August Book Haul – 2018

Hello Everyone!

The Summer has come to an end and so has August, which means that it is time for another book haul! I bought slightly less books than last month, which is an improvement, but I am still trying to cut down on my spending a little – we’ll see how that goes. This book haul has quite a lot of Harry Potter books in it again (surprise, surprise) as well as quite a lot of standalones because I had actually completely run out of standalone books to read at the beginning of this month! I never thought I’d say that, but with all of the extra time I have had since the summer started I have been reading, reading and reading some more, which has led to be getting through my TBR a lot quicker than I originally anticipated. Thankfully though my birthday and Christmas aren’t too far off and I will be able to get a job next year as I turn 16 in a few months, so I will have more money to buy books! That is enough ranting though; let’s get into the books:

…And a Happy New Year by Holly Bourne

I first read Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne in 2016 (I think) when one of my friends suggested it to me and I fell in love with it! I have since read the whole spinster club trilogy as well as ‘It Only Happens In The Movies’ and am planning on getting her other books soon. My favourite books of hers are deffinitly the spinster trilogy though, so when I found out there was a little bonus novella coming out I knew I had to get my hands on it. I’m not sure when this came out, but my friend has been talking about it since last year, but I just could not find it anywhere. I finally did though when I stopped in at a Waterstones on the way home from somewhere one day and I, of course, had to buy it!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K.Rowling (20th anniversary edition, paperback, all four houses)

If you saw last months haul then you’ll know that I bought 9 copies of Harry Potter and it clearly didn’t end there because this month I bought another 5, starting with these 4. These 4 20th anniversary house editions now complete my current collections of these editions of the books, but they will be releasing 8 copies for each book in the coming months/years, which I will be getting my hands on asap.

[In case anyone doesn’t know they released 8 different copies of the Philosopher’s Stone last year: 4 hardback and 4 paperback with extra content inside based on the 4 houses. That means there is one hardback and one paperback in each house and I have decided to collect them all.]

My Aunite Janet came to stay for a few days this month and we decided to visit Nottingham for the day because she had never been and it is one of my favourite cities. While we were there we went to two different book stores and a couple of other shops that also sold books, so naturally, I had picked up quite a few books that day. I will start with the first book shop we went to , which was called the Five Leaf Bookshop. It is an independent bookshop, which I always love because they have a different feel to them. Plus it is always great to support independent shops.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The first book I picked up there was a very small one (only about 50 pages long, so it is more of a long leaflet if I’m being honest). They had a whole section for feminist literature in this shop, which Waterstones don’t, so I was very excited and decided to stock up on some feminist reads because it am super interested in learning more about it. I have actually already read this book, so I will tell you more about it in my wrap-up.

Dear Ijeawele by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is another very short book by the same author as the first one, so I picked this one up as well. They were both very cheap because they are so small, so it couldn’t really hurt. I have read this one as well and I really enjoyed it. This one is a bit different to the first one because it is a re-write of a letter that the author sent to one of her friends in Africa to explain how to raise her daughter a feminist. Not only was it incredibly interesting, but you get to read a bit of the humour between the two friends and it lays out all of the facts so simply and nicely.

Has Democracy Failed Women? by Drude Dahlerup

I have technically already started this book (and by that I mean I have read the prologue, which is about 5 pages long), but I am intending to finish this one in the next few days because it isn’t particularly long. As I understand it, this is a mind of essay style book, which I haven’t read many of, so it will be interesting to see how I get on with it. From the 5 pages I have read, I think it is going to be more adult that I usually read, so it may take me longer to get through it, but I am sure I will learn a lot from it.

Freedom by Margaret Atwood

I have heard a lot about Margaret Atwood recently, so when I saw her name on a book I picked it up straight away. While I am writing this, I haven’t yet read it, but I am planning to before the month is over, so you will likely see it in my wrap-up.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I am sure you’ve all heard of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by now because it has become strangely popular again even though it was published years ago now. I, like many others, heard about it through the online book community and after seeing it time and time again, I decided to pick it up. I super excited to get into this one because I have heard so many good things about it, so I am really hoping I enjoy it!

