Saturday, 7 February 2015

How to Tackle Mount TBR: A Survivor's Story! #2

My task in 2014/2015 is to reduce the tbr pile from horrific to manageable in a short time. I'm sharing how I did it in a few blog posts which might help some of you to do the same.

In my first post I shared the steps that got me from up at 950 books down to 600 books in about 4 months. Don't worry if you didn't see the post or can't be bothered looking for it as I'll be repeating those steps here before adding my new steps for what I'm doing now.

Progress is still being made! In 2015 I have completed 34 books and abandoned many more than that using all the steps below. Not every step will be useful to everyone but there might be a step or two that helps in the task of controlling the tbr. My new task is to reach 550 books on the tbr by the end of February and be under 500 by April. It's a tough ask and if I don't hit the target exactly it's ok, as long as I have tried hard and got close!

So what were the first things that I did? Here is a recap for you:

Chuckles Guide to Reducing the TBR #1:
1) I went back and re-read the blurb on Goodreads for each of the free books I'd downloaded and thought 'do I really want to read this book?' I think I was able to delete about 30-40 books thinking 'why did I download THAT???' So take another look at those books and decide what you can live without!

2) I looked at the book reviews for all the free books that were left on my list, trying to carefully avoid huge plot spoilers. I was looking for multiple reviews of each book that mentioned the same things-very slow to get into the story/hardly any action in first half, horrible whiny annoying MCs that need a slap, MC 'heroes' who are unlikeable thugs/rapists/gangsters or who spend all their time drinking/drug taking, YA love triangles/instalove, more sex than plot/erotic storyline, books where the characters swear six times a sentence for the entire book. These are the things that most put me off books or make me abandon books, so I deleted the free books that fell into more than one of these categories. That took a whopping 100 books from the tbr! OK I might miss out on a couple of good books by deleting that lot but I can live with it!

3) I checked and noted the length of all the ebooks that were left on the list and made the shortest books my priority to read. As some of these introduction novellas are short, I could get maybe 6-10 of those read in a night, which served several purposes. Firstly, it gets a lot of books moved from the tbr to read list, bringing the tbr numbers down. It also let me see if I wanted to continue with a series after reading these short free prequels. A few I read made me want to read on with the series but quite a few weren't good enough for me to care what happened next so I was able to delete a pile from my wishlist too!

4) I have stopped going through free and bargain books on Amazon daily to see what I can pick up. Instead I joined a company who email me daily with details of a couple of free and bargain books featured on Amazon in my chosen genres. I add the odd one to tbr but it is a lot less than I'd add looking daily myself. For anyone interested it is https://www.bookbub.com/home Enter your email address, choose your categories and get the bargain list sent daily to your inbox.

5) Catch up on your very favourite series because these are books that you can zoom through faster and you know you will enjoy them(mostly!). This was what I did during the Christmas holidays and into January.

And now here are the latest January changes that I tried to reduce it even more:

6) Next, I looked at reading the books that were under 200 pages. At the speed I read I can do 200 pages in a night of reading, so getting a book a night done would be great. I know what you're thinking, how do I know which ones to start with without looking at each book on my ereader? 

Well, on Goodreads all my book pages show the same categories-cover, title, author, #pages, date published (my)rating, shelves, review, date read, date added. These are the things I use for reference. To change your settings for a genre, at the top of the page click on settings. You will see ticks beside the settings that are being used on your pages. Simply untick what you don't want and tick what you want to see, then click save current settings. For me, I don't care about average ratings/#ratings as other people's ratings don't matter to me, but for my reference, I like to know things like the date I added the book, when it was published and of course, number of pages! So you can look at every book you've got on your Goodreads tbr and select your upcoming reads by number of pages! Those not given a page number can be manually checked on ereaders like Kobo. You need to change the settings for each category/genre you've created as a shelf name.

7) Psychologically, getting rid of those books like biographies, books not part of a series, kids books, books you plan to skim, manga, graphic novels etc helps make you feel like you're making progress. Tackle them and get them out of the way.

8) DNF/Abandoning can be your friend. This will not suit everyone but my reading philosophy is that if I am not enjoying a book or finding it really hard to get into, I do not finish. Time is precious and I have too many waiting books to struggle on through something I'm not enjoying. If you lose interest, ditch it! I know some of you feel compelled to finish everything you start but I just can't be doing with wasting time on things I don't like.  

9) Series Abandonment. After reading book one, did you think 'it was ok but I'll give book two a try to see if it gets better?' After book two, are you thinking 'not much difference from book one, but the series might improve eventually'? OK so where do you draw the line and decide that the series is going nowhere? Are you planning to read 10 or 15 books in the series and still be hoping it gets better? For me, if book one isn't great, that is usually it for me. If I'm not sure I start book two and give it 100 pages. If there is no improvement, it's over for the series. Set your own rules but don't struggle on with dead end series as it wastes a lot of booky reading time!

