books I have read so far

Warning!!! This is a long post!

I haven’t been writing a lot here on the blog, and I have been missing it. I just haven’t been sure what to write about. But today, I decided to grab all the books I have read so far this year, and stack them in a stack and take a photo. Because, why not, right?

So far I have read 24 books, 1 away from my Goodreads goal (you can find me here). All though, with that being said, my actual goal is 31. If I manage to read 31 books, that means I have read more than last year, which is my goal, I suppose. Though, I will be happy if I read more than 25 only!

I found Books and Lala on youtube last week and subscribed to her. She does book tube, and I just really loved her wrap up were she does the statistic so I decided I wanted to do a blog post with the statistic “half way” into the year. I’m a little late, but better late than never, right?

Anyway, I wanted to see the statistics of amount of pages, publication years, genre, my star rating and the gender of the authors!

Let’s start with ALL the books. Also, I do have three books that isn’t here because one was a library book (had to read for school..), one was a book of poems I borrowed from my sister and the last was the first audiobook I have finished!! Those three were Pan by Knut Hamsun, a collection of poems by Arnulf Øverland and the last, the audiobook, was Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Oh, by the way, this photo was taken on my iPhone whilst the others were taken with my camera!

note: if there is a * after a book, it means that it’s in Norwegian and doesn’t have an english translation (there isn’t many), but those that is norwegian without the * has an english translation!

NUMBER OF PAGES

So far, I have read 9407 pages according to Goodreads.

LESS THAN 300 (picture 1)

Here we have, mostly, my non fiction books and my three that aren’t:

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K Rowling
• Report from nr 24 by Gunnar Sønsteby (norwegian + this book is 2 books, I have only read one)
• The King’s Choice by Alf R. Jacobsen (norwegian)*
• Almost Autumn by Marianna Kaurin (norwegian)
• The Princess Diares: Princess in the Middle by Meg Cabot
• Everything what mothers have fought by Mari Jonassen (norwegian)*

300 – 400 (picture 2)

A mix of everything, really:

• The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye
• The White Russian by Vanora Bennett
• The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
• Sara’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

400 – 600 (picture 1)

I love big books and I cannot lie!

• The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• The Venetian Contract by Mariana Fiorato
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

600 + (picture 2)

Bigger books!

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
• Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

So, from here, since I have already mentioned every single book, I’m not going to write the names on every single one. If you are interested in any of the books, look at the photo or at the names over :D

PUBLICATION DATE

I divided this into three because I wasn’t going to do every single year:

BEFORE 2000

2000 – 2010

2010 – NOW

(in no particular order by the way. I just stacked them so they wouldn’t look like crap..)

GENRE

Ok, so I have realized that I really don’t read varied in the genre department, so I only have four: fantasy, historical fiction, non fiction and others.

FANTASY

I don’t think The glittering court is fantasy, but I just added it here…

HISTORICAL FICTION

NON – FICTION

They are all world war 2, and three of them are resistance related and the last one has to do with the king.. (which by the way, check out the trailer for one of my favourite movies thats “based” on the book: The King’s Choice!)

OTHERS

AUTHOR’S GENDER

Not that it really matters, but I do want to read varied, AND I have now realized that I haven’t really when it comes to gender… And of course, I’m not assuming anyones genders, I’m just going by the name ;)

MALE

… because this is tiny

FEMALE

… and then, last but not least:

MY STAR RATING

I want to point out that I might have given some of these books 3,5, 4,5 and so on!

Let’s start from the bottom, shall we?

I don’t have any 1 stars, so:

2 STARS

I was contemplating wether or not I should show this, but hey, I didn’t particularly like it, so I’m telling you so.

3 STARS

For me, 3 stars are when the good books comes, so 3 stars doesn’t mean I didn’t like them, because I really enjoyed these books, but a few things “forced” me to not give it better.

4 STARS

5 BOOKS

I have read so many great books so far this year!

 

Ok, that was that, really. It’s interesting to see. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the information, but maybe I’ll try to read a little more diverse, and not just read fantasy and historical fiction? All though, I’m going to read what I want to read and not force myself to read anything just because I feel like I have to!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What books have you read so far this year and which were your favourites?

Thank you for reading! :D

read-a-thon

I participated in my first ever read-a-thon a few days ago. It was called duodecathon, and even though I have noe clue why it’s called that, I decided to participate because it was the first one to start.

Duodecathon is a read a then that happens 12 times a year, once a month. It’s usually in the end of the month. It also has 12 challenges so you can do one each month. However, I personally didn’t try to do one of the challenges, as I just wanted a time and date to follow. I did consider trying to reach for the 1200 pages, but decided against it.

