September Wrap-Up

Book haul
Over September I aquired 10 books and a comic and short graphic novel. I was planning to buy less this month (as usual, haha), but it is not too bad since I actually had a very good reading month and ended up reading more than I bought! The books I bought this month are:
- The New Ghost by Robert Hunter
- The Fall of Icarus by Ovid (A Little Black Classic)
- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen in the beautiful Vintage Classic edition that matches by copies of Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility.
- Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (I loved the Hunger Games and I've been meaning to read something else by Collins)
- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Picture me Gone by Meg Rosoff
- Wild Magic by Cat Weatherill
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (I really want to watch the BBC mini series, but I wanted to read the book first!)
- Angelfall by Susan Ee
- The Flash Volume 1: Move Forward by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

Reading
This month I finally finished reading a book in Swedish that took me about a year to finish, because I only read a couple of pages each time I picked it up again. I'm pretty proud of myself for actually finishing the 600 page book. Eventhough I can read Swedish, it goes pretty slow... But practice makes perfect, so I should just read more in Swedish to improve. I do think the next book I will pick up in Swedish will be slightly shorter though! I just need to find a place where it's not crazy expensive to order Swedish books...

This month I read:
- Genom dina ögon (The Host in Swedish) by Stephenie Meyer
- The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories Volume 2
- The New Ghost by Robert Hunter
- The Crab With the Golden Claws by Hergé
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Beginnings by Tomas Palacios
- Through the Woods by Emily Caroll
- Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
- De twee jaar nadat [The two years after], a Dutch book, by Steef van Gorkum
- Eragon by Christopher Paolini
- Wild Magic by Cat Weatherill
- The Flash Volume 1: Move Forward by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green
- Picture me Gone by Meg Rosoff

My favorite of the month was North and South. It was a little different from what I expected but I ended up really enjoying it!

How was your reading month?

Goodreads Reading Challenge

I just reached my reading goal for the year: 45 books. Eleven of those were actually graphic novels, but I'm glad that I've already managed to read quite a bit. I'm defenitely reading a little more every year. Ofcourse the year is far from over, so I'll probably have plenty time to read some more. Maybe I can reach 60?

Did you set yourself a reading challange this year? How is it going so far?

August Wrap-up

August was a good book month! I managed to read a lot more than I usually do, and I also bought quite some books...

Book Haul
I bought a lot of books this month, most of them second hand and in Dutch. Since I was on summer break from university I had a lot of time to browse thrift stores and I had a lot of fun doing so!
The books that I bought this month are:
-  De grote Van Gogh atlas [The big Van Gogh atlas] by Nienke Denekamp and Rene van Blerk
I stumbled upon this book at my local bookstore. Not only does the book have a beautiful cover, the interior is beautifully designed as well.
- Het boek van alle dingen [The Book of Everything] by Guus Kuijer
I read this book as a kid and at the time I really enjoyed it. I wonder if I will still feel the same way.
-  De vloek van Woestewolf [The curse of the werewolf] by Paul Biegel
Another book that I read as a kid. I used to own a copy, but at some point I lost it. The edition I have now is a beautiful hardback that is illustrated throughout.
- Wij zijn ons brein [We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's] by D.F. Swaab
At university I am taking some neuroscience courses and I want to read more about it, but I was looking for something that was a little more readable than the books that I use for uni (which are not books you will read hours on end)
-  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
I got this one for the same reason as the previous one and this book seems like it contains a lot of interesting stories.
- De komst van Joachim Stiller [The Coming of Joachim Stiller] by Hubert Lampo
I don't tend to read a lot of Dutch literature, usually it isn't really for me. I personally prefer British literature or literature that contains magical realistic elements. This book does contains magical realism, so perhaps it will be more to my liking.
- Nine Agatha Christie detectives translated into Dutch. I bought a couple in the same edition years ago, so when I stumbled upon some more I could not wait to expand my collection. I am a huge fan of Christie's stories. They always have a mysterious atmosphere, but are never scary. They are rather 'cozy' mysteries.
- Lastly I bought Jules Verne's 20.000 Mijlen onder zee [Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea] in two parts. I already own an edition in two parts as well as a bind up up of several of Jules Verne's stories that includes this one, but I love the drawings on old fantasy and science fiction covers so I could not help myself...

Reading
This month I finished reading 8 books. At the beginning of the month I was reading 6 books at the same time, but I finally managed to reduce that number a bit. Now I'm only reading 3 books!
Of the books that I read, Saga Volume 3, The Lily Pond and Lydia's Secret were my favorites. Coming month I probably will not have a lot of time to read because university has started again, but I am getting on with a Swedish book that I have been reading forever so hopefully I will be finishing it this month.
Writing
My writing has been going very slowly lately. The fantasy story that I'm working on has only gotten a little bit longer, but the story world always keeps expanding. My other projects haven't progressed at all, I just wrote one poem. Hopefully coming month I can find the time to write a little more!

