Looking Forward

So, it’s been 18 months since I reviewed a book. It’s been the best part of a year since I read a book. The blog has been on hiatus officially since January last year. But I’ve decided to actually give this another shot. I miss reading, I miss interacting with the bookish community. Last year I decided that I needed a break, that it was just too much pressure. I had to stop watching booktube, I had to stop reading reviews. I had to just stop because I feel like I lost what reading was about for me. But then our family had a few bereavements and I just didn’t pick up a book for 6 months. Looking back, I think a “year off” from reading, from reviewing, has absolutely been the best thing for me, but I want to get back in to it again. So hi, welcome. Hello. Nice to see you again.

Last year wasn’t the best year. For anyone. While we were all in the same storm, how we were hit by it varied, what things we had going on around us varied. For me 2020 was a proper shitter (see my last post) but it was also full of moments of light, I found new hobbies and picked up old ones. I learnt how to drive (last test in Norwich before March lockdown) and I bought a car in May. I BOUGHT A CAR! I’m now officially 2 years in remission with fibromyalgia, bad days have been few and far between. I’m off all medication (save for my antihistamines) even though my mental health tanked. And I learnt to make focaccia.

So rather than reading, what have I been up to? I replayed my favourite video games (Horizon Zero Dawn, Lego Harry Potter, Subnautica, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and lots of The Sims). I started playing Animal Crossing, then stopped, then started again.

I became obsessed with podcasts – All Killa, No Filla has been a fun one and I genuinely love the community built around that podcast. Honestly? It’s in part down to them why I’m reading again. I’ve also really, really enjoyed We Are History with Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell – something that may become obvious in some of my reading for 2021 as they have recommended so many good books that I can’t wait to get my hands on. In a similar tone I’ve enjoyed You’re Dead to Me which is hosted by Greg Jenner (author of Dead Famous which is on my TBR and will hopefully be read early 2021). I’ve enjoyed Fingers on Buzzers with Lucy Porter and Jenny Ryan (from the Chase) which is all about quizzing. And if I need cheering up I’ve resorted back to My Dad Wrote a Porno which never fails to crease me.

I learnt to love myself and be unashamedly me. I’ve addressed some things in my past that have been weighing me down a lot more than I thought, and have been working through them. I feel more confident, and braver, than I think I ever have. I’m both terrified and excited about the next steps and what the future holds but I think whatever comes my way, I’ll deal with it.

Reading has been something on the backburner, something for ‘later’ – books will always be there after all. But now I think I’m at a point were I’m ready to start trying to get in the habit of reading again. Because it is a habit, and one I need to get back in to my daily routine. I’ve set my goal for the year low – 25 books – and I want to actively start reviewing again. I may even dig out a few reviews from last year that I wrote and just never shared – Girl, Woman, Other being one. I can’t wait to explore 2021 in books, and share that with you.

Blog: Spring 2019 – A General Update

Hello again, and welcome to a wee chatty post on my corner of the internet. It’s been quite some time since I checked in with you all – and a lot has changed for me in the last few months, so it feels an appropriate time to do that! So, below the cut there is a 500 word update where I’m talking Fibromyalgia, the Wellcome Prize, Book Slumps, Theatre Trips, Language Learning and lots of other random stuff.

Blog:- Hello 2019| General Update & Bookish Goals

Hello and welcome to a new look on Ashleigh’s Bookshelf. After a rather long hiatus, I decided the best way to get back to blogging, and excited about it, was to give the blog itself a bit of a facelift. So, here we have it. It’s purple and inspired by my tattoos in that it’s watercolour-y in theme and I hope you like it! It’s still in progress, and if you have any suggestions or feedback just drop me a message.

The reason there weren’t any posts for the last 3 or 4 months of 2018 is simple – I wasn’t reading. After a few really good months over the Summer my reading motivation just slumped, my reading consisted of Harry Potter fan fiction and I’m not ashamed in the slightest. I bought a PS4 and have rediscovered a love of gaming (Tomb Raider mainly). I’ve been watching movies, drinking wine and making memories with friends. For me, the last few months of 2018 were some of the happiest I’ve had, and before I knew it it’d been 3 months and I hadn’t picked up a book.