The read a thon started on June 24th and ended on June 30th. So, 7 days!

Even though I didn’t choose one of the premade challenges, I did have a challenge. My challenge was to finish as many as possible of my started books. So books I have stopped reading after reading 50 or more pages (or less, but none of mine were less than 50).

I was also sick the first few days of the read-a-thon, so all I did was to read, and read, and read more. Which was great!

day 1 – 24 of June

I decided to start “Etiquette and Espionage” by Gail Carriger. I had already read 106 pages off it, and seeing that it wasn’t the thickest book, I easily finished it by the end of the day. The reason I had stopped reading this book a few months ago when I startet it, was for a few reason. 1, being because exams were coming up and I couldn’t focus on what I was reading, and 2 being because it just wasn’t an interesting enough book in my opinion. By the end of the day, when I only had about fifty pages left, I really wanted to give up on the book, but I knew that if I didn’t finish it before I went to bed, I would not want to start the next day because I would feel obligated to finish this book. But I did. I gave this book 2 stars. I think one of the reasons why I didn’t like it was because it felt so young. Yes, the character was 15, but the way it was written.

Total pages read: 201

Books read: 1

day 2 – 25 of June

I wasn’t sure what book I wanted to pick up this day, but after looking at my bookshelf for ten minutes, I finally decided for “The girl on the train” by Paula Hawkins. I got this book for christmas and had read 53 pages of it a couple of months before my exams. Though, I didn’t stop reading this because of exams, but because I recived a book in the post that I really wanted to read. But those 53 pages were really interesting, and I was excited to dive back into it.  I rarely read crime (this is crime, right?), but this book was amazing. A little creepy and made me believe love isn’t real for a second, but amazing. Even though this book had more pages than the last one, this one took me less time, and I finished it at 21.40 (or 9.40) in the evening. I gave it 5 stars!

Total pages read: 480

Books read: 2

day 3 – 26 of June

This was the day I started to feel a lot better, so I didn’t read as much because I had other things I wanted to do too. I picked up “The lost symbol” by Dan Brown which I started sometime late last year, or early this year. I really like the “Robert Langdon” series, and am planning on reading the next (and the next?). I had read 179 pages when I started it, and I managed to read 103 pages, which isn’t bad!

Total pages read: 583

Books read: 2

(I read The Girl on the Train and The Lost Symbol in Norwegian. Piken på toget and Det tapte symbol)

day 4- 27 of June

This was my worst day, I think. I only read 3 pages. But that’s ok. This was the first day I felt good enough to be with friends, so me and two friends went to the mall and played cards pretty much the entire day.

Total pages read: 585

Books read: 2

day 5 – 28 of June

I went outside and read. I even wore shorts which is a first for me this year. I managed to read 101 pages – my goals was 100 – so I was pretty happy with the progress.

Total pages read: 686

Books read: 2

day 6 + 7 – 29 + 30 of June

Ok, so day 6 and 7 was sort of a blur. I didn’t write down what I read on day 6, though I read a little, and on day 7 I was away from 11 in the morning till nine in the evening. When I came home I read a little just as a last try to read more. I still didn’t finish the book.

Total pages read: 736

Books read: 2

 

wrap up

Total pages were (as written already) 736 pages and I managed to finish 2 (and a half) books, which is more than I thought I would manage, so I am pretty pleased with what I did. I really enjoyed my first read-a-thon, and I’ll defiantly do more in the future.

the books:

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger.

• Started: 24th of June. Page 106.
• Finished: 24th of June.
• Rating: 2 / 5

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

• Started: 25th of June. Page 53.
• Finished: 25th of June.
• Rating: 5 / 5

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

• Started: 26th of June. Page 179.
• Finished: 2nd of July, so after the read-a-thon ended.
• Rating; 5 / 5

Total pages read: 736

Books read: 2 (and a half)

 

So, as I said, I am pretty pleased with how much I managed to read. I managed to finish 2, almost 3 (finished with that one now), but the most important thing that I got out of this read-a-thon was me getting out of the damn reading slump I have been in for a while now. And I am so happy!

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave your read-a-thon accomplishments in the comments if you participated in this one, or another one. I would love to read. If you have any tips when it comes to read-a-thons, please let me know!

Have you read any of these books?

Favourite books of 2016 so far (Video)

Hello! I hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday so far!

