April 19, 2022April 19, 2022 by readingtozero

bookish merchandise

Tags
book blog, books, candles, cross stitch, karl marx, reading, top ten tuesday
11 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly tag hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week, the theme is ‘bookish merchandise I’d love to own’. Honestly, I’m not really one for bookish merch, or merch in general, unless it’s for a band/artist (at one point I had enough t-shirts to wear a new one every day for almost 200 days). The first bookish thing that comes to mind is the bust of Karl Marx which my boyfriend and I have joked about getting for the past couple of years.

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Workshopartshop on Etsy

Aside from the bust, I think items that are useful or related to other hobbies might be good purchases. I could definitely see myself buying a candle or cross stitch pattern inspired by my favourite books.

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Are you a fan of bookish merch? Feel free to link your post if you’ve joined in with Top Ten Tuesday!

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– matt

April 15, 2022 by readingtozero

four children’s titles that you should be excited to read

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free e-copies of these texts in exchange for an honest review courtesy of NetGalley.

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Children’s literature is so important, and I’m a firm believer that you should continuously return to it regardless of your age. Today, I’m showcasing four books I think you should check out this year.

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Book cover for A Starlit Trip to the Library. It shows a night sky with the constellations of polar bears at the top, and below this on a cosily lit river is a wooden barge which holds a house, a girl, a bear captaining the rig, and a whole host of other forest friends.

A Starlit Trip to the Library is written by Andrew Katz and Juliana Léveillé-Trudel, with illustrations from Joseph Sherman. First off, the cover for this is absolutely enchanting! I had to read it. Even better though, is the art contained inside, it is ✨ magical ✨!

This story follows Julia and her forest friends as she sets sail on an expedition to find a bedtime story. It’s an all-around charmer and there’s no foes to be found.

There are also some fun extras at the end which enhance the story and reading experience. I’m sure this will become a treasured bedtime favourite to many.

This title is published on September 6^th 2022 by Chouette Publishing.

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Book cover for Me & My Dyspohira monster. This is a yellow cover with our protagonist Nisha in the centre. She is tucked up in a jacket and looks like she's hiding something, and we can see her monster circling out and around her from the right. In the background there's an array of children running off in different directions.

Me and My Dysphoria Monster written by Laura Kate Dale and illustrated by Hui Qing Ang is essential reading! This definitely skews towards a younger audience, but is perfect for illustrating the experience of dysphoria to anyone. It’s beautifully illustrated and portrays such a real and horrifying experience in a more palatable and understandable way, the metaphor of a dysphoria monster is brilliant.

An adults guide and Q&A is included at the end, this is targeted towards the UK/America when it comes towards specific processes, but is otherwise adaptable on a global scale. This guide also dispels a ton of myths around transition which is super important, especially in the UK, where the Government has recently decided to not ban conversion therapy for trans people. This is extremely dangerous, and puts our lives at risk.

This title is published on September 6^th 2022 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

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Book Cover for The Little Prince Aorund the World. This cover has a film strip on the left hand side showing four important monuments from around the world. The main body of the cover shows the little prince flying through the air in a red aeroplane.

The Little Prince Around the World written by Corinne Delporte and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a sweet children’s book which explores famous monuments around the world, and provides a ton of facts about them. It’d be a great book to grow up with as you could begin with engaging with the images and exploring the world map, and then as you grow older, you can fully enjoy the facts.

That said, the motif of the sick rose, seems to be dropped fairly quickly and we only return to it during the final pages. Personally, the book would have been just as enjoyable without this and would’ve given more space to characterising The Little Prince.

This title is published on September 6^th 2022 by Chouette Publishing.

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Book cover for Menji and the Sea Dragon. The cover shows our anthropomorphic lead characters looking terrified and worried, except for Menji who if front and centre and fairly chipper. In the background looms the city.