Looking back on my reading in 2018 one of the things which I found most rewarding was reading the Wellcome prize longlist – something I hope to do again this year. The longlist is released next month and I actually can’t wait! I’m going to be more about balance this year, as I feel that it’s something I almost conquered towards the end of 2018 and that I want to carry forward. I’ve decided to be less about quantity of books and more about quality and the value they add to my life, so my goals for this year are:-

• Read one book a week
• Read more non-fiction
• If you don’t like it, DNF it.

And reading is going to naturally take a backseat when I’m focusing my time on other things too. For a long while all of my free time was used reading, but I’m enjoying having that variety in my free time and it means I’m enjoying and appreciating things more!

As for the blog – reviews will happen when books are read, I may also do monthly updates again- games I’m playing and movies I’ve watched as well as books.

But for now, I will say goodbye and we shall speak soon!

The Briefest of Updates

Hello! Long time no speak.

I always seem to make one of these posts at this time of year. When other people’s reading picks up towards the winter, with cozy blankets and hot drinks, mine always drops out. Well, it doesn’t drop off completely but I tend to go through a phase of reading fan fiction and I have zero regrets.

I also may have bought myself a PS4 and I may have been obsessively playing Tomb Raider for the best part of two months.

Anyway, I have purchased a few books lately which I’m excited to get around to so hopefully you’ll be hearing from me again in the new year!

I hope you’re having a lovely Saturday and your festive season is filled with happiness whatever and however you celebrate.

Hiatus Be Gone!

Well hello there my lovely readers, and what a time it’s been since I posted last. The Wellcome Book Prize announced a winner (literally, the one book on the shortlist I didn’t give a damn about – I’m miffed), I booked to see a couple of my favourite authors in conversation (Becky Chambers and Ali Smith, for anyone interested), I’ve been to the theatre, I’ve caught up on TV, become even gayer and I haven’t picked a book up in nearly 2 months.

In fairness, I have been rather unwell, but that’s neither here nor there. It did mean however that I wasn’t in much of a reading mood. That’s changed now. I picked up a book for the first time yesterday and it felt blooming marvellous!

So, expect normal (or rather, normal for me) service to resume on here.

In June I am reading books solely published by Salt. I’ll discuss that more in another post in a couple of days, I just wanted to post today to say thank you to all the wonderful humans among you who actually subscribed while I’ve not been about. It means a lot that even my older reviews are garnering attention still. And thank you to those who have stuck around!

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Books I Hope Father Christmas Brings || Blogmas Day 19

Hello and welcome to another top ten Tuesday! Today’s topic is one I thought would be easy – it’s the top 10 books that I hope Father Christmas brings me. It was not easy whatsoever. Surprisingly, there aren’t many books I’m after right now, and generally speaking I know my family won’t have bought me books so it’s fruitless to hope!

I really struggled finding 10 books that I’d really like. In the end I settled on special editions, or anthologies, and generally good ‘gift’ books that I’d quite like to have in my collection. There are also a handful of “Christmas” books which is a must at Christmas!

Firstly, the few books that aren’t as “special” – Effi Briest in the Persephone classics edition. I really loved the sound of this when I received a newsletter from Persephone, and it’s been on my wishlist for a long while! The other two that fit in to this category are Egyptian Myths which is a book from a Penguin collection that I’m slowly collecting – I absolutely love myths and legends, so books like this are right up my alley! Also, The Iliad in the Clothbound Classics version – it’s one of the few in the collection I don’t have. The reason it is in the ‘less special’ section is I do have a copy of it in the black spine, so it would be a duplicate book!

As for “Christmas-y” books, we have The Faber Book of Christmas Stories which is absolutely blooming gorgeous and I would absolutely adore to have a copy of! The same, in fact, goes for the remainder of the books. Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson is purely to fuel my love of the womans writing right now. The Night Before Christmas by Gogol is one of the Penguin Christmas Classics, and I love these wee gems. I’ve taken to reading one every Christmas Night, so I’d really like a new one to add to my collection!

