Exploring My Bookshelves is a weekly meme created by Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds and co-hosted with Shannon at For the Love of Words. Visit either blog for the list of topics.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts. First I got busy, then I couldn’t find a book that applies to the two prompts I missed:
A winter story
A Christmas story
I don’t think I own a book that I would classify as a winter or Christmas story. If I do, I either haven’t seen it or haven’t yet read it to know if it is.
This week’s topic:
A Christmas present (from any year)
I think the last time I received a book as a gift for Christmas, I was a kid and I got a coloring book. These days my family refuses to gift me books because apparently I have too many. Silly family. They expressed the same opinion this year so I received no books as presents. To make up for that, I decided that the most recent stack of books I purchased would be my bookish Christmas gifts to myself. They are:
Book Outlet
Room by Emma Donoghue
— I’ve heard and read great reviews of it and I also listened to BBC’s Book Club Podcast that she was a guest on and what she said made me even more curious about her novel.
Gris Grimly’s Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Gris Grimly
— I’ve wanted it ever since it was published. Now I have it.
Saints by Gene Luen Yang
— Now my set is complete.
Barnes & Noble
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
— Since learning about her, I’ve wanted to try one of her books.
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
— Reviews on this have been mixed ever since its publication but I love the cover. That’s what made me want to get it.
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
— I always confuse this with Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, which I plan to read while it snows (if it snows, hopefully it won’t) this year.
And that’s it. Though I didn’t receive books, I gave them as presents. I forgot the titles of them but one was by Tana French and the other by Louis L’Amour.
Zezee with Books 
I’ve been looking at all your different book shelf tour posts. WOW, what an amazing collection. I decided to comment on this post in particular, because of The Buried Giant, which I thought was great. Thank you for sharing. =D
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Aw thanks for checking them out 🙂 I still need to read Buried Giant.
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Great post! Gosh- I love the cover of the Buried Giant- it looks stunning!
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Thanks!
And the cover feels nice too. Rough but nice.
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Oh I’ve heard about Room – it’s meant to be good. Will you do a review on it what you’ve finished? 🙂
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I plan to. The plan right now is to review all the books I read.
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Since no one gifts books to me for the same reason, I’ve decided to make it a point to gift people books in the hopes of them catching on. So, this year I bought my sister “The Phantom of the Opera” since she is/was obsessed with the movie/soundtrack.
I’ve never seen that version of “Frankenstein,” though, and now I want it!
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Haha. I tried to hint to by saying I appreciate gift cards from Barnes & Noble but my family refuses to get any for me.
Yea the illustrations in it are great.
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Nights at the Circus is one of my favourite books! I have read it so many times, I hope you enjoy it!
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Thanks, I hope so too.
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Room was really surprisingly good. It wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.
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When I first heard of it, I wasn’t interested in reading it because I wasn’t sure how the concept would hold up but she also read an excerpt of the book on the podcast and that helped to convince me to get it.
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That sucks that you don’t get any as presents! My parents think I have too many as well, which is just ridiculous. But I think you’re definitely allowed to spoil yourself and buy your own presents 🙂
We have a linky now, so it’d be great if you could add your link to that! And thanks for participating 🙂
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Oh nice! I’ll hop on over and check it out.
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Great meme/ blog hop. My sister in law asked for Best of me by Nicholas sparks for Christmas but I couldn’t get it in time so I plan to give it later this month. Hmm too many books huh lol. I prefer kindke gift cards nowadays it’s like gifting several books in one little card 🙂
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You know I have yet to read one of his books. I bought one once (forgot which) but mom didn’t like it so I didn’t bother to read it.
Lol that a good way to look at the card. I don’t much like ebooks but I’d prefer that than no books.
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I used to be against e-books for the longest time. But now that I definitely need reading glasses and can’t afford them as of yet, ebooks are nice, since you can increase print size. Also, they’re significantly cheaper sometimes.
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Those are some of the reasons people tell me for why they like them.
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About Sparks: yeah, I didn’t get into his books until this year actually. I’ve only read half of the Notebook, and at the time I think i was too immature to handle it. Lol. But I’ve read 2 others just this year. Sometimes I think he is overhyped, but that doesn’t diminish his skills as a writer 🙂
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