Touring My Bookshelves: Update 2

Earlier I shared my updated bedroom shelf. Today I'm sharing the shelf that resides in my living room. I want to read all of the books on here as soon as possible but that is sort of an impossibility!

So of all these books I've only read the Harry Potter ones. Jeepers.

Ah, I am already a liar. I have read The Devil Wears Prada. Now I just need to find the time to read Revenge Wears Prada...and all these other amazing books!

So many good books here...including, in the shadows, City of Bones. I won a huuuuge prize pack awhile back, including a hardcover copy of the movie cover book. Must. Read. It. 

Who doesn't love bookish penguins?

This is my Harry Potter and non-fiction shelf. I really want to reread HP but I can't see that happening any time soon...boo. The non-fiction here shows a broad range of interests...there's baseball, Jane Austen, Malcolm Gladwell and more. I am quite diverse, apparently!

Now that my shelves have been shared...again...tell me, how are your bookshelves organized?

Happy reading :)

Touring My Bookshelves: Update 1

Since we last talked about my bookshelves, I've done some rearranging of my house. I decided that was a good time to shake up my shelves since I had to take all the books off to move the shelf anyway! I'll split this up into two posts so it won't be crazy long because of all the pictures.

First up, my upstairs bookshelf:

This shelf is now mostly for the books I don't plan on reading in the immediate future. Of course I will want to read them eventually but I have a whole other shelf plus all the review books I need to get to before these!

Such a random selection of books - purchased, gifted, won. Plus my pretty bunny from my BFF and (almost) all of my LEGO figures (still no librarian...grrrr).

This is the hardcover shelf...plus a few paperbacks that just didn't fit on other shelves. Again, there's a mishmash of won, gifted, and purchased books on here. Plus more bunnies. And a giraffe my sister's friend made! Isn't it awesome?

This shelf is almost only books I got while doing my internship at Random House. Crazy! I think 8 of the 20 came from other sources.

Here you'll find non-fiction titles on the left (some I've read, some I haven't) and YA titles on the right (all unread). Plus my Nintendo DS, stress balls (er, stress food?), and some funny looking hedgehogs.

Other than the Beautiful Creatures set (which I won), I've read all of these books on this mess of a shelf. 

So there we have it! This is the shelf in my bedroom where I sort of shoved all the books I won't be reading soon. Sorry to any authors on this shelf! Eek. 

I'll share my living room shelf (where I'm keeping all the books I want to read asap) in a few days!

Happy reading :)

Touring My Bookshelves: Shelf #4

This is it, my friends. The final bookshelf tour post. Realistically, I could keep going. I keep accumulating new books and will need to put them somewhere but I need to end the tour at some point, right? I'm currently job hunting and it's likely a move will probably be in our near future so maybe I'll do a quick post when/if I have my books arranged in a way that actually makes sense. We'll see. For now, I will show you the pictures of my newest bookshelf.

I bought this shelf a few months ago from good ol' IKEA because I had piles and piles of books just hanging out on my living room floor. Not a good scene. We put the shelf together and I promptly filled it almost to bursting. 

This shelf features the paperbacks that I want to read sooner rather than later. As well as my LEGO mini-figure collection. Series 10 has a librarian that I desperately want but I have yet to find her. Since taking this picture I've found another ball player and a paintball player. But these figures are not the point of this post! Back to the books! This shelf also holds the most books that I've actually purchased. Two at full price (but with gift cards), three bargain, two used, and one on sale. The rest were won, given as review copies (I've got ARCs and finished copies here), or gifted. Are any of your favourites on this shelf? 

This started out as my hardcover shelf but I had to expand it to hold a few paperbacks as well. I purchased one book on this shelf - Revenge Wears Prada - and it was bought with a gift card and it was about 50% off. I've already read three on here (Crazy Rich Asians, Studio Saint-Ex, and The Heist) and as much as I'd like to dive into Perdita next (it takes place near Georgian Bay which I grew up by), I think Trains and Lovers will have to be read first.

On the left of this shelf are my non-fiction reads (the majority of them from when I was doing my internship at Random House of Canada) and to the right are some of my not-yet-read YA. Yes, I do own some young adult titles! I bought a couple but the others are from the Ontario Blog Squad Meet-Up from last fall. My sister bought me Judging a Book by Its Lover for Christmas and I still haven't read it. Must change that soon.

The vast majority of these books are ones that I've already read. Also, can you tell that I love Sarah Dessen? I own ten of her eleven books. The only books I haven't read on this shelf are Creeps (which has been getting good reviews and is out soon, I think), Losing It (won this one and am looking forward to seeing what the deal is with it), and the Beautiful Creatures series (another set I won because I wanted to see what the hype was about). Some excellent books are on this shelf: Emily Giffin's, Life After Life, and the first two Enchanted, Inc. books by Shanna Swendson.

