Bout of Books 9.0 Goals

So Bout of Books 9.0 starts in a bit over a week from now and I thought I'd get my goals / to-read list up early. If you don't know what Bout of Books is.. well sign up! You can find more details here :) It starts January 6th, which is also my first day back at school. I have a graduate admissions application due that week.. so it will be quite a busy week. I am going to try and get a good chunk of my readings done beforehand so I have a lot of time for the read-a-thon, but I cannot make any promises. This is my first read-a-thon ever, so I thought I would ease into it. So instead, I made some pretty easy and small goals that I think I can accomplish.

Goals for Bout of Books 9.0

• Read a minimum of 6 books. (My to-read list will be at the bottom of this post)
• Participate in at least one of the twitter chats. (I am in class during one and at work during the other)
• Participate in at least two of the challenges. (I think that is a reasonable number) 
• Make an update post everyday during the read-a-thon. 

My To-Read List

Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken
Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Outpost and Horde by Ann Aguirre
Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers 

I read The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken earlier this year and I really loved it, so I really want to read the sequel to that during this time. I also read Beautiful Creatures.. and I own the entire box set but I want to pace myself with this series cause I want to watch the movie as well, so I am going to include the next and second book in the series. I also want to finish up a dystopian trilogy I started during the summer and that is the Razorland series: Outpost and Horde. And lastly, I really want to start Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph after hearing a lot of good things about them. Clearly.. my to read list is mostly sequels/finishing up series/starting a series.. basically series related! 

I will also be reading some books for school during this time period, so I will include those in my daily updates as well if they happen to coincide. And if by some lucky chance I finish all of these books before the read-a-thon is over, I am going to leave it up to how I am feeling that certain day and time to pick my next read. 

And that is about it. Let me know in the comments what your goal is for Bout of Books 9.0 and if you are going to participate! :D 

2013 Reading Challenge Completed!

So I reached a pretty exciting milestone last night.. I reached my 2013 Reading Challenge. It is a challenge on goodreads where you set for yourself the amount of books you want to complete for the year. I originally wanted to do 120 books for the year and aim for 10 books each month.. but I decided to only try for 100 this year AND I just reached the goal last night. It is absolutely amazing and I am so proud of myself. A lot of it is from reading a book a week from school and homework, but that is okay, but also the larger chunk of it is simply from how much reading I got done this summer all on my own. (Well I did it so I could pick up my speed in reading considering how much reading needs to get done in grad school under time constraints).

2013 Reading Challenge

Christine has completed her goal of reading 100 books in 2013!

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100 of 100 (100%)

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I am now debating whether to raise my reading goals for 2014 or keep it the same. It feels awesome to have read so many books and slowly knock down my ever growing tbr pile.. (which is seriously growing by the day.. the amount of books I have accumulated within the past two days alone is a scary number). I think setting goals for the new year in terms of reading is an awesome idea.. and if you know that something comes up in life, well you can always adjust that number anytime throughout the year. I definitely recommend you give it a try. Let me know if you reached your reading goal for this year and what your reading goal for next year will be. :)

Project For Awesome 2013!

So Project for Awesome launched not too long ago. There are some seriously great perks this year. I really wanted the TFIOS one, but it sold out so quickly. But nerdfighters have no fear, there are other great perks related to John Green. Anyways, before I continue on my ramble even more, let me take a step back and explain what it is I am talking about.

Project for Awesome is a project started by the vlogbrothers, John & Hank Green which is to raise money to decrease world suck. Theres an indiegogo page with a lot of perks for donating (mostly donated by youtubers and authors). I highly recommend giving the indiegogo page a look located HERE! This will be my second year donating. I got a pdf file of short stories by John Green last year and it was emailed to me shortly after it ended, so if you are worried about how long it takes for perks to arrive, it is listed depending on each perk. I highly recommend you take a look because it is a great cause and it is the perfect time of the year to give back ;)

Let me know in the comments which perk you donated for!


Check out my books on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/profile/kurrsteeney

Bout of Books 9.0

Read-a-thons are pretty new to me and were only introduced to me through the world of booktube. I've decided to join one this year because a friend of mine is doing it, Alysia. And I was hesitant as to if I could keep up with it, but I think it will be more fun knowing someone in real life doing it as well. So I decided to do the Bout of Books 9.0 Read-A-Thon 1/6 to 1/12 this year. What is it you ask?

From the blog it states: The Bout of Books Read-a-Thon was created by Amanda @ On a Book Bender on a complete whim in August 2011*. It took on a life of its own and was such a hit that Amanda decided to do it again and turn it into a somewhat regular occurrence.

• Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, usually from 12:01am on a Monday through 11:59pm on a Sunday in whatever time zone you are in.
• It is low pressure, meaning participants are only asked to push themselves to read more than they normally would during any given week. There is no competition between readers.
• How much time a reader wants, and can commit, to read, tweet, or network with fellow bloggers is left to individual preference. All challenges and giveaways are optional.
• Networking with fellow bloggers is actively encouraged, though never required.
• Use Twitter to post updates throughout the read-a-thon. Everyone will be tweeting with the #boutofbooks hashtag.

I am super excited about this. I am going to post my reading list soon after I take a look through everything. School also starts up again that week that this starts, so I am going to make sure I get all of my school readings done beforehand so that the week is free for reading! :) Go over to the site here  and sign up today! :D

Check out my books on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/profile/kurrsteeney

Putting Audio books to the Vote!

So you are all probably wondering, where have I been? Well.. living life. If you classifying drowning in homework and work work living. I did not want to neglect the blog, but it happened sadly. But here I am again! And I want to talk about audio books today. I always knew there was audio books but never thought anything of it, because 1) I much prefer having an actual physical book, 2) audio books are expensive and 3) who has a cd-player lying around anymore to listen to them? (I surely don't). So yeah, to me they weren't anything special to begin with, that is, until I started driving. I drive to school and to work weekly and the commute adds up to like 5-6 hours a week, and I was getting pretty sick and tired of the same old boring radio music, so I thought why not get an audio book. I will also note here that the influence from various booktubers listening to audio books added to my interest.

I placed an order online and got Coraline by Neil Gaiman AND read by Neil Gaiman. (If you are looking for a good book, one of my favorites might I add, for a first audio book experience for a good price, I recommend chapters/indigo online). I had read Coraline countless times before and it is one of my favorite books. And let me say, having it read to me by Neil Gaiman himself was amazing. His voice is so animating that just really immerses the reader into that world. I loved it! And I finished it within 4 days of commuting. Since then, I have added a few more audio books to my collection. I like it when its a book and it has the author narrating it, it feels more personal. The commuting to places is a lot more enjoyable listening to a story rather than hearing wrecking ball on loop on all radio channels. 

So, am I converted now? An audio book lover? Yes and no. I like audio books for books that I have already read in physical form as a means of rereading it and I also prefer to have the author narrate it for a more personal experience. At the end of the day, I will always prefer a physical, tangible book. But it does not hurt to have an audio book here and there. I feel super productive "reading" while doing something that does not feel entirely productive like driving. So yeah, if you were hesitant about it, give it a try. Now is a good time to add that to your holiday wishlist! ;) 

Anna & The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Hi everyone! I hope that you are all well. Sorry for disappearing a bit from the blog, I've been so busy with work! And also.. any downtime, is spent reading haha :) I've read already 6 books this month and I'm pretty happy with that and I've read two books of my TBR already so that's awesome! Anyways.. here's another book review for you all today. It's definitely a book I recommend for a summer read. This book makes me extremely happy and also very nostalgic for when I was in Paris a couple months ago! It's a beautiful book. 

What is "Anna & The French Kiss" about? It follows the protagonist Anna, who is in her senior year (I believe) and she is shipped off to Paris for school and not really happy with it. She misses her bestfriend back home and also, there is a guy that she was starting a relationship with, sort of. She meets a good group of friends, but also a character named Etienne. There's obviously feelings.. but with that comes drama.. I really don't want to say much since I can easily spoil it. But it's lovely.. you fall in love with it, you fall in love with the characters, with the city of Paris, with everything! 

What are my overall thoughts of this book? I really adore this book. I haven't read much contemporary this year, but this was my favorite by far. It's a really romantic and adorable book, and I just loved it. It's definitely made it up there as one of my favorites, so go check it out. Read it. Love it. and come back and tell me how much you loved it! 

Book Places: The Monkey's Paw

Hi everyone! I hope that you are all having a nice Friday so far. Yay! it's the end of the week. :) I'm going to be starting this type of series called "Book Places" where I discuss various book places/book shops that I have visited in Ontario AND out of Canada in various countries. Here I'll talk about book shops not like the norm mass franchise type of bookstores, but privately owned, small owner, used book shops or antiquarian type shops. First up.. is The Monkey's Paw which is located at 1229 Dundas St. West. Toronto, Ontario M6J 1X6. You can visit the website here for further details!

So what is it about this bookstore that is so special? I had heard about this place from my friend Nikki and we went down together. It sells "old and unusual" books as it says on the site. There are out of print books and a large variety of topics. I saw a smaller wall for fiction however in the back of the shop, but still, they had a lot of good stuff. I walked away with a book by Stendhal in a Penguin classic type of covering so that was good and a collection of poems by T.S. Elliot!

