Category: Lists

On My Radar banner for A Literary Escape's book blog

On My Radar January Book Blog Posts

Published on by Celeste14 Comments

Though I blog hop when I can, I’ve never assembled an “on my radar” list of sorts before. So I thought it would be nice to highlight a few posts I enjoyed over the past month or so. They’re in no particular order. Obviously I blog hopped more than this list shows, so this is a subset of the excellent content I perused. My goal is to create this type of list roughly once a month. Hopefully I can stick with it. Without further ado, here are some great posts that you should check out!

What posts did you enjoy this month? Please feel free to comment with a link to those blog posts and share the love!

Anticipated Book Releases

Anticipated First Quarter Reads

Published on by Celeste8 Comments

It seems like anticipated reads lists are fairly ubiquitous across the book blogging sphere. Or, at least, I personally see them often at the beginning of each month. However, I loathe formatting book list posts. It seems simple, but if you blog, you’ll understand all that goes into it. That said, I thought I’d try participating in this type of post. Because of my aforementioned dislike of formatting, I’m focusing on anticipated 2023 first quarter reads.

This means I’ll list books that will be published between January and March. All of the books below intrigue me, but I’m on a mission to read from my physical backlog. So, frankly, I’ll probably only have time to read the ones for which I have ARCs. But it’s still fun to look! And I’m sure I forgot some that I was eyeing. Anyway, onward with my anticipated 2023 first quarter reads…

Continue reading “Anticipated First Quarter Reads” →
A Literary Escape

2023 Reading and Bookish Goals

Published on by Celeste17 Comments

Hello, 2023! This will be the second full year that I’ve had this little space in which to ramble about books. So that means it’s time to make some 2023 reading goals! Many of them will be similar to last year. Regardless, I think it’s nice to make goals because they serve as an end point for reflection once the year ends. I spent a lot of reading time in 2022 devoted to ARCs. And while I obviously love reading upcoming books, I also want to focus on my own backlog. So, overall, I plan to keep a lot of my goals attainable so that I can make time for the books I already own.

I also thought about perhaps making some blog content-related goals. But I didn’t want to box myself into a self-made obligation. Especially because blogging already takes so much time and I didn’t want to make it any more difficult for myself! So most of the goals below pertain specifically to reading rather than blogging.

Continue reading “2023 Reading and Bookish Goals” →
A Literary Escape

2022 Top 10 Favorite Books

Published on by Celeste14 Comments

It’s that time of year in the book blogging world where many of us list our favorite books from the whole year. This is my second round up of this kind and it always serves as a nice way to look back at what I read. This year I read over 60 books, so I have a lot more from which to choose some favorites. I can’t rank them since I loved them each for different reasons. (Don’t make me, it’s too hard to choose!) So here’s a list of my top 10 favorite books of 2022 in no particular order. Actually, I lied. I listed them in ascending reading order (January to December).

Continue reading “2022 Top 10 Favorite Books” →
A Literary Escape

Books I DNF in 2022

Published on by Celeste5 Comments

I first wrote about books I DNF last year, given that my blog has only been around through one year’s end. To reiterate what I said then, I usually DNF (do/did not finish) a book because I couldn’t get into it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I felt it was badly written. For the most part, I seemed to pick well for myself, which is not a surprise because I know me. As a result, I didn’t DNF a lot of books this year. Note that everyone’s reading preferences are subjective. So, what didn’t work for me might totally work for you.

As an aside, I noticed that people compiled lists of the “worst” books they read this year. Personally, I don’t feel the need to do this because I think my “negative” reviews speak for themselves. However, I have nothing against these types of lists as long as their compilation is tactful. (And for goodness sake, don’t tag the author!) Why? Because I believe reviews and opinions are mainly for fellow readers, not for authors. Once a book hits the market, it’s out of the author’s hands and people have the right to their opinions. If someone truly wants to read a book, they will. A “negative” review or list won’t stop them. And, frankly, let’s be realistic. Life has positives and negatives and I think to just ignore that some people feel “negatively” about a book is toxic positivity. There, I said it.

Anyway, thoughts and feelings aside, here is a list of books I DNF in 2022. It’s a short list, so you can hold your breath. The book cover images link to their official synopses.

Continue reading “Books I DNF in 2022” →