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Monday 29 September 2014

September Book Haul!

Seeing as I've started doing book reviews, I thought I might as well do a book haul, because I bought a humongous amount of books this month, so why not show them off?
In the month of September, I bought 94 books, including 4 eBooks, so I will begin this with those!

eBooks:



The first eBook I bought this month was 'Not A Drop To Drink' by Mindy McGinnis. The reason I bought this book was because it was one of the books to read this month for the Goodreads group Crazy For Young Adult Books (which you should definitely go and check out!), but I didn't even get around to reading it so that sucked. I don't really know what this book is about, but I think it might be dystopian and it sounds really good so I can't wait to pick it up and get through it. The second book, 'In A Handful of Dust' was out recently, so I want to get that soon as well. 


Next up was 'Icons' by Margaret Stohl. I know a lot of people really hate 'Beautiful Creatures', and the entire Caster Chronicles series seems to get really bad reviews, but I really enjoyed those books so I'm excited to read this book and see what Margaret's writing is like without Kami Garcia. 


I have never read a Colleen Hoover book, but I've heard so much about her that when 'Maybe Someday' came up as the Kindle Daily Deal I had to buy it. I think I've heard that this is a new adult romance, but other than that I haven't heard anything about it which I'm happy with, because I have no preconceptions so it'll be better when I eventually get around to picking it up. 


Last, but by no means least, I bought 'Ten Tiny Breaths' by K. A. Tucker. I will admit that I'm terribly bad at impulse buying just because the book covers are beautiful, which is utterly ridiculous when I'm buying a Kindle version, but that's what happened with this book. Hopefully I'll enjoy it, because apparently it has some twists and turns, but if not then it's always good to try new authors. 


Books:

The amount of books I bought this month was utterly ridiculous so this is going to take a while, but if you're interested please stick around. I'm just gonna put a little bit of information about each book and where I got them from in case you're interested in purchasing them yourself. Also, I'm going to be reading and reviewing most of these books eventually, so if you want me to read some books before others just tweet me and I'll get that done!


Yep, that's an entire double bed covered in the books I bought this month. This could take a while...


The first physical book I bought this month (or possibly in the last few days of August, I can't quite remember) was 'The Rosie Project' by Graeme Simsion. One of my best friends was reading this and sending me quotes that I really liked so I thought it was worth picking up. I bought this book for £2 in the British Heart Foundation Store in Swindon. From what I can gather, this book tells the story of a man who is trying to find the perfect girlfriend, so creates an algorithm to find her, but then Rosie comes along and she's nothing like what he was expecting but he still falls in love with her. Or at least that's what I think happens, I'm not quite sure. 


I read 'Angel' by L. A. Weatherly a few years ago but I can't really remember what happened in it, so I'm going to have to re-read that before I read the sequel, 'Angel Fire'. I found this in a Prospect Hospice for £1.50, so I couldn't really resist picking it up, but I don't know when I'm going to get around to it. 



I bought the entire series of 'Tomorrow, When The War Began' after I read and reviewed the first book at the start of September, but I've yet to get around to reading them yet. I managed to pick up all seven in a bundle pack on eBay, where they were £17. 



I watched The 100 last month and I absolutely loved it, so when I found out it was adapted from a book I had to buy it. 'The 100' tells the story of a hundred prisoners who get sent back down to Earth to find out if it's inhabitable, because it's been abandoned and uninhabited for nearly one hundred years. I will admit that I absolutely hate this cover; I dislike any film or movie book covers so it was a big disappointment that I had to get this version but it was only £2 from The Works so I can't really complain about it. I know that the follow-up, 'Day 21' was released a couple of weeks ago, so I want to read this really soon. 


Also included in my order from The Works was 'The Maze Runner' series by James Dashner. I'm really excited about the movie which is coming out really soon, so when I saw the entire set of four books was only £10 I couldn't resist getting it. 


It's only as I'm writing this that I realise that most of the books I purchased this month were only bought so I could watch their adaptations. I'm one of those people that absolutely has to read the book before the movie, which is probably the only reason I haven't watched Harry Potter or The Hunger Games yet... Oops. But yeah, I bought the 'Delirium' trilogy by Lauren Oliver because I really wanted to watch the Delirium TV pilot, but that will apparently have to wait for a while. 



