2020 looks like it’s going to be a great year with respect to new releases! Quite a few of my favorite authors are publishing new works, and I’m also planning to pick up a few releases from new-to-me authors throughout the year. If you’re curious to hear about some of the upcoming publications that I’m most excited about, keep reading!
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2019 was an extremely hectic year for me – between attending college full-time, applying to graduate school, and participating in clubs and extracurriculars, my schedule was packed. I was a little wary of all of these time commitments at the beginning of 2019 and tried to plan accordingly with realistic reading goals (albeit, slightly less lofty than they’ve been in previous years). I’m using the start of 2020 as an opportunity to revamp my bookish platforms (blog, booktube, bookstagram, goodreads, etc.), reflect on my reading throughout 2019, and set myself some new goals for 2020.
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Back to school is one of my favorite times of the year: new stationary + the onset of fall + pumpkin spice flavored everything, what could be better? My college move-in date is right around the corner. Tomorrow, to be exact. And I’m doing anything and everything within my power to procrastinate packing like the responsible human being that I am. In an attempt to further delay packing, what better time to share my experiences with reading and blogging throughout my freshman year of college?
I’m impressively stubborn, sometimes to a fault, yet I prefer to prioritize my mental sanity above forcing myself to read a book from start to finish that blatantly isn’t working for me. While I’m by no means a liberal DNF-er, I average approximately 1-2 books per year that I permanently set aside without completing them. When I first started blogging, my brain absolutely refused to accept the concept of not reading a novel in its entirety. Needless to say, I had several excruciatingly painful reads in which I miserably limped along until the very last page and then promptly dove headfirst into a reading slump. As my TBR pile started to grow exponentially, I gradually recognized that I would not be struck dead by a bolt of lightning if I elected to set a book aside in favor for a higher priority or more promising read. In hindsight, this was one of my most important realizations with respect to my growth as a reader.
I have a book buying addiction, and I cannot lie. Particularly when it comes to acquiring books at a significantly faster rate than I can read them. Death by ominously towering TBR pile appears exceedingly imminent at the moment and certainly would not come as a shock. I use TBRing as a verb – that’s often the first indicator of a problem adorably cute bookish habit that all readers should partake in.
I have an unhealthy book-buying obsession, particularly when it comes to purchasing entire series in a single sitting without having read a single installment in said series. While this method proves rather unfortunate when I’m assigning a one star review to the first book in the series, my inner perfectionist is overjoyed to see the entire series (with matching covers, of course) perched on my bookshelf.
A huge thank you to Kathy over at the Novelty of Life for nominating me for the Winter Wonderland Book Tag!
Snow is my favorite reading weather, and I can never resist curling up with a good book. Considering a snowstorm has rendered me stuck inside by the fireplace for the majority of the day, I couldn’t think of a better time to complete this tag!
With Halloween right around the corner, I’m extremely excited to announce a new project that I’ve been working on with Kathy over at The Novelty of Life!
For several months, Kathy and I have been wracking our brains for a creative way to incorporate the holidays into our blogging – we wanted to see more festive posts, holiday-themed book recommendations, challenges, and read-a-thons, etc. Noticing the relative lack of these holiday-related components, particularly in the book blogging community, we concocted a solution that quickly adopted the name “Festive Reads.”
One of the most common areas of confusion for newer bloggers is ARCs – what they are, how to acquire them, and how to interact with authors and publishers. While I am by no means an expert on ARCs and the requesting process, I’ve received a decent number of them over the years (and am currently sorting through a rather hefty pile of them). Therefore, I’ve compiled a few tips and tricks regarding how to request ARCs and interact professionally with publishers.
Before I started teaching myself how to code, the word “HTML” sent me into a bit of a panic, primarily because I never completely understood it. I couldn’t wrap my head around how garbled nonsense translated into beautifully designed web pages, let alone how I would go about replicating lines and lines of code. When I began researching HTML to learn more, the sheer volume of information I was uncovering was overwhelming to say the least. There were thousands of Google search results, and seemingly more variations and methods to go about writing HTML codes. If you take away one point from this post, let it be this: do not Google HTML, for your own sanity.
Now that I’ve had some time to learn the ropes and experiment with HTML both here on Brewing Up Books as well as on several other platforms, I decided to compile a list and explanations of my most frequently used HTML codes.
eReaders have become widely popular over the past decade and are now a staple for most bookworms. If you’re currently in the market for an eReader, it’s often challenging to gauge which device will be best suited to your needs and preferences – should you get a Kindle? Something with E-ink technology? A touchscreen? A tablet with additional capabilities? Wifi and 3G?
I’ve gone through quite a few eReaders myself throughout the years (I seem to be particularly brutal on them…or I’ve just had exquisitely bad luck), and I’ve consequently had the opportunity to experiment with a variety of features and designs. While I am in no way a technological expert, I figured it couldn’t hurt to share my experiences, likes, dislikes, etc., imparting information I wish I had known prior to purchasing these devices.
Are you thinking of inviting another blogger to join your site? Are you not sure where to start or what you should be looking for? Are you concerned about some of the issues that can arise from having multiple authors contributing to the same blog?
Here at Brewing Up Books, we’ve always had at least two full-time bloggers, as well as several highly overlooked part-time bloggers, such as our humor writer, Julia. We’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way regarding finding cobloggers, establishing reasonable expectations for both yourself and your fellow cobloggers, and interacting with individuals who are 1,000+ miles away.
Here at Brewing Up Books, we use a five cauldron system to rate the books, movies, and TV shows that we discuss from week to week. As an extremely indecisive person, I often struggle with determining a numerical rating for each work that I review, and half cauldrons do nothing to improve matters. After all, what distinguishes a book that receives 3 cauldrons from one that receives 3.5? Are they really all that different?
I’ve written and rewritten this post so many times over the past several hours, and I eventually just had to wave the white flag of surrender and commit to this rendition of it. So please bear with me.
A few months ago, we mentioned that we were starting a blogger database to keep track of a few of our favorite blogs. As promised, we are finally sharing it with all of you!
We were nominated for the Seasons Greadings Tag by the amazing Kate over at Crazy Antics Reviews!
In order to start 2016 off with a bang, we decided to put ourselves to the test and sign up for a few year-long reading challenges. After all, how else would we be kicking off the new year?
2015 was an extremely successful year, for both of us, and it marked the one year anniversary for Brewing Up Books. We decided to compile a brief post to serve as our year in review, in celebration of many more to come!
As 2015 draws to a close, we’re both very excited about some of the new releases that will be appearing on shelves throughout 2016. These are a few of our top picks for the upcoming year.
In the year that we’ve been blogging, we have yet to share what we have on our bookshelf, so we figured it was about time to do so!
Brewing Up Books 