28 Dec 2012

HAUL: Ely's Christmas Books + More

Hello everyone! I have finally returned from the dark depths of Christmas preparations to be able to post here once again. As we promised in our little Christmas post, we will be much more active on the blog in January before we slow back down in Feburary as my last year of school and Chami's second last year of school starts. Anyway, that isn't important at the moment as today is my Christmas + other books haul!



My Grandma and Grandpa gave me a three pack of Agatha Christie novels with Miss Marple- ‘The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side’, ‘A Pocketful of Rye’ and ‘Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case’.


My mum gave me a copy of her favourite classic as a child – ‘I Can Jump Puddles’ by Alan Marshall and another detective/crime novel (you’ve probably noticed that I really like that genre) ‘The Lady in the Lake’ by Raymond Chandler.



  
My mum and dad also gave me beautiful hardback versions ‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater and ‘Grimm Tales’ by Phillip Pullman. These two books have been on my ‘to-read’ list for ages.  


Also from my parents, I was given the last three books in  the Hush, Hush saga by Becca Fitzpatrick- ‘Silence’, ‘Crescendo’ and ‘Finale’. I read the first book a few months ago and after some nagging from Chami, I will finally get to read the rest of the series.


I received some more gifts- ‘One Thousand Names’ by Cecelia Ahern (one of my favourite authors) from my aunt and ‘Venom’ by Fiona Paul from my amazing friend Sam. You can see my review of Venom here, if you would like.


During the Boxing Day sales, I managed to pick up a number of books from all different places. Among those were ‘On a Dark Wing’ by Jordan Dane (this book is part of a challenge I set for myself that I will be posting about in the New Year, so look out for that!) and ‘The Lost Prince’ by Julie Kagawa.




I bought myself a couple of books with gift cards given to me by various people- the books I picked out were ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ by Stephen Chbosky (which I’ve already read and seen the movie), ‘Touch of Power’ by Maria V. Synder and ‘The Darkest Minds’ by Alexandra Bracken.


I also picked up two more classics to add to my ever-growing collection- ‘North and South’ by Elizabeth Gaskell and ‘The Complete Poems and Translations’ by Christopher Marlowe.


Crime/detective novel-wise, I picked up copies of ‘Knots and Crosses’ by Ian Rankin (as some more wider reading for my Literature class), ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde and ‘Who Could That Be At This Hour?’ by Lemony Snicket (which I was inclined to buy though it is a children’s book due to my emotional attachment to Lemony Snicket’s ‘A Series of Unfournate Events’ books. The last book in that series came out way back in 2006 and I am still not ready to accept that it’s over.)


Today, I picked up another load of books that were only five dollars each (who can honestly resist cheap books?). The books are; ‘Alice Bliss’ by Laura Harrington (I read this a few months ago and adored it!), ‘The Distant Hours’ by Kate Morton and ‘Graveminder’ by Melissa Marr.


The other half of the books that I picked up were ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ by Jonathan Safran Foer, ‘Winter’s Shadow’ by M.J. Hearle (which was the first review ever posted on this blog- written by Chami which you can find here) and finally, ‘Glow’ by Amy Kathleen Ryan.


Finally, ‘The Hobbit’ is the book I am currently reading. My little Bilbo Baggins figurine is guarding my book from any trolls or goblins who might try and steal it! I am actually going to see the movie adaption tomorrow for a friend’s birthday so hopefully I’ll do a book and movie review once I’ve finished!

That’s all from me this time! Within the next few days I’ve got some pretty awesome posts lined up if I do say so myself so you should check back. I hope you are all enjoying your day/night!