But the greatest thing and one to definitely make a trip downtown for is that.. the bookshop has a VENDING MACHINE! For books! You only put in $2 and then a book comes out, it's super cool. You don't know what you are going to get so if you aren't the type like me who will enjoy anything and everything, you might want to save your money for something you really want. But the experience of it was super cool. :)

The vending machine!

This is what I got from the vending machine which I honestly think is pretty cool. A book of literary terms and it will definitely come in handy cause you can never have too many of these! I love that every book that comes out of the vending machine also comes with this cool seal on it as well. 

I highly recommend you make the trip down to visit this book shop and I also recommend a small cafe near by called Arrow Cafe that has delicious red velvet cupcakes! Have you been to the Monkey's Paw before? What did you think? Or if you haven't, will you be making the trip down?

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell Review

Hi everyone! I guess this is my first official book review post. I decided to do it on a book I just recently finished as it's still fresh in my brain. I've heard a lot of good things about Rainbow Rowell, concerning her other book Eleanor & Park (which I will read soon enough), and I saw that this was available online when I was placing an order on chapters a few weeks ago.. so I picked it up. I decided to bring it along with me to my boyfriend's house this past long weekend and I was able to finish it in a day. For those of you that don't know me, I'm a pretty speedy reader. It's not like I'm missing passages or anything when I read.. I just read really quickly, always have and it usually does not take me more than a few days to finish a book, because when I really like a book, I tend to fully immerse myself into it.. and by that I mean sit still in one spot and just read. But anyways.. I'm rambling.. onto the review yes?

So what is "Attachments" about? It is written in a really interesting way. It follows the protagonist Lincoln who got a job at a company as computer security.. and he is well, unsure about his job because it requires him to read the emails of his fellow co-workers. He mostly works nights, so it's not like he'll end up running into anyone, but he feels uncomfortable about it. One day, he comes across an email exchange between the characters Beth and Jennifer, and he is supposed to send them a warning email when one of their emails gets flagged, but he chooses not too. He starts to really like Beth and Jennifer and he feels like he knows them from reading their emails (sounds creepy.. but it really isn't, because let me say this Lincoln character is a sweetheart). So there are chapters where you read things from his perspective and other chapters are exchanges between Beth and Jennifer in email format which are really fun to read. Problems begin however, when Lincoln begins to actually like one of the girls.. and then the story continues, but I'll leave it at that because I don't want to spoil it! 

What are my overall thoughts on it? I really enjoyed this and I believe I gave it a 5/5 stars on goodreads. It was such a cute book to read and major gushing. But really, I loved the character development, how well rounded the characters were. Even though you only got to really know Beth and Jennifer through email exchanges, you as the reader, felt that you really got to know them and that you were apart of the conversation as well (which is what Lincoln felt too). Also another thing, I think this is technically listed as YA.. but it was really nice to read from the perspectives of 26-28 year olds, who have finished their undergraduate degree (like me!) and thinking of the future. It was nice to move out of the highschool setting and into a workplace setting. It touched on many themes as well, not just the relationships between characters, love and friendship, but also moving out on your own, dealing with your parents, your parents dealing with the possibility of you moving out too. I really enjoyed this and for my first Rainbow Rowell read, I'm glad! I look forward to reading more of her works now. 

Have you read "Attachments" by Rainbow Rowell? Let me know in the comments below! 

Wednesday Book Haul!

Hi everyone! Bet you weren't expecting to see another post from me so soon eh? Well.. it just so happens, I placed an order online for some books I wanted over the weekend and it arrived today. I already uploaded a picture onto instagram which is the one you'll see below, but I thought I'd include mini bits of which books I bought and why!

So I already own the first three books in the Vampire Academy series by Mead  and I've only read the first one, but I really enjoyed it. I also saw that Spirit Bound in particular was hardcover and only $6.00 on indigo so I thought I'd snatch it up. I'm excited to read the rest of the books in the Vampire Academy series, they are very much well loved and I don't know why it took me so long to pick them up. I've always planned too, but I've always happened to forget too. Also it's a lot of money to buy such a big series, but hey! it was cheaper online! And I have a feeling I'll be reading these back to back. 

The last two I picked up are all due to the lovely Regan from PeruseProject on Youtube! I've been obsessed with her videos and she recommended Shatter Me/Unravel Me (expect a full review soon.. cause O.M.F.G.) last month in her videos and I read both and LOVED them. I think we have really similar book tastes, so I decided to pick up the books she was recently raving about and those are The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken - which btw, I barely know anything about, but it sounds good and it's gotten really good reviews so far on good reads. And the other one was Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood - and it's about witches.. and so I knew I had to pick it up. I've always had a soft spot for witches, and it reminds me of reading a bunch of Sabrina and the Teenage Witch books when I was younger. I look forward to reading both of these, and of course, my thoughts will be on goodreads for them and most likely, a book review as well. 

