Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 11 – Steph from @bookishsteph1

sunday-morningbook-chats-11This interview was originally conducted back in July of 2016, however due to my busy university schedule it is only being posted now. I apologize for the delay!

Hello, hello, hello! As I’m sure many of you will remember, a while ago I started a weekly series where each Sunday I would sit down and chat with one of my favorite bookstagrammers and talk about life, literature, and any advice they might have for getting started with bookstagram. I really loved putting together this series, and I heard loads of lovely things from people who enjoyed reading these interviews, however I unfortunately got very busy with university work and just generally stopped blogging. As many of you know, though, I’m now on summer vacation, which means I have plenty of time to relaunch the Sunday Morning Book Chats series! This will, of course, include publishing all of the previous interviews I never got around to posting, as well as hopefully adding to the lineup and conducting some new interviews. For an up-to-date schedule of when these interviews will be going up, click here or check the Sunday Morning Book Chats tab at the top of the page.

Enough rambling – on to the interview! This Sunday’s featured bookstagrammer is the incredibly lovely Steph from @bookishsteph1. As well as running a completely stunning bookstagram account (with 12.5 thousand followers, might I add), Steph is a mum from Wales, a founder of the Maidens of Murder book club, and rep for the adorable Etsy shop JanesTinyThings. Without further ado, let’s hear from Steph. 🙂

new bookishsteph1

Continue reading “Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 11 – Steph from @bookishsteph1”

Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 10 – Carole Ann from @booksnourish_caroleann!

sunday-morningbook-chats-10

Sunday Morning Book Chats has finally reached the double digits!! Today is the tenth part of my Sunday Morning Book Chats series, where each weekend I sit down with a different bookstagrammer and chat about life and literature. This week’s guest is the incredibly lovely Carole Ann from @booksnourish_caroleann, who is one of the most kind and genuine people I have had the pleasure of talking with on bookstagram. Without further ado, let’s get to the questions!

carole ann

Continue reading “Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 10 – Carole Ann from @booksnourish_caroleann!”

August in Review (or, what I read, wrote, photographed, and loved this month)

August Review

Hello lovely readers! Today I’m starting a new segment on my blog (I feel like I’m saying that a lot lately!) where at the end of each month I’ll reflect a bit over everything I’ve read, written, and photographed over the past month. I think this will be more interesting than traditional monthly wrap ups, and I hope that you enjoy it as well. 🙂

The Books I Read in August

All in all, I think I had quite a good reading month in August. I completed a total of of six books, got halfway through one novel and then decided to put it down, and am currently reading three books.My favorite book in August would probably have to be a tie between Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which was a reread for me, and It Ends with Us, which I am planning on writing a review of soon. If I’ve written a review of any of the other books mentioned below, that review will be linked.

  1. The North Water by Ian McGuire 
  2. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
  3. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany, and J.K. Rowling
  4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
  5. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (review to come!)
  6. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler (review to come!
  7. Hystopia by David Means (DNF)
  8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (currently reading)
  9. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (currently reading)
  10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (currently reading)

Continue reading “August in Review (or, what I read, wrote, photographed, and loved this month)”

Pride and Prejudice Reread: Introduction and Chapter One

Intro and Chap 1

Hello, hello, hello! This is, in my opinion, a very exciting blog post for two reasons: 1) It’s the first post in my Pride and Prejudice reread series and 2) it’s the first proper post on my blog about Pride and Prejudice.

Now, a bit of background – I first read Pride and Prejudice back when I was around twelve years old. It was my first real classic read and I completely fell in love with the story and the characters. Since that time, I have devoured as much Jane Austen as I possibly can, whether it be in the form of books, TV series, movies, or what have you. Unfortunately, none of my love for Austen is documented anywhere on my blog. Part of this is because I first read the Austen novels when I was quite young, back in my pre-blogging days, and part of this is because I took quite a long blog hiatus and have really only been back posting regularly for a couple of months now. Either way, I decided it was about time Miss Austen made an appearance on my blog, and what better way than a reread of my very favorite, my beloved, Pride and Prejudice.

I’ve decided that I have far too much to say about this wonderful book for just one blog post, so I’m going to be writing a series of my posts throughout my P&P reread. This first post, for example, consists of a brief background history of the novel and my thoughts on Chapter One. Other posts may include my thoughts on a couple of chapters or perhaps an in-depth look at one of the characters. I’m not going into this reread with any definite and structured plans, because I know that if I make definite and structured plans I won’t stick to them anyhow, so why bother going to all that effort? Anyhow, I’ll stop rambling and we’ll get onto the book now, shall we? Continue reading “Pride and Prejudice Reread: Introduction and Chapter One”

Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 8 – Ankita from @thoughts_of_an_insomniac

sunday-morningbook-chats-8

Hello! Today is Part 8 of my Sunday Morning Book Chats series, where each week I chat with a different bookstagrammer about their accounts, what they’re reading, and what they’re like outside of the online bookish community. There have been seven other interviews so far in this series, so if you’re interested in checking any of those out you can click the “Sunday Morning Book Chats” tab at the top of the page.

