Hi! It's Penny here and today I’m going to be doing a book haul talking about all the
books that I have acquired over the last month or two. Most of these I bought from
thrift shops, some from the library free bin and there are two that I actually paid full price for,
but I’m gonna go through these from cheapest to most expensive. Not including the last two books,
I’ve got 18 books to talk about and they only cost me $14 so I think that's pretty good bargain
hunting. So let's start with the free ones because you might see that some of these free ones are not
the best quality so maybe not the best bargain But it's free so like it's worth it. So the first book
I got is Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. This is the first book in a trilogy, the Book of the Ancestors
series and we have this school of assassin nuns, I think? I don't really know much more about it
than that but I don't know, a lot of people really enjoyed this series and I did want to pick it up
at some point. So for free, why not? So I got that one from the library free bin outside my library.
They have a little section of free books updated all the time or at least every time I go there
there seems to be new books. I also got Closer to the Heart by Mercedes Lackey so Mercedes Lackey
wrote the Valdemar series which has something like 50 books in the series and it was one of my most
favorite series when I was probably 11. I started reading it and then right through my teens I was
reading it. It was probably my introduction to proper epic fantasy. This one is actually
book two of a trilogy set in that bigger Valdemar world. So in the Valdemar series there's all sorts
of magic going on but primarily we're following the Heralds of Valdemar, who all have these
different magical abilities and they get chosen by these magical horses to represent the kingdom
and try to make things better. So this one is from one of the later trilogies and so
I have to admit some of these later trilogies that I’ve tried, I haven't liked as much. But I thought
for free, I’d pick it up. It is also the second book so I’d have to come across the first book. I
think it's very unlikely that I would purchase it at full price or even get it out of the
library so fate will have to intervene if I’m ever going to read this book. But it was free
so I picked it up anyway. Then the last book I got just a couple of days ago when I was walking
home from walking with my sister. On my way I go past this little free library and I thought
I would check what was in there at the moment because I don't think I’ve checked it since
pre-lockdown because it was closed during lockdown. So I was very excited when I saw
in there Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson because I really love this story. I love Brandon Sanderson.
I would love to have copies of all of his works and to get one for free would be really cool.
Unfortunately, it is fairly damaged so I don't know how I feel about that.
It's definitely completely readable. Like none of the text is damaged but this corner
is a mess so I’m wondering if I could do some kind of book repair on it. I don't know anything about
repairing books but I mean, it's a great story. Just because it's got a little bit of damage
doesn't mean it's not valuable. So I will say, this particular story, I think is one of the most
complex magic systems of Brandon Sanderson’s that I’ve read. I found it quite hard to understand,
even harder than the Stormlight Archives. We've basically got people who are able to draw the
colors out of things and create magic using that but there's also this concept of having breaths.
So everybody has a breath and you can accumulate more breaths and the more breaths you have the
more powerful you become. There's also these people who have essentially come back from the
dead and they have breaths donated to them so they are essentially gods, including this one who has
50,000 breaths or something and so he's amazingly powerful. But we follow this girl who ends up
marrying him and everything is not as it seems as is often the case in Brandon Sanderson books.
Anyway, I have already read this one but I’m excited to actually own it even if the quality is
somewhat debatable. Okay, then we move on from my free books to my $1 books. So I have a pile here
of books that I picked up from this book fair. We were actually going to the beach and we drove
past the sign that said book sale on today and I said let's stop by that book sale. So it was
a charity book sale. They were selling the books for a dollar each. I got seven books
although I actually paid ten dollars because they didn't really have any change and
why not? It's not like I’m gonna be broke because I threw them an extra three dollars. So these are
all the books I picked up. Firstly, I picked up Rusalka by C.J. Cherryh. I don't know how
to say that. I don't really know anything about this except it seems to be some kind of Russian
folklore inspired fantasy and I have heard of this author before. In fact, I feel like I owned
something by her before and then I got rid of it. But she is on my list of like authors from the 90s
that I would be interested in seeing what they're like so I added that to my pile. To be honest,
I was trying to find 10 books so that I could pay $10 and not hassle them about change but I
couldn't find 10 books and so I just gave them the $10 anyway. Anyway, I also picked up the Martian
by Andy Weir. So this is quite well known. A guy basically gets stuck on mars and has to survive
for some amount of time by himself. I have seen the movie but I haven't read the book. And I have
heard that it's really good quite funny, makes the science really easy to understand, so I thought,
why not? I’m not like in a rush to read it but I wouldn't mind reading it so for a dollar, why not?
