January reading wrap up

I've talked a lot in recent weeks about the books I read last year and which were my favourite and least favourites blah blah blah. But I sort of feel like I end up giving my love to the same books over and over again. And as a result, a whole stack of really awesome books slip under the radar. So I figure that each month, I'll do a little wrap up of what I've been reading and give the books that I don't immediately want to force everyone to read a little bit of love.

Books read: 29. Don't ask me how. I have no clue.
New books vs rereads: 19-10. Well, so much for my equal-numbers-of-new-books-and-rereads plan...
Most read genre: Paranormal scraped into first place with six books, but crime and contemporary were close behind with two books each.

Favourite book: Every Word by Ellie Marney. It was everything I wanted and more, and I can't wait until the final book in the trilogy comes out at the end of the month.
Least favourite book: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. At least it gave me an excuse to clear out my reaction gif folder...
Favourite cover: A tie between A Thousand Pieces of You and Shadow and Bone. They're both gorgeous!
Diverse Books Project: So far, this is going pretty well! Although I have noticed that I seem to have an unfair bias towards female narrators, so I'm going to try and rectify that over the next little while. In case you're interested, here are the videos I posted in January:






Here's what I read this month - 1 graphic novel, 1 non-fiction book, and 27 novels, all with links to my Goodreads reviews!

 
5 star books: 
Every Word - Ellie Marney || Two Boys Kissing - David Levithan


4.5 star books: All the Truth That's In Me - Julie Berry

          
4 star books: A Thousand Pieces of You - Claudia Gray || Something Strange and Deadly - Susan Dennard || Frankenstein - Mary Shelley || Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo || Life After Life - Kate Atkinson || Nona and Me - Clare Atkins || Parasite - Mira Grant || The Dead - Charlie Higson || Fairest - Marissa Meyer || Girl, Stolen - April Henry (no review yet, because this is next week's Diverse Books Project book) || Veronica Mars: Mr Kiss and Tell - Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham


3.75 star books: Laurinda - Alice Pung

    
3.5 star books: Alex As Well - Alyssa Brugman || Living with the Dead - Kelley Armstrong || Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris || Four to Score - Janet Evanovich || A Fistful of Charms - Kim Harrison

      
3 star books: Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice || The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson || Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatje || Map of Bones - James Rollins || Finding Jennifer Jones - Anne Cassidy || Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wolves at the Gate - Drew Goddard || March - Geraldine Brooks


2.5 star books: Mr Darcy's Great Escape - Marsha Altman


2 star books: Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence

What did you read in January?

K xx

Pretty things and ghostly toilet paper

Previously, we headed down to Belem, got caught in yet another rain storm, saw a fancy monastery and ate our body weight in custard tarts.

With our last full day in Lisbon, we decided that we should head back out to Sintra because there was still more to see and do. The day didn't start brilliantly - we stopped at Starbucks because Mum was in need of coffee, and I figured I may as well get a hot chocolate. Except the typical Starbucks name-for-the-cup thing didn't turn out quite right for me:

Yup. Costy.

We started our second day in Sintra with a trip to Quinta da Regaleira, which if I recall correctly was built by an eccentric rich dude. The house was a weird mixture of ridiculously ornate and incredibly plain that seems to be common in Portugal. The British and European palaces and stately homes that I've visited have all been over the top rooms with over the top furniture in them. Portugal? Over the top ceilings or walls, everything else is plain and boring. Weird...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanywho, the house was pretty. But not *too* over the top.

Who doesn't love to hold a starfish to their
boob while at the beach?! 

Ridiculous doorknob is ridiculous.

The gardens, meanwhile, were lots of fun. It wasn't so much that the plants were spectacular so much as it was that the gardens were HUGE and there were unexpected buildings and underground grottos and stuff all over the place.

Once we'd exhausted the possibilities in the gardens, we stopped by the cafe for a quick ice cream based lunch and headed out to the bus stop to wait for the bus to our next destination. It turned out that the bus was running about 15 minutes late, so a very nice guy from a fancy hop on, hop off tour company who happened to have a mostly empty bus was like "Yeah, don't wait for the crappy public bus. I'll take you for free!". So that was awesome.

Our next destination was Monserrate Palace, and it was pretty damned spectacular. I think it was easily my favourite of the places we visited in Sintra. The gardens were fairly fabulous, but it was the house that I liked the most. It was open and spacious and full of Indian and Middle Eastern influences, and it was just GORGEOUS. Even the rooms that were still under repair and had no ceilings.

Mildly ornate walls.

LIBRARY PORN.

The music room was especially stunning, and I kind of wish I could attend a concert there.

By the time we'd finished there, the afternoon was rapidly disappearing. C wanted to go to another palace that was further afield, but we had no idea how late it was open or what time the buses finished and we didn't want to risk being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting back to town. So we spent 20 minutes waiting for a bus, headed straight to the train station and back to Lisbon, had a drink or two, and then went back to the little restaurant we'd found near the cathedral for a delicious and relatively early dinner before heading back to our apartment to pack.

And take photos of the ghostly toilet paper, because obviously:

Next time, we head to the airport and back to jolly old England where we spend a stupidly long time standing in a queue. Obviously.

K xx

Time for a change

A few months ago, I decided that I was sick of my bookshelf. So I decided that I'd get a new one. Somehow, that snowballed into the realisation that I could also get a new chest of drawers and a new desk and have my room look totally different.

So not long before New Year's, I trekked down to Ikea and spent a small fortune on flatpack furniture. The desk I wanted wasn't in stock, so I came home without it and proceeded to stalk the Ikea website waiting for it to come back in. Except then somewhere along the way, I realised that I hadn't really used my desk in years. Sure, I sat at it from time to time, but mostly it was a dumping ground for things that didn't really have a place. So what the hell was the point in paying $450 for a desk that I was barely going to use? 

Instead, I ended up getting another (smaller) bookshelf and a big comfy chair. Which, of course, Ikea didn't have in stock on the day I went down there. Today, though? Today they had that damned chair in stock, and my room is FINALLY finished. 

Sure, it wasn't exactly cheap. But it didn't break the bank and still cost me $130 less than it would have if I'd bought the desk, so...there's that. 

BEFORE

Not pictured: LIKE THIRTY MORE BOOKS ON MY DESK

Blurgh. 

Terrible phone photo taken standing on my bed at 12.25am. Desk = dumping ground

AFTER

Prior to getting the third unit, rearranging things 100 times and buying storage boxes

There's now a little more stuff on the top

I think the chair might need a cushion of some description...

So. There you have it. Weirdly, considering it's got MORE pieces of furniture in it than it did previously, my room feels bigger now. Which is exciting.

I still need to rearrange all the stuff on the walls because it's now all at weird heights, but that's pretty straightforward!

Super important question: should I get a cushion for the chair, and what colour should it be?

K xx