Books I Wish I Read in 2020

Posted on 12/19/2020 by Lenn

This year is one of the best reading years for me and the entirety of 2020 was spent catching up on series and releases that I have not been able to read the past couple of years. It’s also the year where I bought so many books as I wanted to support my local bookstores during the pandemic. I’ve bought a lot of books that have been sitting on my Goodreads want-to-read shelf for years now, and I am so happy about it. Now, I just need more time to read all of them.

There are also books sitting on my physical shelves for years and still haven’t gotten to them because ever since I started working six years ago, I didn’t have a lot of time reading except for those years where I feel really lost and turn all my attention into reading. Anyway, I’ll be listing all of them in this post and, hopefully, I get to read every book on this list in 2021. Continue reading →

End of the Year in Books

Posted on 12/14/2020 by Lenn

Hi, everyone! We’re now down to the last month of the year and, wow, did time fly way too fast. At this point, I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing because it sure felt like I’ve lost a year of my life at home. Haha But despite this year being a pain in the arse, it sure as heck been one of the greatest reading year I’ve had since 2017. 2017 was a very challenging year for me, and one thing I realized now is that I do turn to books for comfort whenever life becomes too hard for me to bear.

So today, I’m doing the End of the Year Book Tag which I’ve been seeing around the booktube community and saw that one of my bookish friends here in the internet did it on her blog, too. I remember doing a similar post to this one at the first half of the year, so I decided to do it now, too: Continue reading →

The Tome Project

Posted on 08/14/2020 by Lenn

Tome, /tōm/ n.
A book, especially a large, heavy, scholarly one.

I started reading more since the quarantine started in March and managed to put a quarter of a dent on my physical TBR. Some time around the middle of this chaos, when it was announced that couriers are back in operations and that deliveries can pass through from wherever city to another, I started buying books again. I started hauling books that have been on my Goodreads TBR for years! So the quarter of a dent that I made on my physical TBR isn’t quite considered a dent anymore since I’ve added quite a number of books on it. Haha

As you know, I’ve announced in a previous post that I am participating in Sam’s (of thoughtsontomes) Tome Topple readathon and it quite gave me an idea to launch this little project. With that being said, I came up with a plan to read at least one tome (or a 500+ page book) from my physical TBR per month.

I have a lot of books that are over 500 pages and I think I’ve added some more during the quarantine, and most of these books are part of a series so I hope that this personal project will help me read most of the books that I have hauled over the years (and recently) and finally finish all of them.

For August, I included Flyte (Septimus Heap, #2) by Angie Sage which has a total of 531 pages and Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl which has a total of 563 pages. This is a good start for me because the Caster Chronicles series has been on my Goodreads TBR for a very long time and it has been suggested and recommended to me by a lot of people and I bought the whole series three years ago, so I really really need to get to it.

Reading update:

I have managed to finish reading Flyte (Septimus Heap, #2) by Angie Sage on Saturday and I gave it a 3.75 rating. It was absolutely an awesome journey with Septimus and Jenna. so I am looking forward to continuing the series next month. After reading Flyte, I started reading Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl yesterday and I’m just a couple of pages in so I can’t really say anything about it yet.

On the side of Beautiful Creatures, I am also reading Dekada ’70 by Lualhati Baustista on the side so that I could also make progress with my Wikathon TBR. So far, I am enjoying the book. For me, it is really educational given the current state of our country recently.

#TomeTopple TBR

Posted on 08/07/2020 by Lenn

Hey, everyone! Today I’ll be sharing with you guys my Tome Topple TBR which I am really excited about because I’ll be starting a new book series that has been on my shelf for three years now. I’ve seen and watched a lot of participants’ videos and Instagram posts in the previous rounds. Seeing and watching them read their tomes made me feel giddy and challenged to read the tomes from my shelf too. It’s Tome Topple Readathon’s 12th round already and I think Sam’s planning on hosting another one around November, so if this works, I’ll probably participate again then.

