Exploring My Bookshelves: October

Exploring My Bookshelves October-2Hello everyone! I hope you all have been doing well. As promised in my tweet on Twitter earlier this month, I had a couple of blog posts scheduled throughout October. So I stayed logged out of my social media accounts related to Xingsings and was quite absent around the blogosphere the majority of the time. I did do some blog hopping sporadically here and there, but honestly, those moments were just bouts of procrastination away from my studying. I still missed a lot; hopefully I’ll catch up to comments and replies tonight. Anyway, I’ve missed everyone and it’s time for a real, non-schedule post! Today is the last Friday of October so I’m back with an Exploring My Bookshelves post!

But let’s get onto this post, shall we? Oh and for those of you that aren’t as familiar with this lovely meme created by Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds and co-hosted with Shannon at For the Love of Words, it’s a weekly one (but adapted as a monthly here at Xingsings) where readers can share what’s on their shelves and/or discover a book collecting dust on their bookcase. Join in the fun if you want to add a Friday bookish meme to your blog!

Part of the meme asks the blogger to share a recent photo of their bookshelf, so here’s mine. Honestly, my shelves haven’t changed in any orientation since the previous month when I shared three months worth of this meme. However, I noticed that I need to start double shelfing (as in having two layers of books per shelf) soon.

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If you want to take a closer look, click the photo to enlarge it! (Haha, the top is so yellow because I had to turn on the lights; the natural lighting wasn’t really working out today. 😅)

October 2, 2015: Graphic Novels

I don’t own any comics but I do collect some manga. I don’t buy a whole lot because they’re super expensive where I live and can be read free online. When I do have a manga splurge, it’s to treat myself or I just simply love that anime so much I’ll try to collect its manga!

October 9, 2015: Guilty Pleasure Reads

guilty

vampire (Twilight, House of Night) | travel/study abroad (S.A.S.S., Little Blue Envelope)

My first thought was vampire books, but now that I think about it that’s like my default subgenre that I reach for anyway so technically they’re not really guilty pleasure reads. So maybe books about travel and study abroad that I enjoy, but I know aren’t culturally accurate and have been criticized by others. And oh, the photo of the vampire books on the left was from months ago when I had my bookshelf sorted by genre, subgenre, and author. I think I was going to use it for some post but never got to; it came in handy for this though!

October 16, 2015: Poetry Books

poetry

Ellen Hopkins books | Vietnamese Poems book

At first, I thought I didn’t have any poetry books until I remembered my Ellen Hopkins ones. They count right? I also found this Viet/English one too. That one is so old I forgot I had it, haha.

October 23, 2015: Companion Books

I only have one companion book and, no surprise, it’s for Harry Potter! 😀 Oh and I took this picture at a very weird time earlier today so yeah it explains the odd lighting. BUT WAIT, OH MY GOSH. The person that edited this is the person that wrote Hunter (a book I’m not sure if I’ll ever pick up again; too much tedious writing, didn’t like it…)! I never noticed this until now, LOL. XD

October 30, 2015: Scary Books

I don’t really like horror so I had a difficult time finding books I own under this genre. I do have a lot of paranormal books though and a few that are in the paranormal/horror crossover genre, The Cirque du Freak series being one of them.

Yup, so that’s it! Hope you guys have nice weekend and a fun, safe Halloween tomorrow! 😀

48 thoughts on “Exploring My Bookshelves: October”

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
      Reply

      I definitely see the appeal of e-books, and I’m starting to really love my Kindle lately. It’s just so convenient with the touch dictionary function. I also love how it’s back-lit which makes reading in the dark so much easier too. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • bettylouise31 says:
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        Without a ebook I would not be reading today. My eyesight is going. The back light and the ability to enlarge letters allow me to read. I even still hardbacks from the library but is much harder and usually takes much longer. I like the touch feature also. I have an app for a thesaurus which I enjoy especially when writing a review. I believe it was free.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Reg (She Latitude) says:
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    Aww, I love Kamisama Hajimemashita! I used to collect manga but they got more and more expensive, not to mention that I get really cranky if I miss just a number.

    Can I just ask — do you organise your bookshelf by colour? Your photos are so pretty!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      The gaps in my series really bother me but I guess it can’t be helped because, you’re right, manga are ridiculously expensive-actually more pricer than regular books. Thank you! Yes, I actually started trying to organize my books by color since August. It’s not perfect and I do have qualms having my series/authors separated (I used to have it separated by genres, subgenera, and authors), but I like this arrangement for now. 🙂

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    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      I’m so in love with them. But the sad this is only two have been translated into English. I’m not even sure if the other volumes will be translated since Chihayafuru’s not very popular overseas. So it looks like I won’t be able to collect them for a really long time if at all. -___- Ooh, if you decide to do it one day, I want to see!!