Menji and the Sea Dragon, written by Fabien Grolleau and illustrated by Mathieu Demore (with colouring by Demore and Anne-Sophie Dumeige), follows a huge cast of anthropomorphic characters, who you’re helpfully introduced to in the opening pages alongside a map. As an aside, more comics need maps! In this, we follow Menji, the servant of Master Fox who is determined to take hold of the power of the Sea Dragon. The plot is a little convoluted, but that’s often a given with introductory volumes, and I’m sure that over the course of the series, everything will click into place. Regardless, it’s a fun introduction to what should be a rollicking adventure.

This title was published on March 23^rd 2022 by Europe Comics.

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What’s your favourite children’s story?

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– matt

April 14, 2022 by readingtozero

tbr stats (march) + q1 goal check-in

Stats
book blog, books, Goals, march stats, reading stats, review, statistics, tbr, tbr stats
2 Comments

Anyone else feel like March lasted for a grand total of six seconds? Six solid seconds though.

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march 2022

After closing out February with 459 books on my TBR, I was confident that it’d be smooth sailing in March. Instead, I discovered Libby and figured out that listening to nonfiction audiobooks on 2.8x speed really scratches the metaphorical itch on my brain (fiction though? absolutely not). So, whilst I read 35 books in March, my TBR only dropped by 11 to 448.

Graphic showing a pie chart and the unread books I have for each year.
unknown - 36
2017 - 4
2018 - 4
2019 - 15
2020 - 175
2021 - 185
2022 - 29

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Q1 Goal Check-In

Physical TBR under 300 – I need to reduce my TBR by 16 books a month to hit this target. Currently, I’m just shy of that and have reduced it by 46 out of 48.

Complete 25 by 25 – Since my 2022 goals post, I’ve only read Villette. We’ll see if in two months I can finish the other 7.

Read 200 books – I’m sitting at a healthy 106 right as of March 31st and I’m pretty stoked about that.

Read 50 classics – So far I’ve read 35! I’m fully in the classics mood and I cannot wait to read more.

Read 30 nonfiction books – I couldn’t be more on track with this. Thanks to all the audiobooks I’ve now read 26 nonfiction books. Next up is to conquer more of my historical reference texts.

Read 10 to buy 1 – Kind of. I’ve definitely bought ahead a few times and then caught up. It’s my goal though, so as long as it balances at the end of the year, who cares. Not me (who will almost definitely buy more books than I should at some point).

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Did you have any quarterly goals set? If so, did you achieve them?

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– matt

April 12, 2022 by readingtozero

5 authors i haven’t read, but want to

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly tag hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week, the theme is ‘authors I haven’t read, but want to’. There’s so many authors that I’m desperate to get to, but there’s five in particular that I’ve earmarked for my next reads.

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Photo showing the stack of books discussed below. They are stacked spine out.

Dag Solstad – An award-winning short story writer with an immense backlist. Whilst the book I’ve selected, T Singer, is one of the authors novels, I’m sure it will be a good introduction to the thematic and stylistic choices of Solstad.

Tatyana Tolstaya – Aetherial Worlds was an impulse purchase last summer, and I was captivated by the tagline, ‘Ordinary realities and yearnings to transcend them lead to miraculous other worlds in this dazzling collection of stories’.

Kenzaburō Ōe – Much of his work deals with the consequences of the second world war and the atomic bomb. I’m always interesting in reading fictional works which explore history, society and politics, and I feel like The Silent Cry will be a good introduction to Ōe’s perspective.

Marit Kapla – I know very little about Kapla and even less about Osebol, but I’m excited to see how she brings together the narratives of the almost 40 inhabitants of Osebol through an undulating poetic narrative of almost 800 pages.

Sosuke Natsukawa – If an author is bringing together cats and books, I need to read it. I’ve loved the likes of The Travelling Cat Chronicles and A Man and His Cat, so I’m sure that this will be just as delightful.

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Which authors do you want to read next? Feel free to link your post if you’ve joined in with Top Ten Tuesday!

