Bout of Books 13: It begins

It's time for Bout of Books!

Yeah, I'm fresh off Bex's re-readathon, and it's my last week of classes as an undergrad ever, and I've got essays and revision coming out of my ears but NONE OF THAT MATTERS.

What is Bout of Books, I hear you cry? From the blog:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 11th and runs through Sunday, May 17th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 13 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team


What I'm reading

This is my humble book pile, or at least what I'm starting with. From top to bottom:

1. Nana by Emile Zola: This is for uni. I've got 30 odd pages left and should, in theory, finish it tonight. Technically I was supposed to have it finished over Easter, but ssh. It's good though- I'm enjoying it more as we enter the craziness towards the end.

2. Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk

Non-renewable library book, so high priority. I have a sort of love/hate thing with Chuck Palahniuk. Some of his books are amazing. Some of his books are dire. Going by the reviews, his newest offering might be in the latter category, but I still have to read it, because that's how my mind works.

3. The Charioteer by Mary Renault

Same story as above: need to read it asap or LibrariesNI will have my guts for garters. This is kind of unusual in that it's a World War II story, published in 1953, dealing with gay themes. I'm really into reading LGBT+ canon and I've heard Mary Renault is pretty great, so here we go. I started it last night and I'm loving it so far.

4. Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam

Not as high priority as the others- it might fall on the backburner a bit, as I really want to read my library books this week. But it's a book that I'm currently reading, so I'll probably pick it up at some point this week. As you can probably tell from the title, it's a non-fiction book about female masculinity. I'm fascinated by gender, being non-binary myself, so this should be an interesting read. 

On the Kindle I also have The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, a 19th century sensation novel which I read once before and loved. I'm about 100 pages in (out of nearly 700) and again, it's not my priority this week, but it may well get a look in.

Basically, I want to focus on library books this week. I have a library addiction which has rapidly spun out of control over the past few months, so I want to get a good dent into those. After Beautiful You and The Charioteer I've got some interesting non-fiction books that I've been dying to read. Here's hoping I'll get around to them!