I uploaded a new video today. I would really appreciate it if you could watch it, and like it. Maybe even subscribe? haha

A Late May Book Haul (video)

Hello! I hope you are having a great day, and that you are ready for the next week! I unfortunately have to start school on Wednesday, so I’m not that excited…But I am excited about something else; I just uploaded a new Youtube video!

I don’t know if it will happen, but I’m going to try to upload two videos a week. Right now I’m thinking Wednesdays and Sundays, but we’ll see what happens!

This video was filmed in the end of May or beginning of June, but I was too scared to upload it but I have just started to not care what people will say, so I just decided to upload it!

I would really appreciate it if you could like and subscribe!

Thank you for reading!

May Wrap Up

Hello!

May is already over, and I am so happy with it, at least reading-wise.I have finished all  my exams for this term, and even though I don’t think all of them went really well, I’m really happy to be done with them.Which means I am on summer holiday!!!

This summer holiday will be my longest break since I was a little baby! 2.5 months! And because I have a long break I’m planning on reading a lot, write a lot and blog a lot!

Anyway, as I said, this month has been amazing reading wise; I read seven books! Usually, I read about three or four books a month, plus the fact that I didn’t read one single book in the month of April, so I feel accomplished!

Here are the books I read in the month of May:

The first book I finished was ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ by Vikas Swarup. I had to read this for school so I wasn’t very excited about it. I watched the movie in Year 8 or 9 and I truly disliked it. But I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up liking this!

Vikas Swarup’s spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India’s biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history – from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.

I gave this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

I really wanted to read a book by a Norwegian author (I haven’t read a norwegian book in forever) so I asked my mum which of her books she enjoyed a lot, and she said ‘Politi’ by Jo Nesbø. (‘Police’ by Jo Nesbo for other countries haha). Personally, I’m not a big fan of crime books, but I have to say I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed this story a lot. I haven’t read any of the other books in the Harry Hole series. I know this is the tenth book, but I did check online to see if you had to read the first book first.

The police urgently need Harry Hole . . . A killer is stalking Oslo’s streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical.

But this time, Harry can’t help . . . For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the center of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry is not in a position to protect anyone.

Least of all himself . . .

 

I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

Then I wanted to read another book in Norwegian, so I picked up this: ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown. Same goes to this book, I usually don’t read these kinds of books, but I absolutely love watching these types of movies, so I decided to give it a try. And I loved it.

When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol—seared into the chest of a murdered physicist—he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati … the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy—the Catholic Church.

Langdon’s worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.

Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair … a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation

 

I gave this a 4 out of 5 stars.

I ordered two books, but I still wanted to read something before those books arrived. Therefore, I picked up ‘The Thief’ by Megan Whalen Turner. I picked iit up because it was only 280 pages with a big font, so I knew it wouldn’t take me to long. I did enjoy this book, but I personally felt like nothing really happened. Whilst reading this I was planning on giving it only two stars, but I enjoyed the way it ended so I didn’t do so.

The king’s scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king’s prison. The magus is interested only in the thief’s abilities.What Gen is interested in is anyone’s guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

 

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

 

I absolutely love the Princess Diaries movies, so I decided I wanted to try the books. I read the first book a few monhs ago, and decided I wanted to read the next one now. ‘The Princess Diaries: A royal disaster’ by Meg Cabot. It only takes me some hours to finish these books because it’s such an easy read, which is one of the things I love about it. I enjoyed the first book a little bit more than this one, though.

First book: She’s just a New York City girl living with her artist mom…

NEWS FLASH: Dad is prince of Genovia. (So that’s why a limo meets her at the airport!)

DOWNER: Dad can’t have any more kids. (So there’s no heir to the throne.)

SHOCK OF THE CENTURY: Like it or not, Mia Thermopolis is prime princess material.

THE WORST PART: Mia must take princess lessons from her dreaded grandmère, the dowager princess of Genovia, who thinks Mia has a thing or two to learn before she steps up to the throne.

Well, her father can lecture her until he’s royal–blue in the face about her princessly duty—no way is she moving to Genovia and leaving Manhattan behind.

But what’s a girl to do when her name is PRINCESS AMELIA MIGNONETTE GRIMALDI THERMOPOLIS RENALDO?

 

I gave this a 4 out of 5 stars.

The last book I read in the month of may was ‘The Da Vinci – code’ by Dan Brown. I ordered this right away because I loved following Robert Langdon. I have watched this movie before so I knew what the story was about, but it didn’t make me enjoy the book any less. (I also watched the movie to Angels and Demons in the middle of the book.. haha)

An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last.

While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.

 

Have you read any of these books? How did you find them? Do you have any suggestions of other books I should read?