Reading multiple books at a time

A couple of days ago my currently reading list on Goodreads looked like this:

I don't know what happens, but somehow I always start reading a new book when I'm already reading a couple of others. Every now and then I think it gets to crazy and I try to narrow it down. Once I have reached 2 books the number of books that I'm reading slowly starts to increase again.

I know I should stop reading so many books at the same time, but somehow I never do. When the list is this long I often feel a little stress to narrow it down again, because I have a couple of unread books lying around that I'm dying to start, but I want to narrow down my list first, so I have to finish at least five books before I can start the one I really want to read. That truely is my problem, the books I like to read really depend on my mood and since my mood can change rather quickly I have sometimes already lost a little bit of my intial interest in the book I'm currently reading but I have gotten really excited about a new book, so I end up adding another book to my currently reading pile.

I did just finish Kinderen van Nederland, so I have only five more books on the list, but that still seems daunting. Genom dina Ögon (The Host in Swedish) I started reading a long time ago (almost a year!) to practice my Swedish. I can definitely read the story, but I'm still a very slow reader in Swedish. Why on earth I thought it was a good idea to have the second book I read in Swedish be a 600 page book, I have no idea. I've read about a third of the book, so at this rate it wil take me a total of three years to finish the book, haha! I think the next time I read a book in Swedish I should pick something shorter and also something easier, to keep it fun. Now it has just become a struggle.
Dark Entries I also started a while ago, but since these are short stories I don't really have such a hard time picking this book up again. I have read the majority of the stories, so it looks like I'm finally reaching the end, woohooo!
Pogingen iets van het leven te maken really grabbed me in the beginning, but after a while I was starting to feel like I was just reading more of the same. It isn't a difficult read, so I should just get on with it and finish it already.
A Feast for Crows, like any other Martin book, is taking forever to read. Somehow I find Martin's book really hard to read quickly. I am getting better though! The first book in the series took me about two years to finish, the second book took about a year and the third book I finished in about half a year, so that would mean it will take me 3 months in total to read this one! I don't think that's going to happen, but I definitely hope so!
Eragon is the newest addition to the list. It is an easy read, but because I'm not reading it for the first time I don't find it as interesting as before and it is hard to keep paying attention to this book. I wanted to reread this book so I remembered better what happened, before I would start reading the sequel. I just need to find my enthousiasm for this book again...

I do feel like it should be possible to finish one or two books pretty soon, but I fear especially Genom dina Ögon will be on my currently reading pile for a long while to come!

Do you read multiple books at the same time? How do you make sure it doesn't get too crazy?

January Wrap-up

This month I read eight books. For me this is quite a lot, on average I haven't been reading that much books the last years and definitely not when I also had to go to school or university.
The books I read:
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The 100 by Kass Morgan
Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
De ruiters van Glaas [The Riders of Glaas] by Rom Molemaker
The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone
De macht van het zwaard [The Power of the Sword] by Anne West

I gave all the book at least 3,5 stars so it definitely was a good month. My favorite was The Fellowship of the Ring. After I reread the first Harry Potter book I fell into a reading slump. I don't know how many books I gave up on after only reading one or two chapters, but finally I decided to reread the book that got me into fantasy when I was younger, De macht van het zwaard, and that definitely helped me get back into reading.

To a new year full of books

Happy new year!

'May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.'

                                                                                                                            - Neil Gaiman

I hope to read many great books this year. I am setting myself the challenge on Goodreads to read 45 books. That is five more books than I set out to read in 2014 and it is the number I actually ended up reading. It is only a little bit higher than my goal of last year, because I want to encourage myself to read and not make it feel like a task that needs to get done. I do have some particular books that I would like to read:

- A book in a language other than English or Dutch

- A book in Dutch

- Poetry

- A non fiction book

- Finish The lord of the rings

Apart from reading I also hope to be writing more in the coming year. To encourage myself to write more I am setting myself the challenge to write one short story each week. Every week I will try to post a prompt, to hopefully inspire others to also start writing. These posts will be posted on saturdays.

What are your plans for the coming year?

What you should be reading

'When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret. Now that I am 50 I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness.'

- C.S. Lewis

At some point in my life I started to think that there were certain books I couldn't read anymore because I was 'to old now'. I also felt that way about some genres. Adults surely did not read fantasy? I'm glad that I finally reached that point in life where I just don't care anymore what anybody thinks of what I am reading or that I don't feel anymore like there are certain books that I should be reading. So whenever I feel like it, I just reread one of my books that I read as a child. I read books in almost every genre including childrens, teenagers or classic literature. In all the different types of books I always find something else that I can love.

How about you? Are there certain books you are afraid to read (or admit that you read them) because you feel like you are to old?