The last on the top line is a bit of left field entrant on this top 10, I’ve not had much experience with Wodehouse but a selection of short stories sounds like a good way to get started. This book caught my eye when it was published in hardback around 3 years ago, and even now I’m curious about it. We all need a good laugh, and I think this would be the perfect combination of festive cheer and a good laugh!

Finally we have A Poem for Every Day/Night of the Year – these two books are gorgeous and as I want to get in to more poetry I feel like it might be a nice way to do that, that and I like the idea of actually reading 1(2) poems a day and having it as a project throughout 2018!

The last book on the entire top 10 is The Fox and the Star which I have wanted since it was released but haven’t bought myself but if someone got it for me as a gift I would be over the moon.

As I said, this was a hard top 10 to do! I didn’t realise how few books I actually wanted at the moment until I struggled to get 10 together!

Have you got any books on your christmas wishlist?

300 Subscribers!|| Blogmas Day 18

Hello my lovely subscribers, all 300 of you!

Today is a brief one, it’s been a long old day and didn’t have anything prepared/scheduled – but in a way that’s a good thing because while I was at work I hit 300 subscribers. So today I’m thanking all 300 of you who have taken the time to read, comment and subscribe over the last few years.

Seriously, thank you so much. Every like, every follow, every comment means so much to me. I know 300 people isn’t a huge amount to most, some of you guys probably have 10 times that amount of subscribers, but it’s a huge amount to me.

This blog started as an outlet when I started university, I never intended for it to become a place where I reviewed every book I read over the course of the last 3 years. It was an online diary for a while, it still is sometimes, but it became so much more to me than that. It’s still an outlet, but for a very different part of me – the creative part of me, the part of me who wants to find like-minded individuals as my Real Life sorely lacks in bookish types.

Because of this blog I have had some amazing conversations with amazing people. I have found other bloggers, read books I wouldn’t normally read, and importantly I’ve found my voice. I feel like my voice and opinion are valid, it’s given me confidence both online and in the ‘real world’.

So, thank you to every one of you who has subscribed, liked, commented, anything because it means the world to me.

 

Identity Crisis?|| Blogmas Day 15

So today it’s a bit of a late one, and not really book-oriented, because I’m not having the best of days.

The last few days I’ve definitely been having a bit of a wobble (primarily due to my GP not seeing my anti-depressants as an urgent prescription and thinking it acceptable to make me go 3 days without them. They still haven’t done the prescription, but I have enough for a week from the pharmacy, and I can kick up a fuss on Monday if I still don’t have my repeat). However, that isn’t what I want to talk about today (as the rainbow in the header may indicate).

The other week, while on holiday, my friend made an offhand comment about how her dad misunderstood something I put on facebook (he misunderstood my “omg I’m going to be a bridesmaid” post as “omg I’m getting married”). And that she was proud of him because “He congratulated you even though if you were getting married, we all know it’d be to a woman.”

Thinking about it, I realised I’ve never actually ‘come out’. I’ve never felt the need to. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my sexuality, I know I prefer women, I just never felt the need to actually go and label myself. But do I need to tell my friends I’m gay? (or more gay than straight, or as I told my mother when I was all of 12 years old “not as straight as a ruler”).

I feel like I’ve lied to them, which is stupid because when I started uni and met them I never hid myself away. I was always 100% me. I make jokes about myself like “Doc Martens and a plaid shirt, you must be a lesbian!” at least twice a month, I frequently make references to particularly nice looking women, rant about the heteronormativity of the institution of marriage, talk very passionately about my favourite fictional lesbians, and regularly update them on LGBTQ+ news.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly think I’m hiding in Narnia.

I told my mum I was (at the very least) bisexual when I was 12 – as I said above. It was a result of a pretty problematic set of circumstances as to why, involving a much older girl taking advantage of me (and it wasn’t just me, as I came to find out). My parents were cool with it, never told me it was just a phase or any of those cliche things. From what I recall, my actual ‘coming out experience’ with my parents was positive – it was so long ago, and the circumstances around it are those I want to forget, meaning I have sort of blurred it in my head.

