Happy end of August/beginning of September! Some book-related roundup questions for y'all!

1. What was your favorite book this month? 2. What was your least favorite book this month? 3. What did you mean to read that you didn't get to, if anything? 4. Did you buy a book this month? What was it? 5. Were you surprised by any books this month? 6. What book are you looking forward to most next month?

Okay, I've heard of people collecting libraries left and right for access to various books on Libby, is this free or are people paying for it? I thought you had to live in the county to get free access to the library. I ask this because I live in a small town/some parts rural area and the Libby here doesn't have a lot of access to indie publications/indie authors. Also, I'm about to move to a different state, will my old Libby card disappear as soon as I apply and enter my new county's card in the app?

If you can't tell, I'm pretty new to Libby (I just started it about a year ago after I realized how much I was spending on books 😅). I'm still learning and navigating things, but I figured I'd ask since I've seen IG users constantly talking about all their Libby accounts.

I am yet to have a 5 star read this year, which is very rare for me as it is usually one of the most common ratings i give books (i am an optimistic rater LOL)

so!! convince me to read a book you loved, sell me on it! i read pretty much anything and everything, and my TBR listed here is all books i own if you want to take a look, but i am very open to any and all recs.

If you guys don’t know, Magical Readathon is a Readathon hosted by G at Bookroast on YouTube, and it’s so much fun! It’s essentially an RPG game where you make your character, pick a subject (‘Calling’) for them to study, and the lessons dictate which reading prompts you get. There’s also livestreams and games, and other little side-quest type things if that’s your thing.

This is I believe my 5th year participating, and I’m so excited for the Autumn one next month, G has just posted the prompts. I love planning which books I’m going to read from the prompts.

Does anyone else participate? And if so what’s your calling this year? I’ve just mapped out my prompts for it.

Hello friends, it's time to share what books you got in the last week!

• Did you check out a big stack from the library?
• Did you visit a new LFL and find something exciting?
• Did someone give you a book for your birthday?
• Did you go splurge at the bookstore?
• Did you stuff your Kindle?
• Did all your Libby holds come in at once?
• Did you find a book in the dumpster?
• ???

IT ALL COUNTS so tell me...whatcha get??? 👀

So, I decided at the start of this month for a few reasons to support getting my life together and really stepping away from the consumerism of it all, I will be undertaking a No Spend for the rest of this year and most of, if not all, of next year, to get my spending under control and also work on paying down my debt and start saving for a flat deposit.

I have always been a prolific library user from a physical book pov, and since being able to use Libby on my Kobo as well it's been a game changer once I found a library that used it here in the UK.

However, buying books has always been a HUGE weakness of mine (alongside borrowing them) over the last few years particularly. Given reading is my main big hobby, I really wanted to move my habit from ‘buying’ automatically to ‘borrowing’ automatically to really work on resetting the consuming urge, and, actually, maybe having to endure some delayed gratification shock horror if there was a wait list at the library for said book. I also have a huge number of books on my own TBR shelves that I should be reading from before adding to them!

As part of this, to hammer the point home to myself, I decided to keep a running list of all of the books I borrow from the library, and how much they would have cost me to buy new based on the Waterstones price (I am a UK girl), and also by fair comparison because I do use it a lot, on the Kobo store as not all of my purchases would have been physical (I have a 75/25 spilt).

Fair to say not even one month in and i’m already shocked! I’ve read 11 books from the library this month and saved £165 against the physical price and £89 on the EBooks!!!

Just wanted to mention it for anyone who is doing something similar and who might want a little bit of motivation to see how much money you are saving, whilst still being able to enjoy what you love :)