Sunday Post #138

                                                        

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer (image above belongs to @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer). It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. 
I am also linking The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz where bloggers discuss what they are reading and other bookish topics.

Life

One more week and then I have a break again, although the government announced the break would start this Monday, I still have a full week of work as a teacher (correcting exams, meetings, being present on several days, ...) . Not that I truly mind the work, but having to explain to various people that I don't have an extra week off is getting very annoying. 

One great thing this week, I discovered Tabletopia and played some board games online with a friend. We played some known and unknown ones and it was quite fun. It's also a great way to try out games and not actually have to buy them.

Blog and books

This week I read Antigone and I finally finished Persepolis. I highly recommend both! I also got to The Vegetarian, I'm still not sure what to think of it. I liked some sections but other parts very just plain weird and uncomfortable. I will have to think about this book some more.

Movies and TV Shows

I watched some westerns I have seen a couple of times before, The Last of Mohicans and 3:10 to Yuma. I like both and have often listen to the soundtrack of the first one.

Do you like soundtracks? Which ones are your favourites? 

What did you read or watch recently?

As always please leave some recommendations on what I should read or watch next! 

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Sunday Post #137

                                                         

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer (image above belongs to @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer). It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. 
I am also linking The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz where bloggers discuss what they are reading and other bookish topics.

Life

The past few weeks have been extremely busy, the next two weeks will be a lot as well (especially with increasing covid numbers) but after that I will have another break. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that one!

How have all of you been these past weeks?

I have been accumulating some new board games, I love playing them but finding the place to store them (and my books) can be challenging at times. My new favourite one is Wingspan, such a stunning and fun game!

Blog and books

This weekend I finally read something again, Winter in Sokcho, a delightful (but bleak) read set in Korea. The setting and the characters were intriguing and it was a very quick read (around 150 pages). I love this original cover quite a bit!

Movies and TV Shows

I watched two films this weekend, Hostiles, a western, and War Horse. The latter I have watched before but I might show this in one of my lessons, as I'm teaching about the First World War (and most pupils have seen 1917 last year).

Still watching Schitt's Creek (really enjoying it now) and I also started watching Flog it and Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is again.

What did you read or watch recently?

As always please leave some recommendations on what I should read or watch next! 

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Sunday Post #136

                                                         

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer (image above belongs to @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer). It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. 
I am also linking The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz where bloggers discuss what they are reading and other bookish topics.

Life

I'm sorry I didn't post anything last week, I had a break and I was hoping it would make me feel a bit better and more positive but it had just the opposite effect. This week is better though and I was able to read three books and I already feel more like myself.

Blog and books

I read three books this week, The Vanishing Half, Women and Power and After the Quake. I had a great time reading all of them. Currently also reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, because that's definitely something I need to get better at.

Movies and TV Shows

During the last two weeks I watched three films: Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, The Devil All the Time and Manchester by the Sea. I enjoyed them all, the first one I liked best, I didn't know much about Ted Bundy but even though I knew he committed these crimes, it was still an interesting and suspenseful film.

The Devil All the Time was a strange experience but near the end of the film I started to like it too. Have you watched it?

What did you read or watch recently?

As always please leave some recommendations on what I should read or watch next! 

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Sunday Post #135

                                                          

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer (image above belongs to @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer). It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. 
I am also linking The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz where bloggers discuss what they are reading and other bookish topics.

Life

After a week of online lessons, my break finally started. As we're still in lockdown, there isn't that much to do, but I'm looking forward to try and not think of work for a couple of days and relax. I might even do a puzzle, who knows.

Blog and books

I finished How to be an Antiracist this week and hope to finish Such a Fun Age this evening. Not sure what I'll read next though. I have quite a lot of unread books on my shelves and it isn't always easy to pick out my next read. Do you have that problem as well?

This week I shared my January Wrap Up and my Stacking the Shelves: January Book Haul on my blog, don't forget to check them out!

Movies and TV Shows

This week I watched The Dig and Lion, two films I really enjoyed. Lion is my favourite film of the year so far. The acting was incredible and the story was very moving. Highly recommend this one!

I also started watching a new kdram: Angel's Last Mission: Love.

What did you read or watch recently?

As always please leave some recommendations on what I should read or watch next! 

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Stacking the Shelves: January 2021 Book Haul

 

Stacking the Shelves is a meme co-hosted by Reading Reality and Tynga's Reviews (the image above belongs to these blogs too). Each week bloggers share the books they got.