Then I have five books from the same series. So we have book seven of the Wheel of Time,
we have book eight from a Wheel of Time, book 11 from the Wheel of Time, oh book 12 from the Wheel
of Time, and book 13 from the Wheel of Time. So five books from the Wheel of Time series - 7 8
11 12 13. That's not very sensible. I haven't even read book one of the series yet but the later
books were written by Brandon Sanderson because Robert Jordan died and Brandon Sanderson finished
up the series. Also, a lot of people really love Wheel of Time so it is one I want to read.
I don't know when I’ll get to it but I know I want to read it at some point so I thought
if I could get some of the books for a dollar then I should. Also, like they're not exactly
the same editions but they are about the same size so close enough. And I mean, I think you
can tell from the fact that I’m willing to accept that damaged version of Warbreaker that I’m not
actually that fussy about all the books on my shelves being in perfect condition as long as
I’ve got lots of stories to enjoy. I just realized I was trying to go from cheapest to most expensive
but that's not right because now I’m moving on to 50 cent books and 50 cents is less than a dollar.
Anyway, another day I was walking past the Salvation Army shop on the way to the library
and I really should walk past because I already have way too many books but something tempted me
to go in and I ended up buying these five books. And then I had to go to the library and pick up
another book and I had to walk into the library with a pile of books and then walk out with a
pile of books. The same pile of books and that was weird. But anyway, these books. Firstly, I picked
up the first book in the Custard Protocol by Gail Carriger. So I’ve seen a lot of people talk about
a series by Gail Carriger in kind of this style of cover but it's not actually the series. Once I got
home I looked it up and the one that people say you should start with is the Parasol Protectorate
series. And this one is like another series in the same world but set in a different time in history.
Because they're kind of like historical paranormal fantasies. So this is another one I don't think
I’ll read for a little while but 50 cents! I make bad decisions when books are cheap. But the next
four, I’m pretty happy about. So the next four are all books from Robin Hobb. So I got two books
from the Rain Wild Chronicles, which I haven't read yet. This is the fourth series in the Realm
of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. So the Rain Wild Chronicles are a quartet
and which books are these in the series? Three and four. So I think I actually looked up and my
library doesn't have the audiobooks of the Rain Wild Chronicles, which is going to be a problem
but I’m gonna try and find them physically maybe and maybe I’ll read them that way.
I mean, Robin Hobb books are often massive but these ones don't look that bad. 500 pages and
the text isn't too small. And I quite like the covers of these. Like the pictures of the dragons
are pretty cool. Anyway, so there's those two. I also got Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb. So this
is the very last trilogy of the series. I think it's the third book. So this is the very last book
in that whole epic saga. So when I get to this one I’ll be nearly finished. Exciting! Also,
this one has a really cute little letter from their mum, I think. “Dear Natty, love from Mum.
