All posts tagged: Updates

The round up // October 2016

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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 …

The round up // September 2016

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IT’S OCTOBER. That’s all I’ll say about how fast the year is going. September was kind of a blur. I spent the first two weeks of the month on leave and I think not paying attention to the date for those two weeks made the month go by that much quicker. But it was still a reasonably productive month. I got the internet situation sorted in my new house, had some furniture delivered, got my little garden sorted, caught up on a bunch of NetGalley reviews, and just generally had a nice time. Some reading things from September: I had an ok reading month. My favourite read was definitely Heather Rose’s debut novel The Museum of Modern Love (my review). I read the first two books of my Bookabuy subscription (last month’s book and this month’s). The first, In the Month of the Midnight Sun, had loads of promise but it didn’t really deliver (my review). The second was a new thriller by Claire Douglas called Local Girl Missing and IT WAS SO GOOD. I …

Reading Challenge Update // August 2016

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It’s time for another update on the reading challenges I’m participating in this year (I first wrote about them here if you’re interested). All of the books basically fall under the Read My Own DamnBooks challenge, but for the sake of tracking eBooks and physical books, I’m keeping them separate. The ‘Clean Your Reader’ Challenge This challenge is officially over and my total for it was 10 eBooks read, but I’m going to continue to keep track of my eBooks read separate from the physical ones. This month I read some eBooks, but they were new ones from NetGalley, so I guess I need to stay away from that website (hahaha as if). #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks A sign that the end of days is truly nigh, is that this is the second month in a row that I’ve read one of my own damn books. Actually, I read TWO of my own damn books. Whaaaat? Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood So far I’ve read 8 of my own damn books. The “Read Harder” Challenge After …

The round up // August 2016

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I’m starting to feel like a broken record with all this, “I can’t believe it’s [insert month here] tomorrow”, because I’ve been saying it every month for the last three months (at least) and I still can’t understand how the year is going by so quickly. But on Thursday it’ll be September. In my opinion, it should only just be coming into June or something, but the calendar will have its way. August was pretty ok. I finally have a phone line installed (which I discussed a little bit here and how not having one has seen me somehow translating a book from French to English for “fun”), which means there’s a very real chance I’ll have the internet at my house before the end of the year. I’m really thrilled by this: Some reading things from August: I read some pretty great books this month, including Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett (probably my favourite book this month); my first Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye; a hilarious debut called The Gentleman (my review) by Forrest Leo; …

Reading Challenge Update // July 2016

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It’s time for another update on the reading challenges I’m participating in this year (I first wrote about them here if you’re interested). All of the books basically fall under the Read My Own DamnBooks challenge, but for the sake of tracking eBooks and physical books, I’m keeping them separate. The ‘Clean Your Reader’ Challenge This challenge is officially over and my total for it was 10 eBooks read, but I’m going to continue to keep track of my eBooks read separate from the physical ones. This month I didn’t read any eBooks – and I’m ok with that. #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?? After not reading any of my own unread books for the last couple of months, I actually managed to cross one off the list in July. This must be what they call a miracle. Phar Lap by Geoff Armstrong and Peter Thompson So far I’ve read 6 of my own damn books. The “Read Harder” Challenge I crossed off zero tasks this month. Apparently I’m not reading very hard. Number of tasks completed so …

The round up // July 2016

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It’s Sunday July 31st here in Australia, which means that tomorrow is AUGUST. I don’t know about you, but I swear I was only just sitting around unwrapping Christmas presents a few weeks ago and now it’s only about 145 days or something (depending on where you are in the world) until I’ll be sitting around unwrapping Christmas presents. Ugh, but yay. I had a pretty nice July as far as Julys go. Since I don’t have the internet at home yet (which is a whole other disastrous and possibly expensive story) I took this study period off so I had no uni assessments and it was the best. I got my marks back from my last two units and got High Distinctions for both. I want to take some time to brag about this because I was stupidly busy at work last study period + moving house + generally stressing about everything when I did these two classes (and two classes is basically the equivalent of full-time study), and I still managed to do …

Reading Challenge Update // June 2016

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It’s time for another update on the reading challenges I’m participating in this year (I first wrote about them here if you’re interested). All of the books basically fall under the Read My Own Damn Books challenge, but for the sake of tracking eBooks and physical books, I’m keeping them This month was fairly mediocre for the challenges. I only got one eBook read, I crashed and burned (again) in the Read My Own Damn Books challenge, and only crossed off no tasks in the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. But I did ok with Book Bingo, marking off four squares. The ‘Clean Your Reader’ Challenge This challenge is officially over and my total for it was 10 eBooks read, but I’m going to continue to keep track of my eBooks read separate from the physical ones. This month I got rid of just the one eBook from my iPad (I also added three from publishers but we won’t go into too much detail on that: Before the Fall by Noah Hawley #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks F A I L U …

The round up // June 2016

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I swear June just started yesterday and now it’s already basically over and I don’t even know where the year has gone. A bunch of crap happened in June: The disaster that was moving house. A torrential downpour decided to happen on the weekend I was supposed to move – it went for the entire weekend and, naturally, my suburb got the most rain in my area. Because of course it did. It made moving impossible so we had to ask the real estate if we could move the following weekend. There was a whole thing where the real estate were jerks, but in the end we were allowed to stay for a few days past the end of our lease. Basically every single thing with the move went wrong, but I’m mostly settled in now and procrastinating on completing the shitty unpacking process. One bonus is that my new house is a 25 minute walk from the train station (instead of the five minutes from my old house). I’ve made a deal with myself …

Reading Challenge Update // May 2016

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It’s time for another update on the three reading challenges I’m participating in this year (I first wrote about them here if you’re interested). All of the books basically fall under the #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks challenge, but for the sake of tracking eBooks and physical books, I’m keeping them This month was fairly mediocre for the challenges. Aside from getting another three eBooks read, I crashed and burned (again) in the Read My Own Damn Books challenge, and only crossed off one task in the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. And in other news, because I like to continually feel like a failure in my reading challenges, I’m going to be doing Book Bingo again (hosted by Books on the Nightstand). I failed at it last year, but I’m determined to fail less badly this year (haha). My bingo square is at the bottom of this post. The ‘Clean Your Reader’ Challenge This challenge is officially over and my total for it was 10 eBooks read, but I’m going to continue to keep track of my eBooks read separate from …

The round up // May 2016

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May was just a great big pile of ‘Ugh’ interspersed with a couple of days of excellence. The ‘Ugh’ took the form of having loads on at work, stacks of uni assessments, and having to pack to move house (it’s happening this Saturday and I’M SO STRESSED I WON’T HAVE EVERYTHING PACKED IN TIME!). Basically I’ve got too much on the go at the moment and I think my head might explode. And I’m getting sick, so, yeah. The excellence took the form of seeing a bunch of authors talk at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, which I hope to write some posts about in coming weeks. But my new house is just the cutest little place ever. I have already imagined me sitting outside in the sunny paved area reading; sitting inside in a sunny spot reading; and cosying up in bed reading. Basically, much reading will take place in my new home. My reading was just OK this month. I read some good stuff and some sub-par stuff, and to be honest a lot …