Showing posts with label Updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Updates. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Happy Holidays!

Readers, 

Happy holidays! I want to wish everyone the best holiday season. For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas! Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and I'm enjoying the time with my family. 

The new year is coming up, and hopefully, changes to The Eater of Books! -- so, stay tuned. Until then, happy New Year!

Sunday, January 13, 2019

I'm on Vacation!

Hello, beautiful bookworms!

I'm writing this post ahead of time (just like my STS post, and Monday's post, and Tuesday's post), because I'm on vacation! I'm in southwest Florida at the moment. I flew out early on Saturday morning and will be back on Monday night/Tuesday morning. 

That being said, I tried to set up posts for Friday-Tuesday, but neglected to have something for Sunday! I'm hoping to have a new Science in Fiction post up next Sunday.

Anyway, I'm enjoying sunny Florida while it snows in Baltimore! On my flight, I'm hoping to read this bad boy:

Pan (a Neverland novel Book 1)


Until next time! Have a lovely weekend, bibliovores!

Sunday, October 14, 2018

I'm on vacation!

Hi bibliovores! If you haven't noticed by now, I'm on vacation! I've been gone since Tuesday and will return this week. I'm in Iceland! It's my first time going to any part of Europe and as I'm typing this post (scheduling it before I leave), I'm SO excited. Wish me luck!

At this point, my trip is almost over, but you can follow my adventures on my personal Instagram! My handle is @alyssasadventuresinwonderland. =)

Talk to you all soon!

Flag of Iceland.svg
(Source: Wikipedia)

Image result for iceland aurora borealis
(Source: Guide to Iceland. Not my photo!)

Monday, July 23, 2018

Monday Muse (1)

Hey fam! Happy Monday! Or something - are Mondays ever really happy? Let's change that! By now you must have noticed that my reading has slowed down a looooooot. I'm going to be honest: I love reading, always will, but nothing current in the publishing world seems to be really grabbing my attention. Maybe current trends don't suit my tastes; I keep wanting to reread old favorites or read unread backlist novels that I've had for forever. Maybe it's a part of getting older - I started this blog in 2012 when I was 17 - but it's just not the same.

In any case, I've been branching out my hobbies and interests. In January I joined a gym, and I really love the power of running, lifting, stretching, and sweating - I feel so much stronger than I have in my entire life.

I also picked up knitting again, in January, but I've fallen off the wagon with that one. I bought a pound of red yarn recently, and I want to participate in the Little Hats, Big Hearts program in the coming February.

I'm teaching myself Icelandic! I checked out a Beginner's Icelandic book by Helga Hilmisdóttir and Jacek Kozlowski from my local public library, and I'm going to use the Icelandic Online course that the University of Iceland has available. Wish me luck!

I've finally started to get into coloring, which is something I've been meaning to do. You'd think I was a coloring addict, given the sheer number of adult coloring books that I own. But NOPE. I've barely colored in any of the books. That is going to change.

So for my first Monday Muse post, I'm going to share a little of my recent coloring! For every Monday Muse post that I do, I will share an update on a hobby of mine, whether it be coloring, or Icelandic, or knitting, or whatever. My goal this year is to try more new things, even if it means I'll be shifting away from reading like an addict.*

*Note: I still love reading. I always will.

So, the coloring!

I got this gorgeous Joanna Basford planner from my #TBTBSanta (thank you!).


I love this planner, not only because it is so pretty and detailed, but also because of the amount of space I have to write details for each day of the week. Here is one week in November:


Isn't that tree amazing? I love it. It's almost too hard to write up and color the book, because the illustrations are so beautiful.

I use three planners; one as a gym log, one for work, and this Joanna Basford one, for personal use. I admit I use this one least of the three, mostly because I pretty much go to work, go to the gym, come home and sleep. I'm trying to be better about it through! 

Here is a peek at this week's coloring:



I'll be taking this on the metro with me this week. Let's see how far I get! These designs are so complicated.


That's my muse for the week! This weekend I reread Dream a Little Dream by Kerstin Gier (love love love), and I'll be rereading book two, Dream On. In addition to the Icelandic book, I checked out Just Dreaming (book three) from the library, so I'm hoping to read that by Thursday. It's been a while since I had a proper review on a Friday. But those are my goals for the week!

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Sunday Hiatus!

Hi friends! Today I'll be taking a hiatus of 24 hours. I am currently in Chicago, at a national conference to present a design project that my senior design engineering group did during the last academic year. This has been an amazing weekend trip and I have loved every second (yes, even being in the airports, which always stresses me out). The student design competition is this morning and then we will be flying back on Sunday night. Wish us luck! We'd love to take home first place. But I'm also really content with just being here and having had the opportunity to travel to a place I'd never been. We did so much sightseeing on Saturday and that made the trip 1000% worth it. But all good things must come to an end!