I did film a July wrap-up.. but to be honest, the footage was quite crappy, so I think I'll have posts up of individual reviews for those books that I did read.. and let me tell you, I read 13 freaking books last month!  that is absolute insanity.. so I guess you can brace yourself for 13 book review posts coming throughout the month. I'm also going to start reading these books from this haul as soon as I finish my TBR list.. because I'd like to finish my goals early on.. and also I'm going away at the end of the month, so I don't think dragging Ulysses all the way to the Mexico is a good idea! 

Well that's it from me for today. I'm already a 1/4 of the way through The Cuckoo's Calling.. and I am seriously loving it.. so I'm going to get back to it now! Let me know in the comments if you've read any of the books I bought above.. or if you have any recommendations.. cause this is most definitely the first of many book hauls you'll see from me for the month of August! Happy reading all!

August TBR!

Hello everyone. I hope that you are all doing well. So, I thought my first "real" post could be my August TBR. For those of you that don't know, TBR stands for "to-be-read". I've seen a lot of these kinds of posts/videos around the internets, and I really like the idea of it, because 1) it's like giving yourself a to-do list but with books, 2) keeps you on track of your goals of what you want to read and 3) it's really motivating because well, you want to finish the goals!

I'm usually going to do these kinds of posts at the beginning of every month and only including about 3 books maximum, because well, school starts up next month, so that will leave very little time for leisure reading and also because, I'm the type of person to sit in front of my bookshelf for about half an hour deciding what I want to read next based on "what I feel like reading" and I don't want to make too big of a TBR list and well, not follow through with it. So onto my choices yeah?

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling)
So if you've been living under a rock for the past couple weeks, you probably won't know that J.K herself, released another book, but under a pseudonym! It was made public not too long ago and the search for this book across the GTA was absolute insanity. The book, not being really popular under the pseudonym meant very little copies in bookstores. I scoured many and got nothing and finally had to crack and place an order online for the book. Luckily it arrived, cheaper, in hardcover and only a few days later. What I gather from the synopsis is that it is an adult crime novel which follows the story of a detective and his newly "temp" as they try to solve the case of a famous supermodel (don't quote me, could be actress) committing suicide. Sounds interesting, and really far away from Hogwarts eh? It's also been said that this book is the first of what might possibly be a series (my inner potterhead is screaming because, we all know how awesome JK is with series am I right?) I'm only about three chapters in so far, but I like it, it's got a good pace and like her previous writings, there's a lot of detail even in small passages which is awesome to see. I will return with an in-depth review on this one!

Ulysses by James Joyce
So last year, I studied a portion of this book in one of my favourite classes ever. I only read a chapter of it, but I learned quite a lot about it in my class and I knew I had to add it to my list. Off I went to the BMV.. and holy. is this thing massive or what! No wonder a lot of people put off reading it! But after learning about it, and a bit about Joyce, I thought why not! I really did enjoy the one chapter I read from it while in class.. and trust me when I say, Joyce has a type of writing style unlike anything that you can find today. It's unique, different, and he incorporates actual sound in his words to the point where it may not even seem like it's making any sense to the reader. I also found out recently that this book is going to be on my book-list for one of my graduate courses I will be taking next month, so I thought I'd get a head start on reading it, because it's massive and it's a difficult text and I want to take my time with it and really understand it. I look forward to reading more of Leopold Bloom's story!

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
I've heard so many good things about this book and the synopsis of it really intrigued me so I picked it up on a whim. I don't know too much about it or the author but I can gather that it is about a really unique bookstore and it follows the protagonist Clay, who works at the bookstore and starts to notice peculiar things about it, such as frequent customers that never seem to buy anything. I love bookstores in general, and I'll admit this was a bit of a cover buy, cause well, it's gorgeous! But anyways.. a lot of my friends on goodreads that have read it seem to really love it, so I hope it will be the same for me too!







Well that's it for my August TBR. I will of course have full in depth reviews of these books when I finish them up. Let me know in the comments what on your TBR list for August because I would love to know, and let's be serious, I just want more book recommendations so I have a reason to buy more books ;P You can also follow my progress on my goodreads here and please add me as a friend if you haven't already! Happy reading! :)

Welcome!

Hi everyone, welcome to Padfoot's Library.

Here you will find bookish musings from a 23 year old. The blog will include book reviews, book hauls, monthly wrap-ups, monthly tbrs, and a lot more book related things. This blog however, is not limited to just that and you will find posts about movies and television shows as well (and you know, some personal posts as well!). I hope that you all will enjoy your stay. Please follow for further updates and stay tuned for the first book review coming soon! :)