Keira's Bookmark

September has been a little bit crazy, especially since I got sick for about a week after moving and then had to start my master’s as well. So I basically did nothing that I planned to do this month. That being said, I didn’t read nothing – so let’s take a look!

1. TBR Check In
2. Overview from the Storygraph
3. Books Read
4. Books Progressed or DNF’d
5. Books Acquired
6. Language Studies
7. On the Blog
8. Around the Blogosphere
9. Question Time

Disclaimer: Clicking on any of the book covers will take you to their Storygraph page, whilst clicking on the titles will take you to their Bookshop.org UK page (if the book is available there).

The Bookshop Uk links are affiliate links, so I do earn a little bit of comission if you buy through them – this doesn’t affect the price you pay. Mostly, I just want to encourage everyone to stay away from Amazon and use either your library, independent bookshop (or at the very least a dedicated bookshop like Waterstones or Barnes and Noble in the US). Let’s keep our bookshops and libraries in business!

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TBR Check In

Let’s just not even talk about. It just didn’t happen. I moved house, started my master’s degree, got sick, continued my master’s and just generally went wayyyyy off track.

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Overview from the Storygraph

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Books Read

The covers of the books I read this month are pretty boring unfortunately and that’s because the only books I finished were books for my master’s degree and 5/6 were stories that aren’t published in English (or at least not as standalone stories), so I just have titles or screenshots of the first page from the collection or journal article they were in. Some are really short (9 pages), some longer (around 70), but I’m including them since I spent a significant amount of time reading and analysing them (plus I have done so in the past, so – consistency).

• Brief History of Korea: A Bird’s Eye View by Young Ick Lew ⭐⭐
• Medicine by Lu Xun ⭐⭐⭐.5
• Kong Yiji by Lu Xun ⭐⭐⭐ (reread)
• Yaksha by Shi Zhecun ⭐⭐.5
• Black Peony by Mu Shiying ⭐⭐⭐
• Ghost Love by Xu Xu ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Of the six books, one is obviously a brief (43-page) history of Korea and the others are all early-20th Century Chinese short stories. Of these, my favourite was also the only one by an author new to me – Xu Xu’s Ghost Love. I already knew I liked Lu Xun (although these aren’t my favourite of his works), so I have a couple collections of his to work through, but I will definitely be adding Xu Xu’s collection to my list as well.

The works by Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying and Xu Xu also all have supernatural/ghost-story elements, so I guess they kind of fit the time of year!

I have linked above to where you can read these short stories in English for yourself if you’re interested – all have translations and I have included books where possible but some are in academic journals only – in this case I have included links where you can read them without institutional access through a university. Please note that Bookshop.org links are affiliate links – this is because I like to support independent bookshops. It does not affect the price.

Books Progressed or DNF’d

I did make some progress on actual books this month!

• Die Perlen des Todes – I read a grand total of 4 pages! But hey, that’s 4 more than 0.
• 魔幻時刻 [Magical Moments] – I actually made pretty good progress in this, even if I only read it for a couple of days. I read 23 pages and got from 8 to 18%. That would be pretty bad if this was in English, especially considering how little text is on each page, but it’s in Chinese so I’m counting this as a positive.
• 이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange World of 23] – I read a whole short story for this collection (whoop whoop) and quite enjoyed it. The short story I read was 청춘 미수 [A Failed Attempt at Youth] by Lee Seosu.
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody – technically the part of this that I actually read was a reread since I’d read the first chapter and a bit before as well, but I did read 29 pages and I’m ready to tackle the main section in October.

I also DNF’d Modern Divination by Isa Agajanian at 41%. It was just kind of boring me and if you couldn’t tell from the lack of reading this month, I didn’t have the time or brain space for that at the moment – especially from a romantasy, which is supposed to be entertaining.

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Books Acquired

I bought four books – maybe a bit too many considering how little I read this month, but two were bought for a buy 1 get 1 half off deal whilst I was book shopping with a new friend and then the other two were bought because I really wanted to get The Second Death of Locke but the local bookshops didn’t have a copy, so I ordered one off Bookshop.org and I wanted free shipping (it was 3 pounds more expensive to just order a second book than pay for the shipping – I’d rather get a book out of that money) so I got a book I know I want to read as well. I’ve been loving Becky Chambers’ stuff the past two years, so I will definitely be getting to it soon enough that I don’t feel too bad about it.

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Language Studies

I didn’t really do a ton of language studying this month. I did do a little bit though:

• I passed the theory exam for a Korean teaching course I’m doing! (100% ✨)
• I read a short story in Korean and 23 pages of poetry-essays in Chinese.
• I started a Classical Chinese course – I’ve done lessons 1 and 2 so far!
• I spoke a lot of Chinese – the closest friend I’ve made on my course so far is Chinese and after the first once or twice we met we somehow ended up talking almost exclusively in Chinese, which is definitely great for me in terms of keeping up my Chinese skills.

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On the Blog

I posted a couple times this month – thank goodness for top ten Tuesdays – but not nearly as much as I would’ve liked.

I also basically didn’t post on my studygram – now that I’ve settled into my master’s programme more, October is going to be the month for remembering that I have actual hobbies and plans and things I want to do with my life outside class and Netflix.

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Around the Blogosphere

Posting on my blog and reading blogs tend to happen together for me – if I don’t do one, I end up not doing the other. Which means I probably missed out on a ton of good posts this month. Please let me know which posts you think I should check out – shameless self-promo is also encouraged.

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Question Time

What was your favourite book of the month?

If you did a wrap up post of your feel free to link it in the comments and I’ll check it out!

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Keira x