Links I Loved This Week – 04/08/2018

Overall, thanks to my decluttering and simplifying, I had a really organized, productive and calm week. I worked out every morning except for Saturday and brought all my own food to work again this week – hopefully will be reaping the benefits on the scale by Monday. My blog posting is still a bit more all over the place than I would like but I’m working on that.

I also got through a good amount of reading and got caught up with my Goodreads Challenge (yes!). I finished two books on minimalism (I’m working towards a book list to be published soon) – The More of Less by Joshua Becker and The Year Of Less by Cait Flanders. I also finished the audiobooks for The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende and Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

But enough about me! Without further ado, here are this week’s links…

• Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic was Top Ten Characters I Liked That Were In Books I Didn’t Like (full list of links here). Most bloggers mentioned finding this to be a tricky topic, but they still came up with very interesting picks. My favorite posts included those on A Dance With Books, Curiouser And Curiouser, The Calico Books, Pace Amore Libri, Heather’s Reading Hideaway and Flipping Through Pages.

• There was another wave of March 2018 Wrap-Ups this week, as is understandable since it was still the first week of April. I continue to be impressed with how much everyone has been reading and really loved the posts on Midnight Book Girl, Sophisticated Dorkiness, The Bandar Blog, Pathologically Literate, Bookidote, Greenish Bookshelf, A Book A Thought, Little Blind Book Finds and Novel Gossip.

• There were several great reviews of recent book releases this week, including for Other People’s Houses by Abbi Waxman on The Reading Chick, The Sapphire Widow by Dinah Jefferies on She Reads Novels, The Manson Women And Me by Nikki Meredith and The Broken Girls by Simone St. James on Clues And Reviews, The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen on Bookidote and Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce on Jo’s Book Blog.

• I had to mention this review of Dear Mrs Bird on Bibliomaniac separately because Katherine very cleverly wrote her book review in the form of an advice letter, as a play on the subject of the novel. I love it!

• This discussion post on Mind Joggle about The Discomfort Of Enjoying Books Based On Real Life Tragedies was very thought-provoking, as, like many other readers, I do tend to gravitate towards tragic content in both fiction and nonfiction. There’s definitely a voyeuristic element to it, but also the desire to understand the extremes of life.

• I was not convinced by most of the picks on this list from Off The Shelf of Books To Read If You Loved Ready Player One (aside from The Terry Pratchett title). Are there any books you can think of that are similar to Ernest Cline’s novel and that you would recommend?

• And as always, if you’re looking for even more bookish links, The Secret Library Book Blog has her post up as well!

• Here are the individual book reviews I read this week that inspired me to consider reading the books they covered:
  • The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport on Hopewell’s Public Library Of Life (historical nonfiction)
  • The Beginning Of The World In The Middle Of The Night by Jen Campbell on Bibliobeth (fantasy short stories)
  • The Runaways by Sonya Terjanian on Clues And Reviews (mystery)
  • Under The Harrow by Flynn Berry on Pace Amore Libri (mystery)
  • The Future Is History by Masha Gessen on Book Open (historical nonfiction)
  • The Fear by C.L. Taylor on Keeper Of Pages and Love Books Group (thriller)
  • The Lido by Libby Page on Jo’s Book Blog (contemporary fiction)
  • Strange Secrets by Mike Russell on Always Trust In Books (short stories)
  • Watching You by Lynda Renham on My Chestnut Reading Tree (thriller)
  • Out Of Thin Air by Anthony Adeane on What’s Nonfiction? (true crime)
  • Eden by Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg on Reading Ladies Book Club (historical fiction)

• On Wednesday I published my review of Jade Chang’s novel The Wangs Vs. The World (4 stars), combined with a write-up of what I learned about the author at a recent event I attended at which she was the featured speaker. I’m also holding a GIVEAWAY for one signed hardcover copy of the book, so make sure to enter here before Tuesday at midnight if you’re interested in participating.

• On Saturday I posted my Book To Screen comparison of novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and its movie version. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the movie but absolutely loved the novel (5 stars). You can read a full review of the book in my post and find out why I felt the movie did not live up to the novel’s high bar.

• I have a few different posts I’m thinking of for this week. I will definitely be posting reviews for my January 2018 Book Of The Month picks – As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner, The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn and Red Clocks by Leni Zumas. I would also like to put up a review of recent true crime title A False Report by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong. The third thing I’ve been thinking about is creating a poll listing all the Net Galley ARCs I haven’t read yet to see which ones you guys thing I should be prioritizing. We’ll see if that happens!

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Any articles or blog posts from the book world that you really enjoyed this week? Share them in the comments!

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