Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag: 2019

It’s that time of year again when I do the Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag, which was created by ReadLikeWildFire (a booktuber) and Ely Jayne (a blogger).

Best book I’ve read so far:

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

It’s impossible for me to select just one, so I grabbed my two best. Dopesick is a nonfiction book about how the opiod epidemic began in America. I listened to the audio book, which is narrated by the author, and thought it was great. It’s well written and very informative. I highly recommend it.

Wundersmith is the second novel in a middle-grade fantasy series about a girl who everyone believes is cursed. I’m so glad I read this and the first book, Nevermoor. They both carry the charm of the Harry Potter books, but I love Wundersmith more because we learn more about the amazing world in this installment.

Book Recs: Dragons!

Here’s another prompt for #WyrdandWonder, a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

ten books featuring dragons

The prompt is actually “top ten dragons,” but I haven’t read that many fantasy books to do a decent post listing my top ten dragons. Instead, in this post I’ll list five books I’ve read that feature dragons I like and five books I’d like to read that feature dragons.

Five books about dragons I like

In Search of Lost Dragons by Elian Black’mor (illus.) and Carine-M (illus.)

Book Recs: Amazing Magical Systems

I’m so mad at myself. It’s already mid-May and I’ve yet to do one of these #WyrdandWonder prompts… until now. Initially, my plan was to post every day but that quickly got pushed aside as life got busy. But finally I’m able to post a prompt. Today I’ll feature

my top 10 magical systems

But it’ll be seven instead because I couldn’t think of any more to include.

By the way, #WyrdandWonder is a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

bending

Avatar: The Last Airbender by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (illus.)

Top Ten Tuesday #37: New-to-Me Authors from 2018

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish but is now managed by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic:

New-to-Me Authors I Read In 2018

I read several books last year whose authors are new to me. Some were great picks and I look forward to sampling more of those authors’ work, while others made me regret picking up the book. I’ll focus on the positive in this post and discuss only authors whose work I’d like to try again.

Libba Bray

The Diviners

’90s Kid Book Tag

My book tags of late have all been ’90s focused. I guess I’m in a ’90s mood. I’ve even been listening mostly to music from the 1990s lately — some Tupac and Biggie and 112 and Mary J. Blige….good stuff. The ’90s, well the late ’90s, were my childhood years (born at the end of the ’80s), so I guess I’m just reminiscing.

I found this tag over on Kristin Kraves Books. I highly recommend you check out her awesome blog!

Rules:

1. Please, please, please steal this tag and spread it around! I only ask that you link it back to The Literary Phoenix so that I can see everyone’s answers!
2. Freeze tag was all the rage in the 90s. Tag someone (or many) you think would have fun with this!
3. Have fun!

Pokemon

A GBA game and trading card game where you battled pocket monsters and strived to catch them all. Back in the day, there were only 150 Pokemon.

Pokemon was fun. I enjoyed watching the show as a kid and these days I’ll rewatch an episode every now and then.

The author you need every book from

Robin Hobb

Book Recs: Atmospheric Reads

Well, this is a bit out of character. Here I am with a book recommendation post that’s not based on a meme or book tag. I’d like to congratulate myself for stepping out of my comfort zone, but this is all because I haven’t seen a meme or book tag that focuses on only atmospheric stories.

I’ve been working on this post for weeks because I keep overthinking it. I feel weird recommending books sometimes because I start thinking that I haven’t read enough and I don’t know much, but I’ve gotten over myself for the moment and will share in this post a few books I’ve read that I’d describe as atmospheric.

The term “atmospheric” sometimes baffles me. I’ve only ever seen it applied to stories that are dark and gloomy and eerie, which makes me wonder if it’s only such books that can be described as atmospheric. But I’m sure that’s not right. I call a story atmospheric if it convinces me of a particular feeling… Okay, that probably didn’t make much sense, but I now realize that this is hard to explain. For me, an atmospheric novel is one that convinces me of a particular “feeling” about the setting, which doesn’t necessarily has to be dark and eerie.

So, here are a few novels that have a strong sense of atmosphere:

Top Ten Tuesday #36: Books for My TBR by Authors I Like

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish but is now managed by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic:

Books By My Favorite Authors That I Still Haven’t Read

I’ve decided to switch up the topic a bit and will instead list books I want to read by authors whose work I’ve read and liked. (So not necessarily my favorite authors.)

“Mother of the Sea” by Zetta Elliott

Mother of the Sea is another one-sitting read I completed a couple weeks ago. I forgot why I decided to read it then, probably because I wanted something quick, but I bought the book after seeing it featured in this booktube video.

Genre:

YA fantasy; Historical fiction

Pubbed:

2017

Goodreads summary:

When her village is raided, a teenage girl finds herself on a brutal journey to the coast of Africa and across the Atlantic. Her only comfort is a small child who clings to her for protection. But once they board the slave ship, the child reveals her rebellious nature and warns that her mother — a fierce warrior — is coming to claim them all. (Goodreads)

My thoughts:

“When the skinless men leave, the taste of salt lingers on her lips.”

’90s Movies Book Tag

Since I did the ’90s Cartoon Book Tag a week or so ago, I thought it was only right that the next tag I do is the ’90s Movies Book Tag. I discovered this over on Kristin Kraves Books. It was created by A Book Lovers Playlist.

I grew up in the ’90s, so many of these movies were my favorites back then and I still enjoy watching some of them now. Some make me a little nostalgic for when I first watched them.

She’s All That

Name a book couple that are an odd pairing but they still fit perfectly

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The couples in Garden Spells are all odd pairings because they are all opposites of each other, but it’s their differences that draws them together and makes them perfect for each other. Garden Spells is about the estranged Waverley sisters who reunite after 10 years. The Waverleys are considered an odd bunch and their town believes that they grow magical flowers and have an apple tree that bears prophetic fruit.

“Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops” by Jen Campbell

I read Jen Campbell’s Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops a couple weeks ago because I’d completed Shaun Bythell’s The Diary of a Bookseller and wasn’t ready to stop reading about hilarious experiences in bookshops.

Genre:

Nonfiction, humor

Pubbed:

2012

Goodreads summary:

This Sunday Times bestseller is a miscellany of hilarious and peculiar bookshop moments: ‘Can books conduct electricity?’

‘My children are just climbing your bookshelves: that’s ok… isn’t it?’

A John Cleese Twitter question [‘What is your pet peeve?’], first sparked the ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops’ blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller’s collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor.