Sup, I'm back on Litsy because I kind of suck at reading lately and I'm hoping this will help motivate me. Right now I'm working on the Moviegoer and it's going good so far despite the fact that I'm 50 pages in and currently like, "do I like this protagonist? do I hate this protagonist? who can say???".

I ALMOST FORGOT, OH MY GOD, LOOK AT WHAT I MANAGED TO SCORE AT THE THRIFT SHOP THIS WEEKEND FOR THREE BUCKS

#minibookhaul

It turns out ambiguous hauntings are about as spooky as I get y'all. #halloweenreads #booktober

Some months there's just a really clear winner. #bestofoctober #booktober

WHOOPS I had a crazy busy weekend and now I have to play catchup. Fortunately this one's easy for me. #supernaturalbeings #booktober

This must be the forth time I've used Lumberjanes for this thing, but like, come on, I want to dress like all these girls, look at how cute they are. #characteriddressupas #booktober

I don't have much in the way of #creepycovers because scary books aren't really my jam, but I do have this sweet 1960s paperback copy of Jane Eyre that's pleasantly gothic and pulpy. #booktober

Time for #booktober catch-up! I've got a lot of stuff due for #rereads but this is the biggie.

I'm so jazzed about this one y'all I LOVE A GIANT TOME. #ilikebigbooks #booktober

Hay-on-Wye, the Welsh town with 40+ bookshops! #wishiwasthere #booktober (sidebar: I discovered while trying to pick something for this that I've read a shocking number of books set in crumbling English manors, which I thought was funny)

Breaking News: All I care about are ladies and the works of Matt Fraction. #favoritegraphicnovels #booktober

DAMN YOU KINDLE DEALS AND YOUR SEDUCTIVE ALLURE. ALSO I DEFINITELY NEED NANO HELP.

Here's a quick stack of #immigrantstories for #booktober and a quick good luck to everyone readathoning. I'm instead trying to work on my NaNo outline as if I were responsible or something.

I'm a good cook and generally I eat pretty well AND YET today, when the photo challenge is #readingsnacks I'm reading Rebecca while eating the cold remains of my niece's McDonald's Happy Meal while she naps. #nannyproblems #booktober

This is a beautiful, heartbreaking modern folktale about family and community and injustice and survival set in post-war Sierra Leone. I think it's flown under the radar a bit because the jacket copy makes it sound like a stone cold bummer and yeah, some of it's real rough going, but there's still somehow such a sense of hope flowing through it. Also there are Teen Vigilantes, which is always an incentive for me.

This stack could have easily been twice as big, I had to do some serious whittling. I tried to do #unforgettablewomen protagonists/ensembles, but the love interest from Written on the Body managed to sneak in there because I love her. #booktober

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it." #bestcharactername #booktober

This is something I picked up from the bargain section of Barnes and Noble on a whim a while back just because it looked interesting. I'm less than 40 pages in but oh man, I already love it, this is 100% what I want to be reading right now.

It turns out that in terms of #favoritefriendships I pretty much just like #squads with a 50/50 split between uplifting and semi-destructive. #booktober

I almost bailed on this more than once. "So many people I know whose taste I trust love this book," I said to myself, "Surely this must be going somewhere." IT WAS NOT.

It's not even like I'm not enjoying this book I just feel like I've been reading it FOR 1000 YEARS. Look how far my bookmark is! And yet I still have over 100 pages to go! Also I still can't tell what ending he's setting up which makes me worried it's gonna piss me off.

I'm not really a #shortstories person, but I've read and enjoyed these four. I particularly recommend the Sherman Alexie (really any Sherman Alexie) and Four Stories by American Women (my fave is "Country of the Pointed Firs") . #booktober

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. #greatfirstlines #booktober

For #awardwinning I decided to photograph all of the Pulitzer fiction winners I own in physical form. I think we all know in our hearts that prizes don't actually mean much, but my taste aligns with the Pulitzer more often than not (I'm a little lukewarm on Middlesex though, I must admit). I'll put all the titles in the comments, they're kind of hard to see. #booktober

I've read a lot of books #setinaschool, these are just some of my favorites. I'm due for a reread with a couple of these actually. #booktober

For #bestsidekick I wanted to sort of pivot it into "books with a strong supporting cast" because I'm not really crazy about the term sidekick. And it feels like kind of a cop out to just be like "Harry Potter", but like *gestures expansively as if to ask what choice I have*. #booktober

Skipped yesterday because I wasn't feeling great, so here's my #longtitles. I didn't think I had this many! #booktober (That's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day down in the bottom left if you can't read it.)