I bought this Jeffrey Eugenides collection for two reasons; one being that I have always wanted to read a Jeffrey Eugenides book, two being that the covers are absolutely gorgeous with the foil images and the shininess. Well, and the fact that they were only around about £3 on eBay. From what I can gather, 'Middlesex' is about a transgender person, 'The Marriage Plot' is about a Literature graduate who attempts to find love and 'The Virgin Suicides' is about a group of young women who commit suicide. Other than those basic facts I'm going into the stories completely blind, but I know I'm going to absolutely love them.


Another eBay discovery were the first two books in the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, namely 'Clockwork Angel' and 'Clockwork Prince'. I have the third book in the trilogy, 'Clockwork Princess' signed, but I didn't own the first two books so I thought now was as good a time as any to purchase them. I got these with a £10 off eBay voucher, which meant they were only £4. 



The last eBay purchase of the month was 'The Impossible Knife of Memory' by Laurie Halse Anderson. I absolutely adore Laurie's writing style, with 'Wintergirls' being one of my top ten books of all time ever, so I couldn't resist getting her newest release. Furthermore, a couple of days before I ordered it, it was announced as one of the books on the longlist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, so it must be absolutely amazing. 


Somehow, I managed to get 'Shadow Heir' by Richelle Mead in Poundland. Poundland. I didn't even know they sold books until that day but I was beyond happy to find this one. This is the fourth and, so far, final book in the Dark Swan series and seeing as I don't own any of the others I won't be reading it any time soon, but I'll definitely keep my eye out for the first three. 


Weymouth:


On Friday, me and my mummy went to Weymouth on holiday, so all of the books from here on out were bought over those three days. The collection shown above are the books my mummy bought for herself, but I thought I'd feature them all here as I'll probably end up reading and reviewing them anyway. The books are 'The Devil's Bones' by Jefferson Bass, 'Hollow Earth' by John and Carole E. Barrowman, 'Doctor Sleep' by Stephen King, 'The Governor's Wife' by Mark Gimenez, 'Bloodshot' by Cherie Priest, 'In For The Kill' by John Lutz, 'David Beckham: My Son' by Ted Beckham, 
'Since You've Been Gone', 'Share No Secrets' and 'If She Should Die' by Carlene Thompson, 'The Inspector and Silence' by Hakan Nesser and finally 'Bible of the Dead' by Tom Knox. I don't really know anything about many of these books, apart from 'Doctor Sleep' is the sequel to 'The Shining' and 'Hollow Earth' is a young adult sci-fi/fantasy sort of book, but they all look really good (well, maybe not the Beckham book, I'm not a football fan!).


These are not the normal types of books that I buy, but we already had 'The Observer's Book of Birds' and 'The Observer's Book of Trees and Shrubs' at home, so it seemed worth buying 'The Observer's Book of Dogs' and 'The Observer's Book of Wild Animals of the British Isles'. They're kind of old now, but they're really nicely bound and the image plates inside are really cute and are good photographs, so I'm sure they'll be enjoyable to look through and they look really nice on our bookshelf. I purchased these for £2 each at the Brewer's Quay market in Weymouth - it's a lovely place that is well worth checking out. 


I finally bought the Chaos Walking trilogy! I have wanted these books for so long, but I've only ever seen them in really boring and bland covers so I was so excited to see all of these lined up on the shelf in the British Heart Foundation in Weymouth. At only £2 each they were an absolute steal and I will be reading these very soon. 


Similarly, I finally own some Douglas Coupland novels! I've wanted to get 'Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture' after I found out that Hadouken! referenced the book title when they named their debut album, 'Music For An Accelerated Culture', which is, in my opinion, one of the best albums I've ever heard. I don't know much about 'JPod' or 'Hey Nostradamus!' but I thought I might as well pick them up anyway, as altogether these three books only came to £5. 

 


Again, I don't know much about 'Unholy Ghosts' but it had an author blurb from Charlaine Harris and it got compared to 'True Blood', so I thought I might as well get it because I haven't read any good ghost stories for quite a while so it might be interesting. 


Simon's Cat. Do I even need to say anymore? 


'The Dark Glamour' is the second book in a series by Gabriella Pierce. I haven't read the first book, but I had heard about it because some people were comparing it to the 'Blue Bloods' series by Melissa de la Cruz, so I'll try and get the first one as soon as I can. 


I have only ever read two J. K. Rowling books, those being the first two in the Harry Potter series, but I'm intrigued by 'The Cuckoo's Calling', her first book under the pen name Robert Galbraith. It seems to be a mystery, probably a murder mystery but I'm not quite sure but I'll find out soon enough. 


