The round up // October 2016

Another month has gone by in a blur. Surely someone has hit the fast forward button on the last two months of 2016, which can only be a good thing. This year has been like a scary rollercoaster ride with loads of ups and downs that doesn’t seem like it’s going to end, but then all of a sudden it’s over and you just walk around in a daze for a bit, coming down from the adrenaline rush.

October was ok, I think. I got loads of reading in, was reasonably productive at work and around the home, and that’s all there is to report really. Oh, I did participate in my first Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon which was fun. I had a much more casual approach to it than I have for the 24 in 48 Readathon; I was so casual about it in fact, that I didn’t even keep track of how much time I actually spent reading over the 24 hours, and I didn’t write a wrap up post. It was really nice to just read – I can highly recommend it.

Some reading things from October:

• John le Carré’s sort of memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, finally found its way into my hands and it was just perfect. It was definitely the highlight of my reading this month and I’m just so happy that he wrote this book. It’s quite literally everything I hoped for and more.
• Some other reading highlights: The Mothers by Brit Bennett, which definitely fits into the ‘must read’ category of books; the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; and The Traitor Baru Cormorant.

A pretty exciting thing that happened was the arrival in the post of the bio of the bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris. It’s one of my favourite shops so buying this book seemed necessary. I ordered it all the way back at the start of September and ended up taking me about six or seven weeks to get to me, after it was returned to the store once, and then resent. Naturally I was excited to finally receive it – that shop does book mail so well. They have a bunch of different customisations available, including having your book stamped with the store stamp; having a photo keepsake included; and/or a memory mark, which is something that has been left in the shop by a visitor. I got the nicest handwritten note included in mine. Anyway, I had a little photoshoot of my book and some of the goodies, put it on Instagram and Shakespeare and Company shared my photo on their account! It was pretty excellent and now I kind of feel famous by association.

November plans? I don’t have that many aside from getting in as much reading as I can as I’ll be starting uni at the end of the month and I really need to focus on that if I want to finish my degree before 2020. This will also likely mean less blogging for me, maybe not so much in the next three months as I’ll just be doing just the one unit, but come March I’ll be doing two units at once, which is the equivalent of doing full-time study, plus my full-time job, and working sleep and stuff around that. The next couple of years are going to be pretty hectic, but if I stick to my plan I should complete the final unit of my degree the month before I go to Scotland (in August 2019) and to be honest I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

Did you read anything good in October? Any big plans for November?