bookclub - Choice of Magic

Fiction Books

May´s Book Club – Old and New

June 1, 2021

The thing with sticking to a certain monthly reading theme, especially when one reads a lot, is that by the end of the month one can be quite tired of said theme. So for this #monthlybookclub despite starting with Murakami and having a huge urge to just read Murakami for the rest of my days, I switched it up a bit. I ended up reading two new books – by Murakami and Allende, and two older ones – by Hilton and Ferber, two authors I didn´t know until receiving their books for my birthday this year. I´m always fascinated when discovering new authors that write something I end up loving, especially when we´re talking about late 19th, beginning of 20th century ones. And so, let me tell you all about what I read this month. Spoiler alert: I pretty much loved every book this time!

Non-fiction Fiction Books

April´s Book Club – a Classic, a “Relationship Saver” and One that Will Make You Think

April 30, 2021

April was a weird reading month, as you might have gathered from the title. I took forever to finish Jane Eyre, a classic I had started in March and ran a book club on in mid April. And then I raced through two books in one week while on holiday. Some months are simply like that. If I crunch down the numbers, I haven´t read that much in April, especially not when I think of how much time off I had and how little of it I spent reading. But the three books I did read in April turned out full of powerful lessons and generated some pretty awesome conversations, both with others, and with myself. And so, let´s see what I read for this #monthlybookclub.

Fiction Books

March´s Book Club is All About the Classics

March 31, 2021

Blame it on the arriving of spring and the romanticism that comes with it, but the month of March always makes me want to go back to the classics. And since I had taken advantage of the Christmas sales and bought plenty of them, I picked up a couple, let you also vote for one additional one to read with me for the digital book club, and here we are. I will not be covering Jane Eyre, which I am still reading for the interactive book club discussion mid April, but instead will sum up the other three classics I read in this beautiful month of March.

Fiction Non-fiction Books

The Best Books I Read in 2020

January 7, 2021

Looking back at 2020 is quite a chore in itself – a year filled with unknown, ambiguity and anxiety, in which the expectations were as low as just surviving it. When the pandemic hit, I, like many others, set some goals for myself and remarkably enough, I actually met them – every single one of them, indeed. I divided them in a couple of categories: emotional goals (closely related to my family and friends), intellectual ones (related to my career, the blog and my self development), financial ones (related to my savings and debts) and physical ones (related to my eating and working out habits). My reading goal falls in the intellectual realm and is a thing that I have been setting for myself every year for the last couple of years, if not decade. This year I aimed to read 40 books – a goal I achieved a couple of days before 2020 ended, but what made this year special is the fact that all year long I stuck to monthly themes and every month I came to the blog with an article reviewing what I had read. This was most fun and will culminate into this article showcasing my absolute favourite books of 2020. As for next year, I plan to set a more ambitious goal as well as have some goals related to reading both classics but also contemporary writers more frequently, as well as poetry and plays. And now, let´s look back on the books I most loved during this most hated year and the reviews I wrote upon finishing them.

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 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.