I never usually make TBR piles for the month ahead (or to-be-read, for those of you not up on the lingo) but I couldn’t resist for September — I love the autumn so much and love tailoring my reading around the season around this time of year.
I also haven’t done a catch up on my YouTube channel for a while, so I thought I would roll the two into one. So here is my September TBR and catch up video!
Ever since I started collecting the gorgeous Penguin English Library classics, I’ve had numerous requests to film a tour video of them — showing you my entire collection! They are perhaps my favourite part of my book collection and the editions I choose over any others. It’s got to the point where I’m finding it hard to add any new ones to my collection because I’m sure that if I do the whole stack will fall down.
So, without further ado: here is my Penguin English Library tour!
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens | Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy | Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy | Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell | Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
| The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë | Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë | Evelina by Frances Burney | Frankenstein by Mary Shelley | The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy | Great Expectations by Charles Dickens | The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne | Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James | The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
| Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Dracula by Bram Stoker | Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray | The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins | The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins |The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy | Middlemarch by George Eliot | Silas Marner by George Eliot | North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell | Villette by Charlotte Brontë | A Room With A View by E.M. Forster | Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll | Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton | The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells
What are your favourite book editions that you own? Do you collect any specific ones? Let me know in the comments below!
Since I started my Classics series on YouTube, the most requested video people have asked me to make is one about Jane Austen. Luckily, she’s one of my favourite authors, so it wasn’t much effort to gather all of my Jane Austen books together and talk about them. Here is the result!
(If you’re viewing through email or the video will not display, click here to watch.)
If you could have told me five years ago that starting a blog would lead to my face being splashed on the front page of The Times, I wouldn’t have believed you. I was a shy and anxious twelve year old who had been devastated by the loss of her grandfather only a few months before. Books were my refuge, and so talking about books online felt like something that had been made for me. It was an escape and a place to express myself, and I never thought anything would come of it. I never expected to get any views on my posts, never expected to make the friends I have through blogging. Back then, blogging was a relatively new thing: there were no expectations whatsoever. It was simply a hobby.
Skip forward to now and things have taken a turn for the crazy. When I was contacted by The Times to feature in an article on booktube (the part of the YouTube community that talks about books, if you didn’t know), I thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase our corner of the Internet, which most definitely isn’t as well-known as other areas of YouTube. There are so many passionate and creative people making videos on booktube, and so it was great to get a space where booktube was celebrated for the amazing platform it is.
Last Monday, a photographer (Gareth Iwan Jones) and makeup artist (Neusa Neves) came to my house to take photos for the article – it was such a surreal experience! I don’t think I’ve ever had my hair brushed so much in my life, and my eyeliner is never going to look that good again, but it was so worth it. It was strange to have to pose, and I don’t think I’ve ever changed outfits so much, but I was so happy with the results and glad that I looked like myself.
The article also features Jen, Simon and Sanne, who it was an honour to be featured with. I’ve watched Jen and Simon’s videos since they first started making them, and Sanne has been my favourite booktuber for a very long time so I felt very humbled to be on the same page as them.
Would I have written some of the things about me if I was writing the article myself? Maybe not. I was scared about letting someone else write about me because I know how I perceive myself, but this might not line up with how other people perceive me; it’s difficult handing over control to somebody else because I’m so used to having full control — I write my own blog posts, I edit my own videos, I do all of my social media. It was scary, but I was pleased that James Marriott did such a good job.
I would like to thank everyone for being so supportive. Your messages and love across social media have meant the world, and I’ve tried my hardest to respond to them all but I’m sorry if I’ve missed any! Friday was such an overwhelming day and I’m still trying to catch up with everything.
Whether you watch my videos or not, it’s absolutely amazing to have booktube featured in a national newspaper and get the recognition it deserves.
I was very lucky to get to visit CPI Books earlier this week to see how books are made! I went with Stripes Publishing and we watched I’ll Be Home for Christmas get turned into a real book which was extremely cool. I’ll have a blog post and video up very soon all about this!
Katy Cannon and Lisa Williamson were there, two of the authors contributing to I’ll Be Home for Christmas, so I got to talk to them all about writing – their writing process, funny habits they have and their advice for new writers. You can watch the video below!
I started reading I’ll Be Home for Christmas as soon as I got home and I’m loving it a lot; it’s great to have so many stand-out UK authors contributing to it because we have needed a UK anthology for a long time, as we talk about in the video. I’ll have a review up of it closer to publication date, which is in September!
The UK’s top Young Adult authors join together in this collection of new stories and poems on the theme of home. Contributors include: Tom Becker, Holly Bourne, Sita Brahmachari, Kevin Brooks, Melvin Burgess, Katy Cannon, Cat Clarke, Juno Dawson, Julie Mayhew, Non Pratt, Marcus Sedgwick, Lisa Williamson and Benjamin Zephaniah. £1 from the sale of every book will be donated to Crisis, the national homelessness charity.
I’ll Be Home for Christmas comes out on 23rd September and you can see Katy and Lisa at YALC next weekend – the 29th and 30th July, plus you can visit Stripes’ Christmas in July stand on Saturday 30th.
Did anything surprise you about Katy and Lisa’s writing routines, or do you have any similar habits? Share the bookish love in the comments!
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I hate reading scary books – I get terrified by them! So I thought I would put together a video full of books that are perfect to read at Halloween if you’re like me and get frightened easily. There are creepy inns, haunting pictures, and dead bodies! Enjoy!
Books Mentioned:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – With pictures to help tell the story, now is the perfect time to read it as the film is released in 2016.
Glimpse by Kendra Leighton – Based on one of my favourite poems by Alfred Noyes, Glimpse is about a girl who has lost her memories and a boy that haunts her in her dreams.
Dead Romantic by C.J. Skuse – In this hilarious novel, two girls set out to create the perfect boy from body parts that they collect. Think Frankenstein for a teen audience.
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson – One of my favourite books of the year, The Name of the Star explores what would happen if the Jack the Ripper murders started happening all over London again with a supernatural twist.
I decided that I’d start a new feature on my YouTube channel where I can sit down and chat about books – whatever bookish thing that comes to mind! I’m going to be doing mini reviews, hauls and TBRs within them and I’m looking forward to carrying on the series. I hope you enjoy the first episode!
Books mentioned:
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew
Counting Stars by Keris Stainton
Did I Mention I Need You? by Estelle Maskame
Chasers of the Light by Tyler Knott-Gregson
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg
Lately I’ve noticed a horrifying trend in YA books – a lack of menstruating characters. Can you honestly tell me that Bella or Katniss never got their period? I find it hard to believe.
As part of my new feminism series on YouTube, I decided to make a video discussing this subject, and I’ve compiled a list to go alongside it. The books below are YA books that feature periods as plot points, or even just mention periods. Even these, surprisingly, are hard to find. The first step to getting more authors to write about menstruation is to talk about it and how important it is to talk about. We are letting teenagers down by not doing so.
