August Wrap-Up + September Reading Month (2018)

It’s the start of a new reading month and the season of fall in many places. Although the weather here is still forecasted to be dreary and rainy, I always feel more energized at the start of anything new. Overall, I had a good month in August where I read a total of 7 books and somewhat successfully finished one readathon I had committed myself to. I also had the best stats this month on the blog. Thank you to all my readers who made this happen! There are also some really exciting books hitting shelves this month that I’m very happy to share, so let’s get into the details now!

Discussion Post: What do You Think of the Literature of Your Country?

I’ve been contemplating this for a while and what better time to talk about this than when the Indian Lit Readthon (hosted by me and 3 more blogging friends, if you didn’t know) is going on? This might be more applicable to international/non-English readers but I hope everyone can take away something from this. If I take a look at my ‘Read’ shelf on Goodreads, it is abundantly clear that my reading is almost 99% books written by non-Indian authors. While I have been trying to read diversely from last year, I haven’t actively reached for books published in my own country. In this post, I’d like to outline some reasons as to why and talk about my relationship with Indian literature.

Discussion Post: Let’s Talk About Reading Challenges (+ Winter BiBib TBR)

Countless people in the bookish community challenge themselves each year in terms of the number of books they plan to read, the kind of books they want to read or just cross off items on lists they have created for themselves. The start of the year is a good time to reflect on the sort of reading year you’d like to have and I’ve read several posts telling which reading challenges they’d like to enter over the course of the year. I participated in the Summer Biannual Bibliothon and BookTube-A-Thon in July as well as the House Cup Reading Challenge in October last year. However, this does not seem to be everyone’s cup of tea. Let’s explore how reading challenges have influenced the book community, shall we?

Summer BiBib Day #5 – Character Connections

I’m falling behind on this, but I’m going to get all of the challenges done anyway because I’m stubborn like that. I’m really not doing this to win any of the giveaways, I just like to challenge myself to blog consistently and post about books. If you’re new here, I’m doing all of the blogging challenges for the Summer Biannual Bibliothon and today’s challenge is hosted by Ashley from Inside My Minds.

The challenge: Discuss no more than two characters that you have connected with on a more personal level. And then pick a situation that the character was in and discuss what they should have done differently if you feel that they should have done something differently. It is possible that you don’t think a character should have done something differently.

Discussion – Do You Consider The Cursed Child Canon?

Welcome to another post in my Harry Potter themed monthly series! July always puts me in the mood for Harry Potter because it is J. K. Rowling and Harry’s birthday this month. Also, the 20th year celebrations that took place recently have given me plenty of reason to take a trip down memory lane. Today I’m opening up a discussion on one of the most controversial topics for fans of the series – Do you think Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is canonical? Sure, it is listed as the 8th book in the series and marketed as canon, but opinions on it differ greatly.

Note: This post contains spoilers for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!

Personally, I like to pretend this book doesn’t exist. I haven’t watched the play, but many have praised it and it has won several awards. I think I’d have liked it better if it had remained only a play. I didn’t need it as an addition to my beloved seven-book Harry Potter series.