Hi! It's Penny here! And today we're going to be putting together my TBR
for October, which is the spooky month and for a long time, I've been putting
aside a couple of spooky books to read in october so we'll see if
we can fit those into the TBR. But as usual I will be using
my TBR machine website that generates random reading prompts
to pick three books. I'm just going for three books lately because I just
started a new job, life is crazy, and three books is
actually enough of a challenge. And I still will be reading audio books
and library books on top of that so I'll probably still end up with too
much to read. So firstly I do just want to touch on
library books. I expect in October I'll still be
reading Oathbringer, unless like I lose my job and I decide to escape from
reality. There's just no way that I'll get
through this this month. But I am really enjoying it.
It's the third book in the Stormlight Archives. It's an impossible series to
describe because there's so much going on and this is the third book in the
series so anything I say really would spoil you but I am really loving
that. As well, I got Deck of Omens by Christine
Lynn Herman from the library. It's this beautiful
copy with sprayed edges and it's also the final book in the
duology. The first book being the Devouring Gray. So in this
series we have these four founding families of this town and
each family has different magical abilities and they use
those abilities to keep this demon-type creature locked away
in the fog and keep people safe from it. There were some elements that I really
enjoyed in the first book so I'm excited to see how it's going to wrap up.
Also, before I get into picking my prompts,
I wanted to say. So next month I have a plan.
I've been thinking about how I could introduce punishments into
my TBR game. So like if I don't read the books that I said I was going to read,
I should be punished but generally people make the punishments
something like 'read a terrible book' and that just sounds awful to me. I know it's
supposed to be a punishment so it's supposed to be awful but
like um no. I don't want that. Also, like since I started working again,
I just feel so short on time that why would I want to
waste time reading a book that I didn't think I was gonna like,
if I could be reading a book that I did enjoy. Just
it's not something I'm interested in. So I was thinking of a better punishment
and I think what I'm gonna do is set up both a reward and a punishment system.
So back before I started my new job, I created a list of all the things I
wanted to buy when I started working again and when I
started having money again. So what I'm going to do is
for every book I finish, I'm going to reward myself
by buying one thing off that list. And then,
if I don't read a book off my TBR, I instead have to take the money and
donate it to charity. Now I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work
with deciding how much I donate because I'm not going
to pre-select which things I want to buy for the list because I want to buy them
in the moment whatever I'm the most excited for.
Also, some of the things on my list are going to be hard to find so it might
depend on what I can find. But I figured this was the kind of punishment where
if I'm being punished at least I can still feel good about myself because I'm
doing something good for charity. And I've always thought
that I should donate more to charity than I do
so maybe this will help me with that. What I would love is
if you know of any charities that you think are particularly deserving,
put them down below so that I can check them out and then maybe I'll
pick the charities from there. I haven't really planned this out yet but we'll
work it out. And then, in my wrap up, I'll tell you
how well I did. So with all of that out of the way,
let's pick the first prompt. Read the shortest book
on your tbr. I wonder what it is? Okay, so the shortest book on my tbr is the
tbr machine and other stories by H.G. Wells. I don't often like classics
however I do like time travel so this is a
story I wanted to read. I picked this up I think for like two
dollars from a bargain bin. It's probably not the prettiest edition
but I am really interested to read the story. I don't know much more
about it other than there's a time machine. I really think I
watched the movie at some point but don't remember it. Anyway, that's the
first book. Let's pick the next prompt. Read a book
released 10 or more years ago. Now I'm pretty sure I have a million of
those on my tbr cart because a lot of them are older fantasy,
so the hard part is going to be picking which one I want to read.
