Books I loved but never reviewed | Talking about some of my favorite books!

Hi, guys! I’m finally joining in on another Top Ten Tuesday topic. It’s been a while since I participated in this meme without tweaking the topic so much it became something else entirely. This week, we’ll be talking about the Books I loved but never reviewed. I think this is a perfect way to shout out some of our favorite books that might have gone unnoticed. 

Researching for this post made me realize that I write a lot of reviews! I thought coming up with 10 will be an easy task for today’s post. Oh, I was very wrong. 😅

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A reflection post | Did I actually incorporate these reading habits?

Exactly one year ago, I made a post about bookish habits I wanted to add to my routine. It’s about time for me to take a look back on the past 12 months and see if I actually incorporated these habits. Or maybe see if I tried them and they didn’t work for me. Basically, another reflection post I tend to love writing 😀 

At the time of creating these habits, my goal was to be more organized when it comes to reading. I love the idea of having dedicated time and mind-space for reading, but we all know that it’s not always possible. 

How to Find Motivation & Fight your way out of a Reading Slump!

Hi, friends! As promised in my yesterday’s post – March 2020 Wrap Up, where I talked about the reading slump that has been haunting me since the end of February, here is a list of things I’ve been doing to try and fight my way out of this horrible feeling! 

This is still work in progress, but considering that I’m planning to finish my 11th and 12th books of this month, I think it’s actually going well and I hope that before OWLs begin I will be fully excited to emerge myself in numerous magical worlds! 

The Reasons why I don’t Re-Read books anymore!

Every time I see someone re-reading their favorite books, I get transported to my teens when all I did was re-read books over and over again. To the point that I knew them all by heart. The most notable re-reads back then were (1) the Harry Potter series, (2) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, (3) children’s detective novels and (4) some witty and funny adult crime fiction. 

I wanted to justify my re-reading phase with the fact that I didn’t have that many unread books on my shelves, but that’s not entirely true. My grandfather spent most of his life collecting books, which was very difficult to do in the URSS. Most of the available books were propaganda, and foreign authors were forbidden for many years. There even was an “underground” book trade business. 

New Favorite Authors of 2019 | Ft. Books I’m planning to read in 2020!

When I just started this blog, I didn’t even know that it was possible to read books from so many different authors. My reading mentality back then only allowed me to buy and read books from my favorite authors, or re-read all the books I already owned.

I remember how much I loved going to book shops when I was a teenager, browsing through all the new releases, reading the blurb on the back, and then putting the books down just to go and choose something from the author I was already familiar with. 

Looking Back at the 2010s | ft. Backwards Bucketlist!

2010s wasn’t an “easy” decade. This was basically the decade of my 20s – the time of changes, of finding yourself and your place in this world, and of course the time of new experiences. This is when we graduate from University, look for our first serious jobs, or pursue academic careers, and are forced to make many important and life-affecting decisions. 

I saw this Backwards Bucketlist on zoella.co.uk. I used some of the prompts from there that applied to me and removed others. But if you’d like to see the full list and also get the printables, make sure to check Zoella’s blog!

I tried speech-to-text app for a week | Did it help my blogging routine?

Not so long ago I saw this amazing post by Kelly @ Another Book in the Wall, where she talked about her way of fitting blogging into the busy schedule and daily routine, and one of the tips she gave was to use the speech-to-text app. 

My first thought was: OMG! This is amazing! 

I’m definitely one of those people who prefer to speak their thoughts out loud. I tend to talk to myself when I’m driving, just as a way to form my thoughts for the upcoming blog posts or book reviews. However, once I arrive at my destination I usually don’t have time to sit down and type everything I just spoke aloud, and then I forget about it entirely. 

Books I’m planning to read this Autumn | An attempt to actually read books from my TBR pile!

TBRs are like New Year’s resolutions. They are made to be broken! So why not join the TTT (Top Ten Tuesday) meme this week and make one more list of books I’ll probably only read next summer or in many years from now.* 

*I hope you don’t think that I intentionally don’t follow my TBR! I have all the desire and determination to read these books ASAP. But you know… TBRs…¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This week’s TTT topic is Books on my Fall 2019 TBR, which is a perfect way to begin the Autumn season! Happy 2nd day of Autumn, everyone! The weather is finally changing. We had some much needed rain last weekend. The evenings are finally chilly, and I lit up my first candles of the season. There are three genres I usually gravitate towards during colder months: (1) Fantasy, (2) Thrillers and (3) Historical Fiction.

10 Most Gorgeous Books I Own and Won’t Let Anyone Touch!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “Books I refuse to let anyone touch”, and this could be interpreted in different ways – “books so bad I refuse to let anyone read them”; “my favorites books I wouldn’t let to anyone” or, something I decided to talk about today – “the most gorgeous books I refuse to let anyone touch with their greasy fingers!”

I don’t own that many beautiful hardcover books because (A) Paperbacks are way cheaper and (B) I don’t really care to collect all the hardcovers. I mostly pick up the books I’m really interested in over the pretty covers. But if I would have an unlimited budget for my book shopping sprees, I’d definitely get all those gorgeous hardcovers I always drool over at the book shops!

My rating system | Does it really work?

This is a very long-coming post. Usually, when people start a book blog, rating protocol is one of the first things they think about. Afterall, that is what you will be doing for the most part of the blog – reviewing and rating books. On almost every blog you can find the rating system and its explanation to help people situate themselves within the wide array of stars, roses, tea cups and other symbols picked by thousands of book bloggers.

It took me over a year to figure out what exactly I want my ratings to represent.

Guide to Reading and Reviewing ARCs | How to embrace the ARC’s DNF

Unlike the title might suggest, this is not an actual textbook guide. I have been blogging for over a year now and reading and reviewing ARCs for almost the entirety of it. I cannot call myself an expert but I can share my process with you and maybe you will find it helpful, you are also welcome to leave some of your own tips in the comment section below!

Why are Reviews the lesser viewed posts and why do we keep writing them?!

When I first started my blog in March last year I wasn’t a blog reader. I didn’t follow any bookish blogs or any blogs for that matter. All I was looking for is a space of my own where I can keep my thoughts and opinions on recently read books. And if you scroll all the way down to my very first posts, they all consisted of reviews, because What else should I blog about if all I do is read books?!

Why do I love being a Book Blogger?

For my blog’s 1 year anniversary in the month of March I decided to share with you all the reasons why I love to blog. There is no specific date, but last month in 2016 was when I finally got over my fears and created this wonderful thing that consumes all of my free time!

This started of as “my own space where I can store all the memorable bookish moments” and turned out to be “thoughts shared with hundreds of other readers and book lovers” and that is truly wonderful!

Should We Read More of “Serious” Literature and Award-Winning Books?

Do you remember those glorious school days of reading thousands of enormous classics filled with ancient words and war scenes that made us grimace and frown? How we hated literature lessons and no-one (not a single person except maybe you) read the full length of the novel? All it took was to go online and search for a “short description of the plot”.