This week I’d like to welcome one of my dearest bookstagram friends to my blog, the ever-lovely Ankita from @thoughts_of_an_insomniac. Ankita is honestly one of the kindest, most beautiful souls I have met through bookstagram, and if you’re not following her you’re completely missing out. 🙂

thoughts_of_an_insomniac

Continue reading “Sunday Morning Book Chats Part 8 – Ankita from @thoughts_of_an_insomniac”

The Classics Book Tag!

Classics Book Tag (1)

Hello lovely readers! Today I’m here with a type of blog post that’s a bit new for me – a book tag. I know that book tags are extremely popular and extremely common in the book blogging world, but I personally have never done one here on Reflections of a Reader. There’s a first time for everything, however, and when the lovely Lauren from Where There’s Ink There’s Paper tagged me to do the Classics Book Tag I simply knew I had to do it. You can find the link to Lauren’s post here, and you can find the link to the original post here if you’re interested. 🙂 Continue reading “The Classics Book Tag!”

Sex, Drugs, and Show Business: The 50th Anniversary of ‘Valley of the Dolls’

IMG_4310

Title: Valley of the Dolls

Author: Jacqueline Susann

Publisher: Virago Press

Pages: 417

Summary (from first page): Dolls -red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straight. For Anne, Neely and Jennifer it doesn’t matter, as long as the pill bottle is within easy reach. These three beautiful women become best friends when they are young and in New York, struggling to make their names in the entertainment industry. Only when they reach the peak of their careers do they find there’s nowhere left to go but down – to the Valley of the Dolls.

Valley of the Dolls is one of those books that I’ve known about for a while but I’ve never felt motivated to pick up and read. Truth be told, until a few months ago I didn’t actually know what Valley of the Dolls was about. I knew it was supposed to be quite scandalous, that it had a pink cover, and that I was 95% sure it was made into movie. It wasn’t until I discovered that this year, 2016, is the 50th anniversary of Valley of the Dolls (it was originally published in 1966), however, that I finally took the plunge and decided to buy a copy for myself and check it out (it does help that it came in the gorgeous Virago Modern Classics edition you see above.) Continue reading “Sex, Drugs, and Show Business: The 50th Anniversary of ‘Valley of the Dolls’”

Revolutionary Road: A Novel of American Disillusionment and the Dangers of Suburbia

revolutionary roadTitle: Revolutionary Road

Author: Richard Yates

Publisher: Vintage Books

Pages: 355

Summary (from back of book): From the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. It’s the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who lied on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.

“That’s how we both got committed to this enormous delusion – because that’s what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion – this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families. It’s the great sentimental lie of the suburbs, and I’ve been making you subscribe to it all this time.”

If The Great Gatsby and the television series Mad Men had a love child, I am almost 100 per cent convinced that the result would be Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Continue reading “Revolutionary Road: A Novel of American Disillusionment and the Dangers of Suburbia”

Mid-Year Wrap Up: My Favorite Books of 2016 Thus Far

2016 Mid-Year Wrap UpI’m in denial that I’m writing this post, because that would mean I have to acknowledge that we’re actually over halfway through 2016 and that’s something I refuse to do. 🙂 But, deny it all I want, we are in July, so I thought that now would be the perfect time to write my mid-year reading wrap-up. Continue reading “Mid-Year Wrap Up: My Favorite Books of 2016 Thus Far”

A Wilde Time: Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories

oscar wilde**Note: I wrote the majority of this review back in December of 2015, right after finishing this book. Life got in the way, however, and I never got around to finishing this post, so it has sat in my drafts until now. I want to publish this post because it seems a waste not to, as I had 90% of the review already written, however since it was long ago that I read this collection I have forgotten a majority of the last story, “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.” For that reason, and because I do not think that I could accurately review that story now, it is not included in this review. All of the other stories in this collection are individually reviewed, however, and I hope you enjoy this rather delayed review of an excellent collection. 🙂

After finishing A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (which you can read my thoughts on here), I immediately went out and bought some more Hemingway, or, to be more exact, I went online and ordered The Sun Also Rises. I knew I would want to pick that up as soon as it came, so while I was waiting for it to arrive I wanted something short to read. Since I have never read any of Oscar Wilde’s short stories I thought that now would be the perfect time to start! Continue reading “A Wilde Time: Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories”