Mainstream Authors That I Still Haven’t Read

14/11/2023 Cassie4 Comments

Firstly, I want to apologise for disappearing for another couple of weeks – I went back to work at the beginning of the month after having been off for the best part of 2 months with a slipped disk and a torn tendon in my hip. That adjustment to going back to work has been exhausting – combination of reducing painkillers so I’m capable of working and having to use my brain etc etc. But the physio is finally starting to work, I’m getting some of my mobility back, I can now walk about a quarter of mile without needing to sit down and hopefully I should be going home at the end of the month! (I’ve been at my partners since July because of these issues!)

And now we move on to the regularly scheduled posting

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to The Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.

This week’s topic is Top Ten Mainstream Popular Authors that I Still Have Not Read
I don’t pay a huge amount of attention to who is or isn’t ‘mainstream’ or popular, but based on things that everyone seems to talk about, and last years Goodreads Choice Awards:

Colleen Hoover
Richard Osman
Sally Rooney
I’ve tried reading all three of these. I got about a page and a bit into one of their books, and promptly took them back to the library. Just not a writing style that worked for me

Emily Henry
Emily St John Mantel
RF Kuang
They’re on the TBR, I just haven’t quite to them yet, but I want to!

Rebecca Yarros
Brandon Sanderson
I’m just not that into fantasy and they don’t appeal to me

Travis Baldree
Tamsyn Muir
I’ve hyped Gideon The Ninth and Legends & Lattes up so much in my mind that I’m scared to start and not like them

How about you – are there mainstream/popular authors that you’re not reading?

Documentaries I’ve enjoyed (and a quick life update)

16/08/2023 Cassie3 Comments

To catch y’all up, I’ve been in a lot of pain for the last couple of weeks. There have been calls to 111 – the NHS non-emergency line. There has been a visit to a Minor Injuries Unit. And I’ve had to register as a temporary patient at my partner’s GP in Devon – where I’ve been stuck for the last month. I saw an Advanced Nurse Practitioner last Friday who did a full physical exam and diagnosed me with piriformis syndrome with sciatica, and trochanteric bursitis. She prescribed me a month’s worth of 10mg amitriptyline, 30mg codeine (not co-codamol this time, straight codeine) and 500mg naproxen. She tells me to rest, gives me ‘gentle’ stretching exercises to do, and she also signed me off work ‘for two weeks to start with’ – I’d honestly only wanted a letter or something that confirmed I was being treated in Devon, and couldn’t drive, but now I get to properly relax, let the drugs work and my body heal

When I’m just sitting, as long as I don’t move too quickly, it’s easy to forget that I’ve been in excruciating pain. With the pain pills, it’s mostly dialled down to a deep ache – with the odd muscle spasm and pins and needles in either my foot or my bum. And can I just say that that is a weird sensation in your bum, that point where when your foot has been to sleep, it’s waking up and about to tip into pins and needles? That, in your butt is weird.

I’d say when the meds are all worky and I’m being mindful of what I’m doing, the pain is at about a 3-4 (sometimes distracts me), but when they wear off or I forget myself, it’s at about a 5-6 (hard to ignore, interrupts some activities). Though when you consider 4 weeks ago it was a 9, and a week ago it was a 7, I’m getting there slowly. I’m still uncertain if I’ll be able to drive home next week or if I’ll be getting another sick note, but there’s a whole other week to go. The swelling in my thigh appears to have gone down though so I’m taking the small wins!

The meds are still making me a little woozy and wobbly. I’m making sure to keep moving regularly and I’m doing my stretches every day. I’m not getting a huge amount of reading done because my concentration isn’t great. I’m working through organising my tags on Dreamwidth and posting a bunch of memes. Mostly, I’ve been getting a bunch of colouring done – apparently, that’s the current hobby du jour

This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge is about A Documentary I Liked and I don’t know where to start. I watch a lot of documentaries – mostly (and I’m sure you’re shocked) history and science ones.

I enjoyed Alien Worlds on Netflix and Year Million on Disney+. American Ripper, which investigated the theory that Jack The Ripper & HH Holmes were the same person, was fascinating

BBC Horizon documentaries are just CLASS. I mean, BBC documentaries in general are utterly fantastic. There was a Chris Packham one about T-Rex which was brilliant, and there was one about the weather on other planets. So was The Genius Of Modern Life with Hannah Fry.

Li and I have been working our way chronologically through all the available David Attenborough shows available on iplayer and they have all been fucking fantastic. And so many of them completely groundbreaking for their day. That man is a national treasure and should be protected at all costs. Also, how does he clamber around in rainforests, jungles and deserts and his clothing still pristine white? Even the planet recognises his importance LOL

If you have any documentary recs, please feel free to share them!

top ten tuesday

Things Getting in the Way of Reading (and also blogging!)

20/06/202320/06/2023 Cassie1 Comment

I’m picking up a prompt from a couple of weeks ago, that seems quite timely since I’ve not blogged in like 6 weeks again. Things Getting in the Way of Reading (and also blogging!)

University I am doing a part-time distance-learning Classical Studies degree, I have just finished my 4th module (out of 7 – I started with an access module or foundation year). I study about 25 hours a week and my final assignment of the year was submitted a couple of weeks ago. I am actually taking the next academic year off for mental health reasons/to avoid burnout
Work They insist on taking up 40 hours of my time every single week, which honestly is incredibly rude of them. But then they do give me the money every month which lets me pay rent, buy food and acquire all the books so I suppose it’s a good transaction. Shame they don’t pay me to read books!
Video Games I have a couple of games I play daily on my phone – Bermuda Adventures, Star Trek: Timelines and some solitaire games – but also absolutely adore cozy games on my Switch. I love Animal Crossing, Cozy Grove, Harvest Moon, Spiritfarer, Stardew Valley, Story Of Seasons… it eats up a decent amount of time and there’s no complaints, to be honest!
Housework Admittedly, I’m not the best at keeping on top of keeping my flat in order. Between work, school and ADHD I blink and there’s suddenly a ridiculous amount of laundry and dishes to do and all my floors need vacuuming and ARGH!
Spending time with Li We’re in a long-distance relationship, I probably only see her for about 10 days every couple of months so when we are together, we like to do things together. Although, there is also a lot of parallel play taking place so there are definitely times when I’m reading!
Watching TV One of my biggest hobbies, other than reading, is watching TV. I watch a ridiculous amount of shows, will try the 1×01 of pretty much anything. And as a result, am never up-to-date on anything. Well, I used to be until the pandemic but then all my shows had COVID-19 storylines and my escape stopped being safe. Right now, I’m mostly watching old old old episodes of ER – I’m most of the way through S4
Blogging I haven’t had as much time as I would like for blogging and for bookstagram, but I do throughly enjoy doing it. I love talking about books about as much as I enjoy reading them. My plan for over the summer is to pick it up more again.
Cooking I love to cook, and on an average week I will cook from scratch probably 5 nights. It’s mostly pasta and rice dishes, and I keep forgetting that I have a slow cooker so that’s something I want to remember to utilise more often. I have a lil pile of cookbooks, plus there’s the whole internet and I tend to steal recipes from HelloFresh!
Spoons I live with chronic pain, along with having anxiety and depression, so there are some days when I am fatigued, stressed, having a bad mental health day and don’t have the energy to do anything, even sitting and reading can be too much on days when I’ve used all my spoons on just getting through the day
If you don’t know about the Spoon Theory, click here to learn more
My TBR Honestly, there are days when the sheer number of books on my TBR, books that I want to read… even the number books that I’ve started and haven’t finished/still have in progress, just becomes overwhelming and I have a little panic.

weekly wednesday blogging challenge

Weekly Wednesday Catch-up

15/04/2023 Cassie1 Comment

Every time I think I’ve caught myself up and got into a rhythm, life laughs at me. I actually got my ADHD diagnosis yesterday which helps me understand a little why this happens, and I can start to try and figure out things out once we find a medication schedule that helps!

But, for now, it’s another catch-up on the Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge

A famous book I’ve never read, and why, and honestly there are SO many of them.

The first one that always springs to mind on this sort of question is Lord of the Rings. I don’t enjoy high fantasy, the hero’s journey in high fantasy bores me to tears and I have no patience for Tolkien’s writing style.

But, like I said, there’s so many of the famous and/or classics books that I haven’t read because they simply don’t interest me or the writing style or narrative voice don’t work for me. And I’ve tried a couple of the popular booktok authors lately, Colleen Hoover & Sally Rooney as examples, and thought they were dreadful, didn’t get past the first page.

Best non-fiction book I’ve read? Can you at least narrow that down into subjects? I read so much non-fiction about so many different things.

I went to my goodreads, selected the non-fiction shelf and sorted into 5 star reads and there’s everything from Derek Acorah – Haunted, Anton Adams – The The Learned Arts Of Witches & Wizards: History And Traditions Of White Magic, The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl, Written in Stone: The Hidden Secrets of Fossils and the Story of Life on Earth, Gods with Thunderbolts: Religion in Roman Britain, Silent Witnesses: The Often Gruesome But Always Fascinating History of Forensic Science, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England, Megacatastrophes!: Nine Strange Ways The World Could End and Diddly Squat: A Year On the Farm – and that’s just the first handful of a shelf of 136 books

Sports I’ve tried and what I thought of them I am not a sporty llama. I have joint issues and have spent most of my life on crutches. Sport is generally not a thing I do. I do love going for a walk, and I’m absolutely terrible at but enjoy playing tennis. And I do love exergaming on the Wii, especially Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Wii Sports, snowboarding and boxing games.

weekly wednesday blogging challenge · www wednesday

Weekly Wednesday Blogging Catchup & What I’m Reading Wednesday… On A Thursday

16/03/2023 Cassie3 Comments

Between work and health and school and just… life in general, I am a stressed and struggling llama right now. I have been hiding in books this last few weeks, lots of reading but no spoons to do any writing about the reading. Hell, over the last two weeks, typing has hurt because my hands have been so swollen and I’ve had to get two extensions on my Julius Caesar assignment. Co-codamol, naproxen and CBD have been my BFFs

Today, I actually feel like I have a little space in my brain and the pain levels are dropping off so I thought I’d catch up on some Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge questions that I’ve missed over the last few weeks – not all of them or I’ll be here all day but definitely a good handful of them.

My favourite food is a stuffed crust pepperoni pizza
Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking. And you can’t go wrong with some savoury mine and cheesy mash, or a good spaghetti bolognese, or a macaroni cheese, or a Full English. But there’s something about a pepperoni pizza hits home in a different way.

My favourite subject in school will probably come as no surprise to many people becuase it was history. From learning about the Romans and Vikings, to Medieval and Tudor times, to GCSE history and the history of medicine. I’d always planned on doing history at university – there was a history of science, medicine and technology degree that I really wanted to do – but it wasn’t to be, continued to love the subject and read all the non-history books about the times that I loved. And now I’m doing my Classical Studies degree and it’s amazing!

And, in a related question, My Favourite historical personage to read about isn’t generally a single person, but it’s all things related to the Plantagenets, the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors. Pretty much the whole British monarch from Henry II through to Elizabeth I.
I have a book out the library right now on St George, because I saw it on the shelf and realised I didn’t know much about the legends, or if there was an actual person they were based on.

And then, even though it’s a Thursday, we have WWW Wednesday which asks:
What are you currently reading?
Mary Beard – The Roman Triumph
Andrea Penrose – Murder on Black Swan Lane
Chris Smith – The Naked Scientist
AF Steadman – Skandar and the Unicorn Thief

What did you recently finish reading?
Sarah J Maas – A Court of Mist and Fury
Mira Grant – Chimera
VE Schwab – Gallant
Jeremy Clarkson – Diddy Squat: A Year On The Farm
Talia Hibbert – Damaged Goods

What do you think you’ll read next?
Holly Black – The Wicked King
Talia Hibbert – Untouchable
Ransom Riggs – Library of Souls
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Ruby Wax – A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled

sunday post

The Sunday Post: No spoons or fucks to be found

02/10/2022 Cassie5 Comments

It has been a week y’all and I am completely done. I’m not planning on doing anything more strenuous today than walking between the kitchen and living room to get food/drinks etc.