For those who do not know yet, the Tome Topple Readathon is a readathon where the main goal is to read as much books over 500 pages in two weeks! This readathon will run from August 8th to 21st (in your timezone). This readathon is founded by Sam from @thoughtsontomes and co-hosted by other bookish people in the book community. Continue reading →

#Wikathon TBR

Posted on 07/31/2020 by Lenn

Hey, everyone! Cheese, it’s already the end of July — I can hardly believe it. Time is flying by way too fast even when most of us are stuck at home during this time, eh? Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well and are making the most out of all the time we have to spend indoors. In my side of the world, July 31 is a holiday, so I’ve spent the whole day catching up with the books that I’m reading, shoot my books, watched anime, and now I’m writing this blog post. Continue reading →

Book Mail: My First Ever Fullybooked Online Purchase

Posted on 07/16/2020 by Lenn

Hi, everyone! I’m back with another book mail. These arrived along with the other books that I posted before but decided to post them separately because I bought them separately, too. Haha! It just so happened that I had them shipped to my boyfriend’s place and he had it delivered to me all at the same time.

To be honest, I think I’ve bought so many books this year than I ever did in my whole life. The quarantine keeps me feeling anxious and overthinking most of the time and my only escape is online shopping and looking forward to my parcels arriving. Most of my purchases are books (some skincare, of course, but only if I run out of stocks); books keep me so preoccupied which help me avoid overthinking. So without further adieu, here are the titles for this haul:
Continue reading →

Best Books of 2020 So Far

Posted on 07/06/2020 by Lenn

Hi, everyone! I hope you are all doing okay and you are all able to cope up with the events happening worldwide recently. It’s been a tough year, generally speaking, but to get my mind off all the cruel things happening around us, I turned to my books for solace. Just like what I used to do when I was kid and so 2020 instantly became a great reading year for me so far. My Goodreads goal is to read 30 books this year and I’ve already read 22 books (so I will probably adjust my reading challenge to 40 or 50).

This “tag” is an annual bookish thing that has been going on around the bookish community which, to be honest, I haven’t done in a while. Since I did read a lot of books so far this year, I decided to do it again. Wow, I can’t even remember the last time I did this (and I can’t even remember if that particular post still exists in my blog since I migrated to WordPress from Tumblr just last year).
Continue reading →

Book Mail: Septimus Heap by Angie Sage + Percy Jackson & the Olympians

Posted on 06/26/2020 by Lenn

Another book mail that I received during the quarantine is the Septimus Heap series (minus the seventh book) by Angie Sage. My boyfriend bought it for me and sent it to me via Lalamove along with the other book orders that I had shipped at his place. Continue reading →

Book Mail: Quarantine Edition

Posted on 05/16/2020 by Lenn

Nine weeks into quarantine and I finally made my first online purchase and, yes, they are books and I am so happy! So it went like this, I was browsing through my Facebook feed one weekend which mainly consist of the usual memes, some of my friends’ rants or food they had for lunch, and whatnot when I stumbled upon this post from one of the bookish groups that I am a member of. This person, who is also a member of the group, was decluttering her shelves and decided to sell some of her books. When I saw the titles of the books she were selling, I immediately sent her a message to reserve the books under my name. It was actually an easy transaction because she made a Shopee link for the specific titles that I will be buying and also agreed for me to pay via COD (Cash On Delivery).

So what are the titles that I got, exactly? Continue reading →

Quarantine Book Recommendation

Posted on 03/25/2020 by Lenn

Hey, everyone! I know this is a troubling time for all of us. I, personally, suffer from anxiety attacks every once in while whenever I think about the situation that we are all facing today, especially when I come to the realization that we do not know when this global crisis will end.

We are all well-aware that this is a very serious issue and I am, by no means, disregarding the situation, but trying to avoid and spend a little time away from social media and other things that could possibly increase my anxiety per day would help. We all just need to make sure that we are responsible enough to stay indoors for the time-being until all this is over. I cannot stress this enough, and I think I’ve mentioned this in all my social media platforms: Remember, the more we stay indoors and practice social distancing, the sooner we can go back to our normal lives.

So aside from doing my part in making sure to stay indoors to help stop the spread of this virus, I thought that, as a reader, I could at the very least make a recommendation post for readers out there who are stuck at home or even just for the general public who wonders, “What good book should I read next?” Continue reading →

Lenn of Spades ♠

Tag Archives: books to read