Hocus Pocus Book Tag

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 😀

I don’t celebrate the holiday, but I do love seeing people dress up in costumes to celebrate it and I enjoy watching horror and thriller movies and TV shows in honor of it. And since I haven’t yet watched season 2 of Stranger Things… Guess what I’ll be doing tonight!

For this blog, I decided to honor the holiday with one of my favorite Halloween-inspired movies: Hocus Pocus. I was so excited when I saw the tag on Lair of Books. I loved the movie as a kid (still do) and the songs in it. It came out in the early 1990s (back when Disney shows had substance to them).

The tag was created by Katie at Never Not Reading and the graphics I’m using where done by Flavia the Bibliophile.

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Apple, Pumpkin Book Tags

It’s Sunday and I’m here with a long tag post ’cause I’m feeling guilty for not going to an event. (Outside is overcast and rainy and I just prefer to stay in my cozy bed.)

I love to double up on book tags, though they make the post extra long, but I have a really good reason for doubling up on these two and that’s because they were both created by booktuber Josh of the Literary Gladiators! Also, they are both perfect for the fall season.

For me, apples make me think of the apple pies I crave in the fall, which is a recent thing because my family started to make apple pies about a year or so ago. We discovered apple pie a la mode and have been hooked ever since!

I like pumpkins. I like them in my soup and I love pumpkin-flavored foods such as pancakes, cakes, and, of course, pumpkin spice lattes, which I always get from Panera as soon as the leaves start to change. My family have a superstition that pumpkins are duppy, i.e. ghost, food, so my mom always warns me whenever I eat it (and make me feel scared).

Anyway, I’ll get on with the tag starting with the…

Apple Book Tag

(see the original video here)

Granny Smith: An overbearingly sweet work or character

Autumn Book Tag

And I’m back with another book tag for the season! 🙂 Can you tell that I love doing book tags? If not, I do and I enjoy reading them too because I get book recommendations from them sometimes, but only when peeps give more details on the books mentioned in the tag.

Well, I wasn’t tagged for this one but I discovered it over on Dani’s blog, Perspective of a Writer. She had some cool graphics over there. I really like how her blog looks. The tag was created by seelieknight.

Best autumnal themed book cover.

Cuttings by Yuko Ota (illus.)

This is a collection of illustrator Yuko Ota’s work. I got it at the Small Press Expo last year but haven’t yet picked it up to read. I think it fits this category well, both the illustration and the colors.

Top 5 Wednesday #21: Vampire and Scary Non-Horror Books

Yeahie!! 😀 It’s Top 5 Wednesday on a Thursday, which means life is very busy at the moment.

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme created by GingerReadsLainey and now managed by Sam from Thoughts on Tomes. For more information on this meme, visit the Goodreads group.

Since I didn’t do a post last week, though I really wanted to, I’ll start off this week’s post with last week’s topic:

Books with paranormal creatures

I’ve surprised myself. I now realize that I haven’t read many paranormal/supernatural novels. I jump around so much in the genres I read that I haven’t read much of any one genre. Fantasy is a recent exception because it’s since committing myself to blogging that I began to read more of it. Fantasy has always been a favorite but prior to blogging, I mostly reread my favorite novels instead of trying new ones. And though rereading is fun, it’s also a bit of a hindrance when blogging because it limits the variety of books I can recommend. Thus, my lists here will contain many books I’ve previously mentioned.

Anyway, for this topic I chose books that feature vampires. Starting with…

Fall Book Tag

It’s fall. Here’s a tag. It’s the Fall Book Tag created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm.

I was tagged by Beth of Bethan May Books, who I recently started following (recently meaning about a month ago 😉 ) and have received several book recommendations from so definitely check out her blog to get some too.

Rules:

Link back to the tag’s creator.

Use the graphics if you want to.

Have fun.

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

“Kings of the Wyld” by Nicholas Eames

Quick summary:

Kings of the Wyld is a fantasy novel about a band of warriors who were once the best in the land but have grown old and gone their separate ways.

Our protagonist, Clay, who’s known for his shield Blackheart, settled down to a comfortable life and has started a family. Frontman Gabriel, a.k.a. Golden Gabe, also married and had a kid but didn’t settle into the peace and monotonous comfort of family life. Moog, the band’s magician, started a lucrative business selling his invention – Magic Moog’s Magnificent Phallic Phylactery; while quick, knife-wielding Matrick grew fat and became a cuckold king. The only member of the band who remained unchanged over the years is badass Ganelon, who was turned to stone.

When the story begins, Gabe has travelled long and hard to ask Clay to help him get the band back together so they can save his daughter, Rose, who’s much like her father at his prime as Golden Gabe and has ran off to the city Castia to save it from a horde of monsters. Clay is reluctant to leave the comfort of his family, but decides to go because he too is a father and would be willing to do anything to save his daughter if she were in a similar situation.

Shelf Control #6: “The Rise” and “50 Psychology Classics”

Shelf Control is a weekly meme created by Lisa at Book Shelf Fantasies where bloggers feature books they own and would like read. It’s a way for readers to take stock of what they own and get excited about the books on their shelves and devices.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, so I’ve decided to feature 2 books instead of just one. I chose the books at random and was surprised to see that both books are based in psychology.

…I guess this is a sign that I should start reading the nonfiction books I own.

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My first pick of the week

Title: The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery

Author: Sarah Lewis

Genre/Subject: Nonfiction; psychology

Published: 2014

Length: 259 pages

Goodreads summary:

From celebrated art historian, curator, and teacher Sarah Lewis, a fascinating examination of how our most iconic creative endeavors — from innovation to the arts — are not achievements but conversions, corrections after failed attempts.

…Written over the course of four years, this exquisite biography of an idea is about the improbable foundations of a creative human endeavor. Each chapter focuses on the inestimable value of often ignored ideas — the power of surrender, how play is essential for innovation, the near win — can help propel you on the road to mastery, the importance of grit and creative practice. The Rise shares narratives about figures past and present that range from choreographers, writers, painters, inventors, and entrepreneurs; Frederick Douglass, Samuel F.B. Morse, Diane Arbus, and J.K. Rowling, for example, feature alongside choreographer Paul Taylor, Nobel Prize winning physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, and Arctic explorer Ben Saunders. (Goodreads)

Where I got it: Book Outlet

When I got it: Last year

Why I got it: I was inspired by her TED Talk on how the idea of failure can motivate us.

Book Cake Book Tag

As I sit here with my stomach grumbling dreading that I’ll have to cook something (I hate cooking), I thought to myself, “Why not do the Book Cake Book Tag that Ann of Ann’s Reading Corner tagged me for ages ago?”

Actually, that’s not what I said to myself. It was more like “Ugh… I don’t feel like cooking. Lemme do a book tag.” Either way, here I am with another book tag and one I was actually tagged for this time! 🙂 I’m catching up. Kinda. Ann tagged me for this last year, but better late than never, eh? Thanks Ann! 😀

By the way, after some searching, I found that the tag was created by booktuber Suddenly Lorna.

Flour: A book that was slow to start but picked up as it went along

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Try a Chapter Tag, Pt. 2

I’ve always wanted to do another round of the Try a Chapter Tag (here’s my first one), so I’m glad to finally get another chance to do it. I recently completed the 2 books I’ve been actively reading and am now looking for 2 more to start on. (I tend to juggle 3 these days.) Since I’m long overdue to read the ARCs and other recently published books I won in giveaways, I’ve decided to use this tag to choose two ARCs/recently pubbed books to read next.

The tag was created by Malia at BookParadise, a booktuber. The guidelines are as follows:

Choose 5+ books you’ve been meaning to read.

Read up to the first chapter, prologue included.

Decide if you’ll complete it or set it aside.

Here are the books I’ll choose from.

Some of these were published earlier this year so I’ll include the publication dates below.

Book Haul #39.5: I did good…at Small Press Expo

Earlier this week, I posted the first part of this haul showing books and comics I bought since my last haul. Since that post ran a bit long because I talk too much, I decided to break up the haul into two posts. This one will focus on the loot I got from the Small Press Expo, which is an indie cartooning and comic book event that takes place in September. As I said in my first post, I was on my best behavior this year and kept my purse in my bag so I wouldn’t buy everything I saw, and boy did I see a lot and love them all!

Comics & graphic novels