Classic Months- April and May 2018

Classic Months April and May 2018

For the next two months, I will be reading at least the following eight classics. The order I have listed below will be the order that I plan on reading them in. They will not be the only books that I read during the two months, but I will definitely be reading these ones. Last year, I also did Classic months and I enjoyed it. It's great to dedicate some time to the classics and I love reading them. 

April: 

🐇 The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois- This was recommended to me by one of my students almost two years ago. I never got the opportunity to read it at the time because of all the work with student teaching and at my university but I knew that I wanted to eventually. The student told me at the time that it was one of his favorite books ever. I recently picked this up at a book sale and wanted to make it the first book that I read this month.


🐇 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson- I will be watching a movie version of this for my Perspective review. This will be my second Robert Louis Stevenson story. My first was The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. I did not really like that story that much but I'm hoping that I like this more. I'm excited to pick this up, especially in regards to comparing it to the movie that I plan on watching with it.


🐇 Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome- This is supposed to be a very funny novel and I hope that it is. I have been looking forward to reading this ever since I found it at a book sale two or three years ago.


🐇 Persuasion by Jane Austen- I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice in February and planned on picking up another one of Jane's books sometime soon. So I figured why not pick up one this coming month. This was her last finished novel and I had a professor tell me how much he loved it. I can't wait to pick it up.


Other books that I may also read:
🐇 Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome- A continuation of Three Men in a Boat. Depending on my feelings for the first book, I may or may not pick this one up. I'm hoping that they are both good.


🐇 The Mystery Of Briony Lodge by David Bagchi- A cross between the characters of Three Men in a Boat and Sherlock Holmes. It looks like it is going to be really funny. This one is not a classic but I figured that if I like Three Men in a Boat enough I should probably pick this one up too.

May:
🌸 The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare- I have never read this play and have heard that it is a good one. I don't know much about it going in which I believe is going to be an interesting way of reading it. There has never been a time that I have read one of his plays knowing nothing about it. At least that I can think about. This I think will be my twelfth read play of Shakespeare's. I hope to read at least three more this year.


🌸 This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald- I have only ever read The Great Gatsby and a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby is one of my favorite books of all time and I have been wanting to read another one of his books. This is the first book that he ever wrote. He wrote it when he was twenty-three years old and it's semi-autobiographical. I can't wait to devel into another one of his books and I'm hoping that it is a good one. This is probably the book that I have hyped up the most from any of the books that I plan on reading these two months.


🌸 Orlando by Virginia Woolf- Virginia Woolf is another author that I have been wanting to read more of for years. I enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway the two times I have read it for class. Also, I have read a couple of her short stories and parts of Room of One's Own. Virginia Woolf is one of the most interesting writers that I have ever read and I want to eventually read the rest of her works. Especially this book and her letters.


🌸 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame- I believe that I watched the Disney short made of this story when I was a child but I don't really remember too much of it. This is another book that I have been meaning to read for years but have not had the chance yet. I will be watching a movie version of this called Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (Wind in the Willows in the UK) for my Perspective review. I don't know if it's another story loosely based on the book or if it is directly based off of this book. This was made by some of the Monty Python troupe (who I love so much) and has many of them in it, so I'm looking forward to seeing their take on the story.


I will also be reading:
🌸 The Willows in Winter by William Horwood- A sequel to the original The Wind in the Willows by another author. I don't know how this is going to be but I do plan on reading it. We will see.

November (Nonfiction/Catchup Month/ Tome Topple TBR) Reading

November (Nonfiction/ Catchup Month) 

For November I am going to focus on Nonfiction books (that I will list below), The ScalleywagAThon, The Tome Topple Readathon, and two audiobooks.  All of the books in this post are books that I would like to read this month, but it will all depend on what happens. I will be spending a good amount of my free time writing. We will see what happens at the end of the month. 

The books I want to read this month. The Language of Thorns, To Be or Not To Be, the I Hate Fairyland graphic novels, Inkheart, The Final Empire, Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth, On Writing, Guards, Guards, and Pyramids. 

Nonfiction books:

I originally wanted to make this month nonfiction November, but have so many other books to read. Eventually, I decided on these two below for my nonfiction books. 

On Writing by Stephen King- This will be my first ever, Stephen King book. I have heard that it is a very good book and since I have been writing so much lately I figured it would be a perfect read especially for Nanowrimo month (No, I'm technically not participating in Nanowrimo but I am going to be writing a lot this month.) 

Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences by John Moe- I have been wanting to read this book forever and am going to finally pick it up this month. It should be quick. 

ScalleywagAThon TBR:

Click on the image to make it bigger.

I first heard about this readathon today and really wanted to participate in it. The books that I am going to read are ones that I wanted to read this month anyway. It goes from November 5th- 11th. This readathon was created by Ali of HardbackHoarder and Amanda of Read All the Books. Here are the links to their videos Ali's and  Amanda's. 

The Challenges. 

