August Reading Plans

Every month since April I have told myself, this will be the last TBR I do for a while and then every month I find a readathon or readalong that I want join in on or at least that I like the prompts for so start my planning again. What can I say I’m a lady that loves to plan and a lady that loves to read, so I think TBR‘s are here to stay for the time being.

This months TBR comes from what was going to be my first NEWTs readathon, but as it’s now going to solely be on discord and I barely remember to check in on it this going to be just for me. Essentially I’m just using the prompts to decide what I’m going to read this month, but not actively taking part, I won’t go in to what prompts these cover, I just want you to know there’s a reason there are so many on this months pile.

I am also still on my buying ban until I’m down to 12 physical books (currently 18) and 9 ebooks (currently 14) on my unread pile, although that’s probably still quite a lot admittedly.

So I want to continue making my way through the pretty classics I bought purely for the covers and/or illustrations (puffin in bloom and Mina Lima), so Little Women, A Little Princess and The Little Mermaid are all on this months TBR. A Little Princess was one of my favourite films growing up and so was Little Women, so I’m looking forward to reading the originals, I know I’ve read Little Women previously but it was so long ago that it’s time for a re-read.

The summer months are prime time to be reading contemporary so I’ve added The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary, With The Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo, The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan and Summer at Shell Cottage by Lucy Diamond to the August pile. As Colgan and Acevedo are some of my favourite authors I’m excited to get to these.

A non-fiction I’ve been wanting to get to is So You’ve been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, I have long been fascinated by what is now termed ‘cancel culture’ and public shaming on social media, and this will hopefully be an interesting read.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware has been so universally liked that I think it’s about time I pick it up and see what the fuss is about.

Now being up to date with the Charlie Travesty series and the Fortuna Sworn series I have a whole in my heart that I’m very hopeful that Rhapsodic will fill for me, I know very little about the series but as it’s available on Kindle unlimited and Becca from Becca and the Books on YouTube recommended it, it’s worth a read. Another fantasy I want to get to this month is Burn by Patrick Ness, I’ve never read anything of his before and I received this book in a book box club box a few months ago.

Confession time, I’ve broken my buying ban twice in July, I bought Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor as it was 99p on kindle and I’ve wanted to read it for a very long time now, I couldn’t pass over the opportunity. The other book was completely by accident, I was actually trying to remove it from my wish list and I pressed ‘buy with 1-click’ and can not work out how to return it, Amazon just sent me in circles for an hour and in the end had to accept that I now own Caraval by Stephanie Garber. I can’t be too mad about it as I was probably going to buy it at some point, though I don’t think it would have been in 2020. So I’m going to prioritise it this month as it just puts me further away from buying another book.

I want to progress in my reading of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I have currently read the first 5, so want to read at least one of them this month, also hoping the formula of the books changes as I’m growing tired of the cycle so far.

I read the first volume of Puella Magi Madoka Magica last month, a cute magic girl manga series that’s a nice quick read so will certainly be reading volume two.

Crooked Heart was recommended to me by my mum a little while ago, I have no idea what it’s about, what genre it is, but it was 99p on kindle and one of the last books I bought before I imposed my ban. This one in honesty isn’t very high on my list to read, but I needed to add some ebooks to my TBR.

And finally The Miniaturist is the only book on Julys TBR I didn’t read, I read the first chapter but I wasn’t in the mood, it’s now the longest owned unread book on my shelves so if I don’t read it in August I’m admitting that it’s just not a book I want to read and moving on.

So that’s my 16 book TBR. I don’t expect to get to all of these as I do have a full time job and want to try and have what little social life the pandemic will allow, it I’m also aware that I’ve got the first week of August off and have a few quick reads on the pile, and I still have such a range planned that any of my reading moods are catered for.