Goodreads: A Birthday Book Haul

Last week, I was 23. Woohoo! I’ve made it through another year and of course, a birthday came with a big book haul. I was quite good this year and stuck to just spending the vouchers I’d received as gifts but I got myself quite a few little treats. I also received a few books as gifts off friends and work colleagues – they all know me so well. There’s honestly nothing better, as far as I’m concerned, than a good book haul so I was thrilled to be treated to so many new books to add to my collection!

My boyfriend’s mum was very kind and gifted me some Waterstones vouchers as my present. My boyfriend then added to the kindness and said that anything I spent over the amount of the vouchers, he’d pay the difference, so I got three amazing books that I’d been wanting for quite a while but couldn’t commit to ‘cause they were so darn expensive on amazon! (I’m a cheapskate. I stick to the £3.85/3 for £10 books normally!)

I’ve been watching a lot of Books and Quills youtube recently, and I’ve grabbed a few recommendations from the books she’s been reading. The first book I chose was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. This is one that I’d never heard of before, but I had a quick google and found that it was a book that would definitely be right up my street. I believe it focuses on Nazism, which is something that I’m really interested in so it’ll be one of the ones I pick up first when choosing a new book to read. At this point, Paul was getting very stroppy (lesson learned: don't take your boyfriend shopping!) so my “one recommended book and the rest whatever I fancy on the day” plan went out the window pretty quickly. I added Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to my pile quickly after that. I know that this one’s quite an old one, and I believe that there’s a film adaptation of it, but I’ve neither read nor watched it. The story is set in Nigeria and is described as a heartbreaking, literary masterpiece- I actively search for “heartbreaking”, so this one sounds absolutely perfect to me!

The final book I chose was The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney. I’ve actually already started this one: it’s set in Ireland and follows different characters. One of the characters is a drug dealer, another a prostitute, a third covers the tracks for his mother’s accidental killing of a burglar. It’s incredibly well written and I’m definitely enjoying the plot so far. It won the Bailey’s Women’s prize for literature this year so that definitely influenced my choice but I’m not disappointed as of yet.

I was surprised at work with a little goodie bag of treats and they had put a book in there, as well! They chose The Forgotten Time by Sharon Guskin which I’d never heard of before! It’s a psychological thriller, I believe; my colleague Denise knows how much I love a good psychological thriller so this was definitely her doing! It sounds like it’d be right up my street so I’m excited to give it a go soon.

Because I’d filled up a Waterstones voucher with those purchases, I then received a further £10 to spend in the store. I also had £5 worth of points on my card, meaning that I could sneakily choose a few more books and not actually spend any money. I was planning on treating myself to a beautiful hard backed edition of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories but I didn’t even get as far as that in the shop as I found myself distracted by a signed copy of Alan Johnson’s latest contribution to his autobiography. I’ve read his two other books, Our Boy and Please, Mister Postman and absolutely love his voice and the tale he tells so this was a must-buy as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be getting stuck into that one as soon as my ARC pile is shortened! 

What books have you bought recently? Have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments!

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