This week in books and food
In My Life
Festivities
Happy St. Nicholas’ Day and a joyful second Sunday of Advent! Christmas is coming and at home we have unearthed our decorations. Sadly, we don’t have a suitable space for our big Christmas tree anymore, so very few of the ornaments will be hung on branches this year. I did get a small one for my bedroom though and my mum set up another small one in the living room. It’s kinda cozy this way.
Books
This year I also finally pulled The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder from my bookshelves to read. I must’ve bought it when I was fourteen yet never got down to reading it. This year I remembered and decided to use it as my Advent calendar. There are ten pages for ever every December day leading up to Christmas, so it’s a nice little something to wake up to each morning. I also decided that I want to reread Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. It has such a warm vibe amidst Winter, I just want to revisit it.
Food
Food’s becoming a staple topic around here, I noticed. Hah. Well, I do love to bake, so there’s that. This week I baked apple cinnamon muffins and hazelnut banana muffins. They’re great for in-between when looking for a snack that’s a little sweet yet still savoury. I also made masala chai popsicles to which I shared the recipe on Life Revel. Besides those I also tried my hand at coconut popsicles.
Oh, and deviating from the treats, I switched on the stove and cooked honey braised beef. Yep, I love baking but I do cook too once in a while. I should’ve gone easier on the cinnamon but other than that, it made for two scrumptious meals.
2016 YA Book Releases
If you want to see all the 2016 YA book releases in one place, check out my Goodreads shelf of 2016 publications. This shelf encompasses first-time publications of YA books in English. The means UK books that are newly released in the US, for instance, won’t be on that shelf. Instead, I counted those as re-releases and shelved them as 2016 republications which also includes paperback releases of books previously only available as hardcovers.
I know that there’s a listopia compilation dedicated to that but there are some books that have been added erroneously and it’s difficult to monitor that. A shelf allows everyone to sort books according to stuff like publication dates. This makes it immediately evident if a publication date has been pushed back to 2017 or later even (the horror)! When adding books, I also weeded out books that have been cancelled or are on indefinite hold.
Since this is a Goodreads shelf, nobody else will be able to add books to the list. So, if you see that I missed out anything, feel free to use the recommendation feature. Then I’ll be right on it. Of course, I’ll keep adding books as they’re announced.
Book Haul
Actually, there were no additions to my bookshelves this week. You’d think I’m sad about that but I’m not. There are so many wonderful books I already own which I must, must read before my owned TBR pile becomes impossibly large. Although, I did order a couple of non-fiction books over the Black Friday weekend, and I’m waiting for them to arrive.
On the Blog
Book Reviews
On the graphic novel front I reviewed Drama by Raina Telgemeier. It’s aimed more at older MG/younger YA readers but I still think it’s worth reading it because it’s just so charming. Yesterday I reviewed This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales. Hazel picked it as my Epic Recs book in May earlier this year and I’m very glad she did. It touched me so much, it’s become one of my favourite books.
Blog Posts
This week I got my reading statistics in order and posted my October overview. I plan to do up my November overview this coming week as well.
Regular features that I posted this week were:
Around the Blogosphere
2016 Reading & Blogging Challenges
- Bec @ Readers in Wonderland tackled the question, are reading challenged effective?
- Mel @ The Daily Prophecy is hosting the (Fairytale) Retelling Challenge 2016.
- Crini @ All About Books is hosting Reviewing Backwards.
- The 2016 Popsugar Reading Challenge has been announced. It looks a little tougher than the 2015 rendition.
Books
- Carlisa @ Confessions of Carlisa noted books that started as NaNoWriMo novels. That’s National Novel Writing Month, in case you were wondering.
- Deanna @ Books a Blog posted out things that seem normal for high schools in books and TV shows but aren’t like that for her school.
- Sarah @ Deadly Darlings picked out books to match your mood.
- Emily @ Loony Literate got creative with How to Cook a Book (Recipe for One).
- Alexia @ Pretty Deadly Reviews recommended dark contemporaries.
- Hawwa @ Hawwa, etc. took a look at book cover art, admitting they’re her whole reason for owning print books.
Genre
- Sana @ Artsy Musings of a Bibliophile broke down science fiction in YA and included book recs for each type.
- Emily @ Books & Cleverness compiled a list of YA books without romance.
- Topaz @ Six Impossible Things explored Greek mythology and set Daedalus centre-stage, next to Icarus.
- Hazel @ Stay Bookish made a case for reading middle grade books.
Readers’ Lives
- Meleika guest posted at Chasing Faerytales with 5 bookworm problems.
- Trish @ Between my Lines shared tips on how to burst though a reading slump.
- Mishima @ Chasing Faerytales pondered upon the extent an author has control over their characters after publication.
- Emily @ For the Bookish needs your help on hot to pick your next book.
- Silvara @ Fantasy of the Dragon wants to know, what particularly makes a book a must-read?
- Rinn @ Rinn Reads doesn’t get “book boyfriends”. Neither do I. She does however have an affinity towards “video game boyfriends”.
- Jessica @ Bookish Serendipity doesn’t like character descriptions at all.
Publishing
- Dre @ Sporadic Reads gave some tips for when you want to publish your book.
Blogging
- Georgie @ What Georgie Did explained how to add copyrighting metadata to photos. Sure beats distracting watermarks.
- Lola @ Lola’s Reviews wants to know, how do you follow blogs?
- Rachel @ Confessions of a Book Geek considered the death of the “buy link” on book blogs.
- Laura @ Boats Against the Current weighed the pros and cons of a blog schedule.
Reviewing
- Val @ The Innocent Smiley declared she’s not (a) professional when it comes to reviewing. And that’s okay. She is herself and that makes all the difference.
Miscellaneous
- Alexandra @ Twirling Pages shared how she set up her bullet journal.
Oh, Josephine, thank you so much for including one of my posts in your round-up! Happy holidays – it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here as well, and I am so looking forward to cosying up with a book and hot chocolate once final exams are over. Much love. xx
Ah, I love when people compile links like this. Blog hopping is my favorite.
Also thanks so much for giving my post a shout-out! You’re great Josephine!
Happy St. Nicholas Day! (Belated, that is.) I love the photo in your post. It’s so easy on the eye, and those colors are fantastic! Glad you’ve been able to bake some more (and all of what you mentioned sounds AMAZING.)
Happy delayed Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for the year that was, and all that I have achieved. :) Your book photography is stunning, and I must admit that I drooled a little when I got to the food section. REALLY want some muffins now. Or you know, ten.
Sometimes I’m glad that I don’t get any new books either, because my TBR is HUGE and there are so many awesome books that I haven’t had a chance to read yet either. Hopefully I can get around to them this break.
Have a lovely week!
Thanks for the link-up! Going to have to go check out all the other posts now! :D R xx
Ummmm can I please try all of the things you baked? They sound DELICIOUS. I tried my hand at some Christmas cookies with a friend yesterday, but they turned out… ALMOST ideal. And by almost I mean something happened and we don’t know what but we’re just going to try other cookies in a couple of days. :D The photo you took for this post looks AWESOME by the way!!
Just found your blog, and love these weekly recaps! And Happy St. Nicholas’ Day!
Katie / http://www.storiesandsnapshots.com
Happy St. Nicholas’ Day! And thanks so much for mentioning my post :)
Thanks so much for the shoutout! Great post!