I've been extremely busy with work, medical stuff and animal rescue so I have barely read recently... but today this arrived in the mail through a subscription box and I'm just awed by how perfect a pick this is for me! Really looking forward to digging into this. 🥰

Up next! I am hoping that this will be effortlessly fun. I need effortlessly fun right now. I have many ~important~ books on my shelf but decided to read this next to de-stress.

This was a really nice book! Unfortunately, the German translation opted for using a lot of racial slurs when there were none in the original nor the English version, which I found to be a pretty inappropriate choice since neither the author nor the translator are Black. I wish I had read this in English instead.

It's my birthday! These are my presents, including some books ☺️

And I've just been officially awarded my PhD! This is totally a bookish thing because I had to write a whole book to achieve it, right!?

Recently finished Fushigi Yûgi volume 2 - much preferred it over the first one. I hope this story keeps growing in positive ways!

This month's audiobook pick. I love the narration so much, and the book is brilliant, too. I generally only get audiobooks of books I already know and love because I have auditory processing difficulties, and this is no exception.

Just received this month's #queerbookbox - featuring a book about gardening! In March! I'll use this theme as inspiration, I think 😊
I do love how much variety this box gives me 💚💚💚
#queer

Got Harrow the Ninth as my next audiobook! I read this a couple of months ago and it was deeply confusing the first time around, I think reading it again will help me make sense of elements that confused me before.

Look what came in the mail! I had accidentally ordered this when it was out of stock and didn't check when it would be back in stock, so receiving it today was a bit of a nice surprise.

I'm reading this next. I would usually buy books like this in English (it's more convenient to do so, living in England) but I don't mind reading it in German as neither language is the original.

Those of you who are bilingual, what determines what language you read a book in, if you can't read the original anyway? Do you research translations? Or just get whatever is most convenient?

This book was very raw. I was not ready for it when I started it, but found my groove after a bit and ended up really appreciating it and relating to it. It talks of IBS, periods and poverty, but in a funny way.

I love quote bookmarks, especially when they match the book I am reading! This bookmark and the corresponding book were also from #QueerBookBox

This arrived from #QueerBookBox and I'm really happy - it looks super interesting. It's a novel about a queer black person from the Black Country who eventually moves to London, from what I got from the back cover and the extra info that came in the box.

Up next: this.
You know when you look for a book for someone else, gift it and then can't stop thinking about it? That's how this made it onto my to-read. And then I got it in a subscription box (#queerbookbox) so it feels like fate.
I like to say how I want to read far and wide and keep my reading varied so I don't tire of any one genre/author. Well, this is the second queer memoir in a row. I'm sure it'll be fine but it goes against my habit.

Finished "Ich Bin Linus". A decent book with an important message. I would recommend reading it if you know German, but not going in expecting the height of literature or fast pacing – that's not this book's job. What it does do is educate, explain, open up, and it does these things really well.

This book has been on my shelf since November. I love the author's Instagram and the book has been praised widely and is very much the kind of thing I want to read right now, so I'm looking forward to starting it today!

I was completely unfamiliar with the genre going in, so I didn't know what to expect at all! I thought the first two thirds of this book were alright, and the last third was amazing.

Next up: Mexican Gothic!

This book is actually a gift I plan on giving, but since we're all stuck in our houses at the moment I thought I would read it first 😂 I feel naughty!

4.5 stars.

I loved this, and felt like every story was special; I recognised some elements from the author's long fiction works and did not mind at all.

Oops, I bought more books! Do any of you have a recommendation as to whether I should bump these up on my to-read list or postpone them till later? Kinda tempted to read "Violence" next, but I could also read Mexican Gothic next... ?

Does anyone else have this problem where they buy more books even though they have many, many unread ones?

I loved this book so much that I got an audiobook subscription just to get it! The narration is amazing, too.

Also reading Volume 2 of Fushigi Yûgi! So far liking it more than Volume 1.

It is so easy to have principles. Far, far harder to live by them.

This is my next read! I generally read a lot of books that I'm excited about from the get-go and this is no exception. Love N.K.Jemisin.

Thoroughly enjoyable to read, even if the writing has its flaws.

However, I feel like it is really important to read this book critically because it is full of harmful tropes. I mean, the first half is an account of a stalking from the stalker's perspective - pretty uncomfortable, and not okay, and even after that I think it is a story of a rather unhealthy kind of love.

This was in my #queerbookbox today! I'm so excited, because it was actually fairly high up on the list of books I wanted to buy. I'll probably get around to reading this next month or so, which is sooner than I usually read QBB books 🤣

#queer #samanthairby

Realised I'd never reviewed Numsense!

As a practicing data scientist, I'm definitely not the target audience for this book and found that it was lacking in both maths and practical information. However, it was engaging and I can see how it would be great for other audiences, such as people who want to get a feel for what data science is, and managers of data science teams.

Next up: Midnight Sun! I might be slightly embarrassed about reading this one 🙈 How do you feel about this? Have any of you read it yet?

I was amazed how relatable this book was! I am always keen to read books by nonbinary authors because I seek people I can relate to, and this time I felt like there was a connection beyond gender. Even apart from that, Amrou's story is really worth reading.

My Palomacy BirdADay calendar arrived! I look forward to "meeting" a new pigeon/dove every day ?

Up next: this memoir I got in my #queerbookbox a few months ago. I've been following Glamrou on Instagram for a bit now and really look forward to this! #queer #nonbinary

I really appreciated this book and would recommend it to others in a heartbeat, but it wasn't quite a favourite.

Nevertheless, I really appreciated the cast of characters, the LGBTQ representation, and the discourse about race. I just didn't get on with the writing style as well as I would want to, and that's really my main criticism, which feels like it might be more of a problem within myself than a problem with the book!

Realised I forgot to review Volume 1 of Fushigi Yûgi! It took a while to get into the story but was alright after that. Except for the part where a grown man falls for a middle schooler. No thanks. Still, it's good enough that I'll continue reading the series, at least up to the point that I have it (Volume 6).

#BFC21
Let's do this!
Book: 2 books (starting with the tagged book) & 1 manga
Fitness: Floor press 50kg; walk on the majority of days I'm not lifting

I've technically already finished a book today but I'll not count that one!

And onto my first fully-2021 book. I know amost nothing about this going in, so I'm very curious.

Just finished Harrow the Ninth. Like the first book in the series, I also couldn't put this one down. Brilliant, even if I was a tad confused at first.

I'm not the fastest reader, but I surpassed my reading goal this year by about 20%! I'll try to read even more in 2021. Some highlights from this year were:
War and Peace
Starting the Locked Tomb trilogy
The Percy Jackson series
What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky
This Book Is Anti-Racist
Machandel

Tbh, it's been a year where I thoroughly enjoyed most books I read.

Thank you for this @OrangeMooseReads !

Makes me think I should reread at least one old favourite in 2021 🤔 although I am too stubborn these days to have any DNFs.

Haven't done any colouring in a while! This page (in progress) is from the educational colouring book called Last Chance Earth!

And onto the next one! I've been warned that most of this book is thoroughly confusing, and 21 pages in I'm already a bit confused.

This was really enjoyable. Consequently, I tore through it.

The writing style is solid but also reads like the author is an internet person (in a good way). The story is gripping and wildly original. The setting is great and like nothing I've read before. I'm so glad I can sink my teeth into the next book in the series right away.

Squeezed in this picture book yesterday. I rarely laugh out loud from stories, but I did several times reading this! Highly recommend. (If you don't speak French, you'll miss 1 or 2 of the jokes, but it's mostly wordless so I wouldn't let that deter me.)

So I opened my Christmas presents... instantly tripling my "unread" list! ? I'll have to find some shelf space now...

Up next: Gideon the Ninth. I've been looking forward to this! 😍

War and Peace is finished and looks like it's been through a lot!

Some thoughts:
- It felt a lot less dated than even a lot of 20th century literature, in a good way (but it did have its moments)
- random physics similes?!
- The ending was philosophy, the actual story ended in the penultimate part.
- The peace parts *are* nicer than the war parts, as others have said
- The characters are so deep and real!

- Overall one of my favourite books

Look what came in the mail! I really enjoy getting queer books in the post every month through #queerbookbox, and this one is written by an author from the area of South Wales that my partner is from, so I'm very excited for it. #queer

"If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given body, the direction which that body will take cannot be the course of any one of the forces individually – it will always follow an intermediate, as it were, shortest path, or what is represented in mechanics by the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces." – Tolstoy at it again with the physics metaphors

This is what I'm reading at the moment when I'm too tired for War and Peace or work reading. It took me a few chapters to really get into it but I'm halfway through volume 1 now and starting to really enjoy it!

The man not actuated by passion never knows what [le bien public] is; but the man who has committed a crime is always very sure where that welfare lies.