10) It might be worthwhile re-reading a few. Sounds counterproductive yeah? Well, I went back to 6 series where I gave book one 3 stars but wasn't blown away by it. I had unread books in each series to tackle but when I did the re-read, I was less impressed by these 6 books and chose NOT to continue each series. That saved me reading nearly 30 books which were taken off the tbr straight away! If in doubt, miss it out!

 11) Avoid poor quality PDFs! It takes DOUBLE  or TRIPLE the time to read the buggers when the printing is tiny and faint, and frankly if the author can't send me decent quality files, why should I waste my time reading it?

12) Grab those bigger print paperbacks from your shelf as these can be read much faster than a page with small print. You turn the pages faster and feel as if you are reading the book quicker even if that is actually an illusion!  
A)Tips on reducing freebies/bargains you add to tbr: Ask yourself:
-do you REALLY REALLY want to read it or are you taking it just because it is free?
-is it from a genre you totally love or just a genre you wish you loved?
-does it have those things you hate in plot and character according to reviews?
-if you read it, will you need to buy lots of small novellas at inflated prices to read the whole thing?
-is it by an author whose other books weren't great?
-does it sound GREAT or 'ok for a freebie'?
-am I bored with this genre? Does this sound the same plot as another 50 books I've got on tbr? 
-have the previous books in the series been a bit blah?
-is this a good price for the length of book?
-how much have I spent this month on books that didn't make me scream with excitement?
-have I bought a pile of books I'm no longer sure I want to read? Do I need more restraint?

If in doubt, STEP AWAY FROM THE BOOKY!

B)Tips on what to do with your unwanted physical books:  
If you don't buy a lot of freebies you might be left thinking-but I BOUGHT all these hardbacks and paperbacks and can't just throw them away! Well there are options out there to make you feel a little better:
-join book trading sites where you trade your unwanted books for books on your wishlist, amazon gift cards, points you can use towards books etc
-trade books with friends
-join book sharing sites like bookcrossing http://www.bookcrossing.com/
-donate to charity shops and do your good deed for the week!

 C)Tips on saving money on book buys:
OK so this won't help the tbr but you might as well save some money when you know you are going to buy some:
-visit the library first if you have a good local one(I don't sadly!)
-try to borrow the book from a friend instead of buying it
-ask friends/family to buy book vouchers for birthdays and Christmas
-force yourself to clear 10 books off your tbr before every new purchase!
-don't be sucked in by the 3 for 2 offer if you don't have all three on your wishlist
-check charity shops before buying new-quality might surprise you
-check library sales but don't buy everything!
-check sites like Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/
-lots of people share brand new copies of new releases on http://www.bookcrossing.com/
-check the reviews on books BEFORE you buy

So, what tricks do you have to reduce the tbr? Are you drowning in books? Are you fully in control and feeling mega smug and want to gloat? Are you struggling with the DNF concept? How much time each day do you get to read? Do you need a shoulder to wail on? Share your experiences with us!

 

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Stacking the Shelves #70


Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Click on the link under the book to find its page on Goodreads or Smashwords.
                  
Please note that I always leave a message on your STS/SP if you visit me, but if you use DISQUS or a similar third party I will not be able to leave a comment on your page. And sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress. 

So the book juggernaut is rolling on! Since January 1st I have read 34 books so I'm well ahead of schedule in getting to my 200 book target. Some of them are of course, novellas but it reduces the tbr each time I read something, so I'm happy. My tbr stands at 584 and I plan to get down to 550 by the end of this month, which is a tough deadline, but as long as I get near it I'll be pretty happy. By March/April I want to hit 500, my lowest tbr total in 10 years! It's all pretty exciting but the main thing is I'm enjoying my reading and just picking up books at random when I feel like reading them. I'll be doing a Mount TBR update post later today I hope with more tips on reducing the pile! Hopefully it'll help give some of you a few ideas to try.
 
On the book side of things, I had my first review book of the year! This was book two in the series so I had to re-read book one The Beholder, just to refresh my memory, which certainly helped with all the twists. I picked up a new zombie series that sounds intriguing  and you know me, I can never resist a zombie!
 
