#books read in January 2023

[godzilla-reads]

For the month of January I ended up reading 20 books! A lot of them were shorter or children’s books, but I enjoyed quite a few. Here’s the list:

•D&D Dungeon Club: Roll Call by Molly Knox Ostertag and Xanthe Bouma ⭐️

•Requiem of the Rose King Vol. 1 by Aya Kanno

•Blankets by Craig Thompson

•Flower Fairies of the Garden by Cicely Mary Barker

•Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert’s Story by Debbie Tung

•Dragons: An Anthology of Verse and Prose by Joanne Rippin

•Flower Fairies of the Trees by Cicely Mary Barker

•Cats in Spring Rain: A Celebration of Feline Charm in Japanese Art and Haiku trans/edited by Aya Kusch

•BFI Film Classics: Spirited Away by Andrew Osmond

•Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black ⭐️

•Flower Fairies of the Wayside by Cicely Mary Barker

•Cottons: The Secret of the Wind by Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold

•The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel by Mariah Marsden and Hanna Luechtefeld

•A Flower Fairy Alphabet by Cicely Mary Barker

•Maddy Kettle: The Adventure of the Thimblewitch by Eric Orchard

•Red Dragon Codex by R.D. Henham

•Rabbit School: A Light-Hearted Tale by Albert Sixus and Fritz Koch-Gotha (trans. Roland Freischlad)

•The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame ⭐️

•The Dragon of Lonely Island by Rebecca Rupp

•A Tale of Two Dragons by Geraldine McCaughrean and Peter Malone

[everwhovian]

Started my reading journal for 2023!

Only four days in and I already read two books...

I started wird "The Book Eaters" by Sunyi Dean. A dark fantasy horror.

It deals with human-like creatures called book eaters who, like the same suggests, eat books instead of food. The story follows a young book eater called Devon, who is on the run from her family for protecting her five years old son, Cai. Cai is a mind eater, a creature that eats minds instead of books, and in Devon's world mind eaters are a danger to society.

It's really intriguing, especially because the story shifts back from present to past, showing Devon's childhood, having her son to being on the run.

Then I went on and picked up "The Luminaries" by Susan Dennard. A fantasy and kinda also horror fiction.

The story takes place in a town called Hemlock Falls, surrounded by a deathly forest in which nightmares appear every night.

The Luminary hunters fight those monsters, protecting the town and the world beyond the forest.

Winnie Wednesday is 16 years old and wants nothing more than to join the Luminaries, but her family was shunned years ago - after her father was exposed as a witch and traitor.

The story follows Winnie trying to restore her family name and trying to survive the deadly Luminary hunters trials - for no one can be prepared for the danger lurking in the forest.

Not all monsters can be slain, and not all nightmares are confined to the dark.

If you are looking for a book to add onto your to-be-read pile, I can really recommend either of those books.

[ashtonshouse13]

Books I read in January 2023 :)

1. I Can Has Cheezburger - LOLcat

2. I Could Pee On This And Other Poems By Cats - Francesco Marciuliano

3. The Odd 1s Out How to be cool and other things I definitely learned from growing up - James Rallison

4. The Climate Book - Greta Thunberg

Total number of books: 4

Total number of pages: 1,417

I have just come out of a massive reading slump so I decided to read some books I've had for a long while, along with 'The Climate Book' by Greta Thunberg which I got for Christmas and was a very interesting read. Very heavy and at times difficult to process, however was very much worth the read. I will write individual reviews on the books :)

[why-the-heck-not]

02.10.23, thursday

I feel like taking whole weekends off doesn’t work for me. Like if I take the days off, I’ll get stuck in that mood and I’m just now getting back to the groove of things, and it’s friday again tmrw. I think the ideal for me would be like 2 weeks on and then couple days off. Something I could actually do sometimes if I just schedule it. But couple last weekends I’ve had set plans so had to have actual weekends and my productivity has taken the hit

[a-ramblinrose]

“A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in any other page of his favourite work.”

