Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic invites you to share your favorite online resources for book lovers! These could be blogs, apps, websites, podcasts, YouTube or TikTok channels, you name it. I love discovering new people to follow and resources to bookmark, so I’m excited to see what you share!

1. Hoopla
Check out digital books, audibooks, and music with your library card (provided your library participates)!

2. Goodreads (duh)
I would be lost without Goodreads. I keep track of everything in my personal library on there, along with all the books I’ve read and want to read.

3. Chirp
This place requires no subscription at all, and has amazing discounts on audiobooks (up to 95% off). I get an email every day with deals in genres I like. And these are not obscure titles either. These are NYT bestsellers and books from popular authors. Fluffy by Julia Kent is .99 today! Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen is $1.99. Chirp has an app you can download, and it’s really easy to use. You can also listen on your computer or Alexa devices. If you like audiobooks, this is your place!

4. Scribd
This is an online digital library that you subscribe to for $9.99 a month. You can check out audiobooks, ebooks, magazines, podcasts, and more. I’ve got a free trial right now, and their selection is huge!

5. BookBub
I love getting an email of free and discounted ebooks sent to me everyday. You even get to choose the genres you love.

6. What Should I Read Next?
This fun website has you entire the title of a book you loved. The website analyzes your pick and then spits out the title of another book you’ll probably love, too.

7. Etsy
You can probably find handmade merch from any bookish fandom on here, plus bookish gifts of all sorts.

8. Recaptains
The creators of this blog recap previous books in series so that when the next book comes out, you can read what happened in the previous one and not feel lost. It’s usually a short, detailed refresh of everything important that happened. They focus primarily on YA books, but I have needed them a time or two in my life!

9. Trigger Warning Database
You can search by title/author or trigger, and it’s so helpful to know going in to a story that it will be a pleasant reading experience.

10. Hot Dudes Reading
Need I say more?

Welcome to another TTT! So sorry that I originally posted the wrong topic today! You can tell my eyes still aren’t working right, because I skipped this week’s topic and did next week’s instead! Whoops!

THIS week I’m sharing my favorite book settings! If a book takes place in one of these settings, I’m mushc more likely to read it.

Creepy Hotels/Apartment Buildings (Like in Lock Every Door by Riley Sager)

Alaska (I love the scenery and the Northern Lights)

Ships/Yachts/Boats (Bonus points if people are visiting cool places.)

Outdoor/Wilderness (Camping, survival stories, etc.)

Secluded Resorts (Like the Snow Crystal Ski Resort in Sarah Morgan’s O’Neil Brothers series)

Venice, Italy (Really, any place in Italy.)

New York City (I SO heart New York, especially at Christmas.)

Castles (Like in Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare)

Any place with snow!! (I love cabins, fireplaces, Christmas, blizzards, etc.)

Cute, quaint, picturesque small towns (Like Kristan Higgins’s Gideon’s Cove)

What are some of your favorite settings?

Welcome to another TTT! Can you believe it’s October?? Today’s topic is bookish pet peeves, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to commiserate with one another on the things that drive us up the walls! I can’t wait to jump around the Linky and read your lists!

1. Mid-series cover changes.
2. Poor editing/grammar.
3. Cliffhangers I wasn’t expecting or surprise sequels/series.
4. Too stupid to live characters.
5. Lack of communication between characters, so there’s needless drama/catastrophes.
6. Christmas books that don’t have any Christmas in them! When the cover or title is the most festive part of the book, we have a problem.
7. Stiff bindings so it’s hard to hold a book open. I need floppy paperbacks!
8. Gratuitous swear words. Sometimes it’s so often that I can’t even focus on the story!
9. Book descriptions or covers that misrepresent the book’s contents.
10. Poor research into subject matter, such as locations or historical events/time periods.

Lay it on me. What are your bookish pet peeves?

Welcome to another TTT! This week is a freebie topic, so I chose to re-share a TTT I did a while back about reasons why I love audiobooks! As you know, I have had two eye surgeries over the last month that have a pretty long recovery time (up to 6 months before I get my vision back). I can’t see very well, and reading just isn’t happening (neither is blogging, hence the re-sharing). So right now, my number one reason for loving audiobooks is that they allow me to read when I can’t see! A few friends of mine have been so lovely and sent me audiobooks during my recovery. It has meant so, so much to me. So, without further ado…

1. I can read any time ever! I can read while I’m in the shower, while I’m doing my hair and makeup, while I’m driving somewhere, while I’m working out, etc. I can even read when I’ve got a horrible headache and must lay in the dark with my eyes closed. Oh, and my cat here would like me to add that handless reading is his favorite because then he gets double the pets.

2. So, by extension, audiobooks allow me to read MORE books overall!

3. The narrators! It took me a while, but I have found some narrators I LOVE. Good narration can make a book even more exciting, suspenseful, romantic, funny, etc. They bring the characters and the stories to life. And if a favorite narrator is reading a book by a favorite author, you’re doubly winning!

4. Full cast narrators. Sometimes there’s a duet or trio of narrators that rotate reading chapters, but I just finished Birthday Suit by Lauren Blakely last night, which had 5-6 narrators and it was SO MUCH FUN! Every character had their own narrator, and these narrators read the lines for their individual character every time the character spoke. It felt like an episode of Friends. They laughed when their character did, they sounded sarcastic when they were supposed to… I just loved it so much.

5. Music and sound effects can be added! I’ve listened to a few books that included music and sound effects before, which is very fun. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater even included music composed by Maggie herself!

6. This is how I read classics, because a good narrator can make a heavier or less action-packed novel completely bingeworthy. I’ve been working my way through the Sherlock Holmes books, and I just found Jane Eyre read by Thandie Newton on Audible’s free stories for kids (a limited time offer due to COVID-19) that I really want to listen to. The sample sounds amazing!

7. This is also how I re-read my favorite books. I have so many books to read and so many that I want to be reading, that sometimes I feel guilty re-reading my favorites or refreshing my memory on previous books in a series before starting the next one. Audiobooks are bonus books for me because I’m always reading one or two physical books in addition. I also think it’s fun to rediscover my favorites or see them in a new light by listening to them the second time around. It makes an old-to-me story feel new again.

8. I find audiobooks to be very soothing and comforting. Who doesn’t love being read to? I think it’s so relaxing.

9. Scary books are made less scary when there’s a voice in your room instead of quiet stillness. If I’ve got someone reading to me and there’s a particularly creepy moment in the story, I’m listening to the narrator instead of the creeks in my settling house or the wind brushing a branch across my window.

10. I think listening to audiobooks and being able to grasp what you’re hearing is a great skill to have. I was a crummy audiobook listener when I first started listening to them, and it took a lot of practice and determination for me to learn how focus on the story (especially while doing other things). I had to zero in on the book instead of letting my mind wander, and I honestly think I’m a better listener than I used to be.

Do you love audiobooks, too? Why or why not?
What topic did you choose for this week’s TTT?