FOR REVIEW:
 
 
DOWNLOADS:
 
 
 
 
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Friday, 6 February 2015

Featured Book: No Dogs in Philly by Andy Futuro


Philadelphia. Elzi on every corner, cops just itching to crack a skull, and the Gaespora lordin' it up in their high towers while the rest of the filth dribbled down the sewer. Saru had a way out. All she had to do was find the girl, one skinny stray with blue, blue eyes-bluer than anyone had ever seen-and ten million fat bucks were hers. Except someone was killing blue-eyed girls, and they were A-list, major-league, cold-sweat effective. And something about the end of all existence if she failed.

Where can I find the author?
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8442100.Andy_Futuro 

 Where can I buy this book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Dogs-Philly-Private-Justice/dp/1500735639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423241705&sr=1-1&keywords=No+Dogs+in+Philly

http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Philly-Private-Justice-Book-ebook/dp/B00MKDXE5S/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423241821&sr=1-1&keywords=No+dogs+in+Philly 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no-dogs-in-philly-andy-futuro/1120116580?ean=9781500735630 


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Book Review: Path of the Heretic by Ivan Amberlake (Beholder #2)


Coming Soon: Spring 2015!

With Emily Ethan gone, Jason Walker is left with too many questions unanswered. The more he gets to know the world of Energy and Sight, the harder it is for him to belong in this world. He can’t enter Sight when there are too many people around. He does things and then can’t remember doing them. And then Emily comes to his dreams and gives him clues where to look for the answers.

Should he believe her, or is it just another attempt to get him killed.

My Review:
I re-read The Beholder to refresh my memory as to who everyone was and how the events unfolded in our first adventure with Jason. It was the right decision as it helped me to just jump into the second adventure as if I'd never been away from it. This was an ARC kindly provided by the author, in exchange for an honest review.

Jason is trying to pick up the pieces over losing Emily, hurting from losing the love of his life and stinging from her betrayal. She is always there in his thoughts and dreams, and he cannot seem to forget about her. However, there is a battle to be won. Pariah is changing the rules, attacking in front of the Unsighted, and now has a weapon that he can use to deplete the side of Light, taking their strongest warriors from them. Light has it's own secrets and tricks, and Jason needs to unlock them if they have any hope of winning the war.

There was no easing the reader into the book-it starts with a bang and a battle, and in we go. It is faster paced than the first book, which is to be expected. The Beholder was introducing us to a new world and explaining how things worked. As this was not necessary in book two, the plot moved faster which suited me nicely. The writing again was smooth and had enought description to draw you into the story, without boring you with anything that didn't need to be there. The use of language again was excellent, something that is a trademark of this author. The story was certainly well thought through.

The POV switching between Light and Dark characters is constant, which kept you aware of what both sides were doing. I liked this, and it meant that there was always something happening in the plot but it didn't always flow smoothly. We would get a scene with Jason becoming aware that the enemy was ahead of him in the forest and he was about to be attacked, and the next chapter showed the enemy starting into the forest to look for him and then finding and attacking him. It felt as if we were taking half a step back at the beginning of some of the chapters which I'm not sure I liked. It was better when Jason went on his rescue mission mixed in with Debbie's story-it flowed nicely and led seamlessly to the battle starting. Then in the battle, we were back to the backward step version again with Jason arriving after we already know he has arrived as we saw it through Debbie. It made things a little disjointed in places. It is a minor niggle though. None of the niggles in this paragraph spoiled the overall enjoyment of the book.

I loved the never ending twists which began in book one and were carried forward into book two. First there is the mystery of Emily and what happened to her. Well, I never believed that she was dead or we would have seen her body, but I was unsure as to what form she would take if she appeared in the book alive. We do get to see exactly what led to her betrayal, the reasons behind it, what secrets she had and who she was working with. These parts of the story were fascinating and it gives the reader a whole new insight into several of the main characters, challenging what we thought we knew about them. I am not going to spoil the book by telling the secrets, but I must warn the reader to prepare to be surprised! We do finally get answers to all the questions about Emily's actions, so that was pleasing.

Moving on to the other characters, it was nice to see everyone who survived book one coming back. There are also a couple of surprises with 'new' characters. I never actually saw the point of Violet though. She seemed to be there just to look like Emily, to cause confusion for Jason, and to cling to him like a helpless female to let him do the macho protection thing. I never really took to her or cared much what happened to her. The surprise visitor to McAlester's was much more interesting to me, but we don't really see enough of him which is a pity. For me, the most interesting character in this book is Damien. Learning more about him was interesting but I was less than satisfied by the abrupt way his story was 'put aside' and never really mentioned again.