― Jane Austen, Persuasion

[etirabys]

me: goddamn, I reviewed some fiction I wrote merely 4 months ago and it feels like it was written by a completely different person with way more life in them. the past months have been rough. I need to stop waiting around taking it easy, waiting for my energy to come back. I should just do the hard things I'm putting off

brain: like rereading and reviewing Nick Lane's dense book on the origin of unicellular life in hydrothermal vents

me: noooo anything but that

[brucequeensteen]

character wrapped 2023 💥

tagged by @davidtennantpussytulpa ^-^ i didn't know how many to do so i copied tara and did top 10. i know the severance guys are Four Of Them but i can't separate them theyre all equally important to me

will graham (hannibal), em haywood (nope), aziraphale (good omens), mark & dylan & helly & irving (severance), hawkeye pierce (mash), martha jones (doctor who), ivan karamazov (the brothers karamazov), kim kitsuragi (disco elysium), stewy hosseini (succession), ruescott melshi (andor/rogue one)

i will tag... @fagician @britomart @libraryfag @roadwhores @majorbaby @globuspolski @hadleyfraserfaggot @tenderscience if u want to ^-^

[dancedance-resolution]

i started a supercorp portrait of a lady on fire au like three years ago. i'm never going to finish it, but the writing style is pretty cool, so i want to share it. so um enjoy the prologue and a bit of chapter one?

---

Prologue. Bonnelles, France. 1786.

“First, my contours,” Kara said, her voice soft and level. She looked out upon the dozen or so young women, their eyes darting back and forth from their papers to Kara herself. “The outline,” she continued. The increasingly swift sound of scratching charcoal prompted Kara to further instruct, “Not too fast. Take time to look at me.” She paused. “See how my arms are placed.”

At that moment, Kara saw the painting.

She swallowed and took in a breath; she schooled her expression before letting out the air with a pathetically soft “My hands.” Her students’ gaze followed her verbal direction, now observing as Kara’s fingers curled with remembrance. Their own hands now began to sketch the slope of hers—the slope that had once coaxed breathy moans from a lover, the slope that had once created that very painting in all of its hollow longing.

Kara felt her heart rate accelerating, and her attempts at calming deep breaths only made her shoulders shake unsteadily. “Who brought that painting out?” Her eyes darted around, landing on each possible offender, as she tensed her core and adopted a stern countenance.

Every student dutifully turned to look at the work.

It was an especially young girl who finally lifted her hand. “I brought it. From the stock room. Should I have not?”

Kara’s “no” felt like a brick, its weight threatening to pry tears from her reddening eyes. So Kara took another swallow, a handful of blinks, a few more steadying breaths.

“Did you paint it?” the girl asked innocently. Nia, her name was? She stared at Kara, oblivious to the flood of sound overwhelming Kara’s mind and echoing in the cavern of her heart.

“Yes,” Kara uttered softly, the word barely audible as they fell from her lips. “A long time ago.”

Nia’s head snapped back to examine the painting once more. It stood on an old but sturdy easel, tattooed and scarred but still standing. The artwork itself was brooding, with a white sun bleeding into a dark vignette. Heavy clumps of clouds occupied the sky and caged some of the sun’s rays, so the fire burning behind the woman was bright enough in comparison to create a dragging shadow of her figure. The flames crawled up the back of her windswept dress, bringing sharp tension to an otherwise lulling, melancholy landscape.

“What’s the title?”

The sound of the sea began to swell in Kara’s head. Her lips trembled. Her body unwittingly swayed slightly. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

---

Chapter I. The island of Brittany, France, and the surrounding sea. 1779.

Kara squinted into the distance, her face scrunching up a bit as she desperately tried to shield her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun on the water. For all its gorgeous teals and sparkling peaks, it certainly did make her wish for one of those brimmed hats the rowers were all wearing. With every one of their paced paddles, the cork-like little canoe bobbed haphazardly. Kara rather felt as if she were in the wine glass of a thoroughly drunken Marie Antoinette.

At least she wasn’t prone to seasickness.

She still felt quite unsteady, though, being thrown about and forced to pathetically grab onto the boat’s low walls. She leaned forward, trying to regain her balance and ground herself despite the absence of ground.

The wooden pallet holding her canvas was, apparently, as unstable as she was, and the next thing Kara knew, it had been lurched off of the boat like vomit from a drunkard. Kara watched helplessly as it thrashed among the choppy waves, the sea carrying it a few feet from the boat.

The chief rower met her desperate look with exhausted resignation; he ceased his paddling as Kara shed her overcoat and placed a precarious foot on the edge of the canoe.

With a strained creak from the boat’s wood, she jumped into the water, dress billowing behind her. Her first gasp for air upon emerging from the water was audible; she could feel the effort in her throat. Her arms moved in laborious little arcs as she slowly made her way towards the floating pallet and finally made a desperate reach for it. Kara’s fingers grasped onto a wooden board, and she pulled herself up onto it with a grunt.

---

The incessant wind upon the sea was certainly not helping Kara. Dripping wet, she wrapped herself up in her overcoat in a pitiful plea for warmth. She held the edges of the garment up to her lips, the sensation of the dry fabric bringing her some comfort as she closed her eyes and left herself to the mercy of the mighty sea.