So there we have it. I hope you've enjoyed taking a peek at my bookshelves over the past several weeks!

Touring My Bookshelves: Shelf #3

Welcome to another stop on my bookshelf tour! Today we're back in Midland at my mom's place. The theme of this stop is super awesome books. Most of the books on this shelf have found their way there because I loved them and thought my mom (or my sister or my grandma) would enjoy them, too.

Everyone wave to Jemima Puddle-Duck and Mr. Moose (I just named him that, hence the lack of originality). To further set the scene, these are the bottom two shelves of a large shelf that is in my mom's living room.

Most of these books are classified as "Mom, You Must Read These". Though - an anomaly in Midland - there are also two books that I haven't read yet myself! I bought The Heist Society at a massive book sale and The Rescue at the library bookstore in Midland but haven't read them yet. I'm sure part of the reason is because they're in Midland and I am not! I think my favourite on this shelf is Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick, followed closely by The Single Girl's To-Do List by Lindsey Kelk. A book that's special to me is Wye Write Again. It's a book of short stories and some of my best friend's stories are included!

Now this one is a good shelf. It features three of my favourite authors (Emily Giffin, Catherine McKenzie, and Sophie Kinsella) as well as a ton of just excellent books. There are also a couple of non-fiction books in here, too. The Tall Book was awesome (if you're tall, read it!), Happier at Home was enjoyable, and The Age of Persuasion is so interesting and appeals to my particular brand of nerdiness as it's all about advertising. That one is actually signed as I met author Terry O'Reilly (and his lovely wife) at a bookish festival a few years ago. Awesome guy.

There's almost a little something for everyone on this shelf. The non-fiction I mentioned above, chick lit (check out Breaking the Rules - my favourite from 2012), women's fiction (Swimming at Night was amazing), and romance (Nora Roberts, of course, and Sherryl Woods' new series).

As a bonus, here's a shelf of books that have moved from Barrie to Midland when I moved to St. Catharines (yeah, I've moved around the province!).

It's a bit of a hodgepodge of books and includes a hedgehog as a further bonus! These were ones I had read or bought when I was in Barrie. There were more but some have seemed to migrate back to St. Catharines.

And there we have it! Hopefully I've helped you find some new reads (that second shelf has a ton of good ones, trust me!) and entertained you with this tour. I have one more (big!) shelf to show off so I'll put that post up in a couple of weeks.

Happy reading! :)

Touring My Bookshelves: Shelf #2

Time for another tour stop! About a month ago I showed you the large (and full) shelf that still resides at my mom's place. Today I'm showing you one of the large bookshelves I have at my own house. Someday I'll have enough space for all of my books in one place. Maybe in my next place!

This is my bookshelf in all of its glory. Complete with TV seasons on DVD, a few movies, and Tonks' cage beside it. Speaking of Tonks, the bookshelf now has her personal touches on it as she's nibbled the bottom right part of the shelf. Nothing like a few bunny chew marks on a bookshelf! I was OK with it (it's wood, it won't hurt her, and I'd rather her chew that than the trim on the wall) but the boyfriend was not as appreciative as he actually made this shelf back in high school. Ah well. We love the bunny too much to be too mad! In case you're curious, the TV shows include Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Bones, House, Glee, and The OC. The movies hanging out over there with the penguins, are my kiddy movies - Cinderella, The Baby-Sitters Club, Cars, Tangled, etc. - and Christmas movies - The Holiday, Love Actually, Polar Express, and so on.

These two shelves are full of books that I really want to read. I've had a lot of them for ages but just haven't had time to read them. This is why I started my Taking It Off...The Shelf feature. I can pretty much tell you when and where I bought each of these books, which were purchased with my staff discount when I still worked at the bookstore, and which were won, freebies, or gifted. I won't bore you with that though! The only books on these shelves that I've read are Beginner's Greek, The Night Circus, and Best Friends Forever. Yep, there are a lot I still need to read. There are so many that I can't wait to get to...both of Beth Kendrick's, These Girls, Juliet, The Next Best Thing, and The Meryl Streep Movie Club, just to name a few. The Devil Wears Prada will be finally read soon (I've only seen the movie) but I have Revenge Wears Prada on its way (a giftcard + just $15 for the hardcover + free shipping = a no-brainer!) Finally, Girls in White Dresses is my next Taking It Off pick. If you want to know some of the other titles (because the picture isn't that great, sorry) just leave a comment and I'll clear things up!

