Goodbye August || Stacking the Shelves #30

Even though we’ve had September for, what? A week? I’m only now doing my monthly recap.

But that’s because I’m a wizard and wizards are never late they arrive precisely when they mean to. This post is a little different (and longer) than my usual stackering of the shelves. But it’s sorted into sections so you can peruse what you wish. I’m extremely helpful like that.

I’m linking up with these memes: Because they’re awesome.

There are a lot of books this week…and honestly I DIDN’T MEAN TO. It just happened.

I’m suddenly interested in audios because one can organise world domination and also do art and still read stories. Genius, right?! I borrowed The Host and Hush, Hush from the library. I also borrowed audios of Disruption and Rose Under Fire. I’m really terrified of Rose Under Fire since Code Name Verity absolutely destroyed my soul. But here’s to being brave.

Thank you Scholastic AUS for the epic package! They sent me The Maze Runner (which I’ve already read and absolutely adore but now I own it! HUZZAH!) and Paper Planes and Wickedpedia and Followers and The Last Thirteen: Four.

Thank you UQP for The Protected. I’ve already read this one and absolutely loved it. Because it hurt my feels. Tears, peoples, tears.

Thank you Pan Macmillan for Trial by Fire! I desperately needed this one in my life after Charnell raved about it. (She has epic book recommendations, peoples. Go to her blog. Listen to her.)

Thanks to Walker Books for The Jewel. Least to say…after the flood of less-than-pleased reviews, I’m worried.

Thank you Thames and Hudson for Otherbound. This was a complete surprise. I hope I like it.

Well, I wrote a book. I finished Them Hungry Bones (my personalised zombie apocalypse) at a puny 55,000-words. I like to fatten my books latter. Not too much though. They stay lean mean fighting machines.

I also finished round #2 of edits with my agent. (This is the real reason Them Hungry Bones was finished in, like, 8 days. I needed to get onto edits of my fantasy book.) Lots of tweaking and fixing contradictions (which I do a lot…sometimes, well, not often) and changing a few names. The entire book feels squeaky tight.

Compared to July where I read like…24 books it was a quieter reading month. Which is fine! Relaxing, even!

Best book? Daughter of Smoke and Bone without a doubt. I absolutely FLAILED over that book. Hyperventilatingly flailed. Like a giraffe.

Notably awesome? Also Messenger of Fear and Good Omens and Dangerous Boys. They were freakishly amazing and…and 5-stars.

Wish you’d never read? Well the prize of that absolutely goes to the 4 novellas by P.C. Cast & co. Never ever again.

Did you laugh? YES. Good Omens. I absolutely laughed my lungs out.

He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.
What he did was put the fear of God in them.
More precisely, the fear of Crowley.
In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn’t look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. “Say goodbye to your friend,” he’d say to them. “He just couldn’t cut it…”
Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.
The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified. (GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett)

Cover love? Probably She Is Not Invisible with it’s nice minimalistic look.

Most eaten genre? There’s no real reason to make a pie chart except I like pie and I like charts so…why not?

And we can all see I read a huge majority of Paranormal…although I never know whether to classify books as paranormal or urban fantasy. I’m sad I didn’t read more dystopian or apocalyptic books though.

Apparently you enjoyed:

– Me being disagreeable and not reading books I’m recommended.
– Also my #HonestYA cover remodelling. (That’s always fun.)
– Then I be disagreeable again about over-hyped books.
– And I think we all found it amusing but surprising that I actually viciously cut up books. We all have our dark and violent secrets.

People also found us with these interesting search results:

– tiny picture of mike teevee
– green eggs and ham book cover (I didn’t, actually)
– american australian marshmallow (I don’t believe I talked about it, but really, the difference is HUGE. Believe it or not, our marshmallows are sweeter than the Americans.)

As you probably remember from my ginormous post about it, we did a small excursion across country for a holiday and a wedding.

These tiny specks are Mime and I. On a rock. In the middle of outback Australia.

And SUMMER! I am so so excited for it to be warm again. I was built to burn, not die of frostbite.

feel free to link me to your weekend posts, so i might peruse what you’re fangirling over. and most likely join in.

did you have a good august?

and my epic question for you: opinions on audio books! have you tried them? like/hate? they sure stop me skim reading, which is both good and unfortunate.