The next place we went was, of course, Waterstones. The Waterstones in Nottingham is 5 stories high and it is the best one I have been to yet, so we had to go in it. I bought 3 books while I was there, so let’s get into them!

Grace & Fury by Tracy Banghart

I have seen a few people online talking about ‘Grace & Fury’, so when I saw it (and it’s gorgeous cover), I decided to pick it up. I haven’t heard anyone’s opinions on it yet, so I don’t really have any expectations of it, but from what the burb says, it sounds pretty good, so I am excited to get into it.

The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting by Holly Bourne

I love Holly Bourne! Some of you may not know that because I don’t talk about her books as much on here as I should, but I really do adore her writing. I am have been meaning to pick up ‘The Manifesto on how to be interesting’ for a while now, so when I saw it I thought ‘why not?’. So now I have it and I couldn’t be more pleased about it. I think I will either read this one in September, October time in my first month back at school or I might save it until Christmas because I like reading Holly Bourne’s books at Christmas. I’m not sure why, but they just seem to fit to me.

The Book Of Lost Things by John Connolly

This was a pretty random purchase, but I decided I wanted to pick up a book that I hadn’t seen online or had any preconceived notions about, so I browsed thought the shelves and read the blurb of pretty much every book in the YA section and came across this one. It sounds like a really interesting and magical read, which is exactly the kind of thing I like to read in autumn, especially around back to school time and since both of those are creeping up on me pretty fast, I thought this was perfect!

Star Wars: Most Wanted by Rae Carson

After we had finished in Waterstones, we were walking around looking for somewhere to eat and we came across a Forbidden Planet. My whole family is a bunch or nerds, so we obviously went in and I found a Star Wars story that look really good. I have seen all of the films and I adore Star Wars, but I have never read any of the books or gone any deeper than watching the films really, but I decided I want to go a bit deeper into the stories and the fandom, so I picked up this book. Whether I will later come to regret getting involved in another fandom, I have yet to know.

The Fairy Bible by Teresa Moorey

This is a bit of a strange purchase, even for me, but we found ourselves in a wicca store because my little sister is really into that sort of thing, so we were looking around and I , obviously, went to look at the books at the back of the shop and found what was called ‘The Fairy Bible’. The reason I picked this is up is because I have been interested in writing fairy tales for a while now, but I need to do a bit more research into fairies and myths and legends before I would feel comfortable making my own, so I thought this would be a cool book to have. It has all of the different ‘kinds of fairy’ in it with explanations about all of them, so I thought this was a good place to start and will likely be useful for reference later.

My sister decided to clear out her room this month and she had some books that she didn’t want anymore, so I had a look through them and took the ones I was interested in. She is younger than me, so some of them were a bit too young for me, but some weren’t, so I said I’d take them.

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

This is actually a book we picked up from the charity shop years ago, but at that point we shared most of our things, so it didn’t really belong to anyone. In the end it belonged to my sister because, at the time, I wasn’t interested in it, but several years later, I am now interested in reading it, so I am going to give it a try and see how it goes.

The Case of the Missing Moonstone by Jordan Stratford

I don’t really have all that much to say about this one except that it sounded interesting. I think it is a middle grade novel, but that is really all I know about it.

Shadow Jumper by J.M.Forster

I am pretty sure this is also a middle grade novel, but this one took my interest because of the subject matter. It is about a boy who can’t go out in the sunlight, so he jumps from roofs at night in order to feel alive. The premise reminded me of a Tumblr post I read at some point, so I thought I would give it a go.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K.Rowling (French Edition)

Yes I have really bought another edition of Harry Potter. I know I already have loads and I can’t even read French, but I have started collecting now, so why stop? I went to France at the end of this month, so I picked up another copy of my favourite book to add to my collection!

That is it for this months book haul! I definitely didn’t expect to have such a big haul this month, but what can you do? Next month there won’t be a book haul because I have decided not to buy any books in September. A lot of you are probably shocked by this and everyone I have told so far has laughed at me and told ‘as if!’, but that only makes me more determined to prove them wrong, so instead of a book haul next month I will giving you a book unhaul! I have decided to get rid of a few of my old books that I have lost interest in and a few duplicate copies that I don’t need, so you can look forward to that. What books have you bought this month?

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out