Hi! It's Penny and today we're gonna talk through some books that I have picked
up over the last couple of months. A lot of them come from thrift shops so
they cost me somewhere between fifty cents and two dollars, which I'm very
proud of. Especially because I'm not really supposed to be buying books at
the moment since I am still unemployed thanks to COVID, although it's becoming
less and less thanks to COVID and more and more just because I'm being fussy. but
Regardless, I shouldn't be spending money at the moment so thank goodness for
thrift shops. So let's start this haul by talking about the weirdest book first.
The first book that I found in a recent thrift shop session was this one: Quozl
by Alan Dean Foster. So this I just picked it really because of the cover.
What am I doing with my life?
It's also it was only 50 cents so why not? But it's
just like cute and hilarious. These weird little creatures are like obviously
completely confused about human artifacts and human life. And it says on
the back "the Quozl knew they'd love the third planet from the Sun but it never
occurred to them that anyone lived there." I don't know. I don't know if I will
like this but I just think it's like art to put on the shelf. Also, it has this little
like - I don't know if I'll be able to show you - like a little flip animation in
the corner of the book, which is like quite old school. Yeah this is 1989.
That's about the time when they did all these flip type things. Anyway, it's cool
and I'm looking forward to picking that up at some point. Next, I have a random
Sweet Valley High book. I pick these up whenever I see them and at some point
I'm gonna go through and read them all. I did while I was on holiday pick one up
from a little library and read the first page and they're quite ridiculous. Also,
like the text is really big in this super short so I can imagine it would
take long to read them. This one is Heartbreaker - will Jessica break Bill's
heart too? It's been a long time since I read any Sweet Valley High but I am
excited to read a whole bunch of them at some point in the future. so the next
book I saw it at the thrift shop and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get it or not.
And I told myself if it was still there the next time I came back to the thrift
shop then that I would count it as fate and I would buy it. So a week later
I came back to that same thrift shop with my sister and my cousin and it
was still there so I bought it. And that is the Dragon Nimbus novels vol 1. So
it's a wrap-up of the Glass Dragon, the Perfect Princess, and the Loneliest
Magician by Irene Radford. So I mainly picked this up because I remember a long
time ago when I was like 20 ish I think, I read some books by the same author but
under a different name and I remember looking up that she'd also written
stuff under Irene Radford and thinking oh I want to read that but then never
finding any of it. So I no longer remember what the other name is that she
writes under but this is also about dragons, I assume since it's called the
Dragon Nimbus. I really don't know much else about it but I am excited to get to
it even though it's pretty thick. I might treat it as three books because it
actually is three books according to the cover, just wrapped up into one. Then I
picked up Black Powder War by Naomi Novik. This is the third book. I believe
the third book? Maybe it's the fourth book. Anyway, it's part of the Temeraire
series. Now, I'm not sure whether I still want to read the Temeraire series but I
thought this is kind of a pretty book and so I may as well pick it up since I am
at least somewhat interested. Again, dragons. So we like dragons. But I think
this dragon is like part of the war. It's like an alternate history where there's
dragons that are involved in the war. Which war? I'm not sure but I picked this
book up and maybe I'll get to it at some point. Then I have two books that go
together and I'm very proud because I picked up this one first, which is Lament
by Maggie Stiefvater. It's the second book in a series that she
wrote and probably will never finish. She's written the first two and I think
it's been so long now that she doesn't know how to write the third one because
at this point she would write these first two very differently. But
regardless, I found this one and I was like should I buy the second book in the
series when I don't have the first one? And I decided yes, because I've never
seen this book before. I've never even heard about it. I believe it's some kind
of dark fairy tale type story. But anyway, what's really exciting is a few weeks
later, maybe even like a month later, I found the first book in the series! And
like this so similar and I found them both in the same shop for 50 cents each. I'm
pretty sure that the same person must have donated these and they were donated
together but then they got separated and now I've brought them back together. Very
impressive thrift shopping. Then I have Guardian of
the Dead by Karen Healy. So this is a book written by a New Zealand author and
