bibliollama: (Rainbow Bookcase)
Hey everyone,

So… remember that “be right back – moving house” post I left in August?

Yeah. That turned into a much longer break than I intended.

I didn’t mean to vanish without a word, and I’m sorry for going quiet. Life kind of exploded all at once (as it tends to do), and I’ve been in survival mode trying to keep up with everything.

Since August, so much has changed. I moved in with Li (💖), started a new job (equal parts exciting and exhausting), and have been learning to navigate a whole new version of daily life. Adjusting to all that, especially while juggling mental health and neurodivergent needs, has been a challenge. Some days I feel like I’m thriving, and others I’m just getting through the next hour. But I’m learning. Slowly.

I also started university… and then deferred my module when it became too much to handle on top of everything else. The good news is I’m giving it another go in October. Fingers crossed for a smoother attempt the second time around.

And because my brain loves a new fixation to hyper-focus on, I’ve somehow fallen headfirst into the world of tennis. Yep. Tennis. Watching matches, learning everything about the players, losing hours to YouTube highlight reels—it’s been weirdly comforting to immerse myself in something structured and intense and kind of ridiculous.

I miss reading. I miss writing. I miss this. So I’m dipping my toe back in—no promises on posting schedules just yet, but I wanted to check in and say hello. And thank you if you’re still here after all this time. That means more than you know.

How have you been? What have you been reading lately? I’d love to hear from you.
bibliollama: (Default)
This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge question is Do You Enjoy Shopping? Why or Why Not?

The short answer is 'hell no'. I hate it.

So I have agoraphobia, autism and social anxiety so going to places like shops where there's a lot of sensory input, a lot of people and isn't safe? That's pretty much my idea of hell.

And so, where I can, I avoid it. If I have to physically go to a shop, I will go with a safe person (even if they're on the phone), I will have my headphones, I will have a fidget, and I will go when I know a shop is quieter. But in general, where I can, I will do all my shopping online. I get my groceries delivered every two weeks and Amazon is like my best friend.

I will say, however, that I do love a good wander around Waterstones if I'm in the right mental mindset for it - although my credit card hates it when I do that ;)
bibliollama: (Book Kitten)
June was not a great reading month, if I'm completely honest, as you can see from this graphic. I finished a whole 3 books - but I did also read the BBC Science Focus magazine, July 2023 edition but that isn't something I can log on Storygraph

Unfortunately, June continued not being a great time for my mental health - My car needed another couple of hundred pounds of work after its service, I was very stressed with work, Li's ceiling was being fixed so there was lots of moving of furniture and I ended up completely losing my daily rhythm because of it all. I fell hard into a couple of different mobile games as well.

Milly Johnson - The Teashop on the Corner
5 stars
I absolutely loved this book, which reduced me to tears on multiple occasions. The characters all had very distinct personalities and initially, as each one was introduced, I couldn't see how they would interact. The way Johnson weaved their stories in with the teashop, and how they met and friendships started blooming was fantastic

Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
4 stars
Li's been re-reading Gaiman, and she was enthusing over Neverwhere so I picked it up as well. I read it like 10 years ago, there were bits I remembered perfectly and bits I'd completely forgotten which is always interesting how that happens. I did thoroughly enjoy the re-read (even if I started it in October and promptly forgot about it, whoops!)

Joanne Fluke - Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder
4 stars
That wonderful feeling when you fall in love with the first book in the series, read it in a couple of days and discover there's over 30 more books to read! I saw the first Hallmark movie based on the series ages ago, and we know I love a good cozy mystery! I'd been wanting to read this for a couple of years so was thrilled when I spotted it on Borrowbox

Looking more at the stats side of things:
3 books, 1,21 pages – 33% <300 pages, 33% 300-499 pages, 33% 500+ pages (and I couldn't have done that if I'd tried LOL)
The main mood was mysterious
100% medium paced
100% fiction - which is very unusual or me
Genre wise romance, mystery, fantasy & contemporary
My average rating was 4.33

I do still have a lot books in progress, and they all have about the same number of pages left so July should hopefully have more books finished in it!
bibliollama: (Default)
I've missed a couple of weeks' worth of Book Blogger Hop prompts, so let's play catch up!

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Are there any books with themes or characters dealing with issues related to mental health that you have found to be enlightening or comforting It might be a bit of a cliche answer, but I've found Matt Haig's books to be both comforting and helpful, especially some of his mental health non-fiction. I read The Comfort Book and Notes on a Nervous Planet when I was really struggling with anxiety and agoraphobia, to the point where I couldn't leave the house. There was just something so calming, so comforting and so relaxing about them that genuinely helped soothe my brain.

I recently read The Midnight Library - a book I'd been wanting to read for AGES but had been putting off because I got nervous I wouldn't like it (I hadn't been thrilled by one of Haig's other fiction books I read). It was, however, utterly fantastic and I gave it 5 stars. The descriptions of Nora's depression resonated so strongly with me.

Do you consider yourself a book collector or a book hoarder? Oh, definitely a collector. The collection looks a little hoard-like at the moment; there's piles of books everywhere because I'm sorting them, cataloguing, reshelving and figuring out a) how many more bookshelves I need and b) where they're going to go.

Summer often means more time for reading. Do you have a list of books you're eager to start reading during June's warm days? Do you have a summer reading goal? I'm not really a seasonal reader, but I did post my current summer TBR earlier this week.
I don't think I have any specific summer reading goals, other than continuing to read most days and try to focus a little on some of my reading challenges that aren't very far along.

Will society suffer in the future as a result of the younger generations' lack of reading? OK so I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, but based on what I've seen/heard, I'm going with yes. I also don't think it's the actual issue at hand, but rather a symptom of something much larger - although I can't pin down what that actually is. Like, it would be super easy to blame social media for 'rotting kids brains' and 'causing short attention spans' but then you only have to look at the size of the bookish community on social media which is filled with readers of all ages - including, yes, the younger generations. I'm sure I've even seen stats that things like TikTok are inspiring teens/new adults to start reading and reading is trending upwards again

There's a whole other rant about the way social media works and preys on people and oh I wish how it worked like it did 5, 10, years ago when it just showed me the people I'm following in chronological order - my social media experience is very carefully curated, I met pretty much my whole friends group through social media and lets not forget I met my fiancee on AO3 and Tumblr. But, as I said, that's a whole other thing... it is connected tangentially in that it's a symptom of the same larger issue that's affecting society.

I don't know if 'suffer' is necessarily what's going to happen with society. Society is currently undergoing such a huge change through all levels and because we're right in the middle of it, we can't see the end of it and it's scary and it's easy to blame 'the younger generations'. I'm a Millennial - we're still getting blamed for everything after all!

I don't know that I've actually answered the question - the answer is both yes and no and it's complicated - but this is the post that it inspired!

Profile

bibliollama: (Default)
Cassie

June 2025

M T W T F S S
      1
23456 78
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated 10/06/2025 07:41
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios