#microreviews

This round’s prompt: currently reading!

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Answer as elaborately as you want

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Tagged by @cleo-queen-of-pirates. Thank you!

Title and author: Heart of Europe by Peter F. Wilson

Total pages: 941 (including glossary, bibliography, index, and appendices)

Page you’re on:  663 (a.k.a. the last actual chapter)

Thoughts so far: I will be so glad when I’m done.

Dense and thorough, and therefore excellent, but I’m not retaining everything and was never going to, because this is seriously the most detailed and comprehensive history book I’ve ever read. Wilson goes into everything, though on a macro level—politics and geographical area and ideas about rulers and progression to and then away from feudalism and legal systems and the development of cities and wars and rebellions and more.

I’m glad I’m reading this because I have a much better picture of the history of central Europe now, and because he’s doing some good debunking re: “this is what 19th century/early 20th century historians said and we’ve all kind of accepted that as true but they had an agenda and are also wrong”. I’m glad I own it so that when I finally write that big medieval fantasy WIP, I’ll be able to refer back to this and make notes at my leisure.

But oof, it’s a dense and slow read a lot of the time.

Try your best to guess how it will end: Wilson’s pretty much said. The last chapter is about central Europe after the Empire was dissolved, followed by how various groups have used the Empire’s existence for their own political goals. (But I’m going to be reading his chronology appendix, just to try to cement that in my brain if I can.)

Tell us how you really feel—with a gif!

Tagged by @deadpoetsmusings (thank you!)

This round’s prompt: currently reading!

Join in even if you haven’t been tagged

Answer as elaborately as you want

Tag friends to make their own microreviews

Use the #microreview hashtag (optional)

Title and author: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Total pages: 387

Page you’re on: 165

Thoughts so far: I've read this one before, all the way back in 2013, not too long before I saw Erin Morgenstern in conversation with Neil Gaiman. It’s fun to reread it and remind myself why I love this one so much. It’s a book of aesthetic and wonder. Both the characters and the reader proceed through the novel in a state of joy-tinged wonder at the things being created both by magical and non-magical hands for the circus. It’s slow-paced but dreamy. I still love this one. 

Try your best to guess how it will end: I more or less remember, but just enough “less” that I’m excited to get there and find out again.

To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews for “rules,” reviews, and more!

Thank you to @books-are-portals​ for tagging me!

What do you like in a spooky book? Slow burn? Ghosts? Monsters? Zombies? Serial killers?

Atmosphere. I depend very much on the atmosphere to make things spooky for me and so all the horror books I’ve read haven’t even given me the creeps? Pictures work too.

What’s your favorite Halloween read (be it horror, thriller, graphic novel, etc.)?

Well, I’ve never celebrated Halloween and it doesn’t exist at all in Israel, but for that time where autumn is becoming winter I really like softer, quieter books, slice-of-life (I usually read fantasy), especially L.M. Montgomery’s.

And that tale about the girl with the read ribbon makes a good autumn story, I think.

What about it makes it your favorite?

They’re filled with a lot of good memories.

What’s a good horror or scary movie to pair it with?

I have never watched a horror movie in my life, actually. But I think I’d pair them with Pixar movies.

 This round is open to interpretation, so don’t let the word bookshelves stop you. Whether your collection is big or small, physical or digital, your parents’ or from the library, it counts as a bookshelf here. To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews. 

1. What genre or type of books dominate your bookshelf? Classics on classics on classics.

2. What do you wish you had more of? My old bookshelves and books in general. Four years ago, before I moved to Florida, my bookshelves in my apartment in Dallas looked like this:

When I moved I thought it was going to be a temporary thing for one year, two years at the max so I left most of my books behind at my parents’ house. Four years later I find myself still in Florida with no plans on moving back to Texas. Every time I go and visit my parents I pick up a few books that I left behind and bring it back with me but still most of my books are in boxes in my old bedroom. So my current bookshelf is a mix of books that I’ve carried back with me piecemeal and new books I’ve bought in the last four years. But I miss my old books and sometimes I find myself wishing I had one specific one on hand. It’s very frustrating. Like where the fuck is my copy of Infinite Jest, I’ve been searching for it for years and I can’t find which box it’s hidden away in. 

3. Smallest book? Largest book? For my current bookshelf my smallest book coming in at 174 pages is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and my largest book is Brandon Sanderson’s signed copy of Words of Radiance with 1085 pages.

4. Oldest book? Newest book? Since I buy mainly used books now I’m going to judge this by print date. My oldest book is a 1964 copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie that I pilfered from my dad’s bookshelf last year. And the newest book is probably my signed copy of The Stardew Valley Guidebook that I pre-ordered and received in December of 2016. 

This round is open to interpretation, so don’t let the word bookshelves stop you. Whether your collection is big or small, physical or digital, your parents’ or from the library, it counts as a bookshelf here. To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews for “rules,” reviews, and more!

@heretherebebooks tagged me - thank you!

Here’s a third of my cramped bookshelves!

