Category: Blog
-
Bad Book Tropes: Incredible Detectives & Contrived Plots
As my scathing review of I’m Travelling Alone implied back in the middle of 2023, I’m not keen on the detective/crime/thriller genre — or at least that’s what I thought until I read Tokyo Express earlier this year. Then I realised it was less about the genre and more about the ability of the author….
-
A Bookshelf Is a Must
Regardless of how ‘into’ reading you are, a bookshelf is a must for everyone’s home, even if it is mostly for show and decoration purposes. You might question why you should have a bookshelf, especially in this age of Kindle and digital media. But the reality is that no matter how paperless and fully digital…
-
Getting Through & Avoiding Bad Books
Assuming you won’t take the advice to just set a bad book aside, here are some things that might help you get through a particularly boring or bad read. Hopefully you’ll never have to use much of this advice, but we will all encounter a bad book that fails to engage us at least a…
-
Bad Book Tropes: Enemies to Lovers
As a genre, enemies to lovers has really picked up in recent years. Maybe I’m not the right person for the genre, as it not only seems to be more popular with female and younger readers — but I prefer romance as just another element of a book, rather than its whole personality. This is…
-
Reading in the Summer
Summer is the time when you’re supposed to be outdoors, enjoying the world and generally not being cooped up indoors. But we can’t all be outside 24/7, so I think it is best to utilise the long evenings and downtime of summer to get some reading in. Depending on where you live, summer is a…
-
How to Make Reading More Cosy
Reading is an inherently cosy activity. It’s about losing yourself in a novel’s world, or by enjoying the process of learning about a real-world person or event. But there are various ways we can make our reading more cosy and comfy, playing into the romanticised sentiment that seems to be all over social media nowadays….
-
Pacing & Achieving Your Reading Goals
As someone who suffers quite a bit from reader’s block and burnout, I’ve come to realise the importance of pacing your reading habits (even if I, myself, am still prone to surges and drops in my desire to read) and setting attainable goals. What many readers do is establish a quantitative yearly reading goal, such…
-
I (Usually) Dislike Live-Action Adaptations of Books
As a general rule, I don’t like films (or shows) that are based on books, and it’s not because of the pretentious reason that you think it is! With American Psycho’s adaptation being the only exception coming to mind, visual mediums rarely capture the exact emotions and themes of the novel they’re pulling from, making…
-
Everything I Read in 2022
A little retroactive post never hurt anyone. With July 2nd marking the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be fun to put out a post officially listing what I read in 2022 (even if every book has been reviewed prior to this). I actually read more than I realised in 2022, and more…
-
Why It’s Important to Schedule Blog Posts
The sooner you get started on things, the sooner they’ll be done. That’s a saying I recall hearing across my childhood, and when applied to the world of blogging, it essentially means you should always endeavour to work as quickly and as far ahead as you possibly can. Downtime for writers and creators is important,…