'The Power of Six' is the second book in the 'I Am Number Four' series by Pittacus Lore. I haven't read the first book (I have, however, said that many many times in this book haul blog...) but hopefully this will give me more incentive to pick it up.


I don't necessarily know if I'm going to enjoy 'Cranford' by Elizabeth Gaskell, but I've started hoarding the Penguin English Library editions of books so I had to grab this one because it was only a couple of pounds. 


I've also started hoarding the Vintage Classics collection, hence the fact I bought 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte, 'Elephant' by Raymond Carver and 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley. I have never heard of Raymond Carver before, but 'Elephant' is a collection of seven short stories and I always enjoy short stories so that should be a good read, and I've always wanted to read 'Jane Eyre' and 'Brave New World' so I was always going to pick those up eventually. At only £2 each I couldn't have been happier with these three books and I can't wait to get more Vintage covers. 


'Forgotten' by 'Cat Patrick' has been on my Amazon wishlist for the last five years, so I absolutely had to buy this when I saw it. From what I can remember hearing about it, it tells the story of a girl who can see the future but has such bad amnesia that she forgets the events of the previous day every day when she wakes up which I think sounds absolutely brilliant, so I hope it's written as well as I'm expecting. 


The Works Relocation Sale:

While we were in Weymouth, we stumbled upon The Works having a 75% off relocation sale, so we went in and bought as many books as we could carry as they were all under 50p (well, all but one, which was 99p). The rest of this book haul will be comprised of what we bought in there, so again I can only recommend that you go and check out The Works whenever possible. 




Again, I have to say that I haven't read and don't own 'Defiance' but I couldn't resist buying 'Deception' by C. J. Redwine. I've heard so many good things about this trilogy so I really want to read it right now, but I'm going to have to wait until I can find the first book.


'Wither' by Lauren DeStefano kinda sounds like other books I want to read; knowing when you're going to die and being sold off to someone is almost reminiscent of 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood, but it's much more dystopian and young adult. I know this is part of a trilogy called The Chemical Garden, so I'll see if I like the first book before I buy anymore (but, either way, the cover is absolutely gorgeous).


I don't know much about the 'Beautiful Disaster' series by Jamie McGuire, but I've had both of these books on my Amazon wishlist for a while so I thought they were worth picking up. Also, the covers are super beautiful and, in my opinion, any books that have butterflies on the cover are brilliant (see: 'Retribution' by Jilliane Hoffman, which is my favourite novel of all time).


I managed to pick up a bunch of Garth Nix novels, namely 'Drowned Wednesday', 'Lady Friday' and 'Superior Saturday' from The Keys to the Kingdom series, 'The Fall' from The Seventh Tower series and 'Abhorsen' from the Old Kingdom series. I really want to pick up the rest of these series and get them read, but I don't know when that's going to happen so these are being put on an indefinite hiatus for me to read. 


On the other hand, I will probably read 'Dash & Lily's Book of Dares' and 'The Lover's Dictionary' by David Levithan within the next week or two. I normally force myself to finish all of the library books that I have out on loan before I read books that I actually own, but I absolutely love David Levithan's writing so I don't think I'm going to be able to resist picking these up. Luckily for me, these were both the last copies of these books in store, so I feel like it was fate that I managed to get them. 


I did not know that the Blood of Eden novels were a trilogy, so when I picked up 'The Forever Song' and found out that it was the final book in the series I was beyond excited. I loved 'The Immortal Rules' but I haven't read the second book in the series yet, so I'm going to re-read and binge them all in a couple of months. 


I already owed 'Hidden' and 'Destined' by P. C. and Kristin Cast, but one of them is hardback and one of them is the American cover so I thought they were worth re-buying; I really like book series all being the same size and even though these aren't from the same cover collections they're easier to keep all together now. I bought 'Divine by Choice' because I already owned 'Divine by Mistake' and 'Divine by Blood' so now I have more incentive to read the series. 


I bought 'A Fistful of Charms' by Kim Harrison because I already owned the first book in the series so I really want to start getting the rest of them. 'A Fistful of Charms' is the fourth book, so I need to get a lot more before I can start to really power through them, but you gotta start somewhere!


'Archangel's Consort' is the second in a trilogy by Nalini Singh and, yet again, I haven't heard much about this book but I thought the cover was absolutely beautiful and I've wanted to get them for a while so I thought I might as well pick up the second one while it was so amazingly cheap. 


