Gayle Forman

And suddenly, everything went to hell. So unfortunately, after Jan and Feb worked out quite alright, my stats took a nosedive in March …

They divide books into delicious morsels ready to be devoured – and sometimes we decide to eat up the whole serving tray in one go resulting in a major hangover with the flavour of our huge disappointment that there’s nothing left. They help us remember where we left off – well, at least those people who have awesome memory. Everyone else lets the good old bookmarks do the remembering. They are wonderful excuses to procrastinate – “Just let me finish this.” – “Only one more.” – we’ve all been there. Sometimes, they make us tear out our hair because they leave off with a cliffhanger and we have to stop to do annoying real life stuff or have to read half the book to get back to this certain point of view – or even one and a half books, in case you’re reading A Song of Ice and Fire. They come in different sizes and even more shapes to look their very best.

Who needs wrap-ups when one can have newbie posts, right? Riiiight? [The wrap-ups are coming. Winterish.] Truth be told, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you are already pretty annoyed by my excessive purchase behaviour and these posts. I kind of feel like one of those BookTubers who have massive book hauls every (other) week or so, bragging about their new pretty books without ever reading them. I just realised that’s pretty much me – only I write monthly posts …

Last year, I had exactly ten books on my first read favourites 2013 shelf this time around. This year, however, there are only five. Therefore, I included my five favourite four star novels as well …

Ahem, this is even worse than last month. First, we have the non-bookfair newbies (the bookfair newbies are below) …

Even though my reading month of August ended a little early since I went on a short holiday on the 26th until the 3rd of September, I was able to improve my stats ginormeously. I increased the number of pages read and finished a smashing number of nine books. This makes August my third best reading month so far this year. Most surprisingly, I was able to fulfil my goal of reducing my TBR pile by two books this month. This is only the second time this year that I get a lottery ticket in the TBR reduction extreme challenge. I still can’t believe it for I went book shopping in both Munich and Berlin! …

Buying books is both my fervent passion and my worst vice. Sometimes, I even wonder whether it is not an addiction or an illness of some sorts, because I’m constantly buying – much more than I will probably ever be able to read. But, you know, they look so pretty on the shelves! …

Normally, I’m trying to buy in reasonable masses. However, if I find an excuse with which I can keep my conscience quiet, I forget all good resolutions. That’s what happened in April, because I thought that Easter would be a great excuse to buy tonnes of new books. Well, it’s my one and only treat after all.