#try a chapter

Should I start reading the first chapter (or like 20-30ish pages) of all my older unread books, and then unhaul the ones that are uncomfortable to read (text size, spacing, etc) and/or I'm not enjoying or intrigued or feeling any other way that makes me think i might actually finish the book at some point?

I started on my try a chapter quest (see here for the full list of books) with John Gwynne's Malice. It was the appropriate book to start with considering how many TBRs it's graced this year!

Malice feels very...conventional? That's not necessarily a bad thing! I do get the sense it will be well executed and there's definitely a lot of scope for Gwynne to do something new. It's well written, but I'm not sure how much I want to read about teenaged boys (at least they're convincing? Or have been so far...) at the moment. They're not my favourite protagonists if I'm honest.

So I have my TBR top 10 and I don’t know which book I’m going to read next. So I am going to read the first chapter of 5 books who have the best reading on goodreads. And I’m not going to count Illuminae since I already started this book.

So the books are:

1) And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini 2) A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness 3) Caraval by Stephanie Garber 4) A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray 5) Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Will I read any of these? Who knows at this point, but I might read a least one of them or at least something vaguely on along these lines...

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - I’m still going, I’m definitely enjoying it! However, I did have a small hiatus while I read Assassin’s Quest and The Blade Itself so I’m coming back to definitely finish Vanity Fair in November. I’m going to do it even if it’s the only thing I read this month!

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon - I’ve been trying to read this ever since I fell in love with sensation novels, however, it was in my book club jar for AGES. It’s now been taken out so I’m hopefully going to get around to it this month! It’ll just depend how quickly I finish Vanity Fair...

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry - This is the book I’m most likely to drop as I get distracted by other reads throughout the month, but I’m at least going to read one of the new fantasy books I’ve purchased this year and as of the 2nd of November this is the one I’m in the mood for.

Try a Chapter Project:

I’m struggling with what mood I’m actually in for reading - I’ve recently been craving that ‘perfect’ book feeling where you just get swept away by a novel because you can’t stop thinking about it. I last had this properly was when I read The Way of Kings for the first time, which was 5 years ago...

Now I know you can’t chase that feeling, you don’t know when it’s going to strike, but I can at least try to find something I can fall in love with. Mainly because I’ve been reading a lot of ‘okay’ fantasy recently, or rereads, so I want SOMETHING exciting, compelling, etc. So, I’m going to try the first chapter or so of a few different fantasy books just to see if something catches my attention!

Books in contention are:

Malice by John Gwynne (I HAVE to at least try reading Malice at this point, it’s becoming a joke)

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (I haven’t forgotten about this one and I want to give it another chance)

The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick

Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Master Artificer by Justin Call (might be cheating as it’s a book 2 but I don’t care)

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

Try a Chapter – Sci-Fi Edition

November first and Sci-Fi Month has started! For a change I decided to start the month with a tag. But not just any tag. The Try a Chapter tag. I am going to let it loose on my sci-fi tbr for this month, see what catches my attention and what I am starting with first.

The Rules

Choose 5+ books you’ve been meaning to read.

Read up to the first chapter, prologue included.

Decide if you’ll complete…