The Great Bookshelf Tidy of 2015

My bookshelves before and after I'd sorted them out.

BOOKWORM ALERT

I jut counted my book collection and I have a ridiculous 264 books, and that number is just going to keep growing and growing (especially since I don’t even have all the books I need for uni yet!). So as you can probably gather those 264 books take up a hell of a lot of space in my room. Which is why I was in desperate need of a new bookcase. So I bought one, my dad built it for me, my mum and I reorganised my room to be able to fit it in, and the end result was my beautiful new reading wall. I’m slightly obsessed with it. 

Pre-tidy! That's Chet Faker on my laptop... his singing accompanied me.

THE SET UP

I organised my books in colour and genre shelf by shelf, so for example I have the non-fiction books on one shelf, which includes travel books, memoirs, biographies, that sort of thing. I have the young adult/teen shelf which ranges from Northern Lights by Philip Pullman to my John Green collection. And so on and so on. 

And after! <3

TOURS

I already have a bookshelf tour up on my youtube channel but since then I’ve bought heaps more books and completely reorganised, so I might do another bookshelf tour again to update y’all on how things are in my book world. But until then, I filmed ‘The Great Bookshelf Tidy of 2015’ which is now live on my channel, so if you wanted to watch that then there’s a link down below. 

QUESTION TIME

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: How many books do you own? And what’s your favourite? I’d really love to know, talking about books is my all time fave thing to do. 

Thanks for reading! Remember to follow me for weekly posts!

Hope you’re having a rad day. 

Love Chloe x

A Week Of Happys #2

LOOKING BACK
I really enjoyed doing this post last week so why not do it again, eh? Here's a few things that made me happy last week. Happiness starting now...

1. LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL 
Leon is my favourite film and I watched it again this week, and it just makes me so happy. Leon is so cute and I have a huge weird crush on him (to the point where I named my plant, Jean Reno, after the actor... <3). Watching Leon again just confirmed why I love it so much.

Leon and Radler to celebrate my last night at uni. 

2. BEACH DAY
We went to Chichester Harbour last week, which is a lovely little beach crossed with countryside. The weather was gorgeous and it was just so nice to walk along the seafront in the sun! Plus we had scones, so that bumped up my happiness levels quite a lot.

3. FINISHING UNIVERSITY
I finished my first year of university this week, and it's so crazy because this year has gone hella fast and it only feels like a few months ago that I nervously started. I have loved my first year of uni, and to be honest, it was hard not to when I live on the most gorgeous campus ever. We have sheep and cows in all the surrounding fields, and I get to walk past lambs on my way to lectures. Oh god, it's so great <3 And as if the animals weren't good enough, my course is the best. I study creative writing which means I just to write stories and talk about books. Living that ultimate bookworm life yo.

Me in my university room.

4. BEST HOME AND AWAY EPISODE EVER
I'm a huge fan of both 'Home and Away' and Simon Baker, so when you combine those two things it gets excellent results. Simon Baker (star of TV show 'The Mentalist') is Australian and was in Home and Away when he was much younger (I think from about 1993 to 94, ish) and they showed an episode starring him last week. The best thing about it? He was on the beach wearing just Speedos. Amazing :')

5. EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES
My mum and dad went to London last week and whilst there they bought me a beautiful hardback edition of the book Emil and the Detectives! We used to listen to the audiobook of this in the car when I was really little and last year I saw the stage show of it with my Mum, so it's quite a big part of my life. And this lovely hardback edition is a very welcome addition to my book family.

6. RICCARDO
Riccardo is my little avocado tree baby and I love him so much (probably an unhealthy amount actually). He lives with me in my uni halls, but unfortunately is now too big to bring back and forth too often, so during holidays I have to leave him at uni by himself :( When I went back to uni for a couple of days last week I was very excited to see that he grown a new leaf. BUT that's not the best part! (He grows new leaves all the time and whilst I'm always proud of his leaf efforts, it's not as exciting as the first few.) The exciting part was that his new leaf had grown in between branches rather than at the the top of his trunk like usual. This means he is hopefully going to start growing outwards rather than upwards! #proudplantmother

The smallest leaf in the middle is his new one!

THIS WEEK
And that's it, time to start living this week! Tell me in the comments below what has made you happy recently!

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for weekly posts.

Hope you're having a rad day.

Love Chloe x

April Book Haul

HI, MY NAME IS CHLOE AND I AM A BOOKWORM
So I bought a lot of books in April, and it was all because I found this £3 bookshop in Bristol, where all the books are obviously £3. And is if that wasn't good enough, they had a offer on of buy 4 books for £10. So being the massive bookworm that I am, I wasn't about to pass up the chance to buy books for cheap.

So here are all the books I've bought this month...

