How has your week been? What have you been reading lately? I finished The Queen, Nick Cutter – a insect horror book with some pretty disturbing scenes – and Two Can Keep a Secret, Karen McManus, which was such a twisty thriller. I missed you guys last week, but I’m back, so on to the 10+ things I bookmarked recently.
one+ One of my favorite “Best Books of the Year” lists has been released – NPR‘s Books We Love. It’s awesome how they make it so you can combine categories to get book selections, and NPR’s book love list is a wonderful way to start figuring out some books to read next year. I know I spotted more than a few I hadn’t seen before and look mighty tempting to add to my to be read list – which, in case you don’t know from all the links I share – is PHATT!
two+ The very popular NY Times 100 Notable Books of 2024 list is also out. As usual, I haven’t read many, but glad to see The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo – which I loved. Have you read any of the books, and would they make your best books of the year list? Their top 10 drops next week. Also – Book Riot’s Best Books of 2024 dropped. As usual, the Rioters have very diverse and eclectic choices.
three+ The long list for the 2025 Tournament of Books has been released. “Literary bloodsport approaches! As we narrow down our shortlist of Tournament competitors, here are the 70 works of fiction in consideration from this year.” In a few weeks, they will release the shortlist, so you can start reading prior to our month-long event in March.
four+ And we’re in the final round for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards. Not surprisingly, the category with the most books that I read was Horror.
five+ Y’all, we let loose A Huge Round Up of 2025 Year Long Reading Challenges and The Most Popular 2025 Reading Challenges on StoryGrpah (So Far). I’m so proud of how I’ve been doing with reading challenges this year! Of course, we host 2 which I will be participating in again next year – 2025 Key Word Reading Challenge and 2025 Motif Reading Challenge. Then I did 2 more hosted on Storygraph – I might switch it up for 2025 and do 2 different ones … we’ll see.
six+ I haven’t really thought about The differences in bookish communities on IG/TikTok/X/Reddit – are you active on these? Or others? Do you agree that – “… many bookstagrammers are uniformly positive in their reviews … I think their (bookstagrammers’) desire to connect with authors and publishers leads to inflated reviews. On Reddit, you can articulate your critical thoughts without fear of backlash (and if you’re being baselessly critical or rude, you’ll likely get down voted anyway, so that seems like an appropriate outcome).”
seven+ Author Firsts, Lasts and Favourites is such a fun way to look at (and share … and pay homage to) books by your favorite authors. In this edition, Foxes and Fairy Tales writes about authors T.J. Klune, T. Kingfisher, Al Hess, Alexis Hall, and Terry Pratchett.
eight+ Are we ready to talk about books being released in 2025 yet? Well, I’m ready to just take a peek at The NetGalley Team’s Most-Anticipated Books of 2025 and 25 Science Fiction Books to Read in 2025.
nine+ Off the Books – I came across this is what happens when you centre your calling. It starts out … “This week marks one year of me writing this Substack newsletter. But it also marks one year of me practising my calling for an entire year, of me showing myself that I do, in fact, have self-discipline and that I can keep promises to myself.” This is exactly how I am feeling about showing up here are Chapter Adventure this year. I recommitted to posting here consistently. I may have missed a week here or there, but I kept showing up because this space is my outlet. It’s how I exercise creativity, it’s one thing I do for me. Kim and I don’t use affiliate links, and this year, we weren’t checking stats, or fretting about anything other than talking about books, and experimenting with content when we wanted to switch it up. I’m taking this “show up for yourself” mantra through the rest of the year in a few other areas as well – one of which is finishing half-marathon training – and not quitting before January event!
ten+ Also Off the Books – What are you watching? I re-watched Dune (Part One) and then watched Dune (Part Two). Loved them both! Now I’m checking out 22 Recent and Upcoming Book-To-Screen Adaptations to Carry You Through the Rest of the Year.
Next week, at the start of December, we’ll be doing “A Month of Faves” where we’ll wrap up the year by talking about our favorite. See more details here.
—- Cheers to the weekend and week ahead!
