#January reading challenge

[godzilla-reads]

January Reading Challenge 2023: Choose a book that you enjoyed as a teenager to reread.

Ok, I’m kinda cheating on this one, but it works. Back in high school, I had a dog named Pluto who was prone to seizures due to a brain injury before we got him. Whenever he’d be walking it off, I would read to him. I got through several books this way and we started to read Sheila Burnford’s THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, but Pluto passed away halfway through.

I’ve never been able to finish the book on account of the grief from his passing. For my January reading challenge, I’m taking this book that I love and I’m going to start from the beginning and try to read it all the way through.

Wish me luck.

📖 The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford

[perregrinstudiessometimes]

Reading Goals for 2023

in 2022 i lost the habit of reading (probably had something to do with spreading myself a bit to thin in all respects 😬) I didnt even keep track of the number of books i read last year 

so, my main goal is to consume more books (either audio books or physical) I have taken up painting and I would like to listen to more audio books during this (at the moment I mostly listen to true crime podcasts so I may transition into this with true crime audio books)

[theburnedoutnerd]

With amazing timing, I've completed my goal of 10 books for the month.

6 out of 10 books were actual novels. The other 4 were mangas. I'm trying to limit my manga / comic / graphic novel consumption this time around. I just felt like I was padding out my total for last year.

Every book I read this month was a recent purchase. For next month, I'm going to try reading something from my backlog. I'm implementing a new rule - a book can only be read if it's existed in my backlog for at least a 3 months.

Let's see how February goes now.

[honeylemonbutte]

OC-tober 2023, Day 8: Past & Day 31: Costume (LOL, no rules!!!) (bweird prompt list)

October - happy birthday B. Warrick & happy birthday to my MC, January Cohen. Her birthday is on Oct 30th and she frequently celebrates it on Halloween, for one big spooky birthday bash.

Back to the present:

Fernweh Saga by @lacunafiction

[desi-yearning]

Can someone please recommend some good books that I can finish pretty quickly😭😭😭

Any and all genres are fine

[mirrortouchedsea]

Day 16

The hotel room was quiet as Rinne snuggled up to Niki in the bed. They had been lucky the show producers had gotten them two rooms, allowing them some privacy from their unitmates for the night. Rinne nuzzled into Niki’s hair, savoring the smell of their beach barbeque that lingered on him. 

“Hey, Niki-kun,” Rinne whispered, knowing the other man wasn’t quite asleep either. “What if we got married tomorrow?” 

“Rinne-kun I’ve already told you, it’s not--” 

“We’re not in Japan right now. We can get married here, down at the courthouse, just you and me with Merumeru and Kohaku-chan as witnesses.” 

“Can non-citizens even get married here?” 

“If the answer was no do you think I’d be asking?” 

Niki stayed silent. 

“Niki-kun, if you don’t want to--” 

“It’s not that. I…want to, but…what if you find someone else you love more? I don’t want to get my hopes up for you to just leave me behind.” 

Rinne moved to straddle Niki and look at him, really look at him. His eyes betrayed just how much Niki was scared of all the possibilities, the futures where he was just disposable and Rinne was stringing him along. 

“Niki,” he started, moving a hand to cup the other man’s face. “I wouldn’t be suggesting marriage if I wasn’t serious. You’ve taken care of me for the past five years and you’ve gone along with all my crazy plans. I…” His throat closed up just short of saying what he wanted to say. 

“You deserve someone better, Rinne-kun.” 

“You’re the only person I could imagine marrying.” 

Niki’s eyes wandered, trying to find something in Rinne’s face to suggest this was one of his jokes he played on Niki and found none. 

“I’m holding you to your promise, Rinne-kun.” 

“Of course, Niki-kyun~” Rinne buried his face in Niki’s neck again, leaving gentle kisses down to his collarbone. “I love you so damn much.” 

“What did you say?” 

“You’ll have to wait til tomorrow to find out~” 

“Tomorrow?!” 

[books-in-a-storm]

800 books this year for now. I can't wait to read book this year.

[averbaldumpingground]

"No, no, don't apologize. Your constant complaining is music to my ears."

Sarah ignored him, squaring her shoulders as the rocks arranged themselves again. They didn't reach as high this time, but seemed like they would be a little bit more stable.

"Verily, my lady, art thou certain about proceeding with this endeavor? Ambrosius and I--"

"Ow!" So much for stability. She banged her knee as the stone that she'd stood on rolled backwards.

"Sorry," came the low, defeated roar.

"Oh, it's alright, Ludo. There's got to be another way to do this."

"Or you could just give up. And maybe let His Royal Highness win this one?"

"There is no honor in conceding defeat! Why I--"

Sarah tuned them out. She had known, before she'd even opened her mouth, that making a bet with the Goblin King would be a terrible idea. But she was tired of the goblins trampling her makeup and eating all her little brother's crayons. And if competing in the goblins' Chicken Olympics was what got them to stop, well, she had been willing to try it.

She just hadn't counted on needing to be able to fly. Or pretty much any of the rest of it.

This whole thing really wasn't fair. She should have known.

[booksandrandomfandoms]

JOMP day 31

Read in January

I enjoyed most of what I read in January, I did dnf 2 books (not shown)

[libertyreads]

One of the orders I placed with my birthday gift cards has come in.

[tolive1000lives]

Reading challenge 2023 is underway!

[ya-world-challenge]

Alright, I made a challenge! If anyone wants to read globally with me, I made a little list of prompts, neatly divisible by 12 months, plus a bonus. If you want to track your progress, I set it up on Storygraph, too - the link is below.

Tag your posts with "#ya world challenge" ! You don't have to read YA, but I want to see all your posts. :D Also please reblog to spread the word.

YA World Challenge 2023 prompts

By a Caribbean author

Features a religion not your own

Historical/contemporary fiction in a country not your own

Set in Latin America

European book in translation

Features a minority group in your country

Desi lead character, or set on the Indian subcontinent

By an Australian or New Zealand author

A non-Western sci-fi or fantasy world

Set in Asia

By an African author

Minority or non-US disabled character

LGBTQIA+ book in translation

About immigrants or refugees

Set in the Middle East

By an indigenous author

Diversity jackpot! Team of characters of varying cultures

By a Pacific Islander author

Set somewhere you'd like to travel

Non-Western mythology or fairy tale

Memoir of someone outside your cultural group

A country you heard about on the news

Focus on environment or climate

Eastern European or Slavic book

Bonus! Roll a random number and read a book for that country (my personal method, see instructions below)

Storygraph challenge link is here

Roll a random number and read a book for that country

Go to random.org and generate a number from 8 to 215.

Go to my spreadsheet here, and find your number. Use my picks or find your own!

Goodreads lists or this group are helpful for finding books. (If I'm having trouble, I'll allow myself a culturally relevant fantasy world as substitute. Or you can reroll if you get a particularly difficult country!)

If you don't want to include the territories from my list, an "official" list of 195 is here, enter 1 to 195 in the randomizer.

[bookishlyvintage]

Everything I read in January (& what I thought about them)

[permanentreverie]

if yall see me fail to complete the new septembers readathon by the end of this month no you didn’t. turn away.

[kevin-sedai]

Is this is it? Is this the book that's going to do me emotional harm? I'm so excited

[mirrortouchedsea]

Day 15

“Tatsumi-senpai, have you ever kissed anyone?” Kaname asked, sitting across from the other boy in the catacombs. Everyone else had left for the night leaving the two of them alone. 

“Why are you asking?” Tatsumi replied, confused as he moved one of his chess pieces on the board. Kaname didn’t know anything about how the game worked and was mostly just guessing at where the pieces moved. 

“A-ah it’s nothing, I was just wondering…I haven’t kissed anyone.” Kaname could feel his face heating up. God this was embarrassing, why was he doing this? 

“I haven’t kissed anyone either.” Their game of chess forgotten for the moment. Kaname’s face burned even hotter. 

“Would you--would you like to try kissing?” He barely squeaked out. How was the great Kaname Tojou such a loser when it came to his crush? He should be confident and yet here he was. 

“Can you repeat that, Kaname-san?” He loved the way his name sounded in Tatsumi’s voice. It made him want to die in the moment though. 

“Can I--Can we try…kissing?” His voice was still soft but evidently loud enough for Tatsumi to hear if the slight blush on his face was evidence of anything. Tatsumi gently moved their chess board to the side and slid closer to Kaname. Kaname felt his heart rate pick up at the proximity as Tatsumi leaned in closer. 

How was he supposed to kiss? He tried to remember the movies and how they did it, closing his eyes and letting Tatsumi guide him, his lips slightly parted. The moment Tatsumi’s lips touched his he thought he would fly, and evidently his mouth moved before he could think, as Tatsumi let out a yelp and brought a hand to his lips. 

Kaname bit him. Oh how embarrassing! It wasn’t enough to draw blood but still! 

“I’m so sorry Tatsumi-senpai! I didn’t mean to do that! Oh god--” 

Tatsumi laughed. Kaname stopped in his tracks as Tatsumi continued laughing. He wasn’t laughing at Kaname, though, or at least not at Kaname as a person, but rather at his reaction to the whole thing. 

“It’s okay, Kaname-san. We can try again if you’d like.” 

“Y-yes I’d like that very much.” 

They leaned in again and Kaname clenched his jaw to keep himself from biting Tatsumi again, but he got a little overeager again and felt their heads bump into each other and not where their lips were (which was where he was aiming for). Kaname curses under his breath but Tatsumi giggles again (a heavenly sound to Kaname’s ears) and cups his face before gently guiding him to Tatsumi’s lips. 

Kaname was too in shock to do anything for a moment. He was kissing someone. And not just someone. He was kissing Tatsumi Kazehaya, heartthrob of Reimei Academy. He closed his eyes and relaxed, reaching to grab Tatsumi’s blazer and pull him closer. He felt their teeth clack together but it wasn’t as bad as their first attempt and for Kaname, that was enough. 

They pulled away, panting heavily, and Kaname noticed that Tatsumi’s pupils had dilated. He wanted to pull Tatsumi in for another kiss but held himself back, at least for a moment. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Tatsumi spoke, breathless and full of affection. 

“No, it wasn’t.” Kaname pulled Tatsumi back in for another kiss, narrowly avoiding bumping their heads together again. He could do this forever, just him and Tatsumi in the catacombs, kissing to their hearts content.