So.

Monday at work I was dealing with the fallout of people not processing my Key Engineering Supplier invoices while I was doing Big Project Work. And it was one of those days where I processed… a LOT of invoices. One of the reasons I work slow and steady 90% of the time is that when the shit hits the fan like this, I have the oomph to post like 60 invoices in a day.

I also had a therapy appointment, we’re almost at the end of our sessions and we’re starting to work now on my Staying Well Plan. It’s not as scary as I thought it would to be coming to the end and not having Jeanett’s support which obviously is the entire POINT of therapy.

Tuesday I had a day off work because of a dentist appointment. I knew I had to have a filling and I knew I’d be no use to anyone after it was done. Except… it wasn’t just a filling. It was two fillings AND taking the first mould. I was not expecting that. I was very very glad the diazepam had kicked in before she took the mould because that was overwhelming and horrible. And my dentist was doing a new thing which REALLY helped. She’d be like ‘I need to do [XYZ] and it’s going to take me to the count of 10’, and then she would count out loud to 10. So there was this fixed end point to the current torture and then I could take a break. AND she lets me get up out of the chair and stim which is amazing!

Wednesday I continued plowing through invoices, but also had my introductory phonecall with my new tutor. She seems nice enough, specialises in Roman literature and we had a good chat about how she can support me with my ‘additional needs’, how best for her to communicate with me etc so that was really good.

And then yesterday I had my seasonal COVID booster jab. I was very very anxious about that. It’s at the local football ground and last year was… not good. The parking was very confusing, there was way too many people and I had a complete panic attack/meltdown which neither they or I knew how to handle.

This year I decided to walk – it was just over a mile – because that would ease the parking panic. Plus I sometimes find that walking, the repetitive motion of it, as long as my knees are behaving, is quite calming. So, headphones on and down the road I went. And there was no-one there. One person in front of me, two old people who were glaring at me behind me, and I was in and out in like 10 minutes.
I was actually really glad I walked in the end, I had so much adrenalin built up, and then it was almost anticlimatic so walking home again was a good use for that. Then I crashed, napped, and ordered myself a naughty KFC.

I get to do it all over again next week with my flu jab, so that’s going to be fun

Woke up this morning to the news that I won £89 on the Lottery last night. Treated myself to The Novel Companion which restocked in the week but I didn’t have the budget for. Very excited
I’d initially wanted next years Always Fully Booked planner but when I looked closer at the weekly planning pages, the layout wouldn’t work for the style of planning that’s currently working for me and it wasn’t worth getting just for the reading journal bits. So yes, I’m thrilled!

School also technically started again yesterday, but pretty much my only contribution to that was to tidy up my desk. It looks pretty awesome mind:

This week’s unit is mostly introductory work – information about the module, how the module is studied, links to the pronunciation guide and the study website. I’ve been chatting in the forums already and will probably spend a couple of hours on the intro stuff this afternoon.

Other than that, as long as I catch up on the dishes and read a chapter or so of A Brief History of Ancient Greece, then I’ll be happy.

Here’s to a better next week!

sunday post

Thank you

14/08/2022 Cassie3 Comments

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated towards helping cover the cost of getting Eliot’s brakes and my teeth sorted. Not going to lie, I sat here and cried. The cost of his repairs is sorted and I have about a third of the cost of my dental treatment covered so the costs are not going to completely wipe out my savings and credit which is incredible to know.

Y’all are AMAZING, THANK YOU SO MUCH

Eliot booked in for new rear brake pads and disks on Friday morning. And I have dentist appointments booked in September, October and November to continue my treatment.

