I was recommended Dissolution by a mate after we went camping and I saw he was holding a very thick book (I’m always intrigued by thick books). The book he was reading what actually a later book in the series but he noted the whole series is fantastic, so my love of the Matthew Shardlake series began. (more…)
For around a year now, I've been using StoryGraph alongside Goodreads as my two book-tracking apps. I found StoryGraph randomly on Twitter one day when someone I follow posted a link to an article of the best alternatives to Goodreads. Since then, I've used StoryGraph as it offers a lot of benefits over Goodreads, but Goodreads does still offer some advantages too. Below I've compared the two platforms which will hopefully give you some guidance as to which book-tracking/recommendation platform you'd prefer to use. Something to note: when you first set up a StoryGraph account it is relatively easy to transfer ALL of your Goodreads content over including reviews, reading dates and bookshelves which makes the transition even better. So let's begin... User interface One of the most important things…
So the first book quiz went down quite well. It's one of my most popular posts so I've decided to do another. It's actually trickier than you might think sourcing questions and answers that you feel are right for your audience. A usual, the quiz questions hopefully get a little harder as they go on and the rules on how to play are below. (more…)
I'm a huge fan of fantasy and I've become quite the fan of Asian-inspired fantasy recently. Jade City and Jade War are great examples of this and The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is probably the other big mainstream title that people think of in this genre. It's received a lot of hype and deservedly so, I think. (more…)
If you’ve read my The Way of Kings review, you already know I’m a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson. He has a hugely approachable way of writing often quite complex things and makes everybody understand his deep worlds very well. Skyward is the first in a relatively new series for Sanderson (it came out in 2018) and is arguably his most science-fiction book to date. And. It. Is. Brilliant. (more…)
The Family Upstairs was my first read of July and is my first Lisa Jewell book. I’d seen that Lisa Jewell has a good reputation for writing really good thrillers with Then She Was Gone another of her successes so was excited to read The Family Upstairs and see what all the hype was about. I'm pleased to say she’s done a good job with this novel. (more…)
Do I really need to introduce Jurassic Park as a premise? If you haven’t seen the film - firstly sort yourself out - secondly, you’ve very likely at least heard of it. If you haven’t: Dinosaurs are brought back to life via science and they attempt to open a theme park with the Dinos as attractions but it all goes terribly wrong. Cue madness. (more…)
Throughout the month of June, I finished eight books (I've worded it like this because I started a couple of these in May). There have been some absolute corkers this month including a few classics after I started a "list of books to read before I die" (I might do a post on this at a later date.) (more…)
After reviewing Jade City, I gave myself a short break before jumping into Jade War mostly due to having such a very long TBR, I also didn’t want to suffer from burnout in this world as I absolutely fell in love with it in the first book. Safe to say I loved Jade War too. (more…)
I’ll be honest - I didn’t get Hamnet for the first half of the novel. I didn’t make the link and I felt like nothing was really worth happening. But then it clicked: I’m not here for plot twists or high-intense action moments, I’m here for the building story and the absolutely stunning writing. Hamnet is a must-read if you’re a fan of reading. (more…)
