In My Life
It’s been a while since I last wrote a Retrospect post and I’m a day late. Hah. That’s mostly because the past weeks have been a whirlwind. Besides work, I’ve training with my club twice a week and we’ve got a league match every weekend. I also tutor on weekends, so when I have time left, I mostly want to catch up on reading my books. Oh and The 100! Yes, The 100, the TV series.
I blame Sana for sucking me into the vortex that is The 100! I only started watching last Thursday and am already almost done with the first season. That obviously cut into the time I had originally thought I would spend blogging. But I’ve torn myself away from Netflix and found myself on WordPress, so yay!
First physical ARC
One thing about publishing rights is that they are usually restricted to specific regions. So if you live outside of the US, UK or Australia and New Zealand, then requesting review copies can be rather ambiguous and difficult. Which office do you address with your request? I’ve still not figured this out.
That’s why I was majorly surprised when Penguin Books Singapore was giving away signed proofs of All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. The book was on my TBR, so I decided to post a photo for the giveaway and happily received one of the five available copies.
On the Blog
Book Reviews
Over the past three weeks I only reviewed Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. I listened to the audiobook and for the narration, it was worth it.
Blog Posts
On the blogging front, Georgie and I introduced a book photography challenge/meme, Mise-en-scène. So far, the themes were dreams, glasses and rain. In light of Valentine’s Day, this Friday’s theme will be best friends. We’d love for you to join us!
I also took the time to review my January reading month. One thing that always amazes me when putting together Overview posts is the amount of money I saved through library books. Always an encouraging statistic.
My Confab post was about something near and dear to me, and that is reading on the go. I find it almost impossible to leave the house without a book. It feels wrong not to, even if I know I’ll only end up reading a few pages.
Around the Blogosphere
- Amy considered being frugal vs. new releases. Sometimes new releases can really test one’s self-control. For me, I keep my Goodreads shelves updated and make sure to sort books according to whether I plan to buy them or borrow them from the library. This prevents me from making impulse purchases on books I won’t end up reading.
- Chiara griped about too many series and too few standalones. According to her observations, way too many science fiction, dystopian, fantasy and basically non-contemporary books come in series. She’s afraid she’s reached her saturation point because how does anyone keep up with 69 series and still manage to remember all the details? I don’t know how either. I think her solution is pretty simple and effective: publish more standalone books.
- Amber is curious what the consensus is about tagging authors in negative book reviews on social media. I agree with her that tagging authors in positive reviews is all well and good but for negative reviews isn’t particularly tactful.
Thanks for including my link, Josephine!
So I assume the picture is off the All the Bright Places ARC? It’s really lovely!
TV shows… The old standby favorite is StarTrek, and then lately I’ve also been watching Castle and Agent Carter, that latter which will be over soon, and then I’ll be back to watching Agents of SHIELD.
Congrats on your first ARC :D! I know how hard it can be to get contacts with publishers. It seems like most of them aren’t even open for international contacts.