So yeah, it’s been a hell of a week with all that happening: Dentist, the start of my autism referral and being booked in for a screening appointment, I actually made it not only into Tesco but did a real, in-person shop for the first time in a couple of years, Eliot’s brakes crunching, money worries… I’m hoping for a quieter week coming up, so that I’ve got the mental energy to read, play games -do anything, if I’m being honest. My brain is all fuzzy static. This heatwave isn’t helping. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love these temperatures but it’s the humidity that is fucking killing me. It is currently 32c (89.6F) which is glorious but it’s also like 40% humidity. Today is supposed to be the last day and we’ve got thunderstorms forecast. I do love a good thunderstorm.

For a reading update I am currently:
76% of Anne Rice – Interview With The Vampire
71% of Mira Grant – Symbiont
18% of Peter Ackroyd – History Of England: Foundation

I am also planning on starting:
Natalie J Case – Thanátou
Kerry O Ferris – Stargazing
Matt Haig – The Dead Fathers Club

And, like I said, hoping for a much better week ahead!

book reviews · life

A Quick Catch Up

31/07/2022 Cassie5 Comments

So, the news in brief and some reading roundups are

The not-COVID I had at the beginning of the month? Yeah, it turned out to actually be COVID. Li and I were both pretty sick for about 10 days, and completely exhausted for about another week. I still get fatigued pretty quickly but thankfully we were both triple vaxxed and survived in once piece.

I got my module result for this year of my degree – for A112 Cultures I received a distinction. 86%! As you can imagine, I am over the freaking moon. So that’s my first academic year complete, 120 credits. Only another 4 modules to go, starting in October with A229 Exploring The Classical World

I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley, and Star Trek: Timelines. Li managed to bring home a Wii the other day, I rediscovered my Game Boy Advance, and we’ve also set up my old SNES. There has been much retro gaming and it has been wonderful.

Of course, a lot of gaming, a slight complete addiction to Pointless, and introducing Li to the Bridgerton Netflix show has meant I haven’t done a huge amount of reading lately. The bookx I have read recently:

Matt Haig – Reasons To Stay Alive
3/5, memoir, mental health, non-fiction, psychology
Bizarrely, as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the other couple of Haig’s books, this one didn’t gel with me. I found it a little too self-help-y, a little too twee. I didn’t connect with it and felt it bringing me down, rather than uplifting me.

Mary Beard – How Do We Look / The Eye of Faith
4/5, art history, history, non-fiction, philosophy, religion
Very interesting, would have liked it to have gone a little more in-depth in a couple of places but I do love her descriptions of the art and places she’s visited and writes about, and it helps bring it to life for me. Her passion also shines through

Mira Grant – Parasite
5/5, horror, medical, science-fiction, thriller
OMG y’all, I could not put this down. It had been on my TBR for ages, finally got it out of the library and sat and read the whole thing in one afternoon. I was reacting outloud and flailing and squeaking at Li… who picked it up as soon as I finished it, also read it in one sitting – falling asleep at like 1am!

My reserves of Symbiont and Chimera have just come in and oh yes, I will be starting Symbiont tomorrow!

Holly Black – Tithe
3.5/, faeries, paranormal, urban-fantasy, young-adult
This one is very much a case of ‘I liked it, but…’ – I was disappointed, really. It was enjoyable enough but there was something missing. It was a little predictable in places, the characters needed a little more rounding and the pacing was… hmm… uneven. And even though there are more books in the series, I don’t care enough to see if the library even has them.

Melanie Cantor – Life and Other Happy Endings
3/5, chick-lit, family, friends, library, read, romance

Such a weird read, and literally lost starts with every section of the story. So it started off as this great 5-star read about a woman who found out she had 3 months to live and was telling people the things she wanted to tell them etc… only then she wasn’t dying because of a test result mix-up, and she was back to being trodden over… only then she was pregnant and yawn. She was way more interesting when she thought she was dying!

Joanna Hickson – First Of The Tudors
4/5, historical-fiction

We’ve covered my love for all things War Of The Roses, yes? And this was no exception! The story centers around Jasper Tudor, his wardship of young Henry Tudor and his relationship with Margaret Beaufort, and the intricacies of the Yorkists, Lancastrians, Tudors, and Warwick The Kingmaker. I will be checking out more of Hickson’s work – she has other stories set in the time period.

