What Mr Hallow Read Last Quarter [July - September]

Its the end of December and I'm only just doing this post... I really need to get better at keeping up with doing posts on this blog Mrs H does pretty much everything and its not fair. So here is my 'what I read this quarter' for July - September. After doing this post I realised how little I actually read after going back to work this year. I really need to read more next year.

July

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by J.K Rowling
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I think this book is when I really started to enjoy the Harry Potter books, I thought it was great how the story developed in this book and I just had to get to the next one.

Mr Sparks by Danny Weston
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had wanted to read this book for a while and although I did enjoy reading this I kind of felt like it was very heavily influenced by the goosebumps books and I found it hard to see past that.

August

Nightmares by Jason Segel
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was looking forward towards this book because Mrs H loved it, I did like this book but I don't think I will read any of the sequels as I have so many books that need reading.

Memento Mori (Tales from the Haunted Mansion) by Amicus Arcane
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I finally finished!! I loved all of these books great read and the presentation of everything was fantastic. I found this one my favourite of the four books but I think that is more because it was the spookiest of the four.

September

The Company of Ghosts by Berlie Doherty
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book wasn't at all what I expected going in with that being said I really enjoyed it. The Island that Ellie travelled too sounded great me and Mrs H would love to live somewhere like that even better that it had no other inhabitants.

Predators Gold by Phillip Reeve
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This was a great second novel in this series the way it built on the first book was great and it not my usual cup of tea in the way this is more of a Sci-Fi post-apocalyptic story,  I prefer to read fantasy but for some reason I really enjoyed this the next book is based 20 years into the future so I cant wait to see what happens.

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mrs H has been telling me to read this all year and I thought it was a great alternative to story to Aladdin. We have all of these books and I'm sure I will work my way through them at some point.

So that's it 7 Books in three months in this same time Mrs H read 14 books! My aim for this year was to read 30 books so tune back in for the next post to see whether I make it or not... As I am so late in writing this post I can tell you yes, I did! But how many did I read...?

Collective Book Haul // September - December

 

It's been a while! Compared to last year when we were doing monthly book hauls, it's been pretty different to not be compiling these lists regularly. The previous haul here was uploaded back in September and since our book buying has slowed even moreee. Check out the previous haul here > Collective Book Haul // June - August. 

The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Berresford Ellis
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The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste 
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The Art of the Lord of the Rings (60th Anniversary Special Edition) by J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Disney Studio Story by Richard Holliss

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
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Nightmares! The Sleepwalker Tonic by Jason Segel & Kirsten Miller 
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone MinaLima Edition
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Disneyland Paris Phantom Manor Decrypted Attraction Book
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Disneyland Paris Pirates of the Caribbean: A Treasure of an Attraction Book

Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue by Anna Fargher
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The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling
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A Middle-earth Traveller: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor by John Howe
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Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature by Natural History Museum

As I mentioned briefly in another post, we had planned to allow ourselves a certain amount of money per book we'd read this year, to spend next year so that we could stick to a budget and not go crazy. However, circumstances have changed and now we need to save as much money as possible which means buying books will be a rare occurrence.
Anyway, this is what we have bought in the past 4 months. To quickly address the issue I'm sure many will find, books were already pre-ordered and we are very much LGBTQIA+ allies and do not condone any Transphobic attitudes. 

Pages Per Day // November

 

Just like the title says, this is our Pages Per Day check-in for November. There are no goals or aims because as I have said in previous posts, we've both bypassed our total books read goal for the year already and anything on top is a bonus. We're in the swing with a routine and remember the importance of enjoyment in reading rather than forcing it. 

Days 1 - 7 =  233
Days 8 - 14 = 222
Days 15 - 21 =  191
Days 22 - 28 = 210
Days 29 - 30  =  101

Monthly total = 957

/

Days 1 - 7 =  242
Days 8 - 14 = 239
Days 15 - 21 =  173
Days 22 - 28 = 291
Days 29 - 30  = 167

Monthly total = 1112

Coincidentally, our TBR page totals for November ended up being 966 and 960 respectively so as you can see we both pretty much hit that. Our quarterly round-ups (the next of which will be up around January/February) will show more of what we actually read in terms of following the TBR lists or not, because I have a funny feeling Mr H read something other than his TBR and I also read an extra too!

10 Books I Want Right Now!

 

As time runs out in 2020 and our book buying opportunities disappear I wanted to write a post with my (Mrs H) personal current wishlist...or more so want list haha.

Obviously, up until this year, we have been mainly secondhand book buyers - charity shops were our jam! Also obviously, I have not been inside any building except my house all year, let alone a charity shop so our while our pockets have been spared somewhat, our shelves have suffered!
Next year is likely to be no different at all, therefore with online shopping being our only option we've given ourself a budget. For each book we have read this year, we have £1.50 to spend next year...that means so far with my 56 and Mr H's 36 reads we have £138 or £11.50 per month. Not much at all really.

I mention the above because I'd like to buy the books in this post right now to avoid taking big chunks from our budget next year haha. 

The Disney Book of Maps: A Guide to the Magical Worlds of Disney and Pixar

Walt Disney's Ultimate Inventor; The Genius of Ub Iwerks

One Day at Disney: Meet the People Who Make the Magic Across the Globe

Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature

Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History

The Annotated Wizard of Oz

On the Origin of Species: The Illustrated Edition

A Natural History of Fairies

A Middle-earth Traveller: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor

The Nature of Middle-earth

I didn't expect to, because we haven't exactly got a lot of extra funds right now, but we actually got one of the books above each since putting together this post. My Dad gifted us some money and so while buying some household needs on Amazon, I thought I'd treat us to a couple of books...it had been a while! So I chose the Natural History Museum's 'Fantastic Beasts' book that accompanies their exhibition at the museum seeing as there is no chance we will be able to attend. For Mr H I picked the 'A Middle-earth Traveller' because you can never go wrong with something LOTR for him!

I hope to be able to find the others as bargains at some point as I really, really want them haha.

December TBR Lists

 

It's only been a week or so since I posted November's TBR, but now we are all caught up it didn't make any sense to postpone the usual start of the month TBR post. So for the final time in 2020, here is what we are each planning to read throughout this month.

Mr H's TBR List
The Bad Begining by Lemony Snicket - 162 pages
The Scent of Magic by Cliff McNish - 215 pages
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling - 607 pages

- Page Total = 984

Mrs H's TBR List
The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket - 259 pages
The Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher - 274 pages
Frostheart by Jamie Littler - 410 pages

- Page Total = 943