Category: Blog
-
One Year of The Steady Read!
It has been a whole year since I first published my review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, which marked the beginning of the website as an actual place for content and reviews to be hosted. However, as I have alluded to in other posts, this website has existed before in differing locations and versions. At…
-
The Pros and Cons of Novellas
If you look around the posts on this website, you’ll notice I’m quite the fan of shorter fiction. For me, novellas hit a sweet spot between length, depth, creativity, and value for money. But, much like any other form of fiction, novellas have their pros and cons. Some people really dislike them, and others (like…
-
Don’t Scrap Your Post Ideas
Over the last year, I have written a lot of unfinished or unpublished posts for this website. However, as of late, I’ve realised that the posts — or their topic(s) — were fairly interesting and have plucked a lot of them out of my drafts and finally put them on the website. One such example…
-
Novels with ‘Bland Cover Syndrome’
I tend to mention from time-to-time that covers are important, even if the contents of a novel are all that actually matters in the end. A creative, satisfying, and refined cover that conveys quality (as well as the tone of the story) is essential to making a book more enticing to shoppers. That’s why I…
-
Why I Dislike BookTok & Bookstagram
Since 2020, the #booktok and #bookstagram trends have continued to grow. Whilst there are many positives, such as author exposure and a general promotion of the idea of reading, many of these creators/accounts tend to be a lot more shallow than perceived. As a slight warning, this post will probably represent a slight rant on…
-
Blogging: A Venture in Constant Improvement
Perhaps this website seems like the epitome of ‘newbie’ to you, but I assure you that it was once a lot more messy, directionless, and unprofessional. In my year or so of blogging, whether it be before the existence of this website or now during it, I have never stopped improving. This site, for better…
-
Books That Bored Me to Death
As much as I like reading, I also find myself wanting to toss a book aside if I’m not invested after a handful of chapters. Sometimes it’s the style of writing, the lacklustre story, the literary era, the audience it was written for, or the genre. Sometimes it may just be me and my preferences!…
-
My Most Used Reading White Noise Videos
If you’re like me, then it doesn’t take much to agitate you when reading. A slight murmur of someone in the other room, the muffled noise of the television downstairs, your phone going off, or even just the neighbour’s yappy dog – it’ll drag your mind away from the book before you. In many cases,…
-
Five Great Japanese Books Under 200 Pages
I love to read books by Japanese authors, particularly those on the shorter side. Something about the way the Japanese write, regardless of whether the work was translated or simply wrote in English to begin with, doesn’t shake the way these authors can so easily convey a scene, an emotion, or their (usually) odd sense…
-
Books with Abstract/Interesting Covers
They say not to judge a book by its cover, but that really is the first thing you judge it by. Just as we make first impressions based on someone’s appearance — their features, fashion, and hygiene — we make a first impression with a book. Similarly to when someone you know changes their style…