Books – Page 2 – Choice of Magic

Fiction Books

December´s Book Club – On Magical Universes

December 31, 2020

How fitting is it that this year´s last blog post is a book club – one of the things that brought me most joy in a most erratic 2020? This post is also the 50th post on this version of the blog (I am still missing about 100 posts that I haven´t transcribed from the last version of the blog but I will be tackling that throughout 2021.). And to wrap up this insane year, what better topic than magical universes? I read three books this month, hereby concluding my 40 book in 2020 reading challenge. I´m thinking of setting an ambitious goal of 50 books to read next year and to focus more on plays and poetry while also balancing the classics with new contemporary authors. 2021 will hopefully be yet another year of learning and growth and I cannot wait to take you along this reading journey through next year´s monthly book clubs!

Non-fiction Books

November´s Book Club – Memoirs of Great Women

December 1, 2020

I regularly find myself drawn to books written by great women – just today I started a book just on magnificent women´s work habits. And so, November has been a month where I immersed myself into three memoirs of some of my biggest contemporary role models – Maya Angelou, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Michelle Obama. Their books, all different and wonderful, have definitely inspired me through a period that hasn´t been exactly easy to navigate. I think this November´s #monthlybookclub might as such be the first book club where I rated all books I read a 5/5 without batting an eye. Here´s what I thought about each of them.

Fiction Non-fiction Books

October´s Book Club – New Books

October 31, 2020

Last month, as I was searching my bookshelves for books to read in October, I cheerfully realised I don´t have that many unread books hanging around anymore. This year´s system – of choosing monthly themes for my #monthlybookclub seems to have enabled me to choose books from my library that were long waiting to be picked up. And so, I am happy that soon I´ll be able to buy new books without the underlying guilt of having a huge to read shelf at home. For the month of October I ended up picking books without a particular theme, instead just ending up with a small pile of “new” books – books by contemporary writers. Here´s what I thought of them.

Fiction Books

September´s Book Club – On Young Angst

September 30, 2020

If you´re reading this, I bet your first question is: how did she come up with the young angst theme? Well, as always, it kind of came to me. I actually intended this month´s book club to be dedicated to Romanian authors. I started off with a classic – Romanul adolescentului miop and quickly finished it in the Frankfurt airport on my way to Romania. Once in Romania, I intended to read some more classics, but then life happened. I raided my best friend´s grandma´s library and took home no less than 29 novels that I cannot wait to read. And while there were plenty Romanian once, I actually decided to start reading Colette´s End of Chéri. Just when I thought I had broken the theme, I realised I had stumbled upon another. Both novels explored young angst – the first, of a teenager who won´t quite fit in at school, the second of a youngster that won´t find love and fit in with women his age. I loved both books and sped through them super fast, so I am a bit confused about how I didn´t get to read more books this month, but I am determined to catch up in the upcoming cold months. In the meantime, here´s what I thought about the two books I read in September.

Fiction Books

August´s Book Club – On Fantasy and Wickedness

September 1, 2020

After July´s failed book club, I was determined to get back on track with my reading challenge and nail August. I figured July´s challenge failed so miserably because the books i chose were not light enough for the beach, which I found myself often on. So this time I chose some fiction – mostly science fiction. Soon on I also discovered a common denominator in the books´ themes – wickedness, the idea of evil. Despite the heaviness such a theme brings, the readings were light enough to devour about a book a week, so August brought me back on track towards this year´s reading challenge – which stands at 40 books (I read 27 so far). Here´s what I thought of these month´s books and which kept me awake at night.

Fiction Non-fiction Books

July´s Failed Book Club on Portuguese Classics

July 31, 2020

July has been the live testimony that while other people read a whole library during summer, I am an utter failure at it. I have not finished one single book which I started in July and I could kick myself for it. After months of confinement, July has finally been a super sunny month of friends´ visits and even a small getaway to Évora . Unfortunately for the monthly book club, that meant little time for books. In all fairness, I do prefer reading when it´s dark, rainy or cold outside, so my failure is somewhat justified. As such, this month´s book club will be a bit different and it won´t have neither ratings, nor proper reviews (except for Pessoa´s Forever Someone Else with I am on the last pages of and as such feel comfortable reviewing it). The theme of the book club has been Portuguese classics and here are the books I´ve wanted to read and partially started, and what I thought of them or why I chose them.

Fiction Non-fiction Books

June´s Book Club – Women and their Journeys

June 30, 2020

This month´s book club theme kind of unveiled to me only towards the end of the month, when I started drawing a line through the books I had read. I intended them to be books by strong women, about strong women. As I was finishing the fifth book of the month, it dawned on me though, that I had somehow chosen books about strong women and their journeys. The journeys transcend geographical borders as well as emotional phases of these women´s lives. They are journeys of self-discovery, a process that sometimes goes unnoticed by our heroines, but never seizes. A couple of the books are extraordinary, a couple are really good and one is just plain bad. There´s fiction and non- fiction, there are American writers and a Turkish one, there are white writers and a black one. I tried to keep it diverse, in an effort of educating myself. I hope you enjoy it and if you read any of these books, I would love to hear your thoughts on them in the comment section.

Non-fiction Books

May´s Book Club – It´s All About Business

May 31, 2020

After April´s book club being focused on non-fiction, psychological readings, I kind of felt like choosing novels this month. But then again, I always had a taste for non fiction books ,which I try to incorporate in my routine. And here´s something you might not know about me: I usually read three books at the same time – one novel, one business book and one book about science. I do this because depending on where I am or what I´m doing I might feel more inclined for one or the other. If I am in the subway, I won´t be able to focus on a book about science and might prefer a light novel for example. If I have total silence and can focus, I´ll enjoy a science reading. And if I have highlighters closeby, I´ll go for a business book. However, since I´ve started the monthly themed bookclubs, I have tried to stick to one category. And since last month on my Instagram the majority of you chose the business book theme, here we are.

Books

April´s Book Club – On Sociology and Psychology

April 30, 2020

We live in a mad world and these are crazy times. And while I often feel like escaping this surrealness by burying myself in works of fiction, this month I felt the need to read some books that would help me understand various aspects of human nature better. They might seem a bit random, and perhaps they even are. But I did love the fact that I went through different topics throughout the month. From learning why we´re so bad at reading strangers, to understanding that the world is actually much better than we think it is, to realising that our behaviour as consumers is deeply rooted into human evolution and finally to discovering ways of dealing with family life when both partners are career driven, this month has been one of magical and fascinating discoveries.

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