Top 10 Tuesday: Favourite Books To Complement A History Lesson!

Top 10 Tuesday!!!

This week’s topic is:

August 30: Back To School Freebie — anything “back to school” related like 10 favorite books I read in school, books I think should be required reading, Required Reading For All Fantasy Fans, required reading for every college freshman, Books to Pair With Classics or Books To Complement A History Lesson, books that would be on my classroom shelf if I were a teacher

I picked books to complement a history lesson, but instead of giving many examples of good books about a specific era, I tried to vary the historical context a bit. Enjoy!

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Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Check it out here.

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – Nazis Germany

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The Diviners Series by Libba Bray – 1920s New York

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Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon – Scotland and WW1

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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke – Napoleonic Wars

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Animal Farm by George Orwell – Communist Russia

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – Racism in America, 1930s (ish?)

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Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys – 1950s New Orleans

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Witch Child by Celia Rees – Salem Witch Trials

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The Muse by Jessie Burton – 1960s London/1930s rural Spain

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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys – Victorian Colonialism

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What about you? Any favourite books that would help liven up a history lesson? Please let me know!

lizard

 

 

200 Followers!

Hey guys!

So last week I got this lovely notification…

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So can I just say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has followed this blog! Seriously, I never thought I could get that many people interested in reading my blog posts!

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I started blogging at the beginning of summer, way back in May, partly because I was bored, partly because I wanted to find a way to encourage myself to write more, but mostly because I love books and wanted to talk about them – creating a blog seemed like a great way to enable that.

And it has been! I love how blogging has allowed me to discuss some of my favourite books and chronicle my reading experience these past few months. It’s introduced me to some new books as well – many of which are still on the TBR pile, but I’ll get there.

So once again, THANK YOU!

And, being quite a goal orientated person, I like to use any milestones I reach as an opportunity to set new aims – so I want to use this as a chance to outline some blogging-goals of mine that I want to achieve. Bearing in mind that my spare time for blogging is going to decrease significantly soon as I’ll be starting University in September (which is a terrifying thought!)

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Anyways, My Blogging Aims!

1.Keep blogging regularly! Some of favourite posts are Top 10 Tuesdays/Top 5 Wednesdays and these are great for getting me motivated to write posts. My aim at the moment is to try for at least 3 posts a week. However, I never want this to feel like a chore so this is by no means a concrete number – I’ll adjust it if necessary.

2.Write better/more in-depth book reviews! I started this blog with the intention of reviewing lots of books – at the moment I’m two books behind, and by that I mean I’ve finished them and not written a review yet. Mostly, I find book reviews the hardest to write – I don’t want to include lots of spoilers and I struggle to think of what to say, but I enjoy writing them and I want to improve so it’s time to work on it!

3. Write More Discussion Based Posts! I feel like I write a lot of list-based posts, which are usually great fun but also quite quick to write – I want to start writing more posts about specific books or common issues/themes in books or specific genres or whatever. Basically, I don’t want to stop doing list posts, I just want to write some more detailed content as well.

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There you go! My aims for this blog – I stopped at three because it seemed like a nice, solid number. Manageable. I’ve had a lot of fun creating this blog and reading/discovering lots of other blogs/posts as well – it’s been a great way to share my bookish love! 🙂

Thanks again,

lizard

Top 5 Wednesday: Books I Want to Read by the End of 2016

Hello fellow bookish people!

As some of the more perceptive among you may have noticed, today is Wednesday! Which means it’s time for another Top 5 Wednesday! Woo!

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T5W is a weekly book meme and it’s Goodreads group exists here for anyone who wants to know more/take part!

This week’s topic is…

August 24th: Books You Want to Read Before the End of the Year
–Another self-explanatory one!

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1.Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

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2.A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab

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3.Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta

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4.Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas

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5.Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

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What about you guys? What do you plan on reading before this year is over?

lizard

Top 10 Tuesday: TBR Books That Time Forgot…

Once again, it’s Top Ten Tuesday time!

