Weekly Wrap Up 10/15-10/21

I’ve officially given up on Blogtober 😦 I was really looking forward to it, but between my internet going out constantly, all of us being sick, and some other personal stuff, it hasn’t exactly worked out.

Oh well.

I failed at even posting Top 10 Tuesday, Top 5 Wednesday, or Fairy Tales Fridays because I was sick and/or in pain all week. Well, except for Monday, which was my birthday and I miraculously didn’t have a terrible day. (I’d planned to do the birthday party book tag again, but some unexpected things came up and my internet was down almost all day Sunday and Monday, ugh.) I woke up sick on Tuesday, though. Hopefully next week things will be back to normal.

I’m super behind on the SomethingWickedFall read along (I’m literally only 35 pages into Something Wicked This Way Comes). I am so, so bad at read alongs, even when it’s just me and a friend reading the same book. I’ll probably do what I usually do and end up reading the whole thing in a day or two soon. Something about scheduled reading just doesn’t work for me.

For R.I.P. XIII, I haven’t read anything, either. But, I already succeeded at Peril the First (reading 4 books), and this week has been all about Peril On the Screen. I’ve watched:

  • The Babysitter (I’m torn about how I feel about this. I thought it was amusing at times, but something about it gave me weird feelings.)
  • The Haunting of Hill House series (I watched this one while I was sick earlier this week and I really liked it. It deviated from the book, but it was fun.)
  • The Lodgers (Uuuuuggggghhh. I had hoped this would be good because the description was intriguing, but I kind of hated it.)
  • Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, and Scream 4 (This might be my favorite horror movie franchise, and I’m so mad that the opening scenes of Scream 4 are cut from the version on Netflix. Unfortunately, my DVD was murdered a couple of years ago, so Netflix was my only option.)
  • Beetlejuice (This is one of our most-viewed movies and I think we have like 3 copies.)
  • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (I love this movie. It’s ridiculous, but so much fun.)
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (One of my favorite horror movies. I’ve always been a Freddy fan. I never really cared for Michael or Jason. And I hated the 2010 remake, ugh.)
  • The Town That Dreaded Sundown (I’m not sure I’d ever seen this entire movie before this week. This one won’t be a movie I re-watch much, I’m sure, but I liked it.)
  • Dark Shadows (Another one that’s kind of ridiculous, but fun. I’ve only seen a few episodes of the series, so I don’t know how much they butchered things for the movie.)
  • Sleepy Hollow (This is the point where I started to think it was either Johnny Depp or Tim Burton week in my house. This was one of the first horror movies I saw in theaters, and I love it. This one is seriously only loosely based on Irving’s story.)
  • Corpse Bride (Another movie that gets played a lot in my house. It always makes me miss my piano, though.)

Maybe next week I’ll get in some short stories and a book or two.

And that’s a wrap. October is not turning out to be a great reading month, but there’s still 10 days, so who knows? I’m hoping to read at least a couple more books this month, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed about a couple of library holds getting to me soon.

Oh my gods, I just realized there are only 10 days left until NaNoWriMo starts…

I am less prepared than I have been in years, wow. This might be a pantser year instead of a planner year for me. (I used to be a pantser, but started planning about 3 NaNos ago.) I’m just…going to go…scream into a pillow…

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Blogtober babbling

I’ve kind of failed at Blogtober this year, but I’m fine with that. I’ve posted most days, and I can’t really control how unreliable my internet has been, so… *shrugs*

That said, now that things have settled down, I have some plans for at least the next week to ten days for posts.

My birthday is Monday, so I’ll probably be doing the birthday book tag I did last year, just with different books, because it was fun.

I’m also thinking about making a list (or maybe a couple of lists) of book recs for reading this time of year. Those will probably include horror, Gothic novels, paranormal/paranormal romances, mysteries, etc. I might make one for older readers and one for kids. I can’t remember if I’ve already done that, so I’ll have to check first and adjust the plan as necessary.

Probably soon, I’ll also be finally posting some NaNoWriMo related things I’ve been thinking about and working on since last year.

This probably wasn’t actually worth making a post about, but it’s late, I’ve been on the road most of the day, and my internet is momentarily cooperating, so I seized the opportunity to at least post something 😛

Fairy Tales Fridays 06

Fairy Tale of the Week:

“The Teapot” by Hans Christian Andersen

I finally gave in and read an Andersen tale, even though they’re really not my favorite.

This was a short and bittersweet story about a proud teapot. She was proud of her spout and her handle, but not so much her lid, because it was cracked. In the tea service, she felt herself a queen, but the other items weren’t exactly fond of her.

One day, whoever was pouring the tea was clumsy and dropped the teapot. Her spout and handle broke off, and she ended up with someone who was poor. They put dirt in the teapot, which she wasn’t happy about (she compared it to being buried), but then they also planted a flower bulb inside that dirt.

Eventually, the teapot began to think of the bulb as her heart, and she grew proud of it. Everyone admired its beauty (but not hers) once it grew, and the teapot was happier than she’d ever been. But, then it needed to be transplanted, and to remove, they broke the teapot in half and threw the pieces in the yard. After that, you’d think she would have been bitter, but she actually looked back fondly on her memories of housing the flower.

