First Lines Friday – 12 March

March 13, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads2 Comments

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“I saw my mother raise a man from the dead. “It still didn’t help him much, my love,” she told me. But I saw her do it all the same. That’s how I knew she was magic.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

#TopTenTuesday: Cutting Down That Backlist!

March 9, 2021August 12, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads44 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Spring Cleaning Freebie (for example, books you’re planning to get rid of for whatever reason, books you’d like to clean off your TBR by either reading them or deciding you’re not interested, books that feel fresh and clean to you after winter is over, etc.)

I’m sure many of you can relate when I say that I have a ton of backlist books that have been sat on my physical and digital shelves for quite some time. Many have been on countless “I want to read this one very soon” lists over the years and continue to be on those lists even until today (literally). One of my goals this year is to focus less on buying all the new books thanks to FOMO and instead focus on the many–the very very many–of my already owned and unread books. I know I tend to say that a lot on my blog posts but this year I am a determined bull. I will get this done *picture that kid with the determined face and raised fist here* 😉 So without further ado, here are ten backlist books that I am definitely going to read this year (and I’ll be focusing on titles that I don’t mention as often as other more popular ones)!

#5OnMyTBR: Retellings

March 9, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Retelling*.

Goodreads Monday – The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara

March 8, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads2 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.*

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara. This is a literary historical fiction with elements of magical realism and is Yanagihara’s debut back in 2014.

Top 5 Saturday: Books I’d Gift Others!

March 7, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads22 Comments

Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: Gift Books (Books you got as a gift, would give as a gift or have given as a gift.)

This prompt has made me realise that… I’ve never really been gifted books before! Hmm… 🤔 I mean, I’ve won giveaways, I’ve had books given to me based on request but I’ve only received a book as a gift three times that I can recall. I’m finding that a little hard to believe and we know my memory is terrible, but I really can’t think of any other times other than a random Secret Santa (Doctor Zhivago), a random “you-like-to-read?!” gift from a family friend (Catch-22), and a summer reunion gift from my bestie (a Nora Roberts book)! That’s a little sad…? LOL, but I digress! 😂 Since it is what it is, I’ve decided to focus today’s post on five books I’d love to gift people! Most of these will come as no surprise to many since I’ve gushed about these books quite often but I’d love for others to also experience the magic of these books ❤️

First Lines Friday – 05 March

March 5, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads13 Comments

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“My first dive was followed by my first drink of rye. The sea was filled with the sound of gemstones as I swam, following my mother’s silhouette toward the puddle of light rippling on the surface of the water.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

#TopTenTuesday: Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had…

March 2, 2021August 12, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads38 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had (maybe not even because the job sounds fun, but maybe the co-workers are cool or the boss is hot?)

I wasn’t too sure if I was feeling today’s prompt but I decided to just have fun with it and not think too hard about being serious or realistic! I honestly think being able to do what any of these characters do in their stories would not only be so amazing but also so much fun! 😍

#TopTenTuesday: Books That Made Me LOL!

February 23, 2021August 12, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads47 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud (Claire @ Book Lovers Pizza)

Ooh, I quite like this topic and I don’t think I’ve ever made a list of books that made me LOL before (although maybe I have and my memory is just that bad)! To be honest, I’m an easily amused person and I tend to laugh out loud quite a lot especially if something’s cheeky or cheesy. If you ask my family and friends they’ll tell you that I love to laugh, and usually at things people don’t often laugh at–not in an inappropriate way though, it just really doesn’t take much to get a full-on laugh out of me! I don’t even know where to begin with this list because I’m not kidding when I say that books make me LOL quite often! 😂 I looked through my 20/21 reads and I already have a list that’s overwhelmingly large, so to make it easy on myself I chose some books at random from the big list. These books didn’t just have me giggling, some of them had me breathless with laughter for a while! I do so love to laugh 😉

#5OnMyTBR: Food, Glorious Food!

February 23, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

This week’s prompt is: Food.

Goodreads Monday – Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malindo Lo

February 22, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. This is a YA LGBTQ+ historical fiction that was released just last month (January 2021) and it has some a pretty high rating!