This week’s topic is…

Ten Books That Have Been On Your Shelf (Or TBR) From Before You Started Blogging That You STILL Haven’t Read Yet

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Top Tuesday is a weekly book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, which I shall link here! Just in case you want to know more!

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The Old Hats of my TBR Pile:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

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The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

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Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

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The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta

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A Gathering of Shadows by V E Schwab

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Uprooted by Naomi Novak

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The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

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Anyone else got any interesting books languishing on their TBR Pile? Let me know!

lizard

 

Top 5 Wednesday: Favourite First Sentences!

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It’s Top 5 Wednesday time again! I couldn’t limit myself to five, so my list actually has seven. I love picking out good first sentences – they’re such an important part of books!

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T5W is a weekly book meme – find the Goodreads group here for more details.

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The statistical probability that an illiterate in 1970s Soweto will grow up and one day find herself confined in a potato truck with the Swedish king and prime minister is 1 in 45,766,212,810.

According to the calculations of the aforementioned illiterate herself.

-Jonas Jonasson, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

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Some things start before other things.

– Terry Pratchett, The Wee Three Men.

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It is many years before the Pied Piper comes back for the other children.

– Eliza Granville, Gretel and the Dark

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At dusk they pour from the sky.

– Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

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All children, except one, grow up.

– J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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A secret is a strange thing.

– Maggie Stiefvater, The Dreams Thieves

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When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread, till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to mere chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.

– Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

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So what about you guys? What are your favourite opening lines? Please let me know!

lizard

Top 10 Tuesday: Books With X Setting!

Hello Tuesday!

This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Books With X Setting (top ten books set near the beach, top ten book set in boarding school, top ten books set in England, etc)

And I’m choosing to make this post…

Top 10 Books with a Historical Setting!

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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

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The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare

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The Muse by Jessie Burton

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The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

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The Diviners Series by Libba Bray

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Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

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Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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Witch Child by Celia Rees

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish – link here if you want to know more/take part!

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So what about you guys? Any matches? Please let me know!

lizard

The Sunshine Blogger Award!

Good news! I was nominated by afterbutterflyrain – thank you! – for the Sunshine Blogger Award!

Note: The theme song for this post is obviously Walking on Sunshine. 🙂

The Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.

Answer 11 questions set by the person who nominated you.

Nominate 11 bloggers to receive the award and write them 11 new questions to answer.

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Q&A

1.What genre do you want to read more of?

Science Fiction.

2.What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?

I don’t have one. Obviously there are books that I don’t like, but I don’t have one that I could say I  hate more than all other books I have read. I try to take something positive from every book I read, even the ones I don’t like or fail to finish.

3.What’s your favourite childhood book?

Favourite children’s book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Favourite book from my childhood: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett.

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4.What movie adaptation did you think was better than the book (if any)?

Honestly, I can’t think of one. Sometimes I like the movie and the book equally and for different reasons – an example being Howl’s Moving Castle – but I can’t think of one where I’ve liked the movie better than the book.

5.Do you prefer reading in the morning or in the evening?

Like any self respecting Night Owl, I do all my best work at night – including reading.

6.What’s your favourite quote from a book?

I can’t pick just one!!!!!

But I do really love this one from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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7.Are a part of any book clubs?

Unfortunately no. I’d like to be though, it sounds like a fun thing to do and an excuse to eat cake/drink tea.

8.What’s your favourite blog post that you’ve posted?

Probably my Bookish Time Travel Tag. If you’re reading this and want to try it, consider yourself tagged.

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9.What are your favourite websites?

Buzzfeed and Pinterest – great ways to waste time and learn new things. I also love Etsy and Redbubble for online shopping, but I hardly ever actually buy all that much stuff from either because I’m usually skint. Sigh. Fun to browse on though.