1. You read four books for this readathon. Following the map, you will pick your books that you want to read. 

2. For the first book, you start at 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 and pick one of them. I am planning on number 5: Open Waters- Blue on the Cover. I will be reading I Hate Fairyland Volume Three: Good Girl by Skottie Young. 

3. Next, you follow the lines from that book- It's the white lines for me. So either 6 or 8. I will be doing 6: Jolly Roger-Skull on the Cover. I will be reading To Be or Not to Be by Ryan North: This is a choose your own adventure book taken from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.  I have read some of this before, but have not gotten through all of the choices (and I won't now either). I just really want to read more of this book this month. 

4. Then I have to follow the orange line from 6 to either A or B. I'm going to pick A: Marooned: Stand-alone. I'm going to read Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences by John Moe.

5. Finally,  I will follow the blue line to 10 Rope's End- Read a book in a Day, where I will read Lumberjanes Vol 3. 

These are the four books that I plan on reading. I will be doing a Wrap-up for the week sometime afterward. 

Tome Topple Readathon Round 5 TBR! :

Goes from November 17th- 30th. This will be my first time participating in this Readathon and I am very excited to do it. I just hope that I will be able to complete the challenges I want to. Tome Topple is a Readathon created by Sam of Thoughts on Tomes. It is a readathon where you have to read books that are at least 500 pages or more (tomes). Here is a link to her video discussing this: Tome Topple Announcement & TBR| Round 5

The Challenges:

1. Read more than 1 tome: I plan on reading three. We will see if that happens

2. Read a graphic novel (still over 500 pages!): Habibi by Craig Thompson. I have heard that this is very good and I liked his other graphic novel Blankets, so I'm ready. 

3. Read a tome that is part of a series: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. I want to finish this series this year and to do that I have to read the first book again. This will be the perfect time to read it. Well, at least I hope. 

4. Buddy read a tome: I probably will not be doing this, but we will see. 

5. Read an adult novel: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson, the first book in his Mistborn series. I have been wanting to read his books for a long time and I figured I would try this month. We will see if that happens. 

These are the three books I plan on reading for the readathon. I will be doing a wrap-up on them once I am done. 

Audiobooks: 

These two books below are books that I have to listen to this month to review. They look incredible. 

All the Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Other books: 

(If I get to them)

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo: I have already read and reviewed this book. It's incredible. 

Pyramids and Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett: These are two books that I'm not sure if I'm going to pick up this month. I may decide to save them for December if I don't get to them. They are really just maybes on the list. I was going to read two each month of the Discworld series, but I don't really care if I do it every single month. They both look great though so I'm not too sure. 

Book Scavenger Hunt

Book Scavenger Hunt- Done on June 21st 

The original video was made by Peter Monn on his Booktube channel Peter Likes Books. 

This scavenger hunt is to help you find a book that you will be reading next. He says that you can do this in the library, a book store, or in your own house, though he recommends the library. I decided to do it in my room because I have hundreds of books that I need to read there. I would recommend watching his video to get a full explanation from him and also it is a great video. 

Also it was a lot of fun to do!

Here is a link to his original video if you would like to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpGIgK2RTPM

Rules/ Directions:

*You may not ask for help!

*You may have fun and take as long as you want!

*The prize is the book you end up with at the end!

1. Find your favorite book: My favorite book is The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I could have used this but I decided to use The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald which is my second favorite book because of the next step.

2. Find another author who has either the same first or last name in their name as the author in #1. Pick any book by that author: So I do not own any books by another Audrey or Niffenger so I decided to go with F. Scott Fitzgerald for the first book. My second book is Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld.

3. Open that book and go to page 74. On the 3rd line down, pick out two words and find another book with those two words in the title: So on page 74 of Afterworlds the sentence goes: "The last word sent a trickle down my spine. Suddenly this all" As soon as I saw this I thought of one book, The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. 

4. Once you found that book, find another book with a similar context: For this I did not have a hard time thinking of the context and a book that would match it. I'm not going to spoil The Last Song for you here but a book with a similar context is Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson.

5. Upon finding that book, find a diverse book with a similar title: I had a hard time finding a book that would fit for this one and I almost switched out Second Chance Summer because of this but then I thought of the perfect book. The Second  Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. It has two words that are the same.

6. Pick a name of one of the main characters from that book and find another book that has that name in title: There are four main characters in this series: Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget. Again at first I could not think of any books with a character in the name and then I remembered Bridget Jones' Diary. 

7. Open that book to any page and pick a word without looking. That is your word: My word is winter. 

8. Go to your favorite section and find the first book you see that has you word in the title:

I have two books that I know of that have the word winter in them: Winter by Marissa Meyer and Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. Winter is part of a four part series of books and I know that I will not have the time to read that before the end of the month. I decided to read Winter's Tale next. This is another large book so we will see what happens. The funny thing is that I have had this book for a long time and have been wanting to read it recentely. 

9. You have found the book the universe is leading you to read!: Well I guess so. I cannot wait to read this book.

10. Buy or checkout your book.

If you decide to do this also comment down below what book you get. This would definitely be easier in the library but I did have a lot of fun going through my books.