Hello everyone,
The evenings are slowly but surely beginning to grow darker again, which means that Autumn is almost here after what has felt like the quickest summer of all time! It is also the end of August, which was probably my best month of 2020 so far.
It was a very productive month! I read a lot of books, took a short and much-needed holiday, made exciting progress with my blog as well as my own writing, and also became a homeowner. So, there is plenty of things to talk about in this post.
I shall begin, as always, with reading. I have been able to finish a total of seven books, which equals my best for this year, along with April. Although none of them quite made it up to five stars for me, I still really enjoyed almost all of them nonetheless, including some particularly good thrillers.
Here are the books I read in August:
The Last To Know ⭐⭐⭐
The Murmur Of Bees ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Foundling ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thirteen ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
The Truth And Lies Of Ella Black ⭐⭐
The Whisper Man ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was a month where I was able to make a useful dent in my TBR, with all but one of these books having been on my list for some time. In September, the focus will switch to blog tours. I have three coming up, and I also have three ARCs from Netgalley which I need to get to, so reading is going to be taking up quite a lot of my time!
August was also an excellent blogging month. My plan was originally to go on hiatus for a while, but then I was suddenly overcome by a wave of motivation and lately I have come up with a lot of new post ideas which I am extremely excited to share. I have already published two discussion posts recently, both of which received a lot of lengthy responses, especially the one where I described my process for writing book reviews.
As for writing, well some day I might return to my WIP, but at the moment my focus is firmly on poetry. I have started on a new series of poems, and so far I am very happy with what I have written. The only problem is finding the time to work on them more frequently.
I mentioned in my wrap-up for July that I was hugely anticipating the new album by The Killers, Imploding The Mirage. Well, it came out not long ago and it has surpassed all of my expectations. To say I absolutely love it would be an understatement, and at the moment those are pretty much the only 10 songs that are existing in my head.
August was also the month where I finally escaped the confines of Bristol, at least for a few days. I took a short holiday in South Wales, spending most of my time taking long walks and eating nice food. Some of the views from the top of the hills were amazing, and I had a really great time.
It was my birthday in August, and it was mostly a nice relaxing day. It was also the day where I secured my new flat, so that was a very nice present! I have not moved in just yet as there is still work to do, but it will be an interesting and slightly daunting change when I do, having always lived with my parents. That will be when the real adulting begins…
So a busy month seems to be ahead in September! For now though, I am finishing with a list of some of my favourite blog posts from August:
- Chana and Malka wrote a very clever and witty post where they provided an urban dictionary for book blogging.
- Another wonderful and somewhat amusing post came from NS Ford, who wrote a scenario for what would happen if a paperback, an e-book, and an audiobook walked into a bar.
- Sofii wrote about five things she wished she had known when she started blogging.
- On a related topic, Clo shared three important lessons she has learned from blogging.
- Abby wrote an excellent discussion post on attitudes towards YA and why it is a genre that should be celebrated.
- Another amazing discussion post from Kay, this time about #ownvoices reviewers.
- Florence added her very eloquent thoughts to the frequent question of to DNF, or not to DNF.
- I loved Ellie‘s review of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett; it was so insightful and well written.
- Caro also wrote a fantastic five star review, of The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi, a book that I also enjoyed.
- Emme talked about taking a week away from all social media and how it made her more productive.
- Amy posted a great list of recommendations for books with sapphic main characters or f/f relationships
That’s everything! I hope you all have a brilliant September!
Happy reading :)
Stephen Reads Books 