This ties up all the ends.” So I guess that's good sign that when I read this I will feel satisfied
in having read that whole series. But I do think it's gonna still take me a little while. Maybe
all of next year! The other one I got by Robin Hobb is Renegade's Magic. So this is book three
of the Soldier Son trilogy, which I recently saw someone talking about. I forget her but
they were saying that this is actually quite good series as well by Robin Hobb although not as
appreciated by other people. Again, I’ll have to find the first two books in this series somewhere
along the way but fate has been delivering me a fair amount of Robin Hobb books for cheap so
maybe fate will keep delivering. Then I have another pile of 50 cent books and these are
ones just from the 50 cent thrift shop that's 10 minutes walk from my house. Again, I haven't been
letting myself go there very often because it's far too dangerous. I’m trying to get to TBR zero
and none of this is helping with that. But regardless, firstly I got the Priory of the Orange
Tree by Samantha Shannon. This book, for 50 cents! Something to think about sometimes is to think
about the cost per hour of your entertainment. So if you go to a movie and say you spend $15
on the ticket and it's a two-hour movie, that's like seven dollars an hour for your entertainment,
right? This is about 800 pages. So 800 pages would easily take me 15 hours to read. At 50 cents
that's so cheap per hour. Like cents per hour. I will say all the foil is kind of rubbed off a bit.
Maybe I talked about this one already in my last haul because I remember talking about the foil
having rubbed off. I thought I divided this all up right but maybe I didn't. Anyway, 50 cent book!
Still impressed with myself. This, all I know about it is it is like an epic fantasy standalone
where there are dragons from the west and dragons from the east and one of those people think the
dragons are good and the other ones don't like the dragons but the dragons are different, I think?
There's some kind of war… you know what? I don't really know what that book's about but I like
dragons. Then I also have Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey and I know absolutely nothing about this.
All I know is that it's by M.R. Carey, who wrote the Girl with all the Gifts
and the sequel to that the Boy on the Bridge and I really liked both of those so it was 50 cents
and I got it. Then lastly, I picked up Replica by Lauren Oliver. So this is a book and to be honest,
I don't know if I’ll like it, but it's got this creative idea where it's the same story told
two times so you can read it from this side starting with Gemma’s story or you can read
it from this side starting with Lyra's story or you can like alternate chapters back and forth and
then read the story in one go. So I kind of like books that play with like creative formats. So
even if I don't like the story, I just want to see what the format of doing things like that. It's
like something about clones, I think? Honestly I don't really know. Okay, now we are up to the two
that I actually paid full price for. So going cheapest to most expensive. Firstly, I bought
Flight of the Fantail by Steph Matuku. So this is a New Zealand authored book and I have forgotten
what it's about I think it's some kind of like spooky paranormal horror. “A bus full of high
school students crashes in remote bush. Only a few of the teenagers survive. Their phones don't work,
there's no food, and they've only got their wits to keep them alive. And as if that wasn't enough,
there are no nosebleeds, pounding headaches, and erratic behavior to deal with.” Anyway,
I’ve been trying to find more New Zealand authored fantasy especially fantasy by Maori authors and
this counts for that so I was excited to find it. I really wanted to have already read it. I haven't
but I’ve got it so that's a start. And the other one that I bought that cost me quite a lot is the
Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. And I’m a little bit annoyed because it got damaged in the rain
and I haven't got around to complaining yet but I’m super mad about it. Look at this! Ugh. Anyway,
as I said, it's completely readable. It's just when you spend a lot of money on a book
you expect it to be in better condition than a book that you got for 50 cents. Don't you?
Don't you!? I think you do! Anyway, the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Everyone's been talking about
it lately. It is Victoria Schwab’s newest book all about this woman that makes a deal with the devil
to make it so that she can live forever but in return nobody remembers her and so she discovers
that that's actually quite a difficult way to live. I’ve seen a lot of people really loving it.
I’m a little bit scared whenever anything is that hyped. I’m a little bit scared that I’m not gonna
like it. However, I have loved everything by Victoria Schwab that I’ve read before
so that's a good sign, I guess. Anyway, so those are all the books that I have hauled recently.
Do let me know if you have read any of them or if you're thinking about reading any of
them because I would love to talk with you about them down in the comments! Otherwise,
thank you so much for watching! I hope that you're doing well and I will see you next time! :)