Hello friends!! I actually had a really great reading month in November but that has come at the expense of pretty much everything else – you’ll see that my reading log only has the book and hasn’t been “beautified” with stickers yet. But no worries, it’s time to do a month in review.

November in Books

I ended up reading 15 books in November (and erm, caught up on quite a bit of manga) which is much better than October. But it’s also no surprise because I caught covid last month and had a few days where the only things I did was read and rest.

Standout books this month included:

• The Light Between Worlds – don’t think my review of this book is out yet but IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL! I loved it so so much!
• Revelation – a very thrilling historical mystery that made me wonder why I took so much time to return to the series (book review here)
• Steering the Craft – which actually briefly got me back to writing (a feat in itself) though I find myself quite stuck at some of the exercises!

Oh yes! I also started Cain’s Jawbone this month. I’m still thinking if I should wait to finish it before posting or start posting about it ASAP because I just know I’m going to take an extremely long time to solve this puzzle. If you haven’t heard of it, Cain’s Jawbone is a mystery novel where the pages are unbounded and you have to put it in the correct order.

My December Reading Plans

Honestly, I started itching to reread The Chronicles of Narnia so I’ve decided to focus on rereads this month! The plan is to reread The Chronicles of Narnia, at least the first book in Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Rings) and my collection of Father Brown short stories. And perhaps I’ll throw in a few Christmas reads as well!

Oh yes, speaking of The Chronicles of Narnia, I actually bought a box set so that I would have all the books one or two years ago (I read my cousins’ copies when I was younger). At that time, I didn’t really feel like rereading things so I kept them in the plastic wrap they came in and… turns out that’s not great for the books. The covers stuck together so now most of them have these weird white marks. It’s a bit of a pity but the pages are still fine and I’m determined to continue enjoying the books!

My hold on Before the Coffee Gets Cold just came in so I’ll be reading that plus perhaps a new Christmas book? I’m not sure what yet but I’m thinking apart from holds that I’ve already placed, I want to focus on rereads and Christmas-themed books this month.

November in Tea & December Plans

As with the previous months, I didn’t do much for November. I did, however, finally finish the 30 Chinese tea samples that I bought a few months back! I was going to post the final review post last week but life got in the way and I’m hoping to post it sometime this week.

And since it’s December, it means that… it’s time for an advent tea calendar!!! This year, my tea advent is from Palais des Thés. I got it on Dec 1, so just in time. I’ve not decided if I want to make one big post and continually update that or split it into 3 posts but I’m leaning towards the latter for now. You’ll also see a lot more pictures of my advent calendar when the first post is up. Anyway, this means that most of my teas drunk this month will be from the advent. I did briefly consider reviewing the Rare Tea company tisane that I got as part of the subscription, but I tried it and I didn’t like it (plus the smell lingers in my teapots) so I doubt I’ll be talking about it.

Misc Things

Things were chugging along quite nicely until my sudden enforced covid rest. Although that was pretty nice too – I’m still tired so clearly I needed to just pause everything for a few days. But before that, I was quite happy to be able to finish a course on worldview and help introduce some friends jumpstart (Magic: The Gathering)!

Now that we’re in December, I’m pretty sure that my weekends are going to be equally busy, so I’ve mentally prepared to take more time off from this blog if needed. I’m also planning to spend more time thinking about where I would be online in 2024 – here for sure, but I’ve not really decided about social media (though I have a few thoughts). It seems like the more I read about social media, the less inclined I am to be an active participant, though I do miss the bookstagram community.

That’s about it for now! Hopefully December works out to be what I’m planning!