INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HAPPINESS | SEVEN BOOKS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

I love me some misery in my books. I love heavy topics and the weight of the world, and I'm not afraid of a book that's going to make me sad or angry.

However, today is the International Day of Happiness, and on this day I thought I'd compile a little collection of the books that make me smile. While I love hard hitting topics and a good dollop of 'the world is an awful place', each of these books fills me with hope and joy, and are a great reminder that it's okay if a novel's only job is to make its readers happy! Enjoy! 

RECOMMENDATIONS | CLASSICS BY AND ABOUT WOMEN

Penguin have recently released the Sisterhood collection - six beautiful editions of classic novels, all written by and about women. I was lucky enough to be gifted a copy of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and it's inspired me to put together a post honouring three of my favourite women writers of classic literature.

Each of these women gets a bit of a raw deal by the 'literary canon' and gets lumped into writing straight romance (by people who think romance is bad) when their work has so much more to offer. So I wanted to make the case for each of them, and hopefully inspire you to check them out if you haven't! 

Review | The Familiars by Stacey Halls

The Familiars by Stacey Halls - Published February 2019 by Bonnier Zaffre - ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆

"If the Devil is poverty, and hunger, and grief then yes, I think they know the Devil."

WORLD BOOK DAY BLOGHOP | TOP FIVE CHILDHOOD READS

Happy World Book Day! It's a day for bibliophiles of all ages and backgrounds to celebrate their love of reading. I've teamed up with some amazing bloggers to bring you a round-robin bloghop, in which we talk about books that have shaped us as readers. Please do check out the other posts in this series, and I hope you have a lovely WBD and have the chance to enjoy some reading yourself.

My post is coming between Vicky and Connie, so definitely go on over to their profiles for more World Book Day goodness!

TBR | MARCH READING LIST

Remember three posts ago when I said I didn't really do TBRs? Well a girl can change her mind.

This is a fairly loose TBR because there are some new releases in March that I am desperate to get to (Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi being the main one!) but given that one of these books is a short story collection that I need to finish up, and I'm so excited for Priory I can't bear to let it out of my sight,  don't think I'll have an issue finishing up this modest stack. 

RECENTLY READ | JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2019

Happy March everybody! If I may dust off a cliche, I can't believe the year has gone so quickly! I've had a pretty good start to my reading year. While I've only finished 5 books, that includes the 1000+ page mammoth that is The Way of Kings, and I've really enjoyed everything that I've read so far.

BOOK REVIEW | IF WE WERE VILLAINS BY M.L. RIO

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio - Published June 2017 by Titan Books - ⋆⋆⋆⋆

"Actors are by nature volatile - alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy."

BOOKISH CHAT | HOW I READ SO MUCH

Like a lot of people I was a voracious reader as a child. I would stay up late holding my battered Harry Potter next to my nightlight, ruining my eyesight just for a few more chapters. Then, as school got busier and homework piled up (and I actually made friends to spend break-times with), the habit dropped and I went from reading several books a week, to virtually none. Even studying literature at university, I read some of my course material and not much else. 

I went from the ages of about fifteen to twenty not reading much of anything at all, and it's only in the last couple of years that I've really picked up the habit again. I know a lot of us would like to read faster and get through more books, so I thought I'd share a couple of suggestions based on what has worked for me as I re-developed a reading practice. 

BOOK REVIEW | THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS BY PAT BARKER

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker - Published August 2018 by Penguin - ⋆⋆⋆

BOOK REVIEW | GHOST WALL BY SARAH MOSS

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss - Published September 2018 by Granta - ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆

DO YOUR BOOKS SPARK JOY?

Mari Kondo has been causing quite a stir among the book community. As I mentioned in my recent Instagram post this isn't because she explicitly said anything bad, but because the internet loves demonising, drama, and self-righteousness. If you've missed this, essentially the KonMari philosophy is all about really thinking about what you want and need in your life, and making a conscious decision to only buy and keep objects that are explicitly necessary, or spark a certain joyful feeling in you.

FEBRUARY GOALS | RAISING MY BLOGGING GAME

Oh my god the first month of 2019 is already over! January was a weird month because on the one hand I did a lot of really lovely things, but on the other some pretty horrible stuff happened. So it was a bit of a mixed bag. One of my personal goals was to stop being a crappy friend and always finding excuses not to see the people I love, and in January I made the effort to go see almost everyone I'd been flaking on, and was so proud of myself and delighted to catch up with some of my favourite people. 

I'm hoping to hold myself more accountable to my goals this year. I'm that person that will set huge elaborate idealised lists of things I want to do in a new year, only to flake on them by April, so I'm going to start tracking my goals on the blog, in order to hold myself accountable. So without further ado...

'I SHOULD HAVE READ THAT' BOOK TAG

One of my personal goals for my blog this year is to engage a bit more in the bookish community, so when Beth from BooksNest (both her blog and instagram name) created the "I Should Have Read That" tag I knew it was something I'd enjoy doing.

I'm not normally one for feeling guilty over unread books, but there are a few on my TBR pile (both literal and mental) that are causing me to squirm, so this was a good opportunity for me to pull these books out and remind myself why I was so excited about them in the first place!

MY CURRENTLY READING PILE

As I mentioned in my 2019 Reading Resolutions, I'm taking the pressure off myself to read a certain amount this year, my only goal is to try and read every day. One side effect of this is hopefully buying fewer books and not spending so much money on things I just never get round to. As a way to track and control this I've split 2019 into quarters of three months each (very business-like I know), and will only buy a number of books I can reasonably expect to read within that time frame. If I get to the end of that stack with time to spare I can pick up something else, otherwise any more book-buying will have to wait until the next quarter.

So I thought I'd share my reading pile for 'Q1' (how corporate) and go through the bits that I'm hoping to finish by the end of March.

CRUELTY FREE BEAUTY FAVOURITES #5

For any newcomers to the blog (hi by the way!) I started switching up my makeup collection to all cruelty-free products back in 2017, and I can honestly say I don't regret a thing. I have moments where I wish I could buy a new MAC lipstick, or one of Nars' iconic blushes, but there are so many great cruelty-free bands and products that it's never really a problem.

Today I'm sharing some recent discoveries that I love, and hope to inspire anybody looking to add more cruelty-free goodness to their collection. 

2019 READING RESOLUTIONS

My reading was a little bit all over the place in 2018. I set a very ambitious goal of 80 books on my Goodreads challenge and, while I got a lot of reading done for my MA, it was such a busy year that my reading-for-funsies ended up slipping by the wayside. It wasn't a total write-off though, I read thirty books in total, discovered the pure joy of walking dogs with audiobooks, rediscovered my love for Terry Pratchett and read some wonderful titles. Now I'm looking ahead into the new year, and making my reading plans. 

NEW YEARS IN ANDALUCIA

Hello all! I took a little break over the festive period to restore and refresh a bit, and am really ready to make the most of 2019. During the 'dead days' between  Christmas and New Years I was lucky enough to join my parents in Mijas, a beautiful town in Andalusia, in the south of Spain and thought I would share a few photos. Gotta keep up that #travelblogger aesthetic after all!