and ate cupcakes for a week (which I’m not complaining about at all, because they were excellent). I still seem to be reading more slowly than earlier in the year, and I think it’s probably because the whole current situation and worries about the future are just getting harder and harder to ignore (and the fact I keep picking up my phone to doom scroll). I’m hoping this will improve a little in October if only because I’m participating in the very fun Gothtober readathon and have a very exciting TBR! Anyway without further ado, here’s my September wrap-up!

Books read

This month I read a total of 8 books (and another two for work purposes), so technically I did reach my goal of 10 books this month, though I am still reading slower than usual. Especially considering I haven’t quite finished Phoenix Extravagant…. But the even better news is that my pile of ARCs is now looking much more manageable. I didn’t finish all of them, but I’ve only got one outstanding for the year and it’s a November release so I have a little while to read it.

The Ikessar Falcon by K S Villoso (you can read my review here)

The Roommate by Rosie Danan (you can read my review here)

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliot (you can read my review here)

A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe (review to come)

The Midnight Bargain by C.L Polk (review to come)

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (review to come)

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee (okay I technically haven’t quite finished this one but I’m counting it, review to come for this one too)

Books purchased/borrowed/approved for

My library reopened for collection orders and it was my birthday in September, so I had a slightly larger than usual book haul this month!

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall

The Song of Achilles of Madeline Miller

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Legendborn by Tracey Deonn

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

After Elias by Eddy Boudel Tan

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

These Violent Delights by Michah Nemerever

October TBR

I’m participating in the Gothtober readathon and I posted yesterday about all the spooky gothic fiction on my TBR, you can check out my post here!

My blog posts

Reviews

#5OnMyTBR

Misc

Community

Here are some of my favourite posts from the community this month!

  • Mols @ Mols by Moonlight had an INCREDIBLE blog month, I am in awe of these posts!! Check out 50 authors describing their WIP in one sentence, 101 dark fiction books that aren’t by men, an interview with K-Ming Chang, the author of a highly anticipated release, Bestiary, and some really awesome books on part one of her 2021 anticipated releases! Seriously, I am in awe at how wonderful every single one of these posts were.
  • E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook posted a huge list of LGBTQ+ Retellings. I adore retellings, so this list expanded my TBR so much.
  • Charlotte and Anna @ Reads Rainbow, wrote a discussion on the erasure of the word lesbian for YA literature, it is well worth a read!
  • Aentee @ Read at Midnight posted an absolutely fascinating post about tigers in Viet lore and how this lore connects to several upcoming novellas.
  • Hsinju @ Hsinju’s Lit Log created a list celebrating 2021 sapphic book releases from LGBTIQA+ publishers and self-published authors. It’s huge and amazing and I honestly don’t know how I’m supposed to read all these amazing books next year?!
  • Laura @ The Book Corps has a list of trans and nonbinary books you should suppot instead of You Know Who, featuring some of my favourite authors!

And now to SPOOKY MONTH! I’m so excited for my October TBR so I’m hoping that I’m going to have a more positive reading month than the last few months. I hope everyone else has as relaxing a month as possible in our current times. What are you hoping to read this month? Let me know in the comments!

Books I need to read by the end of the year

Hi everyone,

It’s almost October which is SCARY because this year has just flown by and I’ve lost all track of time. For the last few months, I’ve been rather overwhelmed by ARCs and library books and I’ve been watching in horror as my owned TBR grows ever larger and it makes me feel so guilty every time I look at it. I’m aiming to finish all outstanding ARCs for this year this month, and then spent the last three months of the year trying to make some headway into my physical TBR! So to make this a little bit more official and help push me to meet my goals, I thought I’d make a post all about the books that I need to read before year end!

Books I got in 2019 and still have not read

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Books I got before 2019 and still have not read (I’M SORRY)

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Boys Will be Boys by Clementine Ford

Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan

Most anticipated 2020 releases I need to read

The Empire of Gold by S.A Chakraborty

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson

The Mightnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

Random backlist books I’ve acquired this year

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri

Pheeeew. There’s 19 books on this list, which works out at just over 6 a month which is completely doable. But I am doing some readathons and whether I’m actually in the mood to read these may hurt my chances, so I guess we’ll see if I managed these goals in December! By writing it down, I am making everyone hold me accountable! Think postive thoughts! I can do this!

Top 5 Tuesday: Books I Need to Read in 2020

Top 5 Tuesday is created and run by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm. You can join the fun by checking out the topics for the month here.

Hi everyone,

It’s the first Top 5 Tuesday of 2020! You may notice I’ve had a little bit of a blog lift. That is thanks to Vinny over at Artsy Draft! Last year, I was THE LUCKIEST PERSON EVER and actually won a blog redesign! Vinny has spent the last little while redesigning my entire blog and drawing the most amazing illos to use and I am so incredibely grateful and amazed by their work! I’m still in the process of updating all my backposts, but it’s getting there!

So I was tempted to put a very similar list for this week’s topic as one in December (the ‘2019 books I never got to’ because I SWEAR I will get to them in 2020). But I also have several others on my shelf that I really need to get to, so let’s just add to that pile….

Steel Crow Saga – Paul Krueger

I picked this one up after seeing Shealea at Shut Up Shealea write the most amazing review I think I’ve ever read for it! It sounds honestly mind-blowingly good. I know I will definitely get it to it in 2020 – I’m participating in #FFFeb, a sapphic readathon in February! One of the challenges is a book with a bisexual character, which this does! So I plan on getting to this one very shortly…

The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern

I (rather embarassingly) only got around to reading The Night Circus late last year. But I adored it! It was absolutely perfect. So of course I immediately got my hands on a copy over her second novel, The Starless Sea, which I can’t wait to read in 2020!

