Month: November 2024

Top Ten Tuesday | Books with Pianos on the Cover

Posted November 4, 2024 by Haze in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Book Memes / 5 Comments

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.

Today’s topic is Books with [Item] on the Cover

I chose pianos for the item on the cover because I’ve been trying to be better on the piano and I’m hoping to motivate myself to practice a little more. It’s not working but hey, at least I found some books with gorgeous covers!

Top Ten Books with Pianos on the Cover

  1. The Piano Man’s Daughter by Timohy Findley – This is a historical fiction set in Canada. I have not read or heard of the author, but it’s got great reviews and I’m curious about it.
  2. The Secret Pianist by Andie Newton – A newly published historical fiction that reminds me of books in the vein of Madeline Martin. It’s set during WW2 and gives me the same kind of vibes.
  3. Pianos and Flowers by Alexander McCall Smith – I read his book, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency years ago and enjoyed it but I’ve never read anything since. This is a book of short stories so maybe a good place to get back into his stories.
  4. Death in D Minor by Alexia Gordon – The second book in the Gethsemane Brown Mysteries series with a classical musician as the mystery-solving protagonist.
  5. The Bear and the Piano by David Litchfield – This is a picture book that sounds absolutely adorable! I think I’d love to read it.
  6. Forbidden Melody by Magnolia Robbins – An LGBT romance that looks really good. Two musicians falling in love, that sounds right up my alley!
  7. Mad Boys by Heather Long – This is the second book in a new adult, reverse harem romance series, not something I’m usually interested in, but I love the cover!
  8. Lessons by Ian McEwan – I’ve only ever read Atonement by the author, but this one sounds really good too!
  9. Crescendo by Allen Cheney – This is a biography but I don’t know anything about the person of topic, Fred Allen. I do love the cover though.
  10. Middle C by William H. Gass – I don’t even know what this book is about, but I love the representation of part of a piano on the cover and had to include it!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?

Tags: , , ,

Sunday Post | Halloween Hype

Posted November 2, 2024 by Haze in Sunday Post, Weekly Book Memes / 14 Comments

Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings. 

All the Ghouls and Ghosts

The highlight of last week was Halloween!

We don’t really “celebrate” Halloween in Malaysia and we’ve never gone trick-or-treating, but now that we’re in Canada and immersed in the Halloween culture, we loved watching the Halloween decorations pop up throughout October and we wanted to check out all the festivities!

We didn’t think to get costumes this year and we weren’t planning to participate or anything, but people everywhere were so friendly and welcoming (some tried to be frightening, which is fair enough!) we ended up making some friends and getting invitations to come back next year. It was a lot of fun and a wonderful highlight of the week!

Also, I’m aware that I’ve been behind on visiting blogs and replying comments. I’ve been trying to catch up with all the things I fell behind on the last few weeks and I’m making some good progress! I’m anticipating some busy weeks ahead as we’re trying to hit a deadline, but I want to be more present here as well. I might end up cutting down on post frequency and book reviews but I’m really hoping I won’t have to, or if I do, that it will only be temporary.

The Conqueror Challenge

I’m still behind on my progress with The Conqueror Challenge. I only did a little more than 15km out of my 20km/week goal. I do have nine more days to go and about 24km more to go, so hopefully I’ll be able to get that done.

We can set our own goals so I could technically push back the time frame if I need to, but I really want to try to hit it if I can. I had a bad run (pun intended) these last three weeks, but I did account for bad days when I set the goal.

Nine days is only a little more than a week, and I’ve only been doing 15-20km a week. 24km a week would be pushing it, but hey, that’s why it’s a challenge. I’m going to give it a final push this week, because I’m also really excited about completing the goal and getting the medal! And also starting a new challenge immediately after!

All the happy things:

  1. I had the best time on Halloween night!
  2. Shared some hot cocoa with my husband late one night and had a wonderful time just talking.
  3. We had our in-person bookclub meeting this morning! And we had a new person join us today!
  4. My bookclub friends and I went for lunch after the meeting and continued the chat and fun. Bookish friends are the best!
  5. I am almost 80% done with my first The Conqueror Challenge!
  6. We made some great strides in the project that I’m doing! Exciting things are coming soon!

The Books

Books I read last week:

  1. The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young – I really liked how different it was. It was really fast-paced as well, so I finished it quickly.
  2. The Girl from the Other Side Vol. 11 by Nagabe – This is the final book in the series and I’m a little disappointed with how it ended, but I enjoyed the experience of reading it.
  3. Super Powereds: Year 3 by Drew Hayes – More fun with bad writing! This time it was all the blondes that stood out; the author kept referring to some of the characters as “their blonde friend”, “their blonde classmate”, “their blonde opponent”, etc. There were other hair colors too, but it was the blondes who stood out. I am still having so much fun with the series!

Book(s) I’m reading:

  1. Super Powereds: Year 4 by Drew Hayes – I cannot wait to dive into more of the story!
  2. Dear Enemy by Jean Webster – This is the sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs and I have read it before but not as many times as Daddy-Long-Legs so I’m refreshing my memory.

Last Week on The Blog

This Week

Super Powereds: Year 4 is a 60-hour audiobook so it’s probably going to take up the chunk of this week, but I might intersperse it with other shorter books in between.

How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!

Tags: , , ,