THE BOOKS

'All I Know Now' by Carrie Hope Fletcher. This book is a mixture of stories from Carrie's life as a teenager and advice for people who might be going through the same things she did. For example, there are stories and advice on bullying, heartbreak and making friends. I'm about a third of the way through it and it's great. If you are a teenager, you probably need this in your life. And if you're not a teenager, you still probably need this in your life. 

'The Song of the Quarkbeast' by Jasper Fforde. This is the sequel to his book 'The Last Dragonslayer' which I read a few years ago and loved. This book is about Jennifer Strange who is running an employment agency for magicians. I bought this in the £3 bookshop!

'How We Met' by Katy Regan. I hadn't heard of this, but the cover was what made me want to buy it, it's so pretty! This book is about a group of friends who have to try and find a way of living without their friend, Liv, who has just died. I'm not entirely sure what else happens in it other that because I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a good YA/romance novel, so i'm excited to get into it! This is also from the £3 bookshop.

'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby. This book is about 4 people who all end up on the roof at the same time, all with the intention of killing themselves. But when they all meet, they stop each other from doing that. I hadn't heard of this book until picking up, but I did know about the film adaptation of it, which I thought looked quite good from the trailers. Plus, there is a quote from Johnny Depp on the back, saying that he loved it, which seems like a good sign. AND, it was £3 so I couldn't really not buy it.

'Flyte' by Angie Sage. This is the sequel to her book 'Magyk' and is part of the Septimus Heap series. I read 'Magyk' a few years ago (at the same time as I was reading The Last Dragonslayer weirdly) and really enjoyed it, so as this was just £3 I decided to pick it up and continue on with the series. This book is about Septimus' mission to rescue his adoptive sister Jenna, who was kidnapped by their brother, Simon Heap, who clearly has turned bad. It's very magical as they're all wizards, and as it's predominately aimed at children, it's a pretty light and easy read. 

'Days of Blood and Starlight' by Laini Taylor. This is the sequel to 'The Daughter of Smoke and Bone' which I read last year and absolutely adored. I'm not exactly sure what this one is about, and to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't read the first book, I won't write what the blurb says here! But the first book is about a girl called Karou who runs errands for Brimstone, who has raised her. However, the door that leads to 'Elsewhere', a more magical version of earth, is closing and Karou needs to decide whether to stay in her normal life in Prague or go to Elsewhere. I'm so excited to start reading this because the first book was brilliant!

'Lips Touch' by Laini Taylor. This is a collection of short stories, that are all connected by the theme of kissing. The three stories are called 'Goblin Fruit', 'These Spicy Little Curses' and 'Hatchling'. All three stories are very magical, but all with a slight hint of darkness in them. I have read this one, and I loved it! My favourite story from it was 'Goblin Fruit' but they were all excellent. 

'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder. This book was actually lent to me by my best friend Amber (the person from my blog post 'Human Stories' <3) so technically it shouldn't be part of this haul, but hey this is my blog and I make the rules. This book is about a young girl called Sophie who starts getting letters in her mailbox about philosophy. She doesn't know who is sending them and so tries to find out. It's part fiction, part philosophy lessons, and it's all very mysterious. 

FIN

And so that is all the books from the month of April. Well actually I also got 'The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender' by Leslye Walton, which Mr B's sent me for the reading year that I have with them, but it's at home so I couldn't photograph and include it in this because I'm at university right now! But that book was amazing, so I'd definitely recommend it! 

Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these books, or if not, tell me if you bought any books this month! 

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for new posts at least once a week!

Love Chloe x

Coffee Cups With Chloe: Updates

HELLO

I've just sat down with my cup of coffee (in the cutest little hedgehog mug) and a breakfast bar (it's 4 o clock in the afternoon but breakfast bars are delicious at all times of the day, okay?) and I've decided to do a little blog writing. My goal for 2015 was to write more on here because I love writing and this blog was just sitting here sad and unused so I thought I'd give it some love. But this week I haven't been inspired to write about anything, blog wise anyway; I've actually done a ton of writing for other things, I'm on a creative writing course so that's not really shocking, but I'm also in the process of writing a book too. I've been writing it for two years but in February I realised just how close I am to finishing it, so I've been pushing myself to write a little bit everyday to try and get it done. Anyway, back to the point... I haven't been inspired to write anything for this blog this week. So I thought I'd just write. We've done this as a writing exercise at uni a few times and it's often produced some pretty great stuff, so here we go. Sorry in advance if this gets rambly!