These are the books I got in January! I haven't been feeling like my best self (due to lockdown, the weather and other things) so I splurged a bit on books.

I ordered two more books (Before the Coffee Gets Cold 2 and If Cats Disappeared From the World but had to return them because they arrived damaged (the package was delivered soaking wet and there were dirty fingerprints all over the covers). 

I want to read more nonfiction and Japanese literary fiction this year and this is reflected in this  stacking the shelves.

1. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

2. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain 

3. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

4. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi 

5. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Tokarczuk has already become one of my favourite authors this year. This book was stunning!

6. The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre

7. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham

8. How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi 

I finished this book today and learned so much. Such an important book!

9. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

I started listening to the audiobook Quiet and it referenced this book at times, which why I want to read this first before continuing Quiet, so I'll exactly what is criticised.

10. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Which books did you get recently? Have you read any of the books mentioned above or are you planning to? Leave your thoughts down below!


If you liked this post please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads! I really appreciate it! 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

January 2021 Wrap Up

I read seven books in January and I'm quite happy with my reading month. I tried to read diversely and read some books that worked for my personal reading challenges as well (read more classics, literary fiction, nonfiction and Japanese literature).

These are the books I read in January:

1. Strange Planet (Strange Planet #1) by Nathan W. Pyle

This was a New Year's Eve present and I quite enjoyed this comic. Might read more of this in the future. 3.5 stars.

2. After Dark by Haruki Murakami

I loved this book, my third Murakami read (I can already tell you I bought some more since then). It was very atmospheric, I felt like I really was there in those cafés and such. Murakami references a lot of music and it felt wonderful to listen to those songs while reading the book. The first description of Mari felt like it could be me one day (when cafés and restaurants are open again). 5 stars! This was the first book I read for January in Japan.

3. If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

This was a fun story, even though the writing style was simple, it was thought-provoking. 4 stars.

4. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi 

Stamped was my first nonfiction book this year and quite an important one. It says it's not a history of racism but it definitely gives a clear overview. It's a shocking but important read. This is a remix from Kendi's book Stamped From the Beginning and is written for a teenage audience, which made it easy to get through but still gave a lot of new insights. Highly recommend! 5 stars!

5. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

I loved this book by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature for Flights (another book I really want to read) but this book gave me all the winter vibes I needed. It's set in a remote Polish village covered in snow (it was snowing here while I read it as well) and some gruesome murders occur. The main character believes the deer are killing people. It's a gripping story and the writing style is simply stunning. This will most likely be one of my favourite books this year. 5 stars, I can't praise this one enough.

6. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya

This is a Japanese collection of short stories. I'm not a huge reader of short stories which is probably why it took me quite a long time to read this book. I really liked some stories and wished they were longer but I also didn't care about others. 3 stars.

7. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This was a fun children's classic and exactly what I needed to read at that time. It's very wholesome and during this pandemic I could use more of those stories. 4 stars.

Have you read any of these books or are you planning to? Leave your thoughts and recommendations down below!

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Sunday Post #134

                                                         

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer (image above belongs to @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer). It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. 
I am also linking The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz where bloggers discuss what they are reading and other bookish topics.

Life

This week didn't go as I expected at all. On Monday I had an incident with a student (14 or 15 years old), she pushed me and threatened to hit me during a lesson. I never would have suspected such a violent reaction could happen in such a small and rural school but I have been proven wrong. Luckily the principal supported me and suspended the pupil for the rest of the week.

Next week  there will be a week of only online lessons and after that we have a break. I'm very much looking forward to having a week to myself, although I'm running out of ideas of things to do during lockdown.

Blog and books

I finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett today and enjoyed most of it. Some parts in the beginning (about Indian and their black faces) did make me a little uncomfortable at times.

I also made some progress in How to Be an Antiracist today, I hope to finish it in the coming weeks. I always read nonfiction slower than novels but I had trouble concentrating on books this week.

Movies and TV Shows

This week I watched two movies I didn't end up enjoying all that much: Murder Mystery and I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Netflix movies in particular can be very hit or miss for me.

What did you read or watch recently?

As always please leave some recommendations on what I should read or watch next! 

If you enjoyed this review, please follow me on Bloglovin', Twitter, Instagram, TVShowTime and Goodreads! I would really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful day everyone!