What will I be reading in Autumn 2017?

It seems to me like the past week everyone has fallen through a pile of crunchy autumn leaves and landed firmly in the run up to Halloween and Christmas. All the names on Twitter are spooky (except mine, I’ll make do with some emojis because I can’t think of a good Halloween name!) and the season of book release upon book release is here. Time to cosy on up with a warm drink and a good book…

The first thing you should know is that my TBR is (hopefully) currently at a standstill – I’m trying not to buy any books this month, and hopefully not until Christmas! This excludes Fairyloot boxes so the books from those will be added to my TBR (and I’m fairly sure I know what those books will be!) but other than that, I won’t be buying any books. This is partly because my TBR is super huge, especially after YALC, and partly because I need to save money!

I don’t like to give myself an overly prescriptive TBR because I never stick to them. I want to be free to be able to pick up any book and be able to read it – and equally, sometimes I won’t be in the mood for a particular book, even if, at another time, I would instantly devour it.

I’ve read 75 books so far this year(!) and hoping to get to a hundred so the goal is 25 books before 31st December…

I’m reading a weird combination of books at the moment, but I’d like to finish Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (I’m really enjoying this one and reading in preparation for the film which releases November 3rd), Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (non-fiction about gender differences), Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (first time reading!) and Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (I have all of the rest of her books but just can’t seem to get through this one…).

My Kindle is nicely full at the moment – I’d like to read two of the Zoella Book Club, After The Fire by Will Hill and Girlhood by Cat Clarke before the year is out. I’d also like to read Fireblood by Elly Blake, before the final book in the trilogy is released in June 2018.

Hardbacks I’ve not got round to reading yet include Windwitch by Susan Dennard (in preparation for Sightwitch coming January 2018) and Stalking Jack The Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco (I was so excited for this one last year and still have not read it… story of my life!). I was also sent a beautiful copy of Warcross by Marie Lu which sounds amazing.

In the Shadowhunters world, I want to get up to speed with all the books before The Queen of Air and Darkness is released, which has been pushed up to May 2018. Whilst I’ll be reading Lord of Shadows next year, I’d like to get up to date with Magnus Bane and The Bane Chronicles as well as The Midnight Heir.

Staying with Fantasy, I have a wild ambition to read all the ASOIAF books and rewatch the entirety of Game of Thrones before the final season, and so I had better get on with reading A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin. I wasn’t the biggest fan of A Game of Thrones but I love seeing the foreshadowing that’s going on way back in the first books.

Over to New Releases, I am so excited for A Shiver of Snow and Sky by Lisa Lueddecke and thank you very much to Scholastic for sending me a beautiful copy (this is such a gorgeous book!).

I also plan on reading my YALC haul – a lot of these books release in 2018 and it’s coming round fast! I’m hoping to get into City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty, The Taste of Blue Light by Lydia Ruffles, The Treatment by C. L. Taylor, This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada… as well as 2018 releases including The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, The Fandom by Anna Day and The Truth and Lies of Ella Black by Emily Barr.

I’m also exciting to read more Margaret Atwood, and I hope to get through Alias Grace in time for the Netflix series that will be released in November.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I’m excited to see which books will be my favourites, and which may fall a little flat.

Have you read any of these books, and what are you planning to read this autumn? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me at @annalisebooks x

Review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought The Handmaid’s Tale months ago, and promptly left it unread for months before picking it up on the train home during Easter break. I then lost it. I spent a whole term wondering where i’d left it – on the train, at home, at university – before I found it underneath my bed (at home). Still, it went unread until I was compiling my reading list for my holiday, and so it finally got the love and attention it deserves, 4900ft up a mountain in the French Alps.

It was worth the wait.

Offred is a handmaid in the republic of Gilead. Her role is to go and buy groceries for the Commander’s household, and to bear his children. If she can’t bear children, she is worthless. She remembers the time before Gilead, when she had a husband, a daughter, a job, and knowledge, but that has all been taken away from her. The extreme Christian Right have taken over, and with it, Offred has lost her freedom, her name, and her family.

Apparently this book is like marmite – some people love it and some people hate it. I love it. It’s difficult to write a review about a book that you love.

First off, let me just mention that the writing style is a little different, and that initially put me off reading the book. It took a few chapters to get into the flow of the words, and into the world itself.

The novel is speculative fiction at its finest (that is, a situation that could theoretically happen on Earth in this day and age, rather than some crazy sci-fi alien war with zombies and dragons). There’s nothing in this novel which is completely unbelievable – which is what makes the story so compelling, the overall feeling that this could very well be reality.

Why should you read this book? If you, like me, love dystopian novels, or at least have read a few of the more popular ones, this is a good source of inspiration. It almost certainly has inspired and influenced some more modern dystopian novels. It’s one of the more classic dystopians, and that alone should push it onto your reading list. It’s also a great feminist novel, and really gets you thinking about the current state of society, and its treatment of women (which is more than relevant today).

After reading this novel, I think i’ll have a more informed view of today’s YA feminist literature, and i’ll be sure to add more Margaret Atwood novels to my TBR list.

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