MUSIC

I have a bad habit of listening to the same music on repeat until I get bored of it, and at the moment my repeated jams have been anything by Chet Faker. I listen to the Australian radio station triple j nearly every night (which is when their breakfast show is on) and so I've ended up listening to quite a lot of Australian artists. But Chet Faker is hands down my favourite discovery. I play his album Thinking In Textures on repeat and then there are loads of individual songs of his that are very likely to be on repeat too. I have really thin walls at university so I'm sure my next door neighbours really enjoy having the same hipster songs blasted every day! His music is kind of indie, crossed with a electronic, dance vibe. I'm really bad at describing music genres but hopefully you kind of get what I mean. It's the kind of music that you could expect to hear quietly playing in a coffee shop full of bearded men with man buns and girls in oversized jumpers and messy hair. It's super hipster and I adore it.

FOOD

I've been trying to eat healthier and snack less this week, and I think I've done pretty well! I actually planned out each dinner for the week and so when I went food shopping I brought what I needed and was less tempted to buy lots of bad food. Now I admit I have been snacking, I can't get through the day without eating something at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. But I made sure to stock up on fruit so that when I do get peckish in the afternoon I reach for the fruit bowl instead of the crisps (I don't even have crisps to reach for, as I said I planned out exactly what I wanted to buy). I can't say I've noticed any difference in my health yet, but it's only been a week. However, my meals have been much tastier and I'm staying fuller for longer so that's rad.

FASHION

This week I've also been trying to wear the clothes in my wardrobe that I haven't worn in a long time. I'm really bad at buying clothes, wearing them a couple of times and then never again, or constantly wearing the same outfits because they're easy and I like how they look (which would be fine if I didn't have so many other clothes going unworn). So this week I've been trying to wear some different pieces. If I was a professional blogger I'd put some photos in of my outfits this week but I haven't actually taken any... But I might do a post about these style of outfits at some point, so look out for that!

BOOKS

At the moment I'm reading City of Thieves by David Benioff, which the local bookshop Mr B's sent me. I'm really enjoying it so far, and I've only got a little bundle of chapters left to read. It's about two young men from Leningrad during the second world war, and they are arrested and then given the job of finding a dozen eggs for the colonel's daughter to use in her birthday cake. But of course, that's not as easy as it sounds when you're in rationed, war time Russia. I was shocked to find out from the opening chapter that this is actually a true story, based on the life of the authors granddad! This book ties in really well with the last book I was reading, which was A Storm of Swords Part 1 by George R.R Martin. As I'm sure you know this series of books has been turned into the massive TV show Game of Thrones, and David Benioff is actually the co-creator of the show! It was a very odd coincidence when Emma from Mr B's informed me of this! :')

GOODBYE

I think that's probably enough of my life updates. I hope this was vaguely interesting to read, and if you only take one thing from this, then let be that you go and repeat Chet Faker songs for days. Thanks for reading. I hope you have a rad day.
Love Chloe x

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell // BOOK REVIEW

So Rainbow Rowell is one of my favourite authors and Fangirl was just as amazing as I expected it to be! This book is about a girl called Cath, who is in her first year of university. And her love of the book series Simon Snow, makes it a little hard for her to fit in, as she prefers to write fanfiction than do the stereotypical university life.

First off, Fangirl made me laugh out loud and I was smiling whilst reading nearly every page. My particular favourite moments were the references to Gilmore Girls and Beverly Hills 90210, which are two of my all time favourite TV shows, so those parts really made me giggle! 

I liked how this book deals with more than just your average YA love triangle. I mean there's a tiny bit of that, but amongst mental illness, alcohol abuse, family separation and trying to fit in. Or in the case of Cath, not fitting in at all. I could really relate to Cath, who in her first year of university, prefers to spend her free time in her room, writing fanfiction. And whilst I don't write fanfiction, I do spend my free time doing equally nerdy things by myself. Plus we're both doing creative writing courses, so y'know we're pretty much the same person. 

But, as much as liked Cath, it was Levi who stole the show for me! He was ADORABLE. From the second he was introduced I was in love. He's so happy and it's contagious - when he was smiling, I was smiling. Ugh. In love <3

My only issue with Fangirl was that I wanted less of the fanfiction about Simon Snow that Cath was writing. For example, the book ended with a piece of fanfiction she'd written, and whilst I can see why, I wanted it to end with the characters from Fangirl! But I think this down to is personal taste, as I've heard other people say they really liked the fanfiction parts of the book, so don't let this put you off! 

Overall, I adored this book! I give it 5 stars. You need to read it right now! 

***

Since we're on the subject of books, I thought I'd just let you know that I have a goodreads account, which I am constantly updating with all things bookish. I also have a youtube account, where I talk about books fairly often (amongst other things, like beauty and the weird things that happen to me). I actually did a review of Fangirl over on there too. Links to both of these are just below, so why not pop over and have a little look. 

I hope you're having an excellent day! 

Love Chloe x