Today's theme has made me realize that it's been awhile since I've read a truly great memoir. Most recent read on this pile is from January 2014. #memorablememoirs #booktober

#outofthisworld was really hard guys, I need to read more scifi beyond the usual suspects. Although now that I'm writing this caption I've remembered that I totally have the first volume of Bitch Planet and trades of Captain Marvel and Squirrel Girl where they go to space. AND ANATHEM OH MY GOD I'M SO BAD AT THIS. I'm a disaster today y'all, I need to start thinking about these themes like, the day before at least. #booktober

Ah yes, my #firstlitsypost I remember it like it was only two weeks ago. #booktober

For #diversereads I decided to focus on nonfiction because while I've made great strides in improving the diversity of my fiction reads, this is an area where I'm still struggling a little. These are some I like (I particularly love the Calvino, which is a series of essays about why books are cool, essentially and High on the Hog, which is a history of African influence on American food), and if you guys have recs I'm all ears. #booktober

It was a lot of fun, but after a few stories it got a little samey. In the future I'll probably save Wodehouse for when I'm sick, I think this'd be really nice for that.

For #somethingborrowed I'm going with something that's been borrowed from me. There should be two more Christopher Moore novels shelved right there but there are not and haven't been FOR SOME TIME. #booktober

I had some trouble finding #fullofadventure books, probably because my reading has been trending more toward Ponderous Literary Fiction over the past few years, but I think I ended up with a pretty good pile. Also it looks like "unintentional color schemes" is the unofficial theme of #booktober for me.

I've read and can highly recommend all of these #debutnovels. The cool toned color scheme and predominance of women were unintentional, but you know, I'm not particularly upset about either. #booktober

I want to read something tonight, but I need a break from The Crimson Petal and the White, which I'm getting pretty into but is A Tome, so light public domain ebook it is.

PRO TIP: if you sign up for Persephone Books' free quarterly mailer you'll score some excellent bookmarks with patterns from their famous endpapers #booktober #bookmarks

I don't have a ton of #textonlycovers and at first I thought it was because I read mostly backlist and it's a fairly modern design choice, but my copy of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was published in the '80s and Vox in the '90s, so now I don't know. I should look for some nonfic about the history of book design trends, I bet that'd be really interesting. #booktober

I'll definitely be perusing the hashtag for recommendations today because all I have on my shelves that's set in South America is some Marquez I haven't read yet. Big gap in my reading. #booktober #bookssetinsamerica

Making a monthly TBR is basically a guarantee that I'll read literally anything but what's on it so #mostanticipated is a tricky one for me, but I am planning to read Rebecca for @litsybookclub this month even though historically I've been T E R R I B L E at book clubs and I'm pretty excited about it. #booktober

ALL RIGHT FINE I'VE BEEN WON OVER

I'm gonna be honest, I kind of hate this right now, BUT I've only read 45 pages while feeling tired af, so. I'll try some more tomorrow.

This really surprised me. It somehow managed to give me a lot of tender feelings while simultaneously making me very unsettled. I don't think I've ever had a reading experience quite like it. I loved it.

Also if anybody wants to try and argue that this book isn't super gay I will literally fistfight them in the street.

HE'S NOT REALLY TALKING ABOUT WINTER AND I'M DYING MY FEELINGS HAVE KILLED ME.

#Recommendsday This is some Victorian sensationalist literature and it is genuinely and delightfully nuts. If you're anything like me you're going to get to like, the second chapter and be all "okay, I see where this is going, I have in fact read a novel before" and YOU ARE CORRECT but also THAT IS ONLY THE FIRST TWIST, so you know, stick with it, it pays dividends.

The only thing I knew about this book going in was that there's apparently some kind of mild controversy over the sexual orientation of the protagonist, which, what??? WHO COULD POSSIBLY READ GENE AS STRAIGHT AFTER READING THAT LAST SENTENCE? This isn't a spoiler, this is on PAGE FORTY-EIGHT.

Started A Separate Peace this evening. I bought it from a used book sale and according to the inside of the cover my copy was previous owned by a Laci Gunthorpe in Ms. Barefoot's 7th period English class. It's full of her highlights of vocab words and notes on literary devices in teen girl handwriting. Thanks for the book Laci, hope you got a good grade on your essay.

I have started writing and then erased this review about a dozen times now and I'm at the point where I have to admit defeat. This book is too good for me to be able to write a review good enough to do it justice. Favorite of the year, calling it now.

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Getting some reading in while waiting for bread to rise.