Okay, so I can fit one of the books that I was saving for October
into this prompt and that is Dark places by
Gillian Flynn. I don't know anything about this other than it's Gillian Flynn
who wrote Gone Girl and I also read Sharp Objects by her. I
kind of liked them. Like they're.. hmmm... I'm maybe not a mega fan but I did
want to read this. This is another one that I got for super cheap from a thrift
shop and October is a really good time to
read thrillers so this will be my one for that. I will
also say there are several readathons that I'm
eyeing up in October but I haven't committed to any yet
because I don't know how to fit that stuff in my life at
the moment so we'll have to see how that works out
as the month goes along. Or at least when we get closer to the month because
maybe in another week or two I'll be used to working... (probably not)
Okay, let us pick the final prompt. Read a book
with purple on the cover. Okay another one
that I have been putting aside for October. This one is
the Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter. This is one that I picked up from a
little library. You can see it's an ex- library book. It's also a middle grade
book but of the highest reading level! So this is
another one though that I don't know much about. There's
these three children and I remember reading the blurb and it
did say something about how they're all very strange. And it says it's wickedly
dark, unusual, and compelling. Honestly, it's got
a cat on the cover. Cats on the cover are
always a yes from me. So these are gonna be
the five books on my tbr for October and if I read them all,
I can be rewarded. If I don't, I'll be punished
by being forced into being a nice person. It does seem
like a fairly realistic pile. Does it? I don't know. What speed I read at
anymore so who knows? Also, for those of you really paying
attention, I do still need to read these two books for my secret library
project. I don't know when I'll get around to
that but one day we'll finish that video. Maybe it'll be in October! Who knows! As
well, I do also have quite a lot of audio books that I will
probably be reading in October but honestly, I have so many audio books
out at the moment and I don't know how many I'm gonna get
through by the end of September. This is the problem with pre-filming your tbr.
But let me make some guesses. I think it's quite likely that I will be
listening to the Silver Mask by Holly Black and
Cassandra Clare. This is the fourth book in the Magisterium series,
which is basically just a magic school series.
I quite like the way it's dealing with the chosen one versus the
dark enemy kind of trope. And there were some things revealed at the end of the
third book which did make me excited to read this fourth book
so I'll be glad to get to that. I also have the third and final book of the
Scythe series. So that is the Toll by Neil
Shusterman. This is set in a world where no one dies anymore. Supposedly it's a
perfect world, except that because they have
overpopulation, they have nominated these Scythes who choose people to die to keep
the population under control. And primarily, we're following several
different Scythes as they learn about some problems in the
world. I was very unimpressed with the first
book in the trilogy, the second book in the trilogy I almost
liked, but I've heard very mixed opinions about
the third book so I don't know how I'm gonna feel about it. I guess we will find
out in October. I also think that I'll be
getting to the Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. So this is one
where I expect the writing to be very lyrical.
I've read the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and that was beautiful
but I admit, very difficult to understand and not great if you don't like
things to be ambiguous. And in this one there's a boy who finds his own story in
a book and things get very strange from there.
I expect it to be also not very clear what's going on.
But since I did enjoy reading the Night Circus via audiobook, I thought I would
try the same format with the Starless Sea. And
the Starless Sea is also one of the books on my 20 books that I wanted to read in
2020 list. In fact, the Toll is on that list too so
I am doing very well with that list, even though I'm cheating
by reading them on audiobook. But is it cheating?
No. No it's not. And maybe some other audiobooks will hang over from September
or I'll find some more holds. I don't think three audiobooks is enough but
let's say three for now because that's a nice easy commitment. Because I think
the audiobooks count in the reward and punishment as well. Do they?
Yes. I think they do. So that means I've committed to eight books in total, which
does mean that maybe I could buy eight things for
myself. The only downside of this strategy that
I've come up with is that if I read all my books I almost feel
bad. But really I do need some motivation to read
less. That was one of my reading goals for this year so
maybe it will help with that as well. Anyway, that is my tbr for October.
Let me know if you've read any of these books and whether you think I'm going to
like them or not. And, of course, remember to leave me some
charities down below so I can work out where my punishment money will go if I
end up being punished. Otherwise, thank you so much for watching!
I hope that you're doing well and i will see you next time :)