'Specials' by Scott Westerfeld is the third book in the 'Uglies' series of which I read and sort of hated the first book, but I didn't hate it enough to stop myself from picking up the rest of the novels. The writing style wasn't exactly my cup of tea but the plot line was really interesting and I thought the entire premise of the novels was very unique so I want to see how these end up. 



'Ninth Grade Slays' by Heather Brewer is the second novel in The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. I found the first book pretty funny, but that might just be my odd sense of humour... I'll probably end up re-reading it before I pick up this one because it was quite forgettable, but I'm sure I'll like this book too.


'31 Bond Street' looks so intriguing. It's a historical murder mystery and I really love historical horror stories, such as 'The White Devil' by Justin Evans, so I really hope this is as good as I'm anticipating. 



I don't know much about 'The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson' by Paige Toon, I just know that I've nearly bought it in The Works six times but I never actually purchased it, so I thought it was about time I got it. The cover's kinda nice, it looks like a fun summery read so I've probably bought it a bit too late in the year, but it looks enjoyable. 


I already owned 'Under The Never Sky' by Veronica Rossi, I just referred this cover and thought it was really beautiful so I decided to buy it anyway.


I've never heard of 'Guardian of the Gate' by Michelle Zink before, but it looks good so yeah, picked this one up as well! Looks young adult and fantasy so can't really be bad!


The cover for 'Confessions of a Fallen Angel' by Ronan O'Brien is so beautiful I couldn't resist buying it, but it sounds really good too! It tells the story of a boy who can tell when the people closest to him are going to die, but other than that I have no idea what can happen so I'm very interested.


The blurb on 'The Greatest Gift' by Danny Leigh doesn't give much away about this book, but when a blurb says "This is the story of his downfall", you know you're in for a rollercoaster ride. 


I've wanted to read 'Room' by Emma Donoghue for the past three years, so I'm so glad I've finally picked it up. From what I know about this book it tells the story of a mother who has kept her son locked up in a room since he was born, so he doesn't know that there are any other people or a life outside those four walls. I have no idea how this book turns out or what happens in it, but the plot sounds brilliant. 


I've never read a Cornelia Funke book but I've always wanted to read the 'Inkheart' trilogy, so I thought I might as well start with 'Reckless', the first book in the MirrorWorld trilogy, instead. The cover is great (the guy reminds me of Joseph Morgan who plays Klaus in The Vampire Diaries) so hopefully the book lives up to that. 


'Shimmer' is the first book in the companion series to 'Evermore' by Alyson Noel, focussing upon Riley Bloom, Ever's sister. I won't go into too many details about the plot of this novel in case you haven't read the 'Evermore' novels, but I will say that you should definitely go and check those out. 


I've never heard of 'Missing' or Catherine MacPhail, but the cover is nice and the story seems to have quite a good premise. It's really short, so I'll probably pick this up and read it pretty soon.


I love the front cover for 'The Age of Miracles' by Karen Thompson Walker, which is the only reason I really picked it up, but the blurb sounds amazing. It seems to be that for some reasons time on Earth slows and then possibly stops and people have to learn how to live with it. It seems sort of dystopiany and because I'm reading 'The 5th Wave' at the moment it seemed sort of related to that story so I was in the mood for this sort of book. 


'Betrayals' by Lili St. Crow is the second book in the Strange Angels series, of which I already owned the first and third books, so I picked this up so I can binge read them soon.  


I love John Connolly's Charlie Parker series but I didn't know he did young adult literature until recently, so I couldn't resist picking up 'The Gates', the first book from the Samuel Johnson series. It seems to be that Samuel finds the gates of hell in his backyard, or the backyard next door, so I have no idea what can happen after that, but it seems like a pretty interesting starting point.


The last novel I bought was 'Acts of Violence' by Ryan David Jahn. I haven't heard of this book or author either, but the cover is spooky and I really like books with a good murder plot so hopefully this will be one of them.


'The Saga of Darren Shan' is the first manga book I've ever purchased and it was on a complete whim so I'm not actually sure if I'll enjoy it, but I've always wanted to read manga so this seemed as good a place as any to start!


Finally, I bought 'The Midnight Beast: Book At Us Now' and 'Blink 182: The Unauthorised Biography In Words and Pictures'. They're both bands that I love so they were books I had to buy. I probably won't review these, or the manga books, but I'm definitely going to enjoy them.

So that was my book haul for September! Thank you for sticking around to read about them all. Leave me a comment or send me a tweet if there's a book you've read and would recommend me reading first, or if there are any books that you despise and would recommend pushing to the very end of my extremely long TBR list.