What genres or types of books dominate your shelf? There’s a good amount of fantasy, classics, and non-fiction. A ton of YA and an increasing number of children's/middle grade (I’m trying to catch up on the stuff I missed growing up).

What do you wish you had more of? Bookshelves! Books! More annotated editions. I find great pleasure in learning things about the books I love. 

Smallest book? Largest book? Smallest I think is a slim volume of Songs of Innocence by William Blake. Largest is probably one of the two different annotated editions of Little Women that I have. They are gigantic, and I fear for my life if one falls on me. 

Oldest book? Newest book? I think the book I’ve owned the longest is Are You there God, it’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. The newest is the Black Beauty retelling by Robin McKinley.

Does anything live there besides books?  Fun stuff, collectibles, mugs, fake succulents...

To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews for “rules,” reviews, and more! 

Tagged by @anassarhenisch , I love you for always tagging me in these!! <3

What do you like in a spooky book? Slow burn? Ghosts? Monsters? Zombies? Serial Killers?

Yes, all of the above. Honestly, it depends what mood I’m in. I love spooky books but that encompasses a large variety of books. If I want something funny or shamelessly corny, I like books about zombies and monsters but I can’t ever feel really scared of those subjects. If I want something that will keep me up at night because I’m so terrified, then I’ll go the ghosts and killers route. Serial killers that show just how disturbing and depraved humanity can be really get to me. I also like slow burns but it can’t be so slow that it depletes the scary aspect. For example, sometimes when I read Stephen King, he goes into such detail and takes so long to draw out a scene that it loses any scariness that it had (unpopular opinion, I know).

What’s your favorite Halloween read (be it horror, thriller, graphic novel,etc.)?

I don’t really reread a certain book each season or anything, but certain books always remind me of Halloween like the Goosebumps series or certain library books I used to check out as a kid. 

What about it makes it your favorite?

Every since I was little I loved scary things (I used to go to Kmart during Halloween just to look at all the scary masks) and Goosebumps was one of my favorite series. Rereading those books always brings that crisp spooky fall feeling mixed with the nostalgia of my childhood. 

What’s a good horror or scary movie to pair it with?

Well, obviously the old Goosebumps tv show! But if you want something a little more adult, the Halloween series and Scream series are ones that I watch every Halloween. 

Microreview Round Seven: Bookshelves

Thanks @all-these-paperback-dreams for the tag! I was also tagged by someone else, but I forgot to save your post so I can’t remember who it was :(

This round is open to interpretation, so don’t let the word bookshelves stop you. Whether your collection is big or small, physical or digital, your parents’ or from the library, it counts as a bookshelf here. To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews for “rules,” reviews, and more!

What genres or types of books dominate your shelf? Probably mostly contemporary fiction with a fair amount of fantasy and historical fiction.

What do you wish you had more of? bookshelves

Smallest book? Hail Stones and Halibut Bones by  Mary O'Neill. It was a poetry book I had as a kid

Largest book? War and Peace probably. That thing is a monster.

Oldest book? My mom has a majority of the books I’ve kept from my childhood, and I’ve donated the rest, so the oldest (longest owned) might be A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, which I got when I was 14. I also have a used copy of Le Morte d’Arthur from the 60s that I got recently. That one is probably the physically oldest.

Newest book? I just bought The Necklace by Claire McMillan today while I was at Target. But the most recently published book I own is Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by  Bianca Marais, which was published a full week after The Necklace (although both were published this month haha).

Does anything live there besides books? I’ve cleared away most of the figures that used to reside on my bookshelf because I don’t want my living room to look too cluttered, but as you can see, I have an X-box, a TV, a speaker, and some figurines up there. 

What do you like in a spooky book? Slow burn? Ghosts? Monsters? Zombies? Serial killers?

The biggest thing for me is tone and voice. I like horror that takes its time, that doesn’t just shove a scary monster in your face and hope you’re afraid. It takes its time to set up the story, maybe with a menacing or spooky lilt to the words, that comes to a slow realization that yes, this is a horror story.

What’s your favorite Halloween read (be it horror, thriller, graphic novel, etc.)?

Definitely The October Country by Ray Bradbury. I’m kind of bummed that I actually read it this past summer instead of waiting until Halloween. Every year in October I try to read a Bradbury book. Two years ago it was Something Wicked This Was Comes, last year it was The Halloween Tree. I wish I read The October Country during Halloween because it’s everything you would want in the holiday. Bradbury just got soft horror. He didn’t make terrifying monsters, he made clever monsters. Ones that were calculating and move slowly but surely. Those are the monsters I like.

What about it makes it your favorite?

That each story within it is so good. It’s an anthology, so it’s kinda of like getting a bag of assorted chocolates. You don’t know what you will get. One story could be milk chocolate, or have tasty caramel, or have nasty coconut in it. It’s a gamble. But I can say with certainty that I was never let down once. Sure, there were some stories I liked more than others, but they were still written very well.

What’s a good horror or scary movie to pair it with?