2016 Shelf Love Reading Challenge

It's BAAAACK! We all know I did a horrible job this year for this challenge. I think I read only two books from my shelf and I bought a few books. To be fair, I didn't read all that much in general, what with my thesis and all. And ever since I graduated I've been in a reading funk. However I am very determined to make a good job in 2016. So I'm signing up again.

Shelf Love Challenge is hosted by the very awesome girls from Chapter Break, Second Run Reviews and Bookworm Brandee. The rules are simple:

• Read books that are in your personal library that were obtained before January 1, 2016.
• Responsibly obtain books for your personal library. You may wish to abstain from purchasing books or set a book budget for yourself. You decide the best way to get control of your TBR pile and read the books you already own.
• Library books (and textbooks) do not count for the challenge. You may use your library to obtain different formats of books you already own and count those towards your goal.

Like last year, I'll only count physical books into this challenge. I'm setting my goal to 21-30 books: give your shelves a warm friendly hug.

Unlike last year, however, I won't pick a list of books in advance. I'll use the tag selflove16 here on my blog for the books I've read for this challenge. And I'll also list them on Goodreads on this shelf. I think I have more than 30 books that I need to read, but I'll settle for that.

Anyway, I can't wait to get started once January gets here :)

Shelf Love: Perils of Book hoarding

The perils of book hoarding. Oh man. I am guilty of this. Especially when I visit thrift stores. Why, you ask? Because that is the moment when I realize that "OMG, I need this book in my life now". I've bought tons of books from thrift stores. Not because I'm cheap or anything, but because I find really good books there, books that I either can't find in bookstores or books that I never thought about buying. And usually the thrift stores from my town are associated with charities.

Another book hoarding habit that has been growing and growing and growing recently... Freebies. You know how we had that topic about where you get your freebies a while back? Well, bargains and freebies are so easy to hoard.

I, however, don't like to think of it as "hoarding". It's a slightly ugly word. I like to see it more as "building my own live-in library". See? Much better this way! There is one...problem here. I don't think I'd ever make enough money to buy a house big enough for all of the books I want to have to fit in. Which is why I thank every day for having an e-reader! Also, each new book means one step closer to a new visit to the furniture store for yet another book shelf.

So how about you? Do you hoard books?

Shelf Love: Best Bookish Gifts

Hey guys! This month's topic was best bookish gifts. Hmmm.... This is kind of a difficult topic, because all bookish gifts that I've gotten so far are good. The best one has to be the Harry Potter series. I know, kind of cliche, right?

A photo posted by Ruby (@rubys.books) on Aug 13, 2015 at 2:08pm PDT

A photo posted by Ruby (@rubys.books) on Aug 13, 2015 at 12:46pm PDT

I got the first 6 books from my aunt and uncle every Christmas and they're the best of the best bookish gifts ever. This is probably why I associate Harry Potter with winter and with Christmas and why each year I feel the need to reread it around that time. The last book I got it myself as a HS graduation gift.

What about you? What are the best bookish gifts you ever got?  

*Disclaimer: Photos taken from my Instagram account

#Shelflove: Share Your Sources for Free Books

This month we're talking about free books. Who doesn't love freebies, right? Here are my sources for free books:

• Charity shops - There's a charity shop near my house that has a box right at the entrance, full of free books. The only obligation you have is that you pick up just one and that if you have a book you want to donate, you put it there. Also, most charity shops have really cheap books, some of them in very good conditions, so I check out their shelves too (not free, but almost free).
• Library - Same as before. A lot of them have books that they give away for free. Actually, a few of the books on my #Shelflove list came from a library that was giving away free books.
• BookBub - A very cool website where you can find a ton of freebies from many genres. All you have to do is sign up (it's free) and it will send you daily emails with freebies. Also bargains.
• The Fussy Librarian - Same as the previous website, you just sign up for free and you'll receive tons of free books and bargains on your mail. 
• eBookSoda - Another website with free subscription.
• Pixel of Ink - A website full of Kindle freebies and bargains. They update their site daily. You can either subscribe with your email address or you can follow them on Facebook.
• eReader Love - Same as before, you can either subscribe or follow on Facebook, where they post daily about the freebies/bargains they discover on Kindle.
• eReader News Today - Yet another website that has Kindle freebies. 
• Pulseit - A website owned by Simon & Schuster. They feature two free books each week. You can't download them, but you can read them online. Oh, the cool part? In December they have the 31 Days of Reading, when they have a free book EACH DAY! So that's awesome. 
• FeedYourReader - Awesome website full of Kindle freebies and bargains. 

Phew. I think that's it. Yeah. I hope this helps you feed your bookish addiction and help you save some money. 

#Shelflove: Finance

Fist of all, I haven't read a single book for this challenge. I am horrible, I know, but there's a good reason for it. Besides the never-ending thesis that I hope I'll finish before the zombie apocalypse starts *fingers crossed*. I started reading one of the books from that list immediately after signing up. However, the more I read, the more the book disappointed me. Now, usually, as you all know, I just DNF it and move on to the next one without blinking. However, this time, this particular book is breaking my heart, because it's written by one of my all time favorite authors. So I'm now having a dilemma: keep reading or DNF it, even though it's heartbreaking and painful and sad, just sad. I did get to read half of it, but I just don't know....*sighs*

Anyway, finances. So far I haven't spent much on books. I did hoard tons of Amazon/Smashwords freebies , to be fair. I can't wait to start reading them. I do promise to read a book from my list this month.

How about you? Did you get to read any book from your Shelf Love list?

#ShelfLove: The Book List

So last week I decided that out of all the reading challenges out there the Shelf Love one was the only one that I was going to officially sign up for. Lots of reasons behind that, the most important one being that I need to read the books I already have before buying new books.

Like I said in my sign-up post, I'm not going to include e-books in this challenge. No real reason behind it, just that I wanted to spend more time this year reading paperbacks rather than e-books. (There's another resolution for 2015!)

I currently have 28 books on my list. My Godreads shelf says only 27, however. The reason for that is simple. The 28th book is a book of Italian fairy tales, that unfortunately I couldn't find on Goodreads :( Here's the Amazon link to it, if you want to see what it looks like.

So yeah. 28 books. I feel like I'll add more books as I read the ones that are already on the list. There are about 10 more books, I think, that will end up on the list later on. I want to get at the end of this year with no unread books on my shelves. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Anyway, I can't wait to get started with reading the books on that list. I'll most definitely start with Marc Levy's books, because as you probably already know, I'm pretty obsessed with his books. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'll start today, because I have a cold and I'm feeling pretty crappy because of it. I feel like a mutant, to be honest with you *pouts*

Are you participating in this challenge and if you are, what books are you most excited to read from your list?