Christmas and New Year's!

Happy New Year everyone!

Here's hoping it isn't the end of the world this year, as the Mayans said! Having that, I won't ask for anything else.

I just thought I'd do one thing today: to list the books I got over the holidays (since I get my books in large chunks at a time, I find IMM wouldn't suit me). So here goes:

Fantasy

• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
• Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
• Runelight by Joanne Harris
• A Clash of Kings  by George R. R. Martin
• A Storm of Swords (Part 1) by George R. R. Martin
• A Storm of Swords (Part 2) by George R. R. Martin
• A Feast of Crows  by George R. R. Martin
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Unfinished Tales by J. R. R. Tolkien

Non-Fantasy YA

• The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
• Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
• Legend by Marie Lu
• The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch

General and Classical Fiction

• Making History by Stephen Fry
• The Book Theif by Markus Zusak
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I've still got a whole host of things to read from 2011 (mostly novels left unread from my Birthday), and I have a friend I'm seeing soon and we've got gifts to exchange. So I might have more. But I hinted at him getting me Tolkien so just assume I got more Tolkien too!

I considered making resolution, but I rather dislike doing that. I can't stick to them beyond February, and though I'll try and change little things, I don't want to make huge commitments. I'll try to post a review at least weekly (I'm sorry, I can't manage much more!) and I'll be installing a daily hour of reading in future.

Happy Reading for the New Year!

Friday Hop Onze

Q:  If you had to spend eternity inside the pages of a book which book would you choose and why?

I'd definitely choose the world of the Night Circus. I really adored that book and I think that a hugely depressing for me is that this circus doesn't and couldn't exist. Reading it felt like I was transported alongside the characters and I feel as though I have visited in some ways. But that's not enough. I want to taste the cinnamon popcorn, see the Illusionist's Show and wander the long, twisting Circus paths. I would be an ardent Reveur, and run myself into debt getting everywhere for each show. Also, I like the idea that eventually even I could learn magic (maybe)!!!


The added bonus is the Victorian era. I like the style of clothes and speech of Victorians, and I just love to live within it all.

 Dear Santa: Which books made it to your Christmas wish list this year?

You can go to my Top Ten post from Tuesday to see some of the books I named for wish-list books.

This year, it seems, I've gone for mostly fantasy, entirely unintentionally. I love YA, but mostly when it is paranormal or fantastical to a degree; so in this light my accidental trend makes sense. But then I got to thinking about and I think I've figured out.

Short books burn me out.

I'm a fast reader, and I've found that when I read YA I can finish them in an afternoon if I'm determined, but this kind of reading exhausts me in the long and short term and I lose that element of being able to sit down with a long book and enjoy whiling away successive evening reading it. I still like YA, and I have titles I want and others I'll be attracted to as well, but I hate feeling like I'm reading things too quickly. With everything that is going on, I need books like something I can return to every night and be sure in my enjoyment and contentedness, at least for a while. And with exams, I don't have the time to be sitting down for an entire afternoon just to read a book; since I find the YA I read to be action packed and not considering the fact I might actually like a break.

But maybe I'm just reading into it too much!

Happy hopping!


And Merry, Magical Christmas as well as a truly infallibly Marvellous New Year to you all!