I believe it includes Maori mythology. I don't really know much about it other
than that but it is one that I wanted to pick up. Because I have been looking for
books by New Zealand authors. I mean, more specifically I've been looking for books
by Maori authors. Or even more specifically, fantasy or science fiction
novels written by Maori authors. Really struggling to find anything, but this one
at least it does include Maori mythology and it seems to be fairly high rated so
I'm excited to pick this up. It's actually on my July TBR so I should be
reading this one soon. Then the last book that I picked up from a thrift shop is
Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier. Juliet Marillier is another New Zealand
author. So I'm excited about that but this one I think is the fourth book in
the series and I've only read the first one. So it might be a little while till I
get to this one. Still, I am excited. It's like Celtic based fantasy. The first book
was like a seven swans... what is that fairy tale called? I don't
know. There's all the swans, her brother's turn into swans and she has to do
something to try to save them. I really loved it, it made me cry. And I really
want to continue this series at some point. Maybe fate will again deliver to
me through thrift shops the rest of the books in the series and encourage me to
do so. I'm not sure that the fate-based thrift shopping way of managing your TBR
is the best way to do things but it's the best way to do things when you want
to buy cheap books. But I do have a few books that I didn't get through thrift
shops, although some of them were also free cause I won them through giveaways. So
firstly, I won the Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal. This is the second book
in the Lady Astronaut series, which I really love. It's like an alternate
history where they went to space slightly earlier, but also woman went to space a
lot earlier. But still, they're having to kind of fight for equality and also go
to space. So it's an interesting book so I am really enjoying it. It's also got
quite strong themes of anti-racism with the main woman being
quite good at recognizing her privilege as a white woman, while still fighting
for equality for white woman. And also our main character struggles with
anxiety. It's a really great series. So I go that from Cat from Brewsandreviews.
I won her giveaway. She sent me that, as well as this. So the Stone Sky by N.K.
Jemisin is the third book in the Broken Earth trilogy. I'm super excited to continue
this series. It's a crazy series about the world
having constant apocalypses, everything kind of gets destroyed and that's had
really interesting effects on society. But there's also these people with the
ability to manipulate the earth with their magical powers but those people
are treated with a lot of suspicion and treated really horribly in a lot of ways.
There's also just so much more to the series and I'm really excited to see how
N.K. Jemisin is gonna wrap it up. Then I also won a copy of This is How you Lose
the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I probably said that name wrong
because I say it wrong all the time. So this I believe is written in letters
between two women from different factions who are trying to change the
past. So they're fighting against each other to get the future that each of
their different factions wants but then also they fall in love. I have seen mixed
reviews about this. Some people say it is very difficult to read but it is very
short so I'm excited to pick it up. And I love time travel stuff so it's exactly
the kind of thing I love. Then lastly, I did buy a book - what? - for full price. But
it's another book by a New Zealand author. And that is From a Shadow Grave
by Andi C. Buchanan. I've read some stuff by Andi before and really loved it so I'm
excited to read their new book. I think this is their newest release. It was released
last year. And this is like a ghost murder mystery set in Wellington in 1930
I believe. Oh. No, what happens is in 1930 a body was discovered in the Mount
Victoria tunnel, if you know Wellington you'll know the Mount Victoria tunnel. And
then 80 years later this girl is trying to solve that mystery. Honestly, I just
love Andi's writing so I wanted to support them and order
this. So those are all the books that I've hauled recently. I didn't spend that
much money on all of them so I'm pretty impressed with myself. Even though I
probably shouldn't have bought any since I'm trying to get down to TBR zero. But
at least I didn't spend too much money! And there some of those that I'm really
excited to read as well as like some of them are just fate, right?
Can't argue with fate. Anyway, let me know if you've heard of any of those books or
if you're interested in reading them. Or of course if you have read them, let me
know that too. I'd love to talk with you more about the books down in the
comments. Otherwise, thank you so much for watching! I hope that you are staying
safe and keeping well in this ridiculous world that we live in. And I will see you
next time :)