Tomorrow I will post my review of The Knowing by Sharon Cameron, which I read this weekend and absolutely loved. But for now, talk to you all later!

Here is a picture of the yummy deep-dish pizza I had on Friday night. :D


Monday, July 31, 2017

Giveaways! So Many Giveaways!

Happy, happy Monday, bibliovores! It's also the last day of July, isn't that fun? Honestly, where has the year gone... I feel like it was just September. Or maybe December. I can't deal with time these days!

I'm doing a little bit of a round-up in this post, as well as I've got a fresh giveaway at the bottom. What motivated this? I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing, since I moved recently ("recently": it's been exactly one month since I moved out). I've been rearranging my life in general, since I'm finished with school and work full-time now (but don't have to deal with homework and class projects and final exams and all of that). A lot of things have changed for me, both little and big. Like...

- I graduated in May. (This isn't news though!)
- I'm working as a water resources engineer. (YAY!)
- I take public transportation to work. (And I love it so much - seriously.)
- I bought myself a smartphone. (Yup, you read that right. I didn't have a smartphone up until the end of June. I was determined to make it through college without one... it didn't end up being too difficult. The "hardest" parts were things like explaining I couldn't read group messages, or not being able to use Google Maps to get directions. Fun times!)
- I made an Instagram for my blog. (The timing seemed right. It was always something I wanted to do, but I didn't want to create yet another social media for me to manage, while still in college. So I waited until I graduated. I also got a smartphone, which helps.)


Lots of changes. Things are settling (though I'm still doing very poorly in terms of going to bed early), and I'm loving my new routines. I'm also loving all of the purging I've been doing, in terms of clothes, shoes, and yup - books. It's hard, and I hate to see certain things go, but at the same time, I love seeing things go.

So! I've got some giveaways to share. The first are a few that are already active:

(Click on the graphic to go to the post!)












Tomorrow, I'll be posting two more giveaways. One is for Ferocious by Paula Stokes, and the other is my August New Release giveaway. I'll update this post with those graphics and links.

I've got one more giveaway, piggybacking off my YA contemporary ARCs giveaway. I recognize that there are tons of followers of mine that don't read YA contemporary (or YA in general). So! Why not choose whatever book you want? This isn't helping me clear house, but that's okay. This can be my let's-celebrate-me-being-on-Instagram! giveaway. :D

So! Choose any book, up to $17 USD. INT as long as The Book Depository ships to your country. Ends 08/17, 11:59 PM EST. Good luck!

Friday, June 30, 2017

Mid-Year Bookish Report

Hi bibliovores! Happy Friday! Happy (almost) July! I love July. 

No review today, sadly. I've had a very busy week, and I had no time to read or review. I'm moving out of my apartment - today is my last day - and I've been busy packing, cleaning, hauling, etc. On top of that, I started my new job last week and I'm not used to my new sleep schedule yet. I need to go to bed earlier, given how much earlier I've been waking up!

Anyway! We've reached the mid-year point! So I'm going to do a reading check-in, like I did last year on July 1st. How have I been doing, in reading? In reviewing? What have I been reading?

Here we go!


Number of books read (so far):

79.  (As compared to last year at this point, which was 93, I've been doing poorly!)

Age level (so far):

28 Adult books.
3 New Adult books.
48 Young Adult books.

Average rating (so far):

3.65

Ratings (so far):

- Number of 1-star reviews: 2
- Number of 2-star reviews: 6
- Number of 3-star reviews: 14
- Number of 4-star reviews: 53
- Number of 5-star reviews: 4

Number of posts (so far):

Including this one, 218.

Favorite YA books (so far):



Favorite New Adult books (so far):



Favorite adult books (so far):





YA books publishing in the second half of the year that I can't wait to read:

(Some of these I have. But I've read none of these.)



Adult books publishing in the second half of the year that I can't wait to read:

(Some of these I have. But I've read none of these.)




Favorite book mail (so far):


Honestly I'm blessed to have a lot of great weeks in terms of book mail. I could list nearly every Saturday and describe exactly why I was so happy with the mail I received that week. But I think May 13th takes the cake - it's an amazing haul. Specifically, I was so excited to finally receive a copy of Fanfare that I had bought. Ahdieh collection = complete!

Favorite Swoon Thursday (so far):

    

This was hard because I've shared so many great swoons! YA books are getting swoonier and swoonier (yay)! So I chose three to feature. :D

Favorite Science in Fiction post (so far):


I loved writing about global climate change and its impacts. 


That's all I've got for today! What do you all think of my mid-year status so far? What are some of your favorite books so far?