10.What other hobbies do you enjoy doing, apart from reading?

BAKING! Usually I stick to making cakes, especially one’s with chocolate in the recipe. Not biscuits – I try, repeatedly, and all I end up with is small piles of gooey disasters or pebble like circles I could use to commit murder.

I also love writing, although I think I’m terrible at it, and photography, which I think I’m okay-ish at.

And blogging? Does that count?

11.Do you have a goodreads reading challenge for this year, if so what is it?

I’ve done a Goodreads challenge each year from 2012 – my usual goal is 50, but this year I decided to push myself a little and aim for 55. Also, it’s a leap year so I figured I’d put that extra day to use and spend it reading a book. I’m doing well so far – I’ve read a total of 33 books!

My goodread profile

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Nominations:

If I tag you and you’ve already done this and don’t feel like doing it again, you have my apologies!

Black Cat Kai

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Young At Heart

Inside My Minds

The Little Wise Owl

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It’s a Novelty

The Fictional Reader

And…

Anyone else who feels like it!

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My Questions:

1.What is your favourite book title?

2.Why did you start blogging?

3.What is your favourite genre?

4.What is your least favourite genre?

5.Name three of your favourite characters.

6.What fictional world would you choose to live in?

7.What do you use as a book mark?

8. What is your favourite letter of the alphabet?

9.What’s the longest book you’ve ever read?

10.Favourite book cover?

11.Sunshine or snow?

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lizard

Top 10 Tuesday: Rewind!

Hello! This week’s Top 10 Tuesday topic is…

August 9: Top Ten Tuesday REWIND — go back and do a topic you missed over the years or recently or a topic you really want to revisit

So I picked – FAVOURITE COVERS! Which is pretty self explanatory – just a selection of my favourite book covers. I only chose books that I actually own or else we’d be here all day.

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish – here is the link in case you want to know more!

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The Muse by Jessie Burton

Peter Pan by J M Barrie

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkein

The Chimes by Anna Smaill

Splintered by A. G. Howard

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

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Aren’t they Booktiful!

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Any else read these books? Got any covers that you love? Please share!

lizard

Book Review: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Read: July, 2016

Genre: Gothic, Horror

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Summary from Goodreads:

‘All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil’

Published as a shilling shocker, Robert Louis Stevenson’s dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll’s strange association with damnable young man Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde’s true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity’s basest capacity for evil.

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Review:

Before reading this I already knew what the “big reveal” was – that Jekyll and Hyde were different versions of the same person. It’s kind of tricky not to know that – Jekyll and Hyde is a popular and well known classic, synonymous with the idea of “split personality” as the summary says.

But does knowing this detract from the reading experience? When this was first published, the fact that Jekyll and Hyde were one person was not common knowledge. Those first readers would have stumbled across that revelation along with the narrator, Mr. Utterson – arguably how it was intended to be read by Stevenson.

On the one hand, I feel that if I had gone into this book knowing absolutely nothing about the story I would have found the mystery element of it a lot more… well, mysterious. The clever parallels Stevenson draws between Jekyll and Hyde, the hints, the build-up would have had a better pay-off.

On the other hand, I might not have been able to appreciate those things as much if I hadn’t known what they were alluding to. So, really I don’t think it impacted my reading experience that negatively.

Overall I really enjoyed Jekyll and Hyde – it’s short, fast-paced, and unsettling in a good way as Stevenson raises interesting ideas about the nature of good/evil in humanity.

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Best Quote:

“It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it. ”

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Has anyone else read this one? Tell me what you thought!

lizard

The Friday 56

The Friday 56 is a weekly book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice.

Here are the rules:

*Grab a book, any book.Friday 56
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
(If you have to improvise, that’s ok.)
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it)
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
*It’s that simple.

 

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This week I’ve chosen…

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

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And here is my chosen quote:

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Anyone else love Scorpius? Definitely my favourite character from Cursed Child.

lizard