I felt the same about the secret that Tyler shared with Debbie during the battle-we are shown it briefly and not all readers may grasp what they are actually being shown. And that's it. I would've expected Tyler to say something about it-laugh, gloat etc, a reaction from Debbie, something with more depth like Debbie having to actually live the incident with the victims, given the importance of this revelation. But it is only mentioned once nearer the end of the book that Debbie tells the others about it. For such an important secret, an important part of Emily's past, I felt it was dealt with in a manner that was a bit low key. It was the shock of the book for me yet none of the characters talked about it, just a line by the author mentioning it in the aftermath of the battle. I found that a bit surprising. Usually when the shock is delivered it is a highlight of a scene, not just a few lines and then subject dropped.

Overall the standard of the series is kept the same with this book being slightly better than the first purely because I liked the pacing. Those who enjoyed the first adventure should enjoy this one just as much. 
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Thursday, 5 February 2015

Book Review: The Beholder by Ivan Amberlake (revised & updated)


Worlds of Light and Darkness are about to clash. And Jason will be in the thick of it.

In Asunción, Minsk and Sydney, people die under mysterious circumstances. Each branded with an arcane sign, they are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When more people are missing, with similar signs appearing in and around their homes, Jason, an average New Yorker, realizes the victims are a riddle addressed to him.

He is the final piece.

Emily appears, the most beautiful woman with extraordinary powers and startling amber eyes, and tells Jason that powers dormant within him are about to wake. In the world of Light- and Darksighted, he is the only person who can prevent Darkness from enslaving the world. He is the Beholder whose advent has been awaited for many years.

Setting out on a journey with Emily, Jason discovers many improbable things like Sight, Soulfusion, the Hall of Refuge, but the greatest surprise arrives the moment he sees Emily and finds real love.

My Review:
*I was given a free copy of this book by the author via Goodreads in exchange for an honest review*

This book was unlike anything I have read before. It has subtle elements of urban fantasy, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction and thriller. It is impossible to decide where it fits and for that reason I think it should have a wide appeal. You don't have to be a big fan of any of these genres to enjoy the ride and that is pretty unique..I think I'd go 3.5 stars on this one if I could.

Jason's violent nightmares are causing him physical and mental pain and his world is turned upside when he discovers that they are visions of people being murdered for real, people who are dying to protect him. He is gifted with paranormal powers that lie dormant and uncontrolled, and holds the key to winning a coming war. Being the key to survival against the dark shadows that seek to destroy him and humanity is scary when he doesn't even know his own powers. Trying to protect his best friends and learn from the girl he is falling for complicates his life even further as he tries to help his allies fight their deadly enemy.

So what was good about it? Firstly, the language use is excellent-I cannot believe that the author does not have English as his first language! That is quite a gift to have and I was seriously impressed by it. The use of words is perfect for the plot and each situation. There are flowing descriptions that aren't too complicated, world building without huge info dumps, simple storytelling that carries you along and a plot that is always moving forward. The story is totally different featuring battles between gifted individuals using light and dark energy as weapons, which was a clever concept and worked well. The characters are all interesting but there is no attempt to tell you everything about them. I'm guessing that will happen over the course of the series. The love story part never detracts from the main plot and there are no sex scenes. Nice to see a lack of swearing as well which is pretty refreshing and shows that authors who are clever with language and conversation do not need twenty f bombs per page!

I found it a little difficult to follow a couple of bits where energy was being described but I don't think that was down to the author, more down to my brain going blank when I'm presented with the science stuff! I never was a science nerd and it's a reason I struggle with science fiction. I think most readers will follow it much better than I did, to be honest. For me, there could perhaps have been a bit less about his feelings for Emily (and her frequently mentioned amber eyes), though to be fair, their relationship is mentioned in the book description and it is a minor niggle. I don't mind romance when it is well written and in this case it was.

The action scenes are like something from an X-Men film. I can imagine all the light flashing and people flying around, fighting and putting on a scary show. Very cool! Yet it is more than just sci-fi. There is a real human emotion running through the story as well which is as impoertant as the action. Jason's love for Emily has an almost innocent quality about it. It is about love and affection, and not wanting to be away from her. I liked that because it was different from most books that have romance in it, where the characters are bedhopping ten seconds after they meet. This feels like a real relationship developing slowly, with emotions dominating anything sexual.

It also explores the bonds of human friendship and how strong those bonds can make us, helping us to face our fears and challenges. OK most of us aren't going to be worried about mad shadow men trying to blow them up but a lot of us can relate to having those fierce kinds of friendships that are so important. And of course there is the eternal struggle of good v evil and all the shades of grey that are in between. There is also the struggle within Jason to embrace his destiny when he isn't sure that he is up to the job.

Overall I did enjoy the book and I recommend it to fans of pretty much every genre! I first read this book in June 2013, and getting the chance to re-read it and add some more thoughts to my review before reading book two was a helpful thing for me.
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