The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.
For my first Sunday Post of 2018 (and ever!) I want to feel out the format and content that works best. It's been a busy start to the year with work grinding back to life while I try not to fall behind before I even start on my new blog. It's tiring at times, but I can feel a rhythm starting to settle in. January is also when 30 Days of Yoga kicks off on Yoga With Adriene. I discovered her YT channel in February of last year, which makes this my first time doing the challenge "live" and I'm proud to say I haven't missed a day yet! The daily break for myself, even if it's only 20 minutes, helps me recenter no matter how busy I've been.
And because these first few months will be full of firsts for me and my blog, I thought there was no better time to announce a new post series! I'm kicking off a series of discussion posts, which I'm titling "Between Daemons". I'm hoping to do at least one per month, provided I can keep coming up with topics y'all enjoying talking about! My "book vs. film" post series is also in the works; if you have requests for either type of post, let me know!
READING CHALLENGES
I'm off to a good start on my Goodreads challenge— 3 books ahead of schedule! That will undoubtedly change as the year goes on; several titles I want to finish this year are quite long and/or dense, which will slow my pace. For the time being I'm confident, though! Last year I read over 50 books (my current goal) and that included two massive Ron Chernow biographies.
I've already completed one of my twelve pledged books for the other challenge I'm participating in, RoofBeamReader's 2018 TBR Pile Challenge, and started on my second: Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. It's a rather dense (but interesting!) book, so I'll mostly likely read some review copies concurrently so that I don't fall behind on my overall goals. Be sure to check out my review of the first book on my challenge list, The Alienist by Caleb Carr, in time for the TV series which starts next week!
LAST WEEK ON THE BLOG
Down the TBR Hole #2
Book Review: La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman
Film Review: Freak Show (2018)
Film Review: Inside (2018)
COMING UP ON THE BLOG
Book Review: The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
Down the TBR Hole #3
Between Daemons: New Year...Old Favorites?
BOOK HAULS
My January Book of the Month pick came earlier this week. I selected Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, which I've been excited about for a couple months! (I kind of regret ordering right away though, since a couple days later Powell's announced that Red Clocks was selected for their next Indiespensable box...Oh well!) Some of my post-Christmas orders also arrived, including Thunderhead by Neil Shusterman, The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I also just received an ARC of CIRCE by Madeline Miller, which I won in a giveaway last month!
#NEWBLOGGERS101
I want to extend a big thank you to Evelina at AvalinahsBooks for starting up an advice and networking group for new book bloggers! (For more info, see this tweet.) She and the other mods have put a lot of time, thought, and effort into a project meant to help others, which I'd like to help pay forward in my own small way. Right here each week I'll feature posts by members of the #NewBloggers101 group*, so be sure to click through and discover some new, amazing bloggers!
TBR for January and February on IslandGirlReads
Video Game Review: Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 on NorthernPlunder
The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight Book Review & Discussion (Re-Read) on ReadByTiffany
*If you're a member of the #NewBloggers101 group and would like to see your post featured here, I put out a call every Saturday afternoon on Twitter and share the tweet to the Discord chat!
How did your week go? Are you still on track with your 2018 reading goals? Have you gotten any new books, or are you on a buy ban for the start of the year?