Tag Archives: narrativenonfiction

Top 5 Saturday: Top Books of 2018

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and for this week’s challenge I’m reminiscing on the best books I read in 2018!

I couldn’t find the actual topic for this week, so I just decided to come up with my own! I tried brainstorming what kinds of bookish topics really interested me and that would be different than what I usually post about. I feel like I typically blog about books I’ve read more recently since it’s easier to write about books that are still fresh in my mind. However, there are so many great books that I’ve read before starting this blog!

2018 may seem like an oddly specific and random year to choose for this. However, this was a special reading year for me. During college, I went through a period where I nearly stopped reading. It wasn’t intentional, but as I was taking a gap year between college and grad school, I realized that this was a part of myself that I had kind of lost over the last few years. Reading has always been such an important part of my life, and it made me sad to realize how much I had let it go during college. Therefore, in 2018, I made an effort to begin reading again and take back my identity as a reader. That’s why this year-in-books stood out to me and why I decided to single it out for this post! The books on this list are the books that helped me fall back in love with reading as an adult. Also, just to clarify, these are books that I read in 2018, and not necessarily books that were published in 2018. And full disclosure – there are actually seven books on this list instead of five! I just couldn’t narrow it down any further. In no particular order, here are my top seven books of 2018!

Book Review: “Dust Tracks on a Road” by Zora Neale Hurston

It’s finally Spring Break! Over the last couple weeks, it’s been hard not to think about where I was at during this time last year. We had just begun our abrupt transition to online learning. It was scary, confusing, overwhelming, and so stressful. I had a hard time sleeping at all over the break. This year, while the overall state of things is much better, there are still so many unknowns and changes that it makes it hard not to be anxious. However, I’m trying my best to take things one step at a time and enjoy my break because I deserve to rest and take care of myself!

I’m really looking forward to reading as much as I can over the next week! And I have to say, I’ve thoroughly been enjoying the increased amount of nonfiction I’ve read so far this year. I made a goal to read more since I don’t often choose to pick up nonfiction books, and I’m so grateful that I made this my goal for this year. I already feel like I’ve learned and grown so much.

My most recent nonfiction pick was “Dust Tracks on a Road,” which is the autobiography of Zora Neale Hurston. What an incredible and inspiring woman! This book left me feeling like I wanted to learn even more about her life, and also wanting to read more of her work (other than just “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which is one of my all-time favorite books). I will say, I think I’ve discovered that I prefer memoirs to autobiographies, but this was still a wonderful read that I would highly recommend!

Spoiler-Free Review: “Dust Tracks on a Road” is the powerful and inspiring autobiography of Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston lived…

Top 10 Tuesday: (Audio)books on my Spring 2021 TBR

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about books on my spring 2021 TBR!

As dorky as it sounds, one of my favorite things to do when I’m bored is stare dreamily at my bookshelves and think about when I can read all of the books on my shelves. You’d think this time would be better spent actually reading said books (and you’d be right), but oh well! I just can’t help myself. That being said, I don’t set a specific TBR list for myself. Within each genre on my shelves, I have certain books that are a higher priority than others. But still, I keep that in mind when picking my next book to read, but in the end decide to read whatever I’m in the mood for. At first, I wasn’t sure how to approach this prompt because of this. I was thinking about just listing my “top priority” book for each genre, even though I definitely won’t get to all of those in spring (maybe not even in 2021).

However, then I remembered that I do follow a more structured TBR for my audiobooks! For the most part, I just go in the order in which I purchased them (with exceptions here and there). This year, I’ve been doing this, but while also following a set pattern to help me reach my reading goals for 2021. Basically, I go to the “bottom” of my library (I scroll down to the oldest, not-yet-downloaded book), start there and then work my way up in this order: fiction, nonfiction, classic, repeat. Therefore, I have a pretty predictable line-up for my spring 2021 audiobooks. I certainly won’t follow this exactly, especially with Spring Break coming up. I typically listen to audiobooks while I get ready for work and sometimes when I do chores, so over Spring Break I might choose some other, shorter audiobooks to focus on instead simply because I’ll have less time to listen to them. We shall see! But for now, here are my top 10 audiobooks on my spring 2021 TBR!

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Weapons on the Cover

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with weapons on the cover.

Honestly, I really struggled with the prompt for this week. The kinds of books I read don’t typically feature weapons, and if I were to be shopping for books and I saw a weapon on the cover, that would actually be a turn-off for me and I would be less likely to add it to my cart. However, I managed to come up with a list that includes some books I’ve read and some on my TBR that feature weapons in some way on their covers. Here is my top five (in no particular order)!

Top 5 Saturday: Books About Competition

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books about competition.

I don’t read a lot of sports books, but I actually managed to think of several books I’ve read that revolve around competition in some way! Very few of them actually have to do with sports, so it was fun to think of other ways to approach this prompt. Here are the five books I came up with…