Feature & Follow #2

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. I've just started getting involved in these features and they're great fun! It's a really cool way to find out what people are reading and connect with other bloggers. Added bonus, the aim of a blog hop is to follow others. You follow me, I follow you. Wins all round! I'm happy for followers on GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', Goodreads, whatever works for you.

This Week's Question
If you could get an ARC of any book, already published, or not yet, what would it be?
suggested by Words I Write Crazy.

I'm torn between two for this. I absolutely adored the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo so I can't wait for her new one; Six of Crows.

My second choice is a book I know I'm not alone in waiting for; The Winds of Winter by George R R Martin. I don't even want to think about how long I'll have to wait for A Dream of Spring!

What about you guys?

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others...

One of the best things about starting this blog has been connecting with fellow book lovers. I never realised how big the online book community was! And in my travels around fellow book bloggers sites, I've been treated to pictures of some truly epic bookshelves.

Truth time. My bookshelves are a mess. Like, I'm too embarrassed to post a picture of them mess. And the less said about my random heap of books that I don't have shelf space for the better! So, with a day off work and some industrial strength cleaning products, I set about putting that right. Which brings me to the point of my rambling;  cover art.

One of these things is not like the others...

I have a couple of series' where I've bought a book second hand or started a trilogy abroad and picked it up when I got home (or in the case of the photo above, bought each book in a different country, luckily New Zealand imports from the UK it seems!). The result is this;

And I literally only just realised that one of them is a different size too!

Given that even having book series' together on a shelf is something of a novelty for me, I'm not losing sleep over this, but it did get me thinking about some of the prettier bookshelves I've seen. How important is matching cover art in a series to you guys? Would you make a special effort to get matching covers? Maybe even buy new books if the artwork changed part way through a series? I can't help but think that a few mismatched trilogies would ruin the works of art that are some of the shelves I've seen.

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that other bloggers are welcome to join in, to create Top Ten lists on varying topics. This week it’s Ten Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds (love reading, are writers, work at a bookstore, etc.)

1. Matilda Wormwood

Matilda - Roald Dahl

I think this was the first book I ever read where I found a character who loved reading as much as I did and a book which portrayed reading in such a positive light. Honestly, this should be required reading in schools. I adore the movie too, mainly because I love anything with Bob Hoskins!

2. Belle

Beauty and the Beast - Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, although I'm going for the Disney verison!

Come on, who doesn't want their own library?

3. Tyrion Lannister

A Song of Ice and Fire - George R R Martin

"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge." Preach Tyrion!

4. Hermione Granger

Harry Potter - J K Rowling

Book smarts save the day! Even though I'm Ravenclaw, Hermione Granger is a can't miss on any list of book lovers. While Ron and Harry stumble around blind, it's up to Hermione to bring the knowledge. 

5. Elizabeth Bennet

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Although she provides more memorable quotes on marriage than books, Elizabeth Bennet is still one of the foremost bookworms in literature. 

6. Liesel Meminger<.span>

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Oh Liesel! Let me count the ways I love thee! I can't type too much for fear of blubbing on my keyboard but if you're looking for a book that conveys the power of words and stories, look no further.

7. Mallory Pike

The Babysitters Club - Ann M Martin

Ok, I'm showing my age here, but as a kid I loved The Babysitters Club series. As much as I wanted to be one of the "cool girls" (Stacey or Claudia), I knew I was bookworm Mallory at heart!

8. Tessa Battle

Storykiller - Kelly Thompson

Perhaps not a big bookworm, but Storykiller Tessa lives and dies by books, battling against fiction come to life, rocking a red mohawk and swinging a big axe.

9. Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury

Sailor Moon

I'm stretching here, but Sailor Moon's Ami was always a favourite of mine. Preferring to spend time alone reading than with her classmates, it's a mystery to me why I identified so much with this character ...

10. Giles

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

And of course, no list of my favourite bookish characters would be complete without Giles! With his encyclopedic knowledge, bumbling Britishness and love of books, I'm pretty sure Giles is the perfect man. Plus, he looks like Anthony Head, bonus!

So, over to you guys! What do you think of my list? Any glaring omissions that I'll kick myself for not thinking of?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Review

"Once upon a time, and angel and a devil fell in love.

It did not end well."

Set in Prague, Daughter of Smoke and Bone tells the story of Karou, a seventeen year old art student with blue hair who entertains her friends with implausible stories of gods and monsters. Except all her stories are true.

Her hair grows blue from her head and she was raised by monsters in Elsewhere, now moonlighting as an errand girl for her guardian, the part-human, part-lion, part-ram chimera Brimstone. When angels start appearing through a hole in the sky and Karou crosses paths with the haunted and vengeful Akiva, she is torn from the only family she has ever known and plunged into an otherworldly war between angels and demons.

Allegiant - Review

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered - fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she's known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.

But Tris' new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend to complexities of human nature - and of herself - while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love.

Feature & Follow #1

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

Happy for follows wherever. GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', whatever you prefer.

This Week's Question
What is your favourite movie?
suggested by A Kernel of Nonsense

I love movies! Not as much as I love books, but still a lot. There are so many great movie but my all time favourite has to be The Shawshank Redemption.

Endlessly quotable, motivational, inspirational ... it's a crime that this never won an Oscar for Best Picture. If there was ever a more wonderful scene than Andy locking himself in the warden's office and playing Mozart to the inmates over the loudspeakers, I haven't seen it. Actually welling up as I type!

Close second is Brave. I love Merida so much! I don't get why kids go so crazy over Elsa from Frozen when Merida is clearly the better Disney princess.

So over to you guys. What's your favourite movie?

Ruthless - Review

How far would you go to survive?

17 year old Ruth Carver wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pick-up truck with no idea where she is or how she got there. Taken to a cabin in the woods, she's plunged into her worst nightmare; she has been kidnapped and marked for death. Her captor is a deeply disturbed figure from the sidelines of her life on a mission to punish "bad girls" like Ruth, and she is to be his seventh victim. To have any hope of survival, she has to find out just how far she is willing to go, how ruthless she is willing to be.