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– matt

April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 by readingtozero

20 questions – book tag

i was tagged by lauren from wheretheresinktherespaper!

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how many books is too many books in a series?

it really depends on the format and genre. with manga and graphic novels, i’m happy for that to run for a dozen or so volumes. for prose series though, i prefer tighter and shorter series, so anything more than a trilogy is too much. the only real exception to this is space operas, with series like the expanse, i’m happy to read on and on.

how do you feel about cliffhangers?

cliff hangers at the end of chapters? sure. cliffhangers at the end of novels? absolutely not. i do love an open ending though.

hardcover or paperback?

paperbacks all the way!!

favourite book?

easy. the divine comedy. it’s not the book i reach for the most, but it was a pivotal reading experience and i hold it dear to my heart.

least favourite book?

for sure to paradise. what a mess.

love triangles, yes or no?

no, most of the time they’re boring.

the most recent book you just couldn’t finish?

28 questions. as soon as i see a hp reference, i am out.

a book you’re currently reading?

i’m currently reading 6 because i have no self-control, but the one i’m most excited for is the king’s painter: the life of hans holbein. this is the book i thought tudor portraits would be, and i am captivated.

last book you recommend to someone?

the love hypothesis. maybe i am one of the tiktok girlies 😇

oldest book you’ve read?

the tale of sinuhe: and other ancient egyptian poems 1940-1640 b.c. by a longshot.

newest book you’ve read (publication date)?

time is a mother. it was released on april 7th and i was lucky enough to receive an arc. cannot recommend ocean vuong enough!!

favourite author?

leo tolstoy. what! a! man!

buying books or borrowing books?

if you’d asked me last year, i’d have definitely said buying. but this year i’ve been making the most of my library and libby and i think that’s probably the way forward for a lot of my contemporary and non-fiction reading. i guess it’s just going to be a case of balancing the two and making sensible decisions.

a book you dislike that everyone seems to love?

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion. i don’t think i’ve ever read a blander essay collection. nothing new was considered, it was just a regurgitation of other people’s ideas, and it lacked nuance.

bookmarks or dog-ears?

bookmark. it doesn’t even have to be a real bookmark.

a book you can always reread?

heartstopper. it’s a solid palette cleanser.

can you read while hearing music?

yes, as long as it’s something i already know.

one pov or multiple povs (pov = point of view)

it really depends on the narrative. i feel like i’m more likely to pick up books with singular povs, but a lot of my favourites (e.g. war and peace and evelina) have multiple perspectives.

do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

if it’s under 300 pages and i have the time i’ll happily finish it in one sitting, anything longer though and it’s gotta be read over a few days.

who do you tag?

this blog only has a handful of followers, so if you’ve read this, consider yourself tagged.

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– matt

March 11, 2022 by readingtozero

2022 goals

ok, it might already be march, but what’s a book blog without some reading goals?

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physical tbr under 300

i mean, obviously my goal is to reduce my tbr. why else would i be reading to zero? i started the year out with 494 books on my tbr so this felt like a really reasonable goal; last year i read 392 books. i also factored in my change in buying habits, as whilst a million books won’t be coming onto my tbr, i am still able to buy (or receive) books. to achieve this i need to read and/or remove 16 books from my tbr each month.

complete 25 by 25

this is a challenge i set up back on my old blog ahead of my 24th birthday. as it stands, i’ve read 12, dnf’d 4, and 1 hasn’t been released. of the 8 left, i own all but 1Q84. this is the goal i feel i’m most likely to fail, but that’s fine. i’d rather read books at the right time for me than try to rush through to meet an arbitrary goal.

read 200 books

whilst i have set a number here, i’m not too fussed about hitting it. i’m very much a mood reader, so halfway through the year i might decide i’ve had enough lol.

