Hayley

@Roderick99 I was sceptical about bubble tea until my sister got me to try it, it's such a weirdly nice texture! I just had beans on toast, one of my favourite simple things

Hi, welcome to the forum I think it might be that the books are sagging slightly at the back while they're on the shelf, I've had that happen to paperback books before. Do they completely fill the shelf? You could try making sure the books are quite tightly pushed together at the back, so they're completely upright all the way along. The best way to flatten them back into shape would probably be to lie them flat and put something heavy, like some other books, on top of them, that's worked for me!

I have to say, I think it's really impressive that you manage to keep up with recording and editing video reviews of all your books, especially when you read so much! I particularly like the cover of The Poet X. I've never read an entire novel in verse before, did you still feel like you got to know the characters properly? Glad you've generally enjoyed all of your recent books anyway, you've had lots of various read-a-thons to do!

Great reviews! I was looking at The Knife of Never Letting Go myself and thought the intentional spelling mistakes might be annoying to read, so it's good to hear that you ended up liking that element! Interesting thoughts on Eleanor Oliphant too. I haven't read it but I was actually thinking the other day about how some books seem to get far more attention (even before release, so not necessarily because readers love it) than others and I think that was one of those books. I can actually picture the cover of Eleanor Oliphant instantly because I've seen it so much, even though I've never actually picked it up.

I think that would actually have been the more sensible way to do it, since then you have more options for your team in the game, but I just missed loads. I think I’m still only on about 45% of the Pokédex! I like seeing what I can find in the worm holes too! The water type is particularly cute in the new trailer. Is there a reason you usually go for the water type? Is it for a tactical purpose or are they just your favourites usually?

I can see blue sky! It feels like spring again. Although we did still have plenty of wind and rain this morning...

I have Flowers for Algernon on my ‘to-read’ list too and had heard that it’s very sad. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m glad your writing is going so well too, that’s great! I have no doubt that you’ll have work published soon

I’m glad you liked it! The Hangman sounds interesting, I like a good mystery. I have seen it in shops before but didn’t realise it was part of a series.

We had that crazy rain in the midlands too! Today was really windy here as well but at least it wasn't as wet. (I like that the Never Ending Song Titles are about rain at the moment - very appropriate )

Me too @Athena! I think I want the grass type . I definitely think it will be the old fashioned way of catching pokemon, I think I remember them saying that they'd still release traditional games when they did the Let's Go games. I tried the demo of Let's Go Pikachu but it just didn't feel as fun. I'm still playing Sun, I've finished the story but I like trying to collect all the pokemon!

It’s so addictive! I actually spent ages just gathering ingredients and cooking. I was looking at Octopath Traveller but I wasn’t sure if it seemed worth the price. I think it has a demo now so I might give that a try. I think Mario Odyssey is on sale at the moment too so I’ll have a look at that Does anybody else like the Pokemon games? They’ve announced the next one (sword and shield) and I can’t wait to play it!

Would you prefer a particular genre? What type of books do you usually like?

A predictable thriller is very underwhelming... if you’re not invested in finding out what happens next it really defeats the point of the genre doesn’t it? Hope you enjoy your new books!

How about the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (the first book is Storm Front)? It has a male protagonist, lots of supernatural creatures (including vampires and demons) and romance. Welcome to the forum by the way

I finished Blood Rites last night, which makes one book and two short stories for the read-a-thon, a total of 507 pages I'm glad you both enjoyed your books this weekend (I might add The Knife of Never Letting Go to my to-read list actually, since you liked it so much @karen.d!). 1934 is a LOT of pages @Athena, I thought I read the number wrong at first!

@Athena that's exciting, finding some extras at the end of the book! I am enjoying both! I just got to one of those shocking plot twist parts in Blood Rites though so I think I'll be focusing on that one today! I'm now on page 56 of the penguin book and 212 of Blood Rites

So March has crept up on us and I'm thrilled to finally show you the GREAT (he he...) March giveaway! This time we have a gorgeous print of The Great Gatsby's most famous line from thestorygift.co.uk AND a Great Gatsby tea from the Literary Tea Company! This particular tea is Peach Blossom (which sounds delicious and I kind of wish I could keep it myself...) and the tin features another Gatsby quote. If you'd like to see the other literary teas available (there are lots, I spent ages looking) you can find them both at the Literary Tea Company's etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LiteraryTeaCompany) or at their own website, theliteraryteacompany.co.uk . As always, supporters are automatically entered into the giveaway and if you're not a supporter but want to be included in this months giveaway but you can become a supporter on patreon here... https://www.patreon.com/bookclubforum . A winner will be chosen at random on the last day of the month. Good luck!

Yeah Blood Rites did have a great first line! Glad you've enjoyed your reads so far I'm half way through The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy in the Penguin short story collection (33 pages) and 61 pages into Blood Rites.

'The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.' Blood Rites - Jim Butcher

That's good @Athena! I hope you enjoyed them I'm having a very slow start to the read-a-thon. I was out for much longer than I expected today, partly because I got stuck in terrible traffic, then I couldn't decide what to read (I finished The Corset last night) so I spent a lot of time taking books off the shelf and then putting them back . I finally decided to go for a mix of The Penguin Book of English Short Stories and Blood Rites (one of the Dresden Files series).

I can't believe it's the end of February already but here we are! The wheel has been spun and the winner is.... @Brian.! Congratulations Brian, I hope you like them! (I think the notebook would be perfect for writing down a book log!)

Hi Karen, welcome to the forum! I can promise that nobody here will look down on your reading tastes, I read a lot of different genres and I know other people here do too. Also everybody is really nice and not at all judgemental Good luck with the book cull. I find it hard to decide which books to get rid of, but at least it's nice to be able to give lots of books to charity or to a local library! I'm trying not to buy any more books until I've got through some of my huge unread pile, otherwise I would join you with Outlander. As Athena said though, there are definitely members on here who've already read and loved the books, so it might be worth starting a discussion thread on it, if you want to talk about it while you read

It's a shame the books weren't great. It's really hard to get into a book when you know you're meant to like the main character but you just don't isn't it? I also agree that it was an odd choice to make the only person of colour in the books the villain!

Yes! I haven't quite decided what to read yet though, it depends how far I get into The Corset before Friday. Apart from being out during the day on Friday I have planned to spend the rest of the weekend in so, fingers crossed, I should be able to get a fair amount of reading done!

@muggle not I did look for Where the Crawdad's Sing when I was in Waterstones but they didn't have it. I don't know whether that's because it had sold out but it's obviously popular! The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden 5/5 - I loved it I know I've already said how much I loved this book so I'll only do a really short review but, once again, it was such a great book. I really like anything to do with folklore and old fairy tales, so the whole concept of these books immediately appealed to me. The characters are all great, a whole cast of very memorable personalities. The settings are beautiful, unique and easy to get lost in. As the final book in the trilogy, I thought it was the perfect ending, tying together various ends from the previous books and displaying all the important messages of the story. I don't want to say what those messages are in case it gives an idea of the ending, but lets just say they're as relevant and important to our own time as in the historical and magical world of the Winternight trilogy. Leaving reality aside though, this is also one of those brilliantly magical worlds that you really wish was actually real, a world that stays with you after you've finished reading. And now I feel sad that it's over again... But, with that short review, I'm actually up to date with my reading log! I've started reading The Corset by Laura Purcell and, although I'm not that far into it yet, I think it's going to be good!