But the interminable rocking of the feeble boat wouldn’t allow her any rest.

Kara wasn’t very religious, not anymore. Yet, the sight of the cliffs and coast of Brittany moved her to relieved prayer.

---

The sun had already begun to set as Kara trekked up the sandy coast. Her legs ached with every stumbling, unsure step—maybe she was a bit seasick after all—and her hands were tired of having to grip her full skirt to keep it out of her way.

She paused on the rocks, taking a moment to manually wring some of the water out of her skirt. She filled her lungs with an arduous breath before slinging the rope holding the pallet over her shoulder. Next came the fabric sling, which housed her trunk of personal items—she positioned it on her back with careful poise.

The journey up the cliffs and towards the trees was exhausting. Kara’s skirt required repositioning every few seconds, the rope was digging into her shoulder, and the pallet and trunk slammed into her back with each wobbling step. By the time she reached the straight path up to the residence, her breaths were heavy and pained, and the sun was nearly fully hidden beneath the horizon.

A soft light emanated from the windows above the mansion’s door, helping Kara feel a bit more secure as she knocked. A short blonde woman answered her summon and introduced herself with a flat “I’m Eve.” She opened the door a bit wider and gestured with her body for Kara to come in.

Eve held a small candle as she guided Kara up the stairs, the sounds of their shoes echoing through the grand yet starkly undecorated hallway. The walls of the stairwell were cement bricks, and the wrought iron bannister was rather plain and geometric.

They came to a stop in front of a similarly void room, bare save a few heavy curtains and a daybed. The raised panels along these walls matched the white-painted wood of the window frames, and they gave the chamber some elegant character.

While Eve entered the comparatively less intimidating room, Kara stayed back a moment, taking in the shafts of muted blue light from the windows and the contrasting warm glow of leaping flames from the central fireplace.

Eve crouched down to poke at the fire as Kara set down her belongings. “It was a reception room,” Eve explained. “Though I’ve never seen it used.”

The fire crackled pleasantly. “Have you been here long?” Kara inquired.

“Three years,” Eve answered, directing her attention back to the fire.

Kara peeled off her overcoat and draped it along the wainscoting. “Do you like it here?”

“Yes,” Eve said simply as she stood up. She turned to Kara, meeting her eyes now as her hands smoothed over her skirt. “I’ll let you get dry.” And with a nod, she was on her way.

Kara watched her every step.

Once the door closed, she hastily began removing her overskirt. It fell to the dark herringbone floor with an unglamorous thud.

---

There was no method or grace to the way Kara wrapped her hand around the rusting crowbar, but with a few jerks, she’d managed to successfully pry the top off of the pallet.

After setting down the wood cover, Kara extended her hand, letting it fall clumsily onto the slick canvas in front of her. It was still wet, and her hand’s small circular movement caused moisture to pool at her fingertips, as if her touch had beckoned the water. So her hand withdrew, and Kara slid the canvas out from its container. Her eyes danced over the surface as she considered how to dry it, holding it in front of herself like the Communion host of an evening Mass.

---

Kara decided to accompany her drying canvas, which was now positioned next to the fireplace. Stripped naked, she sat in front of the fire and pulled her legs towards herself—she was vulnerable, sitting there bare and in a new environment, and the action made her feel a bit more small, compact, and safe.

Kara set down her candle so she could light her tobacco pipe with the flames. Her large, smoky exhales grounded her, in a way, with the familiar sight and smell acting as a sort of sedative. And she stared forward, expression blank but unmistakably worn.

---

Kara walked barefoot along the cement floor, making her way through the hall and to the pantry room wrapped in nothing but her robe-like smock.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by Alix E. Harrow. Up next! Back on my Driscoll-adjacent reading vibes, to fuel the Driscoll-centric revising vibes (pictured in the background).

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Book Review: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Forgive me for starting with a physics pun about a physicist romance, but this was Big Bang-ing cute!

While Hazelwood does serve up a couple familiar tropes from her previous STEM works, she subverts them in fresh and entertaining ways, making it so she's able to strike a delicate balance between navigating academic politics, fake dating shenanigans, and rivals falling in love. There's something about that combination - and the manner in which it's applied here - which gives the story moments of real gravity as well as moments of quirky acceleration.

Like I said, it's a good balance. Makes for a fun, tender, science-filled escape which pins a theoretical physicist against an experimental physicist in more ways than one...😏

The premise is simple yet catching: Elsie Hannaway is a woman who's living a double life. To most, she's an adjunct professor hoping to land tenure somewhere so she can finally afford health insurance, which she needs as a Type 1 diabetic. To others, thanks to her people pleasing expertise, she's a freelancing fake girlfriend who chameleons her personality into whatever a client wants or needs, a job she takes to make extra money so she can pay her bills. (Academia ain't paying much, folks!)