The top shelf in this picture is my random paperback shelf. These are ones that I obviously want to read, since I own them, but don't have high priority (sorry to the authors on this shelf!) The second shelf holds my non-fiction titles. Between the boyfriend and I, we own most of Malcolm Gladwell's titles (the only one we're missing is Blink) but I have yet to read any. I've been meaning to read Becoming Jane Austen since the movie came out ages ago and I really want to get to my won copy of Seen Reading. You'll also notice that this shelf features my Harry Potter books. The set was a combo birthday gift from myself and my mom a few years ago. I haven't actually read my copies yet but I had lent the first three to my former boss. I couldn't believe I was doing it, and it pained me greatly, but she had never read them and I thought that was a greater travesty than lending out my virgin books! My boyfriend got me that gorgeous The Tales of Beetle the Bard set you see there as a gift many years ago. The book is all fancy-fied and there are separate illustrations included. You can also kind of see that I have a wand there. That's Ginny's wand that I bought on my trip to Universal studios last year, because I'm super cool like that.

So there we have it! Tour stop number two has come to an end. I have one more big shelf to showcase as well as a couple of shelves of books that are still residing at my mom's. I've brought so many to her in the last few months that the picture my sister took for me awhile ago is no longer up to date. I'll be there at the end of the month so I'll update the pic and share them with you next month! I hope you enjoyed this little tour :)

Touring My Bookshelves: Shelf #1

Every book nerd loves to check out other people's bookshelves, whether it's in person or online. I mean, hello, there's a website called Bookshelf Porn. Obviously we like creeping other people's shelves. So, I thought I would bring you on a virtual tour of my own shelves. I have books all over the place. Just last weekend I finally put up a new shelf - and it's almost full already. I'm going to spread out the posts a bit so keep checking back for the next tour.

Today's post features the large shelf full of books that still live at my mom's house.

I have to give a shout out to my sister, who took these pictures for me. (And hey, if you're looking for another blog to read that doesn't have much to do with books but should prove to be entertaining, check out her new blog here.)

Here are some of my lovely series reads. Yes, I own Twilight. Scored those hardcover beauties after Christmas one year when Chapters Indigo had their annual 30% off hardcover sale. I should really reread those ones and see if I still enjoy them. Next: the super amazing Jessica Darling series. I first discovered Jessica when I was in high school (context: I'm almost 26 now.) I believe this was a series my best friend's older sister was reading and she thought we'd like them too. We did. Next are four of my Jane Austen books. "Why four?" you ask? Because these are the four I've read. The other two are living with me in my own house. Then, the Traveling Pants girls. Sigh. Adore these books. The first one is missing in this shot because it's also with me. Oh, and fun fact: that bear's name is Alps and he comes from Switzerland!

Here's a random hodge podge of a shelf. My Anne of Green Gables set is here, one that I've had for ages. I found that Beatrix Potter set at a secondhand shop for a price that I just couldn't pass up. A magic series, Carole Matthews, Cecelia Ahern, Katie Fforde (love!), Emily Giffin, and Sheila O'Flanagan (love!) round out the rest of the shelf.

Here's a jampacked shelf! A lot of these books are ones I enjoyed but were kind of forgettable - with a few exceptions. I adore the Mindy Klasky Jane Madison series. It's a chick lit series about a woman who finds out she's a witch. I also spy Shanna Swendson's Katie Chandler series in there as well. It's another magical chick lit series. Also here is one of the few Sophie Kinsella books I actually own, Remember Me?, which I really enjoyed. And finally, my lovely box set of the Little House on the Prairie books. If I remember correctly, my mom had the opportunity to buy this set at a really great deal. I was still in nursery school but, boy, am I glad she thought ahead. Also featured on this shelf is Reepicheep the talking mouse from the Chronicles of Narnia (Prince Caspian, to be specific.) He was made as part of an assignment in grade seven. He used to have a plastic sword but it disappeared long ago.

Finally, we arrive at the bottom shelf, another shelf of mostly forgettable books. Yes, you see One Day there. I wanted to love it. Really, I did. But I just did not enjoy it one bit. Same goes for The Last Summer (of You and Me). And, of course, the bears. On the left is Goldie, a bear sporting a shirt from Wilfrid Laurier University (my old school.) On the right is Dustin, as in Dustin McGowan, pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays (er, well, if he ever gets better...) I think I amused the guy working at Build-a-Bear that day. He was used to Mileys and Zacs (Hannah Montana and High School Musical were huge at the time.)

There you have it, friends. I hope you've enjoyed today's tour and that you'll stop by for tour #2, when I feature the books I loved and immediately gave to my mom (who is still working her way through them...)

Happy reading :)