A Bookhaul

Hi everyone! I know I don’t do bookhauls very often. I checked and apparently the last one I posted was in September 2019. I have taken pictures for a haul over half a year ago but I never ended up posting that one because… honestly, I’m not sure. I just tend to not really like doing hauls because I do want to include my own pictures but they never look good and blablabla. And usually, whenever I buy books, I just buy one book at a time and it takes me months to feel like I have enough for a haul, and by then I’ve forgotten all about it.

But two weeks ago I was in a huge book buying mood (which happens a lot but I usually ignore it) and for once I gave in and ordered multiple books at once. Eleven, to be exact. I’m incredibly excited about them, and I can’t wait to share them with you!

Poetry is something that I have a love-hate relationship with. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don’t understand it, always it takes me a long time to get through it because I feel like I have to reread each sentence over and over again in order to really get it and feel like I understand what the author is trying to say. But I’ve been eyeing it a bit more lately, and me watching romance is a bonus book (a show in which one of the characters is really passionate about poetry) finally pushed me to take the plunge and start reading/buying poetry again. (Yes, I’m very easily influenced. It’s fine, don’t judge me.)

Homie by Danez Smith has been on my wishlist for a few months now ever since I looked up this article about Black queer poets and I became very interested in their work. This is the first book (or, poetry collection) of this haul I started reading and I’m really liking it so far. And because I wanted to read more poetry I also picked up Soft Science by Franny Choi and The Tradition by Jericho Brown. And if I told you the covers weren’t a big part of the reason why I picked these up, then I’d be lying. They’re gorgeous, and I have a feeling the words in them will be gorgeous as well.

Then we have two books I’ve already read and loved and wanted physical copies of so that I can reread and annotate them, and because I have a feeling these two books have a lot of hidden details I didn’t get the first time around when I listened to their audiobooks (which were brilliant, btw).

The Deep by Rivers Solomon is an absolutely brilliant book and definitely one of my favorite reads of the year, and when I was talking to my friend Romie about buying it and how I wanted to reread it and how good it was and how I also wanted to pick up This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone for this exact same reason but hadn’t yet, she started reading The Deep and surprised me by gifting me a copy of This Is How You Lose the Time war. Romie is such a lovely friend, and while I already adore this book, the fact that she gifted it to me will make me treasure it even more.

Then I finally got myself a copy of The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow, a book I’ve been wanting to get my hands on even before it was released, and wanted even more after I buddy read it with my friend Sara and absolutely fell in love with it. This is just one of those books that I need to have on my shelf so that I can reread it whenever I want, and stare at that gorgeous cover as much as possible.

And speaking of gorgeous cover, look at that cover for What If a Fish by Anika Fajardo! This was one of my most anticipated middle grade releases of the year and I’m so glad that it’s finally here and that I have it in my hands. And because I’m me and I love graphic novels, I also ordered myself copies of Always Human by Ari North and A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong, but A Map to the Sun hasn’t arrived yet so I sadly can’t show you a picture of that, but it’s gorgeous (from what I’ve seen of it online) and I can’t wait to dive into these.

Something that I’m extra excited about is the fact that, for the first time in my life, I backed a few kickstarters! It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for some time but always put off for whatever reason, but when I saw these books I knew I had to. So I backed Rebuilding Tomorrow (Life After The Apocalypse), Recognize and Resist Fascism, and I also backed Hiraeth: a longing for home which hasn’t been fully funded yet but looks gorgeous so I really recommend you checking it out! (Edit: while I was editing this post and adding links and everything a few hours before I wanted it to go up I got an email saying Hiraeth is now fully funded so YAY! I still recommend you checking it out because it’s gorgeous but I wanted to clarify this.)

Supporting more independent creators and being part of the reason why a book is actually happening feels really special and I’m glad I did it. I can’t wait for these books to arrive, and I have a feeling I’ll definitely be backing more Kickstarters in the future. If you know of any I should check out, please let me know! 

So yes, those are all the books I’m sharing with you today and I’m so incredibly excited about every single one of them. I also have to admit that I’m kinda glad that I’ve either already read most of these books because having an enormous stack of books that I still need to read kind of stresses me out. I don’t get how those booktubers with new hauls every single month do it. But yes, I’m very happy with these books and incredibly grateful that  was able to buy them, and please give me advice on which one’s I should prioritize because I’m super excited about every single one and don’t know where to start.

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