Things start to look up when she gets an interview at MIT for her dream job.

However, as to be expected, things don't run smoothly. Elsie faces an obstacle. A big, tall, muscle-y one named Jack Smith, who not only happens to be an experimentalist who has undermined theorists everywhere, but is also the older brother of her favorite client. Ruh-roh!

Lets just say it makes for quite the nuclear fission!

Anyway, what starts out between them as rivalry, as academic sabotage, soon devolves into something more atomic and quantum, with Jack being able to pierce through to the nucleus of who Elsie is and becoming someone who can give her a safe space to be her authentic self. In a similar vein, she helps him to take accountability for some of his past actions and behaviors, which is long overdue. It makes for a lovely give and take. Not to mention lots of dynamism in terms of growth, characterization, and plot.

As a couple, Jack and Elsie were adorable. I liked how they were a grounding influence for one another as well as an impetus for positive change at times. They kept the smiles coming and those electrons firing! My only complaint is I found some of the steamy scenes between them to be awkward. However, that may be more a matter of preference than anything because I had a similar sentiment when I read The Love Hypothesis.

On the whole, though: RADIOACTIVE WITH CUTENESS!

A big thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

4/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

[xiuminscheeks]

.

[bookaddict24-7]

(New Young Adult Releases Coming Out Today! (January 3rd, 2023)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

___

New Standalones/First in a Series:

A Ruinous Fate by Kaylie Smith

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

French Kissing in New York by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman

The Wrong Kind of Weird by James Ramos

The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

Breakup From Hell by Ann Dávila Cardinal

Highly Suspicious & Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

16 & Pregnant by Lala Thomas

Dark Testament by Crystal Simone Smith

The Roof Over Our Heads by Nicole Kronzer

Stranded by Sarah Daniels

They’re Watching You by Chelsea Ichaso

New Sequels:

Nick & Charlie by Alice Oseman (This is a gorgeous reprint!)

___

Happy reading!

[tolive1000lives]

Reading challenge 2023 is underway!

[why-the-heck-not]

once again a wintery moodboard kind of a thing bc I take photos and forget to post them lol

[godzilla-reads]

January Reading Challenge 2023: Choose a book that you enjoyed as a teenager to reread.

Ok, I’m kinda cheating on this one, but it works. Back in high school, I had a dog named Pluto who was prone to seizures due to a brain injury before we got him. Whenever he’d be walking it off, I would read to him. I got through several books this way and we started to read Sheila Burnford’s THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, but Pluto passed away halfway through.

I’ve never been able to finish the book on account of the grief from his passing. For my January reading challenge, I’m taking this book that I love and I’m going to start from the beginning and try to read it all the way through.

Wish me luck.

📖 The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford

[ya-world-challenge]

Alright, I made a challenge! If anyone wants to read globally with me, I made a little list of prompts, neatly divisible by 12 months, plus a bonus. If you want to track your progress, I set it up on Storygraph, too - the link is below.

Tag your posts with "#ya world challenge" ! You don't have to read YA, but I want to see all your posts. :D Also please reblog to spread the word.

YA World Challenge 2023 prompts

By a Caribbean author

Features a religion not your own

Historical/contemporary fiction in a country not your own

Set in Latin America

European book in translation

Features a minority group in your country

Desi lead character, or set on the Indian subcontinent

By an Australian or New Zealand author

A non-Western sci-fi or fantasy world

Set in Asia

By an African author

Minority or non-US disabled character

LGBTQIA+ book in translation

About immigrants or refugees

Set in the Middle East

By an indigenous author

Diversity jackpot! Team of characters of varying cultures

By a Pacific Islander author

Set somewhere you'd like to travel

Non-Western mythology or fairy tale

Memoir of someone outside your cultural group

A country you heard about on the news

Focus on environment or climate

Eastern European or Slavic book

Bonus! Roll a random number and read a book for that country (my personal method, see instructions below)

Storygraph challenge link is here

Roll a random number and read a book for that country

Go to random.org and generate a number from 8 to 215.

Go to my spreadsheet here, and find your number. Use my picks or find your own!

Goodreads lists or this group are helpful for finding books. (If I'm having trouble, I'll allow myself a culturally relevant fantasy world as substitute. Or you can reroll if you get a particularly difficult country!)

If you don't want to include the territories from my list, an "official" list of 195 is here, enter 1 to 195 in the randomizer.