read 50 classics

i definitely have a problem when it comes to buying classics. they’re cheap and so i buy them at an absurd rate, and they’ve quickly become the largest ‘genre’ on my tbr. that said, i’m not looking to just race through the shortest ones i own. with the goal at 50, i’d like to focus on the longer books and take my time with them. the most rewarding reading experiences i had last year were war and peace, les miserables, and middlemarch, so it makes sense to invest my time into longer works.

read 30 non-fiction books

i love reading non-fiction, but i have a tendency to forget i actually own it, as it’s either tucked away in a cupboard, or blends in on my classics shelves. i’ve set the goal at 30 as i don’t actually own that many, and given the reading to zero goal, i didn’t want to encourage more buying.

read 10 to buy 1

this goal is fairly straightforward. in order to buy a book, i have to read 10. there’s one key exception here though, and that’s pre-orders. i wasn’t looking for a year without fun, so i put in pre-orders for my top 2022 releases.

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what are your 2022 reading goals? have you achieved any yet?!

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– matt

March 5, 2022March 4, 2022 by readingtozero

tbr stats (january + february)

hi!!

this is going to be a bit of a long one as it’s technically three months worth of stats, so let’s dive right in!

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end of december 2021

at the end of december i just about managed to balance my tbr to match my starting figure of 494, and honestly, this was only achieved by putting the books i received as gifts/purchased in sales onto my 2022 tbr. how embarrasing.

my goal for this year is to reduce my tbr to 300, zero is definitely not attainable! i’m hoping that i’ll reel in my impulsive tendencies and make smarter choices, like actually reading my backlist.

currently my tbr is organised by purchasing year, with the exception of ‘unknown’ which is either books purchased before 2017, or ones that have just sort of appeared on my shelves over the years. all my starting stats can be seen below.

Graphic showing a pie chart and the unread books I have for each year.
unknown - 47
2017 - 5
2018 - 9
2019 - 23
2020 - 197
2021 - 213

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end of january 2022

january was a pretty stacked reading month and i managed to read 40 books. alongside this, i also unhauled or dnf’d a further 13. but, this wasn’t enough to even balance my stats. i finished january with 498 books on my tbr and absolutely regretted not adding my end of year books to my starting stats.

Graphic showing a progress bar and my read vs remaining stats on my tbr.
read: -0.8%
remaining: 100.8%

Graphic showing a pie chart and the unread books I have for each year.
unknown - 42
2017 - 4
2018 - 8
2019 - 20
2020 - 193
2021 - 201
2022 - 30

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end of february 2022

february involved a ton of library holds from last year coming in which i thought would be my downfall, but i actually ended up disliking and dnf’ing most of them and reading 31 books. i also had an unhaul session and so a total of 35 books were either dnf’d or removed, leaving 459 on my shelves. all in all, a pretty good turnaround!

Graphic showing a pie chart and the unread books I have for each year.
unknown - 36
2017 - 4
2018 - 4
2019 - 15
2020 - 180
2021 - 190
2022 - 30

Graphic showing a progress bar and my read vs remaining stats on my tbr.
read: 7.08%
remaining: 92.92%

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are you trying to reduce your tbr this year?

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– matt

February 10, 2022 by readingtozero

hello!

welcome to the first post on my new blog!

after a year of feeling uninspired by my previous blog, i’ve decided to start from scratch with reading to zero. this is a space to share thoughts on what i’m reading, and to hopefully whittle my tbr down to, you guessed it, zero!

i love reading translated literature and some of my favourites of the past year have been karate chop by dorthe nors, war and peace by leo tolstoy, how to pronounce knife by souvankham thammavongsa and literally everything victor hugo released. i’m also excited to dig into the backlists of classic authors like george eliot and charlotte brontë, and to discover new (to me!) writers through completing the around the world challenge.

four books layered across each other on a bench.
books are:
fatale, karate chop, jamaica inn, and night sky with exit wounds.

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you can also find me over on instagram as qu.lit where i’ve been running a booksta since 2020.

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– matt