+ International Giveaway

Despite having a couple of books drag on, I read eleven whole books in April and portions of three others. Obviously readathon played a big part of this, I just wish I could be a bit more disciplined with my reading time the rest of the year. The month started and ended with some fabulous books though, I Still Dream and Dread Nation come highly recommended. I’ll be catching up on reviews over the next few weeks (fingers crossed).


Spring sprung, then vanished again. Josh has been focusing on getting the vegetables going and I’ve made a start on our front garden, which is going to have a small wild flower meadow section. I’m hoping the less it looks like a litter tray, the less the neighbourhood cats will poo on it. We are also battling slugs, the little bastards (we’re trying salt water sprays, copper tape and beer traps).

Oh yeah, and the other day we had just sat down to dinner and I looked out the window to see a big bird trying to pick something up. First instinct was that a pigeon was stealing one of Scully’s toys (why, brain, why?). Turned out to be a sparrowhawk eating a starling alive. This is what you get when you invite wildlife into your garden! Fortunately, it wasn’t one of the nesting pair in the neighbour’s roof and the little critters are still being tended by both parents.

Book of the Month:
I Still Dream by James Smythe

Reviews:


Challenges

I will have to start reading with a bit more purpose if I intend to complete these challenges. I’m doing OK but a lot of that was chance and the remaining prompts are getting harder for me to fill without trying. I am currently reading something for one of my least favourite prompts, true crime (it annoyingly would also fit posthumous but I really want to stick to one prompt per book within each challenge).

POPSUGAR (18/50)
20. A book by a local author: Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
28. A book with song lyrics in the title: I Still Dream by James Smythe

Read Harder (10/24)
A classic of genre fiction: Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet edited by Mike Ashley
A comic written and illustrated by the same person: The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Science Fiction vs Fantasy Bingo (7/25)
AI: I Still Dream by James Smythe
African: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Undead: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Beat the Backlist: 17/30
Goodreads: 37/100

What I Have Watched

We haven’t found a replacement for Mad Men yet. I did start watching The Good Place which is fun but I’m not sure it’s something I’m desperate to carry on with. I watched Command and Control, a Netflix documentary based on a book that’s on my TBR, all about how close America came to a nuclear accident during the Cold War. Scary stuff. I’ll still read the book as it covers a lot more near misses than the main one.

On the films front, I watched Hitchcock’s The Birds, full of classic suspense. It can come across a bit silly in places but it generally has an eerie feeling and you can understand giant flocks of birds being scary. Also watched Baby Driver which is not my usual sort of thing, lots of fast driving to music and shoot-ups, but it does use the music to good effect and I generally liked the soundtrack.

Read and awaiting review:

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
The Charmed Life of Alex Moore by Molly Flatt
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow + Jen Wang

Currently reading:

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

Blogged about…

March Book Haul
Quarterly Book Stats
Are you ready to #readathon?
#readathon hour five
#readathon hour nine
#readathon hour twenty
#readathon finishing line

Now enter the giveaway…

Want to win one of the six books pictured above? Just enter via the Rafflecopter below, you don’t even need to follow me. It is open internationally and there are extra entries for sharing, etc. Your details will only be used to contact you if you win and will otherwise be deleted.

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