But, 12 years on, and with a whole new set of friends around me do I actually need to do the whole coming out thing with the words “hey, guess what, I’m gay(ish)?” or is what I’ve already done – just being me, hella gay, and rocking it – enough?

So, if anyone ever wondered what going 3 days without antidepressants did to you, it is this. It makes you unable to sleep and have anxiety attacks over things people probably already know. It makes you question your whole identity, bring up trauma you thought was long behind you and question your entire existence.

Thank goodness for pharmacists and emergency prescriptions.

5 Star Predictions || Blogmas Day 13

Seeing as yesterdays post was all about my favourite books of 2017, I thought today would be a very good day to discuss books I haven’t read yet but think will become firm favourites – or 5* reads – in 2018. I’ve seen several people on youtube do this – Mercedes I think was first, but the idea caught on and I thought it would translate well in to a blog post.

A lot of factors make up a 5* book for me, it has to be well written, have a plot that keeps me hooked and have well rounded characters. They’re by no means the only things that makes me give a book 5* – but they do help. Equally, how a book reads influences my rating – books with no chapter breaks, or even paragraph breaks, or just places to generally put the book down and get on with stuff really irk me!

Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m an eclectic reader, and that doesn’t change in the books I feel I’m going to give 5* in 2018! So, let’s discuss.

First up is the classics and to The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. This year I really found a love in Russian literature and I have nothing but high hopes for this book. There are a handful of other books by Russian authors on my TBR but this is the one I really want to get around to, but also have the most anticipation about! Interestingly, the next classic I’m optimistic about is Middlemarch by George Eliot which I read 2 years ago and only gave 3*. I’ve since come to appreciate George Eliot’s writing a lot more and I think that on a re-read this could improve enormously for me. It’s probably weird, for someone to predict that they’ll give a re-read of a lesser liked book 5* – but I’m always erring on the wild side!

As for new releases – I have exceedingly high hopes for Becky Chambers in her next instalment in the Wayfarers series Record of a Spaceborn Few. Both previous instalments in the series were 5* reads for me and I have zero doubt about this one. From what I’ve read it doesn’t follow any of the same characters, but that doesn’t worry me because the previous two books were enchanting, diverse and basically, this is the only book I currently have on preorder and I’m excited. I’m also sure that if the wonderful Ali Smith has a release in 2018 it will rocket to the top of my TBR and be a 5 star read. It has to be said that after reading The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden I’m quite excited about the follow up which is released in January – which the name of escapes me!

More popular fiction, or those books likely to be found on tables in Waterstones, are hard for me to pinpoint as they’re not the sort of books I lean towards but I’d like to finally get around to the two Zadie Smith books I haven’t read yet and the one I’m most optimistic for is NW as one of my friends said I would really enjoy it, so that’s one I’m thinking I may give 5* as I loved White Teeth when I read it years ago.

There are a few short story collections I also have a good feeling about – but short story collections are notoriously hard to give 5* reviews to because often there is just that one story which drags it down! But A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel has been on my TBR for a very long time and I have such high hopes for it. I also have a very good feeling about The Scent of Cinnamon by Charles Lambert which was published by Salt in 2010 and I recently purchased – the first story, from what I read – was amazing and I don’t know why I haven’t read it yet! Also by Salt is another short story collection that I’ve had for over a year which is New World Fairy Tales by Cassandra Parkin.

I think, for now, that is enough books that I think will be 5*. I have over 200 on my TBR so narrowing it down this far was difficult. I’d love to hear what books you’re feeling really optimistic about in 2018 – and any you think I might enjoy because I always enjoy some recommendations!

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Bookish Settings I’d Love to Visit || Blogmas Day 5

So, today I’ve decided to do a Top Ten Tuesday. I used to really enjoy doing these on and off, and when I saw the topics for December I knew it would be a good discussion post once a week – and also something I could plan ahead!

This weeks topic is Bookish Settings I’d Love to Visit. Anyone who knows me will know what number 1 is on my list (*cough* Wizarding World *cough*) but the rest have been quite difficult for me to piece together and all come an equal second for a variety of different reasons.