      Liked by 1 person

        • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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          Sometimes the moments where the poems were read out loud were kind of awkward to read. They were all romanized instead of a literal translation. However, the really cool thing is that both volume 1 and 2 have only 50 poems translated literally in the back of the volumes; I’m hoping this means there’ll at least be a volume 4 and 5 translated so that readers will have all 100 poems in Japanese and English! 🙂

          Liked by 1 person

  10. Lois says:
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    Bookshelf goals. I love how organised your shelves are. I can say the same for mine haha. I’ve been meaning to get into manga for a while now so I’m all for some recommendations. 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      I have some OCD-like tendencies, organization and tidiness being a few. 😛 Oh! I own Sailor Moon but that’s more for nostalgia than for “I love that series so much… asdfghjkl;” So even thought I include those in this, I wouldn’t start with that one. However, I suggest you trying Kamisama Hajimemashita, which is also pictured and mentioned in this post, if you want a fluffy romance with some fantasy/mythological elements. Chihayafuru is a great mix of a manga equivalent to a contemporary with some poetry (and sport themes). For really romance heavy ones I’d suggest Kaichou wa Maid-Sama and Special A. If you’re going for a more gory and action filled ones, Attack on Titan and Claymore are really good! But my absolute favorites are Skip Beat and Nana. Skip Beat has a slow burn romance arc but it’s also about a girl learning more about herself and her career (acting). Nana has some deep themes and its about a friendship between two girls that share the same name, Nana. I also did a Top Ten Tuesday post about my favorite manga ages ago that explains some of these manga a little more in detail, I’ll link you to that post here. Gosh, sorry, haha. This became much longer than I expected to be, I hope you’re not too overwhelmed! Let me know if you give any of these a try, Lois! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • Lois says:
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        This is a very impressive recommendation list and I think these will definitely keep my occupied for a while haha. Skip Beat definitely sounds like something I would absolutely love. Thank you for the recommendations Summer. I’m so excited to dive into the world of manga. 😀

        Liked by 1 person

        • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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          I want to say Skip Beat was released in the early 2000s and it’s still one of the top bestselling manga, which is really impressive because most of the older manga aren’t doing so well anymore. And you’re so welcome, Lois! I really look forward to hearing your thoughts when you try some out! 🙂

          Liked by 1 person

  12. MyTinyObsessions says:
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    I love your bookshelves, but to tell you the truth, I’m most envious of your Sailor Moon manga collection =) I need to get my hands on the books, but they only sell them in spanish here, which is super frustrating… internet it is…;)

    Liked by 1 person

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      Thanks, Cristina! Haha, it was actually pretty difficult for me to get my hands on those. I didn’t realize there were two versions of the Sailor Moon series, an older edition set and the newer one, which is the one I own. And oh no! I kind of understand your struggle though. Only two volumes of Chihayafuru are completely translated in English and there’s at least 10 volumes already out in Japan, I think. :/

      Liked by 1 person

      • MyTinyObsessions says:
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        yes, the second version coincided with the anniversary or something and i want those – they are so pretty. In portugal I can find them in the original version or in english, but here in spain no, everything is either in spanish or catalan. I went to a Manga convention this week, convinced that at least there I would find something, right? NO… I was mad 😦
        Oh, that’s sad! but they will be translated to english though, right?

        Liked by 1 person

  13. cwreads says:
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    Your bookshelf is gorgeous, oh my gosh. I have so much bookshelf envy right now! I love the colours hnnghhhh they make my brain and eyeballs happy. I tried organizing my shelf that way but I then my series get separated and then I get sad. I think I end up rearranging my shelf 2 times a month because I’m never happy with it!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      Ahh, thanks so much, Chooi! Oh my gosh, I totally understand. After I finished arranging my books in this way I was like “Summer, what have you done?!” because I hate having my series separated. I actually had it organized by genre to author to series before it was color coded. And same, I change how it looks all the time, especially when I buy more books and have to cleverly think of how to fit the new ones in, lol.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. Trisha Ann says:
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    Wooow such a huge splurge, Summer! I just hope I have a bank account dedicated for books as healthy as yours haha!
    Btw, do you separate books in a series to achieve this look? It’s still gorgeous!
    Sailor Moon (anime) is my childhood! I really love the show. I wonder if the manga’s different from the show (as what often happens). Happy reading!!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Summer @ Xingsings says:
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      Thanks, Trisha! Haha, my bookshelf definitely looks much different from the first time I posted a picture of it, which was in early March I believe. So it kind of shows how bad my book buying obsession is. I am starting to buy more ebooks though so I am kind of getting better? And yes, unfortunately, I do have to separate my books in series to do this. The logical, OCD-like side of me was so against this arrangement at first, but it’s too much work to disassemble and return these books back into their series that I may just leave this set-up for a little longer. At least until 2016. And funny thing, I’ve never read Sailor Moon’s manga either; I’ve just watched the show, haha. I’m thinking it’ll be much different since there’s so much more episodes compared to volumes!

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