This one was short and thankfully easier to read than last week’s tale. It definitely hasn’t made me an Andersen fan, but I enjoyed it well enough.

3.5/5 stars

Spooky Time Movies

Last year, I made a post with 201 movie recommendations for Halloween. That post had everything from family friendly movies (Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, etc.) to thrillers to straight up horror.

I haven’t actually watched many movies since then that should have been on the list, but I also remembered a few I meant to put on that one.

So, instead of reposting that list with the new additions, I’m making this separate post with the ones I forgot or have seen since last October.

Just like last year, not all of these are movies I loved. I might have even disliked some of them, but I know they’re well-loved enough by other people, so maybe I’m just weird and some of you do/will love them.

 

Also like last year, I’m strongly encouraging you to look up trigger warnings before watching.

  1. The Babadook
  2. Black Christmas
  3. Boogeyman
  4. The Boy
  5. Casper Meets Wendy
  6. Cat’s Eye
  7. Children of the Corn
  8. Chloe
  9. Cujo
  10. The Descent
  11. Drive Angry
  12. Edward Scissorhands
  13. Ernest Scared Stupid
  14. E.T.
  15. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
  16. Fallen
  17. Final Girl
  18. The Good Witch
  19. Gothika
  20. The Green Room
  21. Hannibal
  22. The Happening
  23. The Haunted Mansion
  24. Hell House
  25. Hereditary
  26. Idle Hands
  27. It Follows
  28. Jenifer
  29. Ju-on
  30. Killer Legends
  31. Lady in the Water
  32. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  33. The Little Vampire
  34. Mark of the Witch
  35. Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire
  36. Panic Room
  37. Paranorman
  38. The Phantom of the Opera
  39. Premonition
  40. Prom Night
  41. Queen of the Damned
  42. Red Dragon
  43. The Return of the Living Dead
  44. Ringu
  45. Scooby Doo
  46. Seven
  47. Shrooms
  48. Silent Hill
  49. Skeleton Key
  50. Slither
  51. The Stepfather
  52. Tales From the Darkside
  53. Tower of Terror
  54. The Town that Dreaded Sundown
  55. Twitches
  56. The Village
  57. The Wicker Tree
  58. The Worst Witch
  59. XX
  60. Zodiac

Top 10 Tuesdays: Longest Books I’ve Read

This is a weekly meme that was created by The Broke and the Bookish, and is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week, there’s a theme and you choose ten books that fit it. Check out upcoming topics here.

Bless goodreads for having the option to sort by page count, because without it, I’m not sure I could have answered this week’s question. I really wasn’t sure after the first three because after those, page counts are much closer together.

In order from longest to shortest:

 

The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3)

 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien– 1,220 pages

 

 

It

 

It by Stephen King– 1,093 pages

 

 

The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)

 

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley– 912 pages

 

 

Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson– 820 pages

 

 

The Sweet Far Thing (Gemma Doyle, #3)

 

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray– 819 pages

 

 

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

 

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin– 801 pages

 

 

East of Eden

 

East of Eden by John Steinbeck– 778 pages

 

 

City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)

 

City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare– 768 pages

 

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling– 759 pages

 

 

Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4)

 

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer– 756 pages

 

 

What are some of the longest books you’ve read?

Did any of mine make your list as well?

Book Blogger Hop: October 5th-11th

This weekly hop is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer, featuring a question about books each week. The purpose is to bring bookish bloggers together, basically. To participate, write a post about the question for that week and add your link.

The question this week is: It’s getting close to Halloween. If you HAD to read one of these two genres, which would you prefer — urban fantasy, or horror, and why? (submitted by Maria @ A Night’s Dream of Books)

Almost certainly horror, because my most read genre is probably fantasy, and I think I might read more urban fantasy than other subgenres.

I tend to save up horror books to binge read during October because I participate in some spooky themed reading challenges and read-a-thons.

Which genre would you choose?

Blogtober Weekly Wrap Up 01

I missed yesterday for Blogtober 😥

I didn’t have my post scheduled because I was planning to take a couple of pictures during a short trip, then post from the hotel room last night. I had it all planned out in my head so well, but then it ended up raining (until after dark, of course), and we didn’t get our room because someone screwed up.

So, my Saturday through Sunday morning basically consisted of being in a vehicle for most of 18 hours, rain, fog so thick you could sink your teeth into it, and unreliable cell reception :/

*sighs dramatically*

I haven’t read much this week because I’ve been busy and I couldn’t decide what I was in the mood for. I think all I’ve read, besides this week’s fairy tale, was a bit from Michelle Tea’s Modern Tarot and a few pages of Something Wicked This Way Comes (part of FrightFall’s readalong, but I’m behind).

Thinking I might have a few minutes to read on the trip, I took books with me (2 paperbacks and my Kindle, because you never know 😛 ), but never had an opportunity.

Basically, week one of Halloween month wasn’t really productive, but I’ve learned that if I’m not going to be home, I need to get a post scheduled before I leave because I can’t trust that I’ll have internet access after I leave.