Which brings me on to what I’m currently reading:

weekly wednesday blogging challenge · www wednesday

Weird Real Life Events and What I’m Reading Wednesday

29/06/2022 Cassie6 Comments

Li and I are still both sacked out sick on the couch, watching nature documentaries on iplayer and napping. She’s sorting out embroidery thread, I’m tidying up my new website and reading – although I’m not entirely sure how much brain I have for doing it!

This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge topic is A real-life event that no one would believe and it has me wracking my brains. Li says the way we met counts – like, what are the chances of commenting on someone’s fanfic, starting a conversation, falling for her, and discovering she lives about half an hour from where I grew up?

But my favourite happening is a ghost encounter that happened at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. So my friend Natalie (who is a witch and a bit of a medium) and I were doing the second of our two tours of the place that day, we were standing with our backs against a wall listening to the tour guide tell us about how the house was built to confuse the spirits… and I just said to Natalie ‘There’s someone standing behind us, isn’t there?’ which she confirmed. You could tell the moment that spirit could tell we knew they were there, and they ended up following us for the entire hour and a half of the tour – which they spent pulling my jeans down. Now, these were skinny-fit jeans, I’d been wearing them all morning with no issues, and we’d done one of the tours already with my jeans staying firmly in place. And when the tour finished and we left the house? My jeans stayed up for the rest of the day. There was definitely someone tugging them down – no sense of malice, just mischief and playfulness.

WWW Wednesday
What are you currently reading? Mary Beard – Pompeii, Bill Bryson – Troublesome Words, Joanna Hickson – First of the Tudors
What did you recently finish reading? Mary Beard – Civilisations and I DNFed Quadrivium by John Martineau
What do you think you’ll read next? Holly Black – Tithe or Mira Grant – Parasite

book reviews

Book Review: Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

11/05/2022 Cassie1 Comment

Photo of the book Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig on an orange background Title: Notes on a Nervous Planet
Author: Matt Haig
Dates read: 01/05/22 – 07/05/22
Rating 4.5/5

Publisher: Canongate
Number of pages: 310
Fiction or non-fiction: non-fiction
Subject or genre: health, mental health, philosophy, psychology

Book blurb:

The world is messing with our minds.

Rates of stress and anxiety are rising. A fast, nervous planet is creating fast and nervous lives. We are more connected, yet feel more alone. And we are encouraged to worry about everything from world politics to our body mass index.

– How can we stay sane on a planet that makes us mad?
– How do we stay human in a technological world?
– How do we feel happy when we are encouraged to be anxious?

After experiencing years of anxiety and panic attacks, these questions became urgent matters of life and death for Matt Haig. And he began to look for the link between what he felt and the world around him.

Notes on a Nervous Planet is a personal and vital look at how to feel happy, human and whole in the 21st century.

How I discovered or acquired this book: I picked it up off my betrothed’s bookshelf after reading The Comfort Book.

Notable quotes “Reading isn’t important because it helps to get you a job. It’s important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Reading is love in action.”

My thoughts I have anxiety, I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember and for the second time in a decade it has tipped into agoraphobia. Pretty much the whole world is making me anxious. So what better to pick up and read?

I read Haig’s ‘The Comfort Book’ the other month and found it really calming, so picked this one up off my betrothed’s book shelf because it seemed quite fitting. And I found it very helpful. It’s not preachy or claiming to know how to ‘fix me’, like so many mental health memoirs can be. Again, I found it very calming, little nuggets of wisdom about the world, about Haig’s experiences, suggestions on ways to work with the world, with technology and social media because these things are needed but with ways to stop them stressing us out. I find his voice soothing and there were so many great ideas that I’ve made a note of to try, to remember… to be.

4.5/5, I really loved it, wouldn’t necessarily read the whole thing again but would dip in and out of it as/when needed

The Bibliollama

Tag: health