A Torch Against the Night – Sabaa Tahir

So this adds to the awfully long list of sequels I really need to read…. Alongside The Dragon Republic, The Kingdom of Copper and Jade War (which I’m currently reading!), I really need to read the sequel to Sabaa Tahir’s incredible fantasy An Ember in the Ashes. It was one of my favourite fantasy books I read last year. I don’t know why I struggle so much with sequels!

The Bone Witch – Rin Chupeco

I actually almost go a chance to read The Bone Witch last year! I ordered it from my library, but then didn’t quite get time to read it before I left on holiday, so had to return it. Perhaps a second attempt this year will be luckier!

The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

Okay so I know I said I wasn’t going to put any books from my Book I Didn’t Get to in 2019 list….But this one I swore I was going to read ALL YEAR and didn’t. So once again I am vowing to read Priory in 2020. I’m actually considering it for my next read – I’m trying to get all my massive fantasy tomes read before any 2020 preorders come in….I guess we’ll see if I’m sucessful in the next few weeks!

That’s it for this week’s Top 5 Tuesday! I can’t wait to read everyone’s lists. My key reading goal for this year is very much ‘please Rachel for the love of God read all your sequels.’ I feel like it should be achievable?! But I failed last year so, do I really know anything?

I hope everyone has a great week~

My 2020 Goals

Hi everyone,

I am finally beginning to get back to normal after my trip so it’s time to start writing some blog posts! I desperately need a distraction from the dread that fills me when I think about going back to work on Monday.

Today I’m going to chat about my 2020 reading, blogging and writing goals! 2020 will be my first full year as a blogger, as I only started in May last year, and I’m so excited to continue my blog, expand into bookstagram and actually (I really really mean it this time) finish writing my book… To help with all this, I’m putting down my explicit goals for the year to help keep me in line!

Blogging goals

Bookstagram

I have officially started a Bookstagram! I won’t lie, I feel like such a beginner at Bookstagram. I’m still trying to figure out what themes are and how to use hashtags best. But I would absolutely love a follow, you can find me on there at anxiousnachos. I promise I’ll improve!

Reviewing

I want to review at least 60% of the books I read – and ALL of the 2020 releases I read. My 2020 TBR looks amazing, there is so much diversity this year and I really want to celebrate these authors!

Bullet journal

Okay so last year I bought a bullet journal and did practically nothing with it except organise new books publishing that I wanted to keep track of. This year I want to really get more into using my bullet journal more to assist with both my blog/reading and day to day life. I really don’t know where to start though. If you have any tips or tricks, I’d love to hear them!

Reading goals

My targets

In 2019, I managed to read 109 books, which I think might be my most ever. So, this year I’m aiming for 100 to continue to challenge myself and read as many books as possible. I’m going to be using Kal’s (Reader Voracious) wonderful spreadsheet to keep track of all my reads.

Year of the Asian Reading Challenge (YARC 2020)

Another super exciting goal for the year is participating in the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge! This readathon is a year-long readathon hosted by Lily (Sprinkles of Dreams), CW (The Quiet Pond), Shealea (Shut Up Shealea) and Vicky (Vicky Who Reads)! You can follow them here:

The goal of this readathon is to read as many books by Asian authors as possible. Each month, the hosts will give some reading prompts for a more challenging readathon, or you can just try and read whatever you want! I’m aiming for at least 30 which would give me the Malayan Tapir award! Though the Asian Elephant badge is so adorable I really want to try for that one… If you’d like to join, check out the readathon Twitter page (@YearOfTheAsian) to get all the details! Or, you can check out any of the blogs above to see all the sign up info (e.g. Sprinkles of Dreams sign up post).

January TBR

For my January TBR, I want to get all the books I really wanted to read in December, actually read. Most of these are large fantasy tomes, several are sequels and I really need to finish them before the third books come out this year! Ideally, I’ll then have all of them out of the way by the time my January pre-orders finally make it to Australia. I also visited the library on the very first day they re-opened to collect some reservations so I have 5 library books I want to read! It will be a pretty difficult task I think, purely because of how large and heavy some of these books are but fingers crossed!

Jade City – Fonda Lee

Jade War – Fonda Lee

The Dragon Republic – R.F Kuang

The Kingdom of Copper – S.A Chakraborty

The Good Luck Girls – Charlotte Nicole Davis (library)

The Dangerous Art of Blending In – Angelo Surmelis (library)

The Library of the Unwritten – A.J Hackwith (library)

We Are Lost and Found – Helene Dunbar (library)

Salvation Day – Kali Wallace (library)

Writing goals

Last year, I tried to write a book. But mental health kicked my butt, my lack of outlining made life very hard and therefore I didn’t get hugely far. But this year, I am feeling reinvigorated. At the recommendation of Gabhi, I’ve got a copy of Save the Cat to help me outline, and hopefully this will make writing a lot easier. My main writing goals of the year are therefore:

  • To finish my angry bi pirate WIP (adult fantasy)
  • To start research for a queer sciencey vampire book (adult sci-fi)
  • To start research for my queer historical Scottish romance (adult historical – though this may end up a little fantasy as well)
  • To join a writing group! This will actually help me meet THREE of my New Year Resolutions: to be more social, to tackle my social anxiety, to write a book.

That’s it for my 2020 goals! Last year really sucked. But I’m hoping 2020 can be a little better for me, and I will actually make some headway towards my author dreams!

What